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21
The Lounge / Re: Members birthdays
« Last post by Amanda_George on September 25, 2025, 06:48:52 AM »
I'm so sorry I didn't announce your birthday on Monday, isserley!  My internet connection died on Friday afternoon and didn't come back up until bedtime yesterday, so I'm playing catchup this morning!  I hope you enjoyed your special day?
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15129457/giuffre-family-urge-organisations-cut-ties-sarah-ferguson.html

Virginia Giuffre's family urge US to follow 'commendable' British charities and cut ties with Sarah Ferguson

    Read our Mail On Sunday World Exclusive here

By MATT STRUDWICK, NEWS REPORTER

Published: 14:48, 24 September 2025 | Updated: 15:12, 24 September 2025

Virginia Giuffre's family has urged US organisations to follow British charities' 'commendable' example and cut ties with Sarah Ferguson.  Yesterday, the Duchess, 65, was dropped by seven charities, including the Teenage Cancer Trust and British Heart Foundation, after a fawning email from 2011 to her 'supreme friend' Jeffrey Epstein was leaked to the Mail on Sunday.  The family of Ms Giuffre, who claimed she was abused by Epstein and trafficked three times to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17, praised the move.   The Duke of York has vehemently denied the claims.   Ms Giuffre's brothers, Sky Roberts and Danny Wilson, urged the US to 'follow the example' and 'take meaningful steps to protect the vulnerable and uphold justice'.

As pressure mounts on the duchess, she was forced to come out and claim she was being threatened and was trying to appease him out of fear over what he might do to her family.  Her spokesman James Henderson said yesterday that the late sex offender threatened to destroy the York's family in a 'chilling' phone call after she gave an interview publicly disowning him.  Epstein was apparently raging when she called him a paedophile in public and cited accepting £15,000 from him to settle her debts as a 'terrible, terrible error of judgment'.  In the emails, the duchess 'humbly apologised' and told the sex trafficker she was aware that he would 'feel hellaciously let down by me'.

Mr Henderson claimed her fawning email came after a 'chilling call' in which a 'menacing and nasty' Epstein threatened to 'destroy the York family' in 'a Hannibal Lecter-type voice'.

'The pressure she was put under to protect her family must have been huge,' he said.

'And this was long before the Duke's life had been ruined by his association with Epstein. Her family and her children will always come first.'

Meanwhile, today, Prince Andrew broke cover for the first time since the news of his ex-wife's email to Epstein was unearthed.  The duke was spotted driving his Range Rover away from his Windsor mansion with a male companion in the passenger seat.    The Duchess of York received backing yesterday by football WAG Lizzie Cundy, who told of speaking to the Duchess amid the fall-out from the email revelations.  Ms Cundy, 57, the TV personality and former wife of ex-Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur footballer Jason Cundy was questioned about the Duchess's feelings by Channel 5 presenter Jeremy Vine on Tuesday morning.  The programme guest said of Fergie: 'Well, she's obviously devastated there is no one more sorry today than Sarah Ferguson.  She is regretful, she wishes she'd never met Jeffrey Epstein, but there are reasons why she sent that email.   The fact is, he was enraged that she'd publicly condemned him he was absolutely beyond, saying, 'I'm going to get revenge, I'm going to ruin your family'.  It was threatening, it was very dark and she felt she had no choice but to try and appease him she was scared for herself, for her family.  You have to think, he was probably the most powerful man on the planet, or the richest man.  She was fooled by him, like many others were like the Clintons, like Peter Mandelson, many others.'

The host raised how Cundy had spoken to the Duchess 'in the last 24 hours' while putting to her how Epstein 'was a convicted paedophile'.  Ms Cundy replied: 'He was. It's wrong. She's very, very sorry. But the fact is, when she did condemn him, she did publicly, it got very, very nasty.  'He got huge lawyers on to her as well she thought it was going to be embarrassing not just for her own family but the rest of the Royal Family and she felt that was the only option she had.'

