7 September 2011: Fasting

Actually I'm just fasting from Pasoti.

I found that not only was very little happening with the knife-edge situation - except endless extensions to the Preferred Bidder (who has no money) which continue to be funded by the goodwill of the Argyle players and staff going wage-less (note that the administrator has been paying himself and Peter Ridsdale in full during this period, and neither are cheap. Anyway, little enough was happening compared to the amount of nevous energy with which I was hitting F5 that I determined it would be good to go no-Pasoti cold-turkey for a while for the good of my health.

So I have no idea what's going on there, but I can probably guess.

Meantime it seems Blogger have brought out a new version of the editor, perhaps one that is compatible with the useless-yet-default IE9, Doctor Who was a bit rubbish on Saturday (can Mark Gatiss just not write Doctor Who?), the weather in Kokomo is essentially identical (according to the BBC weather page, at least) to Southampton right now, Hannah is for some reason knocking on everything and saying 'knock knock', the economy continues to bother everyone although nobody wants to admit it, and we're about to come up to the tenth anniversary of the September Eleventh attacks.

And the question everyone is asking each other here: where were you that day?

1 September 2011: Strike

Plymouth Argyle senior players now threatening strike action over not being paid in ten months. Although there are so few senior players now it may not amount to much of a team change for Saturday.

Elsewhere, rumours abound: ex-Chairman Paul Stapleton seen back at Home Park, could he be part of the BIL consortium? Peter Reid (this one actually reported directly on Sky Sports News) asked Brendan Guilfoyle what happened to the gate money, season ticket money and transfer fees, and Brendan replied he wasn't sure and would get back to him. And, interestingly, a rumour that BIL have pulled out altogether - but James Brent still hasn't received a phone call.

The main thing seems to be that wages went unpaid despite full assurances that money was definitely coming this month. Implying that not only has the BIL money not arrived (well, what a surprise) but that the income from four (4) home matches in August has vanished.

More as it happens.

Update 11.50am EDT: Rumour is that Brendan Guilfoyle has either been pulled off the case, put on gardening leave or something similar by the senior partners at P&A. Not sure what this means for the club (if true) but the stench around Guilfoyle has been becoming unbearable.

Update 12.45 EDT: Matt Slater reports that the administrators (Guilfoiyle or otherwise) have opened talks with James Brent, while continuing to talk to BIL. About time, too.

31 August 2011: Threads

News from Home Park after all the champagne-popping nothingness of last week?

Not much. Except:

Wages not paid. They were promised to be paid. Administrator (probably) becomes responsible for wages at midnight tonight, although not legally until 14 September.

Sparksy just tweeted: "EGM on 8 Sep to disband the #pafc Shareholders' Association"

And a couple of injury-prone players have joined on loan! Could be the shortest loans in the history of the game... more as it happens.

26 August 2011: Extended

No longer a rumour: the administrator has yet again officially extended the deadline for Kevin Heaney to find some money down the back of the sofa with which to buy Plymouth Argyle. Everything is in order, he says, just doing legal paperwork now, and he's satisfied that Heaney has the money.

So, yet again, no actual money has changed hands. Follow the money, that's the key here... and we've seen none so far.

Late Tuesday appears to be the new date. When presumably it'll all be moved again.

Weird thing is that there is no longer anything legally binding to stop the Administrator talking to James Brent and the contingency plan now. But you can bet you bottom dollar he won't - there appears no interest in actually saving the club for the Administrator (who isn't even in Plymouth today, he's in Sheffield), rather saving face by continuing to give his ridiculous Preferred Bidder every chance to complete.

That said, if Heaney does come up with 6 million quid all of a sudden, then I'll happily be proved wrong and glad that there's still a football club in Plymouth.

24 August 2011: Birthday

Apologies for lack of posts.

About 30 minutes after that one about the sheep-pig, we got a phone call saying Gloria's younger sister had died in a car accident. We've been to Texas and back since, and the process is slow and painful, but thanks to all for the kind words, thoughts and prayers.

Other stuff seems mundane and certainly less important, although today marks a year since little Hannah Elise came into our lives. Hard to believe that a year ago we were in 14-hour labour ending in c-section, and this screaming, pooping (seriously, three times on that little table while they weighed and measured her) red newborn is now walking around, eating with a fork, saying 'noooo' (among about six other words), putting a backpack on by looping the strap over her head (that's a cute one to see, showed my mum on Skype this morning and she was impressed) and about to dive into a panda bear cake on Saturday when we have some people over.

