And we're back in business!

Welcome back to a fully refurbished 'Keeper'. Please don your hard hats as workmen are still in the building.

Dress code is 'smart casual'. Please keep the language civil. Members are reminded that The Rounder Keeper is a no smoking establishment.

And now, the best news of all ..... Gretchen's back!

I hope you're all admiring the lovely pearl necklace I gave her last night.

Not sure I like the whole mirrored ceiling thing but it's good to be back nonetheless

But, if you position young Gretchen correctly in front of you, and then look up Hows it going Flyman - waaaaaay too long no see.

Hi, Jonathan, all's well, thanks. I'm back in Lewis on holiday - of a sort. Spending hours looking for appropriate travel insurance - miserable! I spent an hour reading a policy this morning. It looked the biz so I clicked to buy. Only then did it tell me you had to be under 40 to buy!!!
Hope you're well, mate, and all me other FISO muckers, too. Here's to the new season, eh!

So if I understand correctly you're taking a break from being on holiday!

It's a tough life, I tells ya!
Seriously, I've spent three and a half days searching sites for cover and nothing - NOTHING - is all I need at an acceptable price (sub-£400). Yeeeee-aaaawwwwnn! It's too important a thing not to get right, but either I'm too old, away too long, trekking too high, made a claim in 1984, etc. ..... The real pain is that you invariably have to punch in thohe same tedious data on each site before they're kind enough to tell you they won't cover you. Oh! the horror of it!

Hello Mr Fly... It's good to see you are well mate...

Re. your big trip. Why jepordise the whole thing just because you want insurance below 400 notes? You must be spending £1000s on the trip anyway!!!

I don't geddit!

It all seems rather random, Dixie. Policies costing £700+ can offer less value than policies costing less money. Some companies have a reputation for paying out on policies when legitimately called upon, but they aren't necessarily the more expensive ....
So, I have to balance certain shortfalls, like no excess waiver v. no netbook cover v. 'fly a friend or relative to your deathbed' against the essentials, like covering my costs against trip £5k cancellation (in case BA goes bust or I get swine flu before I leave) when most policies are for £3k or less, or cover for the Machu Picchu trek above 4,000 metres, when most cover only hiking to 2000.
Simply, even the most expensive policy I've seen doesn't cover all my needs.

Anyway - not really pub talk!
I'm putting a blog together and, once it's ready and I've cleared it with Chris, I'll post the address on FISO. You can, I expect, catch up on the dreadful tedium of it all there and then.

More whisky, please, Gretchen.

Course it is! All fine and dandy here, Flyman. Just returned from a cracking 2 week break in Madeira. I reckon you are spot on going through the insurances with a magnifying glass. It seems to be one of the those things in life where you can't just go for a more expensive quote expecting it to cover you for more. With the trips you have planned you really have to watch yourself.

Are you still entering your footy teams?

Holibob, surely?

Well picked up, Bert. Holibob it is!

a heads up. the pre-season fixtures and results thread may be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=104&t=60790

Thanks URK!

Great thread!

Tevez to City. Adebayor to City. Terry to City? With Ronaldon't gone, this could end up being one of the most competitive seasons in years if Liverpool can pick on from last season and Arsenal, City, Chelsea, Villa, QPR get at a good start. It doesn't matter whether Man Utd get a good start, they will always pick up and be right up there it seems.

Talking of Tevez. Is it me, or is he unavailable for selection in FPL at the moment? Perhaps they are trying to create an icon of him wearing a stupid half finished wooly hat!

Nice link to PreSeason fixtures, thanks ....
Bolton v Altrincham (July)
Bolton v Chorley (Aug)
gripping fixtures, indeed ,,,,
not exactly the sort of PreSeason warm ups you would dream of watching, but I used to be local to that lot
now I've got to watch Shamrock Rovers v Real Madrid as a preseason, with the prancing prat in his new regalia
(Ronaldo) for those who didnt guess

He's on there now, cheaper than Robinho...

you're welcome FlaminGalah.

St Gallen 0 Liverpool 0
http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/match/last_ma ... /index.htm

Johnson makes his Liverpool debut in pre-season friendly.
Ahead of the match Benitez had made clear his intentions to field a different XI in the second period and the inevitable changes brought with it the introduction of new boy Glen Johnson.

The former Portsmouth man showed glimpses of his quality playing in an unfamiliar left-back position and he almost opened the scoring five minutes after the restart when he latched on to David Ngog's flick and drilled a shot just wide.

Yes. Fairly priced. Unlike Stephen Ireland - £9.0m Bang goes that plan!

Has there ever been a player subject to such a huge price increase after a decent year? With their MF he might be worthless

Stephen Ireland is a seriously classy player, and my feeling is he will actually have a fantastic chance now of becoming one of the highest point scoring midfielders. I hope Hughes sets up his team where most comes from Ireland, because he has the ability to feed all of the attacking strengths that City are assembly. Will be interesting, but a daft price I feel.

All depends how Hughes will line up. If it's 4-5-1 (with Robinho wide left cutting in) then I think Ireland will get plenty opportunity to get into the box again. If however he purchases adebayor and plans to go 4-3-3 with Tevez, Robinho and Ade up front Ireland's responsibility to sit back may impact on his scoring chances.

Just a thought, a few pre seasons games should give us an idea.

Thought I'd just pop in and say "Hi" to the regulars......what's with the reduction in beer glass size, Flyman! Looks like the credit crisis is really affecting things (othr than Ireland's price, of course).

Lots to contemplate so I'm off to the corner to ponder the new transfer rule, and the "vice captain" innovation.

Gretchen, keep them coming, please.

Sat down for the first time yesterday with the intention to pick my fantasy teams - starting with FPL. Way, way too hard this year! They have over compensated with Ronaldo leaving and making people like Ireland, Arshavin and Lampard way too expensive.

Not sure if CYKI, Sky and Virgin have followed suit - but I better knuckle down and get it done!

Not unhappy with my squad now! I think I have a good mixture of experience and newbies, but then I always think I have a secret dark horse or two until the season gets underway and I find them benched!

Only another 4 games to choose squads for

Blimey! Since the smoking ban and the recession, things have really quietened down in here.

Continuing on the theme of talking to myself, any duo FPL and CYKI players noticed they have the same ID numbers, or is it just a freaky thing that has happened to me?

I have ID 22 in both games.

Probably just you....

Well then everyone should buy me a pint for being unique. What are the odds of signing up to two different games run by the same company - weeks apart - and get the same ID number?

For me

FPL = 19
CYKI = 2 ( )

So you're definitely special.

Maybe you should continue your uniqueness by wearing a short shiny pink silk dress to the bar?