Lifestyle is about the parts of our lives that are maybe a little more personal than everything else. It's how we make our homes, relate to our loved ones, raise our ...
Manchester United and Chelsea have also been linked with the defender who could be available for £20million
Will he make City slicker? Joao Miranda could be on the move
Atletico Madrid are willing to sell Brazilian defender Joao Miranda in January - and that has put Manchester City on red alert.
The manager's decision to leave St James' Park for a
relegation battle says much about the unhappy state of the Toon under
Mike Ashley
Smiling again: Alan Pardew is off to a club where he'll feel wanted
Alan Pardew has delivered a spectacular snub to Newcastle by quitting for Crystal Palace.
On
Monday morning, Pardew’s peers queued up to insist you simply don’t
walk out of St James’ Park (capacity 52,400) for Selhurst Park (26,000).
How could a manager with a firm belief he could one day be England boss, give a two-fingered salute to a club cruising in the top half, with a decent squad and a global profile?
And swap it for a relegation battle at a homely club with a fraction of the potential?
Then Pardew did just that.
He
has the last laugh with a double-your-money new job, a fresh challenge
he believes is more satisfying, and a lot less friction and vitriol to
contend with now he is leaving Tyneside.
He was driven away by an impossible cocktail of factors, both football and fan-related.
Quids in: Newcastle owner Mike Ashley will be happy with a compensation fee from Palace
Like his wish for a new striker to be signed in January, reiterated very publicly on Boxing Day, being unlikely to happen.
Like the possibility of having his latest star man, Moussa Sissoko cashed in, either in January or the summer.
True, he has taken on a smaller club than Newcastle, but he’s wanted and loved at Selhurst Park.
He’s taking a no-lose crack at avoiding the drop, for fans who support and respect him.
For months he has taken the taunts of a Tyneside hate-mob on the chin.
Alan Pardew's Newcastle record
185 Games
71 Won
41 Drawn
73 Lost
He called it “mass-hysteria” and played it cool, but it hurt, and he admitted it bothered his family.
It
went quieter when he conjured a winning streak and won manager of the
month for November, but the “Pardew Out” campaign ridiculed him daily,
and made his life outside of football on Tyneside less than fun.
He isn’t perfect and had has some bad moments as United boss. Remember the headbutt and bad runs of form lasting 10 months earlier this year?
But
he has also coached the team to fifth place, had a decent Europa League
run, and kept the team afloat despite the club selling every top player
they stumbled upon.
The thirst of some to see the back of Pardew
at Newcastle – and there was a moment this season when I thought he was
finished – assumes Mike Ashley is capable of making a great appointment
to replace him.
Abuse: Newcastle fans wanted Alan Pardew gone
That is one huge assumption to make of an owner Pardew himself said doesn’t understand football and gets frustrated by its ways.
“We need a manager who is experienced in delivering trophies”, some supporters cry.
Fans drool about a statesman like Jurgen Klopp, Frank de Boer and Rafa Benitez.
De Boer’s agent says he won’t quit Ajax mid-season. Meanwhile the usual suspects including Steve Bruce and Tony Pulis are keen.
Interested
bosses will have to swallow their pride and be deferentially grateful,
learning never to pick a public fight with Ashley.
Appointing a big name would assume ambition, but there is none at boardroom level.
Ashley appears happy with Newcastle finishing between eighth and 10th.
A run in the cups? No thanks, that could ruin league form, so the club policy goes.
Which next-big-thing manager is going to salivate at that prospect?
It is a mission for mid-table mediocrity.
Say goodbye: Pardew applauds the crowd after Newcastle defeated Everton on Sunday
Alan Pardew at Newcastle
Signed on December 9, 2010 with five-and-a-half year deal.
Agreed an eight-year contract extension in September 2012. League finishes:
2010-11: 12th
2011-12: 5th
2012-13: 16th
2013-14: 10th Overall record:
P 185 W 71 D 41 L 73
The former Manchester United and Spurs defender has made
just one appearance for the Eagles since his £2.5million signing on
deadline day
Not gone well: Zeki Fryers signs for Crystal Palace from Tottenham on deadline day
Crystal Palace have told out-of-favour defender Zeki Fryers he cannot go out on loan. Fryers, 22,
who has made just one substitute appearance in the Premier League for
the Eagles, had become surplus to requirements despite only joining in a
£2.5million move from Tottenham in September.
Former Palace boss Neil Warnock made it clear the left-back could leave Selhurst Park after tabling bids for four players in his position.
