Uilleam

Speaking to Gersnet post-match, Tavenier offered: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Would that we had a couple of 6/10s last night!

Indeed. Standards, old boy, must be maintained. Standards may be all we have to console us this season, the way it is going.

Can -should- we select a MotM when not one player could be marked at more that 4, maybe 5 at a push, out of 10? Picking a 'Least Bad Player' kind of demeans it, really. Agree that LBP was Calvin Bassey.

Another piss poor performance, against a journeyman outfit, this one ravaged by injuries. Our team is too easy to play against, and every other side, obviously, knows it. I worry that our players, too, know it. I worry even more that these players reached their apogee last season, and are now on the way down; even more than that, I worry that they know this, too. I worry most that our management team does not see any of this. Play badly and win is becoming, merely, play badly, as it is always likely to do, when poor performance becomes the rule, rather than the exception. I do not believe that the regular duff performances of this season will somehow magically transform into powerful winning football. Steven Gerrard, and his staff, to have produce a remedy, tout de suite. Sandcastle United, eh? Who is driving?

This is worse than bollox.

This is bollox.

The Rising Sons of Walter 3 The Opposition 0 FGS Hagi

"Margaret Ferrier: ‘Covid journey’ MP enters no plea in court" Remember this charmer? I don't know what it does to Covid 19, but, by God, it frightens me. Margaret Ferrier: ‘Covid journey’ MP enters no plea in court Connor Gordon Wednesday October 27 2021, 11.30am, The Times Margaret Ferrier, 61, is accused of travelling from Glasgow to parliament after reporting symptoms of Covid-19 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/margaret-ferrier-covid-journey-mp-enters-no-plea-in-court-lqfqxqvv9 The Scottish MP who allegedly travelled between Glasgow and London despite being told to isolate after displaying coronavirus symptoms has entered no plea to her criminal charge. Margaret Ferrier, MP for Rutherglen & Hamilton West, is said to have made several journeys between September 26 and 29 last year. Prosecutors accuse the suspended SNP politician of wilfully exposing people to the risk of infection after applying for a coronavirus test and saying on the form that she had symptoms. Ferrier, 61, is said to have visited places in Rutherglen such as the Lifestyle leisure centre, the Vanilla Salon and a boutique named Sweet P. According to prosecutors she also went to Grace and Favour, a restaurant in Bearsden, St Mungo’s Church in Townhead, Glasgow, and Vic’s Bar in Prestwick, Ayrshire. The charge states that Ferrier took a taxi from her home in Cambuslang to Glasgow Central railway station. From there she is said to have reached London Euston and visited places including parliament. She is said to have made the return journey to Glasgow by train. No plea was made by her lawyer Paul Kavanagh at a hearing in Glasgow sheriff court on Wednesday. A further hearing was fixed for January by Sheriff Paul Reid and Ferrier was granted bail. Ferrier became an MP at the 2015 election and lost her seat to Labour in 2017 before regaining it two years later. Comments for this article have been turned off

Not seamless enough, presumably. Actually, it is not in their gift, post Independence.

You are forgetting the "Vegan Sausage Roll".

Which they probably won't use because they will be too busy watching porn, on their new free laptops.

On a more serious note........no, really......I mean it's not April 1st, is it? "Every young person in Scotland could be given an electric toothbrush under plans to be considered at the SNP’s conference, which will be held online at the end of next month." Under this radical, world leading, world beating, plan, weans will be able to eat as much tablet, and drink as much Irn-Bru, as they want. Of course, the issue of continual toothpaste supply remains to be addressed, but trust Nikla, on this. '“Conference......calls on the Scottish government, in partnership with the Scottish trade union movement and civic Scotland, to look at the feasibility of raising additional revenue for Scottish public services from the significant profits of sections of the Scotch whisky industry.” As for this, I seem to recall the SNP declaring that the whisky industry was suffering, indeed, making huge losses, due to an "English Tory Brexit"; now it seems it is ripe for plucking. A remarkable recovery. Give an electric toothbrush to every child, SNP urged Kieran Andrews Wednesday October 27 2021, 12.01am, The Times The idea of giving young people an electric toothbrush will be debated at the SNP’s conference next month https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/give-an-electric-toothbrush-to-every-child-snp-urged-npf9f02pv Every young person in Scotland could be given an electric toothbrush under plans to be considered at the SNP’s conference, which will be held online at the end of next month. The provisional agenda shows that members are also pushing for a Scottish tax on the whisky industry. A motion put forward by the Glasgow Southside branch of the party says that “the profitability of the whisky industry is among the highest of any industrial activity anywhere in the world”. It adds: “As the provenance of Scotch whisky as a brand and a product cannot be transferred outside Scotland, it has the potential, even in the current devolved context, to make a significant contribution to the public purse. “Conference therefore calls on the Scottish government, in partnership with the Scottish trade union movement and civic Scotland, to look at the feasibility of raising additional revenue for Scottish public services from the significant profits of sections of the Scotch whisky industry.” The Scotch Whisky Association has been campaigning for Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, not to increase spirits duty further in today’s budget. In a social media campaign, it has been highlighting that taxation already accounts for 70 per cent of the cost of a bottle of whisky and warned that the industry and the wider economy, including retail, tourism, hospitality and manufacturing, would be jeopardised by a duty rise. The SNP manifesto for May’s Holyrood election promised free bikes and electronic devices to children who cannot afford them. Under plans from the Castle Douglas and Glenkens branch, this would go further and give every young person an electric toothbrush. The group’s motion notes plans implemented to give free dental packs containing a toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste, as well as supervised toothbrushing, to children under the age of five but says that people who use an electric toothbrush “have healthier gums, less tooth decay and also keep their teeth for longer” than those who use manual brushes. Delegates will also demand “seamless trade” between the UK and an independent Scotland under another resolution put forward to the conference, which is being held online because of fears about coronavirus.

"More than five months have passed since Nicola Sturgeon assigned all the ministerial portfolios in her latest government. But it appears that our new minister for transport, Graeme Dey, has yet to hold any meetings with Ferguson Marine or its turnaround director about its unfinished ferries." Transparency and accountability: two words notably, and continually, absent from the SNP Lexicon. We might look for "integrity", but that, too, would be a fool's errand. 'Conscientiousness' ? Don't bother; after all, the government doesn't. Personally, I cannot wait for the Netflix/Amazon/TV series: 'Scots on the Rocks' - the incredible true story of how SS Cabinet Minister ran aground on Treasure Island. BUSINESS COMMENT Is the Ferguson fiasco really not worth more ministerial attention? Alf Young Wednesday October 27 2021, 12.01am, The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/is-the-ferguson-fiasco-really-not-worth-more-ministerial-attention-j5d53mn7p More than five months have passed since Nicola Sturgeon assigned all the ministerial portfolios in her latest government. But it appears that our new minister for transport, Graeme Dey, has yet to hold any meetings with Ferguson Marine or its turnaround director about its unfinished ferries. Last week Dey was telling Holyrood Magazine: “It’s nice to get up in the morning . . . and have something to get your teeth into.” That same week a freedom of information (FoI) request revealed that Dey, a former print journalist who also tells the magazine he hasn’t bought a newspaper since the 2014 referendum, has yet to make any contact with Fergusons or its lavishly remunerated senior executive Tim Hair. The minister has had a couple of virtual meetings with both CMAL, the Scottish government’s own ferry procurement agency, and CalMac, the current operator of the ageing Clyde and Hebrides fleet and its parent company, David MacBrayne. But the only mention of Fergusons towards the end of that agenda ran to just five words: “recent programme revision was noted”. That revision, remember, was about further delays of 15 weeks Hair had just announced for completing the two boats. Hull 801 will not now be completed until the latter half of next year; Hull 802 will not now be in service until well into 2023. Dey also had eight virtual meetings with Transport Scotland. There was no focus in any of them on the Ferguson fiasco. What to do about camper vans taking up too much deck space while paying too little for the privilege got more attention. In none of the eight sessions was there an agenda. And no minutes are yet available for a series of meetings that started way back in May. However, thanks to another series of FoI requests, we now know that Ferguson’s Hair continues to rake in £2,850 plus “reasonable” expenses plus VAT for each and every day he spends trying to turn the yard around. We had understood that his daily rate had been cut by 10 per cent from the start of March 2020 to just £2,565. We now know it is what civil servants and the yard call a “retention incentive” designed to ensure Hair doesn’t just walk away. Each month 10 per cent of his invoiced payment is retained. Every few months, if he’s still there, it is added to that month’s payment. That helps explain why, in December 2020, Hair invoiced for £52,147 (before VAT, tax and national insurance) for 21 days’ work. While in January 2021, for just 14 days’ work, his equivalent invoice was for £59,891. In the most recent two months for which details have been released, Hair invoiced for £49,778 for 20 days’ work in June — but a whopping £86,477, for working just two days more, in July. It doesn’t make it any easier for the rest of us to fully comprehend what is going on. The civil servant who responded to the latest FoI inquiry earlier this month had to apologise for a request that “was not handled as well as it should have been”. The person raising the inquiry had been told the government did not hold any of the relevant information. But the same FoI service had previously answered many similar questions from another member of the public. This matters hugely. Hair’s current contract, which was struck with the then cabinet secretary for Finance, the Economy and Fair Work, Derek MacKay, runs out at the end of this year. Ferguson Marine has been owned by the Scottish government since MacKay intervened. If Scottish government sources are now insisting that Hair’s future at Fergusons and any contractual changes are all down to Ferguson’s board, we should all, as the people who pay for this through our taxes, be told. That largely non-executive board — only Hair and the finance director George Crookston have executive status — meets virtually bi-monthly for two hours. The published minutes are, at best cursory. Since last May none have appeared at all on the Ferguson Marine website. If these are the people who decide whether Tim Hair is still around come January the concept of ministerial accountability will start looking as tarnished as those two unfinished hulls on the Lower Clyde. Alf Young is a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde

It's you, isn't it?