andy steel

Be even cooler it was just one scheme and the news was breaking the 16,000 barrier. But I understand that there are reasons why there's two separate schemes.

Only is your boring, properly run businesses.

Impressive level of stupidity on show. And to think I had Easdale down as the dunce of the board, turns out he's actually the bright one compared to the rest.

Singling out Murdoch is designed to boost his confidence after an up and down full debut, where, as many have said, he showed flashes but also looked a bit lost at times. It also deflects attention away from the hapless crew wearing the other shirts. It might be that we've been managed so badly for so long that we don't recognise a half decent attempt at it when we see one.

You must be joking, Pete...they would carry them shoulder high through the streets of Glasgow.

You've a funny idea of what constitutes criticism.

I would quite like a running total, but it's strictly minor counties stuff in the grand scheme of things.

Remember the game early in the season, I'm not certain but it might have been Raith away, I think we won 4-0 but Boyd missed about 6 gilt-edged, your Granny could score them chances. He's been absolutely crap since he came back and he wasn't that great first time around anyway.

Cause then we'd know where we are, rather than having to guess and hope for the best. Just cause BH is asking doesn't mean it's an invalid question.

I'm not sure anyone connected with Rangers - staff, players or fans - can talk about anyone else not getting bothering their backsides. We're in no position to talk about others - it took our club nearly dying twice to motivate us into getting off our arses.

I love the idea of a permanent reminder of these dismal years, maybe a plaque at the top of the staircase. Then again, I hate the idea of trying to lead the game, when it's going to take about 5 years to get back on our own two feet, never mind leading anything. But neither of these things is the point. The point is that they are taking questions and answering them. I have serious worries that should King & T3B get power, they would quickly revert to type (entrepreneurs, shady deals, fans at arms length). But at least there would be a club. This answer or that answer, it's all throwaway lines at the moment: they're just showing how different they are to the present lot, and how things could be.

As a footnote to this mucky little tale: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/11/bq-say-fifty-shades-of-grey-run-on-duct-tape-alert-was-just-pr-ruse B&Q admitted on Thursday that a memo warning staff of a likely rush by customers clamouring for rope, cable ties and duct tape in the wake of the release of Fifty Shades of Grey was a ruse set up by its PR office. In a memo to staff reported by multiple media outlets earlier this week, the hardware store said managers would need to “anticipate the need for extra stock” and encouraged staff to “familiarise themselves with the contents” of film ahead of its release this weekend. It said: When the book was released in 2012 DIY and hardware stores in the UK and US reported increased demand of certain products and queries from customers as they tried to recreate their own Fifty Shades experiences. We need to be prepared for the same effect when the film is released this month. The memo – which appeared to be from head office – generated headlines across the when it was picked up by MailOnline, the Mirror, the UK’s Press Association news agency, the Guardian and others. However, it now appears that the email was a ruse by the firm’s PR team. A B&Q spokeswoman told the Guardian: "We can confirm that the leaked memo was indeed a bit of fun. Both B&Q, the public and the media have been entertained over the past few days and we are looking forward to a big weekend. We would have confessed to this sooner, but our hands were tied."

Hang on BD - surely 'we couldn't find a hotel' won't wash as reason enough to postpone the EGM? If they try that one, King should be in the court first thing in the morning putting the process into the law's hands.

You would imagine there will be plenty of other seats for Barry to choose from. I can see the <10k barrier being broken on Friday night, and no flaming wonder. Depends how many Hibs bring through, I guess.

Mountain - molehill scenario. The SPFL will struggle to get a sponsor as long as we're a shambles, football does project an image of rank incompetence and for the rest of it he blames the low standard of football. The headline wallah has done a fine job of pot stirring but I don't have much of an issue with it. What I object to is when loons come on the radio and insist everything is rosy and Rangers are a total irrelevance. At least McGregor is aware that having a sanely run club with a great big support on hand will turn on the taps a little bit. Not many other chairman have the balls to say that to their fans.

Was on the bike only yesterday, training for a summer of island bagging round Scotland's coast! There's still patches of ice all over this neck of the woods after the snow of about 10 days ago, though, it's lethal. Anyway, you have to have the padded lycra gear or else the jacksie just gives up the ghost. I worry about the benefit which isn't obvious: you can't help thinking that, whatever it is, it's not likely to be in the best interests of the club. As usual, we can only wait and worry.

Whatever it takes to get it up, I'm happy to be of help.

Neither does he, I reckon.

Oh you did, did you? Filthy boy! Now wash your hands

Aye, not sure Friday nights are the best time for a protest. But what can you do?

Can it be as half assed as it looks? Now well beyond parody, you worry that they are up to something with this amateur hour routine.

Valentine's Day approaches, the annual regatta of sappy sentiment kept afloat on a sea of chocolates, flowers and insincerity. A florist on Steelonia High Street is breezily suggesting declaring your love via a dozen red roses for £50: I don't care how deep your love is, demonstrating it by throwing away money is only going to impress the most immature of ladies. The majority, I feel, would purse their lips disapprovingly and think of how much shopping £50 would get you in Lidl these days. Always a trial for West of Scotland man, not a creature overly given to public displays of affection, this year's ordeal is made worse by the release in cinemas of '50 Shades of Grey', there seemingly being a gap in the market for movies depicting tied up women having their arses skelped. It's good to see the advances made in equality since the heady days of the 1960's. My contempt for the book, naturally not based on actually reading it but by reading all the stuff in the papers and deciding from that what it's like, is heightened by the revelation that the owner of the skelped arse in question, one Anastasia Steele, not only possesses a sex drive ludicrous in anyone over the age of 16 (or certainly anyone with kids) but displays an extraneous 'e' at the end of her surname. Plainly, you get different spellings of the same name, but given the fairly obvious origin of 'Steel' as a surname, sticking an 'e' on it is about as useful as sticking another Ashley place man on the Rangers board. She'd be better losing that 'e' than losing her knickers. Anyway, a sexploitation film as romantic evening out doesn't work for me on any level, no matter how accurate the spelling. Cinematically, Valentine's Day used to mean maybe a Tom Hanks - Meg Ryan film. Older Bears may have enjoyed what is now the rather ironic sight of Rock Hudson wooing the honey-voiced Doris Day (and to think people considered him a poor actor). Changed days, indeed. Few now recall the scenes in which Rock chastised Doris for burning his dinner by taking a belt to her no doubt flawless, snow white cheeks, for the good reason that they never happened. It's hard to imagine anything less romantic than watching niche sexual activities like domination and arousal via corporal punishment at the pictures, in a room full of strangers. Even in the privacy of your own boudoir, taking your hand to most Glasgow lassies will result not in the moist, softly moaned discovery that your other half is a secret masochist but either a frosty or furious response which may or may not include you sleeping on the couch. Or so I'm told. There's no escaping the publicity for this faintly ridiculous film. Staff at B&Q have, it seems, been instructed to read the book in order to deal with the raging hormones of shoppers looking for cable ties and tape: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/10/fifty-shades-of-grey-tape-bq-tells-stores-to-stock-up-on-bondage-hardware They haven't really, but it gets the name of the film 'out there', on the back of a presumably pliant DIY chainstore, whose name also receives promotion. I wonder if they realised that they, B&Q, are the Ana Steele in this story, or whether they care. I suppose it's unlikely, it's all about money. But really, it's all cobblers! When in B&Q, my wife is likely to be more excited by the thought of buying wallpaper to redecorate the living room than the sight of me lurching breathlessly toward her clutching gaffer tape, enveloped in an arousing mix of amorous intent and asthma. No matter, the point is that the '50 Shades' media overload is pure advertising and PR gold, raising awareness all round, driving sales, regardless of what little substance there is. The outcome is what everyone involved wants (money), a successful example of what I believe professionals call 'selling the sizzle, not the steak'. Which is why I am concerned at the never ending stream of what looks like rubbish PR coming out of Rangers: it doesn't seem to be sizzle or steak. What a ride, if you'll excuse the expression, the last few years at Rangers have been. Well into my forties, my passion lies as much on Edmiston Drive as between the sheets. And certainly, my footballing cheeks have taken a pasting which even Christian Grey would struggle to better, bound as I am with Newcastle United ties and with a Sports Direct large bag covering my head. Thank you Mike, may I have another! I've been in plenty shops where the staff viewed me as an annoyance, but none have come close to the total and continual contempt Rangers show for their customers. It's beyond weird: there's no doubt Ashley, Easdale and their 'friends' are universally detested by all but the most odd of Bears (the ones who, presumably, enjoy being hurt) but their PR does nothing to address it, indeed it almost willfully makes it worse week by week. The EGM debacle is just the latest example of this. But since the chap in charge of Rangers PR is, by all accounts, highly effective at what he does, we need to take a step back from dismissing the club's PR as just useless and ask instead: if it is effective, if it is actually being done to a purpose, what on earth could that purpose be? Here's where I enter, if you'll forgive that word in this context, dark and murky waters. For I cannot see any outcome for all this behaviour which has Rangers is a happy place. Let's see what the strategy consists of, shall we? Drive away customers, now an impressive 75% down; insult and lie to customers at every opportunity (protests, fan boards, statements); sell any asset which isn't nailed down while failing to invest in infrastructure at any level; ban media outlets; hamstring the club's financial future by removing income streams in favour of loans. How does that add up to a prosperous future for anyone? None of these strategies are done in the dark, indeed it's all quite aggressively up front. What on earth can the plan be, unless it's to kill Rangers completely stone dead? I wish I could dismiss the idea as ludicrous fantasy as easily as I can the E.L. James book, but for the life of me I cannot see what an alternative could be. Either Ashley and Irvine, both very successful at what they do, have got this one horribly wrong, or there's something going on we don't know about, but which is not likely to be good. My last hope has to be the EGM, currently stumbling around London like a 1970's Scotland fan, looking for a dosshouse, but being turned away by one sniffy landlady after another. Yet another PR disaster - or is it? Good news, or bad news? I'll be happy if it just goes ahead. Like Anastasia Steele in the film, it can't come soon enough.

It's a little worrying that even on here, the Rangers board with easily the highest proportion of professionals, sane people and generally normal posters, trying to map an obvious community opinion in poll form has degenerated into angry, frustrated swipes at accountants, uncontrollable monkeys and handwringey worries about whether it's too democratic or not. I don't envy the RST and RF trying to organise their proxies!

Oh, go on then, I can't resist. If Dave King takes over, the SFA will watch him like a hawk to ensure he doesn't become a 'shadow director'. Huzzah for the beaks! Apparently, though, and despite blocking the Corpulent Cockney's attempts to go over the 9% threshold, the Rotund Retailer can 'mount a takeover' whenever he likes: in his case, the SFA will watch him like Mr Magoo. When you contradict your central point in your own article, it's a good indicator that either your central point is cobblers or you are a dunce, not excluding the possibility that in some rare, especially pathetic cases, both explanations apply. He has no idea at all what the policing level of the EGM will be, as indeed neither will the Met, who may consider the issue some days hence. I imagine the current high terror threat level may strike them as more attention worthy, however. Imagining that investors cannot tell the difference between a circus of furious and cash-withholding customers and a circus of overfed, over exposed and massively over promoted buffoons running a business into the ground does not suggest much of an acquaintance with the City of London. Yes, mugs can be had there as elsewhere: but thanks to the tireless efforts of lickspittle mouthpieces like McMurdo and Irvine, the whole UK knows what a shambles Rangers is, from the inside. Sterling work, chaps! You could go on picking it apart and laughing at the feeble attempts at bravado, but in many ways that is pitiable, and certainly the tone augers very well for the EGM outcome. At least now I know what someone being left behind by history sounds like.