The couple called the police this evening when a user on
the social media site made a vile comment after striker Austin posted a
photo of himself and his little girl, Ava Bella
The couple called the police this evening
when a user on the social media site posted a vile comment after striker
Austin posted a photo of himself and his little girl, Ava Bella.
Another tweeter joined in with another sick tweet
Bianca Parker, 24, tweeted: "I've reported you to the police. I'm doing as much as I can to get you charged.
"Bringing in my two-year-old daughter to your sick games is too far."
Distraught Bianca later told her followers: "Disgusting. I'm
shaking. You don't talk about a baby that way. Let the police do their
job now."
Earlier in the evening Charlie, 26, had put a picture up
of himself and little Ava Bella in a toy car at their home. Austin is
currently the highest British goal scorer in the Premier league with 10.
He
scored a hattrick in QPR's win against West Brom last week. Manager
Harry Redknapp has vowed to keep him at Loftus Road when his contract
expires at the end of the season.
Head's gone: It was an eventful game for Shelvey - who also scored an own goal
Swansea midfielder Jonjo Shelvey has apologised for elbowing Liverpool's Emre Can, and denied any intent to hurt the Kop star.
Shelvey caught Can - who started in central defence - with a strong elbow to the face in the first half of the Reds' 4-1 win over Swansea.
But
the England international wasted no time in taking to Twitter to
apologise for hurting the German utility man and denying any malice:
"Just wanna say didn't intentionally elbow emre can [sic]," Shelvey tweeted.
"Was
just trying to get my arm across to get round him and it's come off as
I'm trying to hurt another play and I can assure you that , that isn't
the case.
Number of fatal incidents involving large passenger jets is at record low but nature of disasters has been a wake-up call
Search and rescue teams coordinate the search area for flight QZ8501. Photograph: Oscar Siagian/Getty Images
Despite the fact that flying remains, as the aviation industry likes
to stress, statistically the safest form of transport, the likely loss
of a third airliner in the space of 10 months appears to have made 2014
the deadliest year for passengers in almost a decade.
The still unexplained disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight
MH370 in March and the shooting down of the same airline’s flight MH17
over war-torn eastern Ukraine four months later cost 239 and 298 lives
respectively.
Now it appears probable that another 162 fatalities will be added to
the year’s toll. Although it remains unclear exactly what happened to
AirAsia flight QZ8501, authorities are relatively certain they will find
tragic confirmation at the bottom of the Java Sea.
Until this week’s loss, the safety record of major airlines had been
on a fairly constant upward trajectory since 2005 on most counts.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation, there has been a steady fall
in the number of airline crashes, and the number of fatal incidents
involving large passenger jets this year was 19, a record low in modern
aviation (their count excludes the shooting down of MH17 as a military
action).
But the Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives, which includes smaller
planes and military transport planes, puts the total number of
fatalities for 2014 at 1,320, assuming no survivors from QZ8501 – the
worst annual toll since 2005.
The fact that three incidents have accounted for the majority of
fatalities could, on one level, bolster the industry message of
increased safety. The big European short-haul carriers such as Ryanair
and easyJet can still boast an accident-free history. But in an era when
the trend appeared to point to a zero-casualty future, the nature of
this year’s catastrophes has been a nasty wake-up call.
The International Air Transport Association, Iata, which represents
most large airlines worldwide, as recently as 2012 boasted of an zero
annual crash record – or zero “western-built jet hull losses” – among
its members. Safety and security remained an ongoing concern, and no one
at Iata betrayed any sense of complacency. In some parts of the world,
such as Africa, incident rates were far higher, if falling. There was
work to do on limiting “runway excursions”, which accounted for the
majority of accidents.
But the message was fairly clear: if you flew on a on a new plane
with a major airline that had signed up to the safety standards, you
could more or less relax. Now, two Boeing 777 airliners flown by a major
scheduled carrier, Malaysia Airlines – British Airways’ partner in
OneWorld – from major hubs have met their end. The Airbus A320 lost by
AirAsia is a plane that dots the skies from Heathrow to Honolulu.
The industry response to the new categories of disaster thrown up by
MH370 and MH17 has been to assemble taskforces to report to the
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a UN oversight body,
with recommendations for possible future action on flight tracking and
on sharing information about overflying conflict zones.
