Thinker

True enough, there are a lot of unqualified people who make statements on these subjects for purely virtue-signalling reasons. I doubt many actual scientists would tell you to ignore the science on either subject though.

Too many players thniking about Thursday night I suspect - which is exactly the kind of attitude we need to cut out if we want to keep the challenge rolling. We got away with it today. Obviously, it's good to get the win, but that was not enjoyable at all.

Well, I’m not particularly familiar with the author’s background but, like Stewarty, I thought that it seemed a fairly balanced piece, weighing the wins in sovereignty against the impact on trade caused by economic divergence. IMO, the article is a series of solid points, paragraph-by-paragraph, that are hard to disagree with in substance even if you believe they’re trumped by other factors. A couple of the more salient ones being: 1. that attempts by some to characterise a no-deal brexit as “clean” or “pure” are disingenuous. No-deal would be the most disorderly form of Brexit, and rather than drawing a neat line under things, it would be more akin to knocking the table over. A period of economic confusion, while the necessary tidying up takes place, would certainly follow. 2. Serious doubt is cast upon the notion of avoiding a hard border with the Roi by the fact that Norway (which has a less hard-line stance on EU cooperation than that touted for a post-Brexit UK) has been unable to find alternative measures to a hard border with Sweden. 3. The over-arching argument that if we want smooth trade with the EU, we need to sacrifice some of our regulatory sovereignty and, vice versa, any divergence in regulation between us and the EU will hinder trade. Clearly there are many businesses that are in a position to be blasé about a decline in EU trade relations, and make statements to that effect, as they don’t rely on that relationship. Others, however, are going to be up against it. Basically, even if you’re convinced that the pros of no deal outweigh the cons, it’s worth acknowledging that the cons have the potential to do some real damage, and also to consider that the brunt of the pain will be born disproportionately by some poor bastards.

Setting aside your opinion of the author for a moment, which parts of that article do you think he's got wrong, and why?

If the board are okay with spending this amount of money on Kent, I wish they'd done it last week. Kent could have made a big difference if he'd played yesterday.

Good to see the review coming down on the side of what's clearly right, and not the legalese bullshit "seperate entity" attempt to avoid moral duty. Hopefully this will carry some weight in the victims' quest for justice. Seems like it ought to.

It's worth bearing in mind SG's explanation that Ojo didn't train last week and played last night with bone bruising. You can't expect his best performance under those conditions. I do miss Candieas though. Having both him and Ojo available for selection would be ideal for the squad.

Personally, I don't get involved in any of this kind of stuff, but to summarise the situation: We know that UEFA have been convinced (by FARE or Lawell or whoever) that ****** is a sectarian term and have made its use punishable. Despite the fact that hun is considered a sectarian term by the police in Northern Ireland, nobody has successfully convinced UEFA to add it to their list. The upshot of this is that the green brigade could hold up a banner that read: "We are the ****** army, and we say kill all huns" and nothing would be done, whereas if the Union Bears held up a banner reading: "We object to being called huns, and we say fuck the ****** army" we'd be penalised for it. As others have said, the chances of UEFA reversing their decision on the word "******" is absolutely zero. There's no point in continuning to test this by singing - it will inevitably result in Rangers being fined and supporters being banned. The only move left for us to make is (imho) to take them down too, by campaigning for parity so that the word "hun" is similarly prohibited. If opposing fans start receiving sanctions for goading us, the basis of the whole "whatabout what they get away with" argument is gone. We need to do this before the SFA bring in their own liability rules that are "in line with UEFA's".

But anytime we're in surplus, that's down to Scotland being awesome, right?

Some years Scotland runs at a deficit, some years (when there are competent folk in charge) it runs at a surplus. That's the beauty of being in the union - local fluctuations are dampened by the pooled resources of the wider UK.

They'll be frantically checking the oppostition team sheet for ineligible players as we speak!

... and the wet pitch. I know I'm probably being especially uncharitable, but in normal conditions the pace on that pass would have seen it run straight through to Greegs. I suppose I should give Allan the benefit of the doubt and assume he anticipated that the surface water would slow the ball. But I don't like Allan, so I'm going to put it down to luck.

He put in an excellent preformance against Cardiff at the weekend. Set one up, won a penalty (then missed it, admittedly) and scored a beauty.

They've also had some shockers. They had a good run in the 2016/17 Europa league, but last year they were knocked out by Dudelange (Lux) and, the year before, Sherriff Tiraspol (Moldova).

I suppose the thing to do is imagine the remark was made about a politician you don't like. If it was would you still be outraged, or would you be rolling your eyes at those who were? Imho, comedy should be able to tread close to taboo areas, but there ought to be more to it than malice. I suppose that's the overly-polarised world we live in these days - folks can't just disagree with the other side of a political debate, they have to really fucking hate them. Brand's showboating in a not particularly witty way. I don't think it should be censored, but it's depressing to think she'd get much of a laugh for that.