It comes as Princess Eugenie this week launched a campaign against children who are exploited in fast fashion.  The warned co-founder of The Anti-Slavery Collective 'modern slavery hides in plain sight' as the royal said: 'This couldn't be more true than in the case of counterfeit fashion.  A fake handbag or football shirt may look harmless, but it often carries with it the fingerprints of exploitation.  The Anti-Slavery Collective is determined to make sure consumers understand the true cost of these items, and to call for greater accountability across supply chains.'
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Fun Stuff / Three Little Pigs
« Last post by Pip on September 22, 2025, 07:13:57 PM »
A teacher was reading the story of the Three Little Pigs to her class.  She came to the part of the story where the first pig was trying to gather the building materials for his home. She read, "And so the pig went up to the man with the wheelbarrow full of straw and said: 'Pardon me sir, but may I have some of that straw to build my house?"

The teacher paused then asked the class: "And what do you think the man said?"

One little boy raised his hand and said very matter-of-factly, "I think the man would have said, 'Well, what do ya know?! A talking pig!"
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Christian / Re: Devotions
« Last post by Pip on September 20, 2025, 03:47:06 PM »
https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2024/10/08/maybe-their-path-to-seeing-gods-glory-is-just-different-from-mine?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-80yuPDxHxMvXKrGtRula0fsb9zNuvCMVwb0AvMwLi7WoUVzYd71ZcDdJh8ht5EY42U62653oJVCbstxbN7jnOcC20nCw&_hsmi=324957485&utm_content=324957485&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

Maybe Their Path to Seeing God’s Glory Is Just Different From Mine
October 8, 2024
by Lysa TerKeurst, President and Chief Visionary Officer of Proverbs 31 Ministries

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NIV)

I feel the most unsettled when I’m uncertain about the future. And I suspect you may also be facing circumstances that have left you feeling caught off guard and unsure about what tomorrow holds.  Maybe you’re in a job where you feel unfulfilled, and you think God is leading you somewhere else, but He hasn’t yet revealed what’s next. So for now, you walk into an office every day, giving it your all, but your heart feels disconnected from your real calling.  Or maybe you’ve been watching everyone else in your life find love, walk down the aisle, and start the life you’ve dreamed of. Or others grow their families while you’re stuck in an infertility journey. Or they go on that vacation you’ve spent months saving for.  Whatever your situation is, you probably feel powerless to change it, but you still have to live through the realities of what’s happening right now. I know what that feels like.  This is also no surprise to God; in fact, He makes it clear in His Word that things will not always go as we wish they would in this life.  “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

The crucial detail for us to have peace in the middle of all the “I don’t knows” we’re facing is to stay close to God. I wish I could promise you that everything’s going to turn out like you’re hoping it will. I can’t, of course.  But what I can promise you is this: God is close to us even in our “I don’t knows.”

God has lessons for us to learn in the middle of our “I don’t knows” that are eternally important. God has a strength He must prepare us to develop, and the training ground is right here in our “I don’t know.”

This time isn’t a waste, and it’s not pointless when we are walking with God.  My friend Jenny suffered through a lot of unfair circumstances. She decided to join a support group with others who have gone through similar things. At their meetings, they give updates on what’s happening with their lives. Each week, she hears about the struggles and victories of the women in her group. Of course she celebrates with every person who experiences their prayers being answered. Jenny is very mature in her faith, and she’s one of the most gracious people I know. But sometimes it’s hard to hear about God answering other people’s prayers while she’s still waking up to confusion and heartbreaking realities every day.  As she prayed about this and wrestled through it, one day she had an epiphany. She spoke a sentence out loud that brought a lot of comfort to her heart. When she told me about how she now better manages other people’s celebrations while she’s still hurting, I knew it was a game changer for my perspective as well.  Jenny said, “Their path to see God’s glory is different from mine.”

Wow.  Friend, we are all on a journey. God is with us. God is for us. God really can be trusted. How He leads us and where He leads us will always be a bit of a mystery. But what doesn’t have to be mysterious is this: We will see God’s glory either on this side of eternity or on the other side. His glory will not be mocked or denied but will be seen by those who have given their hearts to Him. We just might travel different paths to see it. I pray this helps you as much as it has helped me.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/boxing/article-15099675/Ricky-Hatton-Tyson-Fury-Frank-Bruno-loneliness-drugs-alcohol.html

The loneliness, drink, drugs and tears of life after boxing: The sport's worst open secret, how Tyson Fury, Frank Bruno and more have battled demons without help and why Ricky Hatton's death must bring change

By IAN HERBERT, DEPUTY CHIEF SPORTS WRITER

Published: 12:00, 19 September 2025 | Updated: 13:26, 19 September 2025

The train north to Manchester from London on a Sunday lunchtime eight weeks ago was so packed that the first-class reservation system had been abandoned and Ricky Hatton, who’d watched Oleksandr Usyk beat Britain's Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium the night before, wound up in a standard carriage.  To witness him there, on a three-hour journey, was to see the enormous loneliness that comes when the silence falls after a garlanded career in boxing.  Conversation came his way, of course, from passengers who instantly recognised him and wanted to know about his life, times and opinions. He patiently answered questions he’d been asked a thousand times before. But Hatton travelled alone and looked alone.  The same sense of an individual lost in the crowd is striking in a brilliant Sky documentary, Hatton, first broadcast two years ago. Hatton is serenaded and cheered to the rafters as an after-dinner speaker at Stockport County FC’s Edgeley Park but when he’s finished his talk, the camera captures him alone at his seat, with no one talking to him. He instinctively sips on a Guinness before someone wanders up for an autograph.  A small moment of loneliness, in which Hatton perhaps wondered why he is there. It’s a measure of how quickly a boxer’s currency devalues that tickets to hear an extraordinary speech by a four-time world champion were a mere £45, with a two-course dinner thrown in.  Hatton bared his soul that night, speaking about the huge hole left in his life when boxing had finished with him. He would sit alone in the house, so overcome by sadness that when his girlfriend, with whom he had two children, went out shopping, he would sob.  He would seek sanctuary in the pub, where one piece of cameraphone footage of him, overweight and virtually paralytic, pulling a white T-shirt over his head, revealed his shocking descent. He sought solace in drink and drugs to fill the black hole. They only fuelled the decline.  ‘Once you’ve had that feeling where millions of people all around the world see you get your hand raised “Ricky Hatton, World Champion” there’s no feeling like it,’ he told the Stockport audience. 'And it’s very, very hard to replace it.'  There’s a common phrase in boxing: “It’s the loneliest place in the world”. And it is. Especially when you retire.’

The South Manchester coroner has not revealed the preliminary cause of Hatton’s death.  Hatton was not, by a very long way, the only boxer for whom the roof caved in when the career and the acclaim had gone. Frank Bruno, a heavyweight champion of the world in the mid-90s who was sectioned twice, says: ‘When the music stops and the show is over, life can be very difficult. I felt the public adulation vanishing. Boom. From nowhere, you are out.'

Tyson Fury ballooned to 28st and contemplated suicide, with nothing else to aim for after leaving boxing for two years in 2016. Amir Khan has put it best: ‘Sometimes the hardest fight happens in silence in your mind.’

And then are those lost in this same fog whom we barely hear of. Trevor Smith fought for the British Welterweight title at London’s Grosvenor House, in March 1990. They called him ‘the Powerhouse’.  Black-and-white images of him in his muscular, fresh-faced prime a Southern Area champion, no less provide no hint of the struggles to follow when the spotlights went out. He took his own life, in the winter of 2023. ‘We knew he was struggling,’ says a friend.

Dave Harris knows more than most about the consequences of the void for boxers when the last bell rings. The Ringside Charitable Trust, which he founded in 2019, is the only organisation of its kind for the many ex-fighters who struggle.  Harris counts hardened ex-champions among those he has heard sobbing down the phone. The charity has former fighters, like Derek Williams, former British heavyweight champion, and James Cook, one-time super middleweight champion of Britain and Europe, on the line to speak to these terribly diminished giants of the ring.  ‘We’re not psychiatrists,' Harris says. ‘It’s about being positive and being there to listen. When some of these guys finish boxing, it’s like people who have been in the army. They’ve been given orders all their lives and don’t know any other life. They’re starting again.’

That was certainly true of Bruno. ‘It struck me that he was almost subservient after he’d retired,’ says one of the boxing fraternity who has helped him.

‘I was at an event with him when he asked me, “Is it OK if I go now, boss?”. This was a former heavyweight champion of the world talking.’

Bruno’s mental disintegration was compounded by the realisation that £300,000 had been syphoned from his bank account. Hatton also discovered money had gone into accounts he’d never heard of, leaving his trainer Billy ‘the Preacher’ Graham, with whom he’d shared his greatest years, to pursue cash he was owed, through the courts.  Though the two of them had tried to repair things and made some ground, it was not a full reconciliation before Hatton died. ‘Sorry I wasn’t there for you,’ read the message Graham left last week with a bouquet he placed at Hatton’s home, which the boxer had labelled ‘The Heartbreak’.

Boxing’s lost souls are struggling because there is no governing body or union capable of helping them through the long, empty years beyond the ring. Nothing remotely resembling the wealthy Professional Footballers' Association, for example.  Boxers do not have the dressing-room team-mates of other sports to check in on vulnerable ex-pros, or remind them of the good old days they shared together. The British Boxing Board of Control lacks the size and resource to create a suitable organisation and boxing’s promoters, who do have the money, lack the inclination.  ‘For six years, we’ve tried to get support from the promoters in this country by trying to get a pound on a ticket but it’s been near total silence from them,’ says Harris, whose charity has raised £300,000 but needs close to £4million to open a 36-bed specialist care facility centre for boxers suffering pugilistic dementia, similar to the four superb facilities run by the Injured Jockeys Fund.

Daily Mail Sport has seen a letter his trust sent asking for support from one promoter. Harris wasn’t even afforded the decency of a reply.  Ben Shalom, founder of boxing promotional company BOXXER, is the only British promoter to have made a substantial financial contribution to the charity and Harris is now looking overseas for help.  The World Boxing Council’s president Mauricio Sulaiman invited a representative of the charity to a conference in Mexico City last month.  Help has come in other ways. Johnny Nelson, the former cruiserweight world champion who also struggled after stepping away from the ring, is in the process of setting up a pension scheme for boxers, working with an established financial services company.  ‘It takes most retired fighters five years to get the sport out of their system,’ Nelson says. ‘Boxing trains you for two jobs: standing at the door of a nightclub or becoming a coach.  You spend your boxing career thinking like a kamikaze pilot and I’m afraid that’s not a transferable skill. It’s hard to adjust to life in the real world. Fighters turn to gambling or drugs, or something worse, because they’re trying to replicate that rush.’

Hatton had more support than some. He told his Stockport audience that sessions with a psychiatrist had helped him. In turn, he had helped Fury and Bruno in their adversity, inviting both to train at his Hyde gym and writing a tribute to Bruno’s resilience in the fighter’s latest autobiography.  The comedian’s facade paraded by Hatton, a man who had a Union Jack phone box and a yellow Reliant Robin which featured in Only Fools and Horses within the grounds of ‘The Heartbreak’, obscured the struggles beneath.  The Sky documentary projects his life story as one on an upward arc, out on the other side of the struggle, sitting in his meticulous kitchen with a glass of water and stating that while there were still bad days, things were fixed.  But that room, just like the Avanti railway carriage in July, revealed no signs of anyone he knew. He was alone and in the last months of his life had been reaching back to the past, back to the ring training for the comeback exhibition fight he was scheduled to contest against Abu Dhabi fighter Eisa Al Dah planned in Dubai in December.  Except he had been struggling with pain in his elbow, as he trained. ‘You’re knocking on a bit now,’ someone in his team had joked.

The news of his death, after his long-serving manager Paul Speak found his body, came down on the day before he was due to fly to Dubai to sign the fight contract. He had even packed his bags for the trip.  Matchroom chairman Eddie Hearn told Daily Mail Sport on Thursday that the positivity Hatton radiated obscured what lay within. ‘People don't really know what is happening beneath the mask,’ he said of him.   'To see a guy that funny, full of life and good around people, that good a role model with that good a heart, not being able to get rid of his demons is so, so sad.’

Hatton once reflected that ‘the thing is with boxers, we don't come from Cambridge and places like that. We come from council estates. So when we stop, it's very, very hard.  What I achieved was the end of the rainbow, fairytale stuff. You wish it could all last forever but sooner or later it bursts.’

One of his last public posts marked the regret he felt about the funeral of one of his friends, David Leigh, who took his own life last month.  ‘I wish you could have reached out to us, mate. There were so many there for you. Give you a top send-off. See you shortly. Rick X.’

What was within Hatton’s interior mind when he posted those words? In retrospect, that ‘See you shortly’ is so painfully poignant.
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The Lounge / Re: Members birthdays
« Last post by Pip on September 16, 2025, 06:49:05 PM »
Belated Happy Birthday Becky83 and Happy Birthday CharleysAngel  :crazy:
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The Lounge / Re: Members birthdays
« Last post by Amanda_George on September 16, 2025, 04:40:11 AM »
Happy birthday, CharleysAngel'! :anim_65:
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The Lounge / Re: Members birthdays
« Last post by Amanda_George on September 15, 2025, 07:22:30 AM »
It's your turn today, Becky83!

:bdayballoons:
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Christian / Re: Devotions
« Last post by Pip on September 14, 2025, 04:00:38 PM »
https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2024/08/30/helped-by-hiddenness?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_Rk365jc-KxHXkoiOXEsozjn1rQ5zCGkpvKB-AYxcrw5Ex3GY5IFBZCHeqpamsc7rHEpsHPitKoh4oa-f_efoaynLs5Q&_hsmi=318360065&utm_content=318360065&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

Helped by Hiddenness
August 30, 2024
by Dr. Alicia Britt Chole

“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” Luke 2:52 (NIV)

It was late spring in the Ozarks, and the threat of crushing cold snaps had passed. My husband is the family gardener. But, oh, I do love weeding. Especially after a rain, there’s something so satisfying about getting to the root of things.  So there I was, on my knees, under a 100-year-old walnut tree.  Winter’s weather had compressed autumn’s offering into a thick blanket of now decomposing leaves. Peeling back layer after layer, I cleared the way for new growth when, much to my surprise, I discovered that something had already been growing!  Underneath the thick, leafy camouflage was a stunning flower! It was bent over, as though humbled by hiddenness, but its strong stem was hosting something beautiful.  Death had concealed it.  Time had buried it.  No one was looking for it.  Which is the perfect environment for growth.  What seemed to smother the flower was protecting it, granting it undisturbed space to be and to become.  Such is the gift of hiddenness.  Unseen. Uncelebrated. Underestimated. Protected.  Obscure. Out of sight. Overlooked. Protected.  I paused to ponder the contrasts. Life under death. Growth under barrenness. Beauty cultivated not on display but in obscurity.  Without that blanket of decomposing leaves, the flower couldn’t have survived the freeze. What hid it helped it. What delayed its visibility preserved its potential.  I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, this is what the Father did with His Son.  Like that hidden flower, close to 90% of Jesus’ days were spent hidden.  In the Bible, we see Jesus’ birth, followed by hidden days.  We see Him circumcised on the eighth day, followed by hidden weeks.  We see Him dedicated at the temple on the 40th day, followed by hidden months.  We see Him visited by magi around the age of 2, followed by hidden years.  We see Him asking insightful questions in the temple at the age of 12, followed by almost two entirely hidden decades.  Then, at the age of 30, Jesus stepped out of anonymity and into debated and documented, celebrated and scrutinized history.  So what might the Father be doing in the seemingly obscure spaces of life?

Our key verse, Luke 2:52, grants us insight: God is growing us.  In Jesus’ hidden years, He “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52), mentally, physically, spiritually and relationally.

So perhaps when we feel unseen and unapplauded, overlooked and underestimated, we, too, can take courage.  When we consider how the Father choreographed the life of His Son, it becomes clear: God doesn’t hide us to punish us. He hides us to protect us. In fact, I believe that hidden years are the surprising birthplace of Christlike, indestructible strength!
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The Lounge / Re: Members birthdays
« Last post by Pip on September 14, 2025, 03:49:36 PM »
Happy Birthday pking1409  :hug:
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