The plethora of chilling scenarios conjured up by the disappearance
of MH370 should keep driving the search for its wreckage. It seems there
are few parallels with QZ8501, but should there be any sizeable
duration before the latest lost plane is found, the industry’s ponderous
moves on aircraft tracking could look like unpardonable foot-dragging.
While the priority given to safety is a knee-jerk mantra recited by
all airline executives, an acceptable level of risk versus cost has to
infuse all industry thinking, especially in a business whose profit
margins in recent years have been slim. The calculations run from how
tired your pilots can be to how little you can pay your crew, to whether
you really need that state-of-the-art tracking system. How many
airlines really need to invest in the all-frills package touted by
Inmarsat? What chance of any plane escaping detection given the various
tracking systems in place? But then the unthinkable happened.
The upbeat assessment is that air crashes are ever rarer, and so we
simply perceive them more closely. Tracking websites show every plane’s
path, the global 24-hour news cycle provides footage of grieving
relatives, while transport ministers and celebrity airline executives
tweet their movements in real time. Should pilot error in a freakishly
bad storm have sent flight QZ8501 to the bottom of the Java Sea, it will
be recorded as another unhappy episode in Indonesia’s troubled aviation
history. The real nightmare scenario for the industry is that once
again the reason remains unknown – with at least one expert warning that
the technology in planes or traffic control systems could prove
susceptible to a cyber threat.
Applause for the crew of Virgin flight to Las Vegas follows ‘non-standard landing procedure’ after landing gear fails
A detailed view
of the undercarriage of the Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 as it passed
overhead at Gatwick airport, before landing safely. Photograph: Jordan
Mansfield/Getty Images
A Virgin Atlantic plane carrying 447 passengers was forced to
make an emergency landing at Gatwick after landing gear problems hit a
US-bound flight.
Hundreds of holidaymakers applauded in relief after their pilot
returned the Boeing 747 to base safely following an unconventional
journey that included dumping fuel at sea and flying low over the
Gatwick control tower twice so that air traffic controllers could
scrutinise the main undercarriage with binoculars.
A spokesman for Gatwick airport said that all the passengers had
disembarked from the plane – originally headed to Las Vegas – and that
“some minor injuries” had been reported.
The runway at Britain’s second largest airport was closed for several
hours, with incoming flights diverted to alternative airports and
departing aircraft delayed as the drama affected the travel plans of
thousands of passengers.
Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Atlantic president, praised the crew
of flight VS43. In a Twitter posting, he said: “Well done
VirginAtlantic pilots & team for safe & skillful landing of
VS43. Thoughts with passengers & crew, thanks for support &
patience.”
Emergency services had been on standby as the giant aircraft came into land.
Eyewitnesses reported that the jet was flying at a relatively low
altitude, as the pilot appeared to be trying to shake the landing gear
down.
Describing the mood on the plane, Dan Crane, 24, from Bromsgrove,
Worcestershire, said it was “anxious, a lot were worried, some crying.
The mood was quiet and [we were] just waiting for the captain’s next
announcement.” A close up of
the landing gear of a Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet landing at Gatwick
airport after the plane developed a landing-gear fault.Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
Fellow passenger Holly Jackson said the crew tried to “deliberately
bounce” the plane to get the faulty landing gear back into position.
She told Sky News: “They said this was a precautionary procedure, or
something like that. But it didn’t work and we were told we would have
to get into the brace position for a landing and it was then that
everybody did start to get scared.”
The passengers’ ordeal began four hours previously, when Flight VS43
left for Las Vegas at 11.44am with 447 passengers and 15 crew on board.
However, it hit problems before it reached the edge of UK airspace. The
pilot had identified a problem with the landing gear, a technical issue
that meant one of the five wheel sets would not descend. Instead of
completing its transatlantic journey, the plane would, the captain
announced, be turning back. The flight crew are helped to disembark the Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 at Gatwick airport.Photograph: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images
The vagaries of landing one of the world’s biggest passenger jets
meant that fuel had to be dumped en route, to bring it down to the
target weight for a safe return. But the pilot was also attempting
another part of what Virgin Atlantic termed a “non-standard landing
procedure” – hoping the movement of the plane could shake down the
landing gear where automation had failed. So began hours of circling
around Gatwick and the South Downs, tracing a dense, bright green circle
on flight tracking websites and alerting a small army of planespotters.
At the airport there came the relatively routine statement that
emergency services were on standby “purely as a precaution”. But
passengers reported that the mood on the aircraft had changed when the
announcement came that there would, after all, be an emergency landing,
and that they would have to adopt the brace position. Crane said some
passengers had cried.
Passenger Mike Kaufman, speaking to Sky News from his seat on the
plane back at Gatwick, said: “This was one of the greatest emergency
landings in history. It was very smooth.” Emergency vehicles attend to the Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 at Gatwick airport.Photograph: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images
He praised the pilots and the cabin crew, saying the landing at just
before 4pm had been “textbook”. But, he admitted: “We didn’t realise
there would be such a fuss, because it had been such a calm experience.
It was probably less dramatic than watching it on the TV.”
He said: “The fact everything went so well shows just how
professional the flight crew were. The crew were calm. We had a safety
briefing two hours before we landed and when we were told we would have
to go into the brace position for landings a sigh went around the
plane.”
He added: “We were talking about going on a rollercoaster ride when we got to Las Vegas. That is off the menu now.”
A spokesman for the British pilots’ trade union, Balpa, said: “Pilots
train hard for exactly this kind of situation. It goes to show that
well-trained pilots are vital.”
Chief Superintendent Martin Walker of Sussex police said: “Our
co-ordinated partnership response is part of a well-rehearsed emergency
procedure. We are delighted that the plane has landed safely and we will
continue to support the operation where we’re needed.”
Return fraud is an increasing trend during the holidays but it’s not
individual shoppers. Organized crime groups are taking advantage of
stores’ return policies
Most consumers
who return gifts want money back, but that’s not what worries retailers.
More than 78% of US retailers were targeted by crime rings in 2014, up
from 60.3% in 2013.Photograph: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters
Got a “meh” gift this holiday? Forget re-gifting. Return it.
That seems to be the thinking for an increasing number of
Americans. This year, US retailers expect that about $64.67bn in gifts
will be returned. More than one fifth of all returns take place over the
holidays, according to the National Retail Federation 2014 survey.
Yet it’s not the return of the unwanted gifts that troubles
retailers. It’s the return fraud – return of stolen merchandise – that
costs them $10.9bn a year. This holiday season alone, US retailers are
set to lose $3.58bn on such fraudulent returns.
Gift returns: where cash is king
Few Americans actually admit to returning their gifts. Thirty-two percent of shoppers say they have returned a holiday gift, according to a survey by RetailMeNot.
When they do, 40% of them prefer to swap them out for cash. Just 16%
want to swap out their unwanted gifts for gift cards, 13% for other
items and 11% for store credit.
Returns aren’t all bad for the industry – especially if they
take place inside the actual store. As people are in the store, those
who are there to return gifts might end up splurging on themselves.
Eight in 10 shoppers were planning to take advantage of the
year-end-sales and more than half of them were planning to spend about
$160 on themselves, RetailMeNot found.
Grinch, the retail edition
Talk about stealing presents. The National Retail Federation
estimates that about $3.58bn of holiday returns are fraudulent – items
that were either stolen from the store and then returned, or were paid
for with fake or stolen credit cards and then returned.
Individual shoppers are usually not the culprit when it
comes to such scams. An increasing number of these returns are carried
out by organized crime groups, says Bob Moraca, the National Retail
Federation vice president of loss prevention.
“Return fraud has become an unfortunate trend in retail
thanks to thieves taking advantage of retailers’ return policies to
benefit from the cash or store credit they don’t deserve,” Moraca said.
“Many of these return fraud instances are a direct result of a larger,
more experienced crime rings that continue to pose serious threats to
retailers’ operations and their bottom lines.”
More than 78% of US retailers were targeted by these crime
rings in 2014, up from 60.3% in 2013, according the federation’s survey.
Despite the fraudulent returns, 70% of the retailers do not plan to change their return policy this year.
Falling oil prices, sanctions and collapsing rouble take toll, with GDP in November 0.5% lower than in same month year ago
A board with
exchange rates on a street in Moscow on Monday. Russia’s rouble slumped
against the dollar in early trading. Photograph: Sergei
Karpukhin/Reuters
The Russian economy has contracted for the first time in five years
after falling oil prices and sanctions imposed by western governments
began to take their toll.
The prospects for the country’s economy are expected to remain weak
after President Vladimir Putin’s government revealed that GDP in
November was 0.5% lower than in the same month a year ago.
It is the first time since October 2009 that the Russian economy has
shrunk and comes at a time when the rouble has been collapsing on
foreign exchange markets after a near halving of the oil price since
June.
Manufacturing, construction, agriculture and service sectors all
contracted in November, although energy, mining and the retail trade
showed continued growth.
Economists are warning that Russia – one of the world’s biggest
energy exporters – could be facing its first recession in five years.
The central bank fears the economy could shrink by up to 4.8% next year
if oil prices fail to recover from five-year lows.
The repercussions are starting to be felt. A week ago
Russia’s central bank threw a £340m lifeline to Trust Bank – a Moscow
bank that uses the Hollywood star Bruce Willis to advertise its credit
cards – and the government has agreed to a 1tn-rouble recapitalisation
of the nation’s banks.
The guarantee on bank account deposits has also been raised to try to quell people’s concerns about the safety of their savings.
The fail in the oil price comes at a time when western sanctions
imposed over Russia’s backing for separatists in Ukraine are making it
tough for the country’s banks to raise finance in the international
money markets, leading to billions of dollars being withdrawn from the
country.
The GDP data was said to be the first signal that further contraction
in the economy is likely. “This is the beginning of a recession,”
Ruslan Grinberg, director of the Institute of Economics at the Russian
Academy of Sciences, told the AFP news agency.
Dmitry Polevoy, the chief economist for Russia and the Commonwealth
of Independent States at ING Bank in Moscow, told Reuters that things
would get worse with oil prices at their current levels.
“There is no cause for optimism,” Polevoy said. “This is linked to
sanctions first of all, oil and the panic we saw on the market in
December.
“The damage to the banking system and consumer sentiment will take a long time to repair.”
Oil prices have fallen after the oil producing cartel Opec refused to
cut production to shore up the price, which has slipped below $60 a
barrel from its recent high of $115. Oil and gas account for 70% of
Russia’s exports and Moscow needs an oil price in the region of $100 a
barrel to balance its budget.
This dependency on oil has led to a rout of the rouble on the foreign
exchange markets, prompting an emergency rise in interest rates to 17%
from 12.5% earlier this month. As a result, the currency has recouped
some of the ground lost against the dollar - where it was trading at
historic lows earlier this month – although it slipped back yesterday
after the data was released.
Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has said that the
failing oil price should help fuel economic growth – the price of petrol
has been falling at pumps and inflation in the UK is running at its
lowest level for 12 years. But he has given a warning too about the
risks caused by rising geopolitical tensions.
The Bank of England has also said that failing oil prices could have
repercussions for shale oil developers in the US making payments on
their debts.
“A sustained lower oil price also has the potential to reinforce certain geopolitical risks,” the Bank of England said earlier this month.
NB This is not a hand job (Picture: Ibrakovic)
Ah the hand job.
In these heady days of pterodactyl porn and avatar girlfriends, ‘manual labour’ can seem pretty tame.
But, whether these are part of your standard sexual smorgasbord or
you haven’t given or received one since you were 17 underneath a pile of
coats at your best friend’s house party, there’s certain things that
cross a lady’s mind when she’s giving one.
And, let’s face it, she must be a lady because this is the good girl’s bj.
1. Well this is retro.
2. Is he disappointed? ‘He’ does look a bit disappointed.
Too bad – if he wanted head we should have gone to bed two episodes of AHS ago.
3. I need longer arms.
4. Wow, my balancing abilities are pretty horrendous.
5. Ok, I’m just going to have to shift on down there.
6. Kind of hard to know where to look now.
Looking at him seems needy/off putting. Staring at it intently seems creepy.
Guess I’ll just glance off nervously to the side.
7. Should have used lube.
8. My wrist is already sore. How does his wrist not get sore?
9. And my other arm’s getting pins and needles.
10. I’m not even going to pretend to be enjoying this. I could essentially be milking a cow.
11. Plus, I’m still worried about grip. How is saying ‘it’s all good’ ever helpful?
12. Seriously, you must have wrists of steel.
13. Oh God, my whole hand is cramping. Can you get RSI from this?
14. Ok, other hand, try to keep up same momentum.
15. Wow, things are happening. That’s always a surprise. Could
explain why you think doing exactly the same movement on me for 15
minutes is the pathway to nirvana.
16. Oh God, yet again I haven’t thought this through.
17. Men use socks don’t they? Do we have any clean socks? Possibly not the sexiest option.
18. Let’s face it, this could go anywhere. Yet another argument for condoms.
19. Ha, it’s all on you. Good luck getting that out of your leg hair.
20. My mistake, the bedding’s ruined. Bagsy the dry side.
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