calscot

Rothