Germinal

I confess I thought the three wee dots was called an ellipsis. You learn something new every day! Well...I'm still not convinced there's a massive substantive difference between 'I don't care what you say' about anything and 'I don't care what you say' about a specific; the end result is the same, an expression of complete belief in one's own position. And anyway, the main critical plank of my post was that if one has a dig at states or religions for being absolutist, one can hardly express absolutes oneself. But ach...I did enjoy your post!

I hope Big Jaws doesn't mind as this really isn't an issue I'm bothered about one way or the other but is a little ironic when it's followed by Which is pretty much the definition of faith.

It's a stupid, made up pretend controversy to get people to click on a site coz they see the word 'Rangers'. Even by Record standards it's garbage and to be quite honest I wish it hadn't been posted coz then I wouldn't know anything about it.

What are those? Panzer IV's destroyed on the eastern front?

The idea of believing football fans, from Liverpool at that, over police officers would never have crossed her mind. That's the mind set which enables corruption because, no matter the evidence, you know you will be backed up and so can do whatever you like. So I doubt she knew but she, and her idiot lap dogs like Ingham, must shoulder blame for being so blindly unquestioning for so long.

I doubt if Mrs Thatcher actually knew that the cops were lying from day 1. The point is that she automatically believed the cops' story over the families and survivors because they are the police and, as John says, the dead were only football fans.

Fantastic piece of writing. Many thanks, John.

Not sure that the one necessarily follows the other!

That's too extreme a definition for me - I'd argue they are being taught the skills they'll need to succeed while young, which they can then apply when older - if, as you say, they have the gumption to apply themselves. Equipping kids with skills without applying pointless pressure only an acceptance of mediocrity if the management they fall under when mature is lacking. No amount of 'win at all costs' education will do away with pros who take the money for nothing. So long as there is billions sloshing around there will be plenty of free loaders, in football as in all business.

I don't live in Glasgow, but like most people from the satellite commuter towns around the city, it's just easier to tell people that's where you come from. It's only 10 minutes up the road, after all, and I've been 'heading into town' for 30 years and more. I like going to the pictures in town because there's a better buzz than the multiplex nearby, the restaurant scene is far better, the pub choice is endless, and the patter (usually with total strangers) unbeatable. To all intents and purposes I am a Glaswegian. My relationship with Edinburgh is, therefore, complex. Despite being quite the arty type, I have eschewed a visit to the Edinburgh Festival on the entirely reasonable grounds that it is located in Edinburgh. I've never had to expand on this rationale to anyone from the West, incidentally - it appears to be QED. A wee downturn of the mouth, a shrug of the eyebrows and a 'ferr enuff' indicates that everyone gets it. If someone I really want to see is touring but for some bizarre, inexplicable reason opts to book the Playhouse that's me out. Not even the RSC touring The Tempest could tempt me along the M8. The only exception to this was when The Velvet Underground reformed for a pension pay day and their only gig in Scotland was in The Forbidden East. Repairing thence about lunchtime with some stoner friends, we picnicked in a rather nice park, the baguettes and salami complemented by the pungent aroma of their 'home rolled' cigarettes. After a while the large number of police cars going in and out of the high rise block opposite became noticeable even to three stoned Weegies, resulting in us relocating to a spot which wasn't across the road from Lothian and Borders Police HQ. The rozzers, stunned perhaps at the sheer effrontery of West Coast youth passing an afternoon skinning joints before their very eyes, took no action, but it merely confirmed my prejuidice - you'd never have got away with that outside Helen Street office. Subsequent, and reluctant, visits for Edinburgh's Hogmanay only served to emphasise the otherness of the place. While you could blether away to millions of Aussies, Kiwis or English folk up for the day, there were hardly any locals about. Possibly they were as enraged at the rivers of pish beflooding their town as the Manc's were back in 2007 and had retired home in the huff, but to me it was yet more evidence of their anti-social natures. Ian Black was, I felt, the final nail in Edinburgh and its surrounding environs coffin. And as for salt and sauce...it's just wrong. No one has ever stepped confidently up to the table on Masterchef, dumped a plate of that down while the voiceover lassie huskily intones 'Rab has prepared a bag uh chips, eh, drenched in salt and broon sauce. Whit's wrang wi' that, ye a Weegie ur sumthing?' All the more impressive, then, that the defining images of the weekend was Three Men from the East, all of whom have built or are building our club into the thing that it is. Sandy Jardine, no longer with us in person but who will remain in spirit as long as there's a Rangers. John Grieg, beefier now, with the stiff gait which marks out the old school, play through the pain footballer, but still the same man who drove the club on, sometimes through sheer force of personality, and who defines the expression 'in with the bricks'. Although competition for the title is fierce, surely the most embarrassing, un-Rangers like episode of the last five years was the inability of John Grieg to watch Rangers play football. And now, in their wake, our captain Lee Wallace has stepped forward. I didn't think he was all that special when he joined, and like so many others he went backward under Ally. But what a revelation as a player this season, and what an unusually well rounded man to find in football nowadays. It's a measure of the new management team's eye for not just a player but a person that he was immediately given the armband - Wallace really has developed into a figure as important for Ranger snow as John Grieg was then. I can't think of any higher praise than that. Well done Lee Wallace, Rangers Captain and Rangers player's player of the year.

I usually sink into despair at this crusty old mantra. It's right up there with Bring Back National Service or Give 'Em The Birch. There are few industries where trainees are expected to deliver market leading performances without being trained first - expecting youth players to metamorphose into international standard players while having it hammered into them that they must, must, MUST achieve at all levels will only have the effect of seeing many players of potential lost to the system for the sole reason that someone who isn't on the pitch wants an under-16 Cup in the FA boardroom. If you make it as far as a professional footballer your drive to achieve is already miles above the ordinary. What you need to learn is the skills and mental strength. 'Will to win', what a load of shite.

I do, and if he's chucked about £5-10m of that at the club in one year that's fine by me. It seems a little out of kilter to point out that the club should be financially responsible but hey, King should lob money at the club for no reason other than he once said he would. For good reason, I would suggest. While I would prefer a pro-active PR machine of building relationships with non-Premiership clubs you'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to have spotted people who detest Rangers over the last few years, and they are most certainly not confined to the terraces. Really, clutching at straws here.

If it said 'driven by the ghosts of past glories' I'd agree.

Agreed we all know there are deficiencies and we all agree the manager will address these in the summer, but my worry is the right wing. For all we'll be recruiting I think most imagine Tav and O'Halloran will be the right wing combo and at the moment they just aren't doing it. Tav plays like he hates O'H, his body language is negative and passes to the winger seem to have to be wrung out of him. O'H is clearly still finding his feet at Rangers, he's quiet, non-demonstrative but clearly has the skill and pace. When he turned his man on a sixpence last night only to look up and see no one ahead - due to Miller dropping deep these days - I bet he wished Waghorn was fit. This is one area that's going to need a lot of work, both on the pitch and in their heads. Rangers is not a team for the faint hearted. I really hope Michael O'H gets settled in soon but it's a concern.

We couldn't be celebrating the Glorious Revolution and the advent of Parliamentary democracy while simultaneously celebrating an absolutist monarch who believed in the Divine Right of Kings, surely? Roundheads for me.

Here we are two days later and this game still keeps on making me smile. Today's pleasure was provided courtesy of one P.McStay, who suggested that should the team meet again tomorrow, there would be a different result. Interviewer - 'Tom, what's he basing that on?' Tom English - 'Errr....wishful thinking?' Although he's right, if we did meet again tomorrow we'd probably win 3 or 4-1.

Might not be the worst thing in the world if we do lose, though...a kick up the arse before the Cup final might do no harm. Plus it would be an invaluable lesson learned in maintaining standards for when we beat celtc again next season. On the other hand I could live with constant victory.

Curious description of Barca '72. I can't speak for any other Bluenose but I'll never apologise for the Bears taking on Franco's fascist swine. It's like asking Jesse Owens to apologise for spoiling Adolf's evening when he won the 100m in 1936.

Oh come on - it's from Life of Brian, not the Bible.

Mildly aggrieved to see our beautiful victory being dragged down into a battle of immaturity about who's more offended by what.

Funny how we see things differently. I thought that was a fantastic summing up by Tom English.

Allow a decent interval for him to say his goodbyes, man.

Much debate about looking forward, who to bring in, and so on. Bottom line for me is I have no idea who MW will bring in, and that's fine. The players I could think of, like James McArthur, would be financial madness and probably leave us right back up the creek we've just waded out of. Interesting times and no mistake.

The only good thing about the number of Celtic-inclined media pundits is the aftermath of an Old Firm win. Wish the programme on Radio Scotland was on for about another eight hours.

They're both playing the game imo, knowing what they're doing and the reaction it will get. Bit disappointed to see Walter doing it but I admit to being a puritan.