Plymouth Argyle may not last that long. The Administrator has continued to go past deadline after deadline for the 'Preferred Bidder' (despite taking said bidder to court a couple of weeks ago, only to be shown the door due to loopholes in the S&P Agreement), meaning that this Friday could be the final deadline where the Preferred Bidder fails (because he is a chancer with no money) and where the actual, real, bid - the one by the supporters trust, the fans groups, and more importantly Plymouth City Council and an actual millionaire supporter (one James Brent of Akkeron) - yes, a real bid, may be given less than 24 hours to complete a deal that the tyre-kicking preferred bidder has had six months to do and has failed to do so.

Unless Mr Brent is willing to pull out the chequebook and sign his life away, there's a good chance this might be it for Argyle. We'll see. The fans are on a vigil outside Home Park until either Saturday's game (or the announcement of liquidation). Not important really, not compared to the first paragraph of this post, but sad to see.

30 July 2011: Sheep-Pig

What is this mysterious creature? A genetic experiment gone wrong or a Photoshop special?

Actually, it seems it's a genuine animal and there's no funny Dolly The Sheep business going on at all. Far from being something new and weird, it's actually something old and weird - a 'Mangalitsa' pig, originating from central Europe, and a reminder that a lot of the farmed animals we are familiar with today are only a small subsection of what there used to be... we've carefully farmed the ones we like, let the rest die away slowly and then get used to what we see as being first 'normal' and then 'the only way it can be'. Even pigs with spots on are considered special and different, and who knows how those black-feathered bronze turkeys survived the move to white turkeys (less flavour but easier to intensely-farm and without the speckled look when you pluck them).

Having said that, of course, I'd never heard or seen of this type of pig (yes it IS a pig) until yesterday when I got my occasional marketing email from Uptons the butcher over in Southampton. Seems Simon has got his hands on a few of these pigs and for one week only they're selling them (and sausaging them, I'm pleased to report) at the shop over there. I'd be very curious to see how it tastes - would expect something a little wild-boar-ish, but the email says it's a fairly light meat. I wonder what they're doing with the left-over wool. The email also says they've bought the building next door (the old bed shop) and are going to expand into that, so maybe they're going to have some kind of wool-mill in there or something next to the new fish counter.

Meantime what to report from here? Heat wave has been a little ridiculous, especially with the air conditioning breaking again (new system put in yesterday seems to help), went to see the Atlanta Braves lose to Cincinnati last weekend (and wisely left before it got too disastrous - final score 11-2 to the Reds) and Hannah is walking everywhere, pointing, saying 'no' and 'bye' (two rather negative words for her intial vocabulary I'd suggest) and not far off her first birthday. Argyle continue to fail to resolve anything and legal issues at various levels look about to take off (they could do a Dispatches programme entirely about the shady goings-on of this football takeover), but it's all very tiresome somehow.

Oh, and Mark Cavendish won the green jersey at last in the Tour De France. I know I'm a week late in mentioning it but blogging hasn't been my strongpoint. Question is, which team will he ride for next year? I do hope it isn't Team Sky... purely because he needs to be the main leader of his team, with a team that had multiple aims he would surely not do as well. Partly because of the leadout train, but mainly because HTC spent most of the flat stages of the tour with Danny Pate and Lars Bak at the head of the race chasing down breakaways. Cav's green jersey is certainly him in a big way, but really it belongs to the whole team, and Team Sky won't be able to be as dedicated as that. Certainly not if they want to produce a tour winner by 2014.

On the other hand, there's a pig that looks like a sheep, so maybe anything is possible?

6 July 2011: Sham

Plymouth Argyle deal to sell ground to 'Irish Consortium' (actually Truro City owner Kevin Heaney) has been signed. No money has changed hands. Again.

So instead of the original plan of six-week exclusivity in return for one million pounds, Heaney and his 'anonymous backers' (who probably don't exist, at least not any more) have now had three months for about 300k.

The Fans' Trust is making as much noise as possible, but in a footballing world where it's not only acceptable but seen as a good move for Portsmouth to be run as an international money-laundering operation, nothing will be done about the deal which, despite the remit of the administrator, is not and has not been the best deal for the creditors.

The irony is that Kevin Heaney appears to still have no money to back up this 'bid' and so in a few weeks it will all come crashing down again, unless he can dig somebody up quickly. And given that rejected-by-the-administrator rival bidder Paul Buttivant has set a Private Investigator to take a look into the proceedings, I doubt Buttivant is someone Heaney can talk to.

I've actually had enough. If I were in Devon, I wouldn't be going this season. The whole thing stinks almost as much as the Pompey 'takeover', except it's been executed less cleanly and too many false statements have been exposed.

Still, who's to say Truro City won't start playing at Home Park now that their owner, in direct contravention of league regulations, controls both clubs? And Peter Ridsdale can run the footballing side of the business from inside prison, where he could be heading as he's in court this month in Cardiff facing substantial fraud charges.

What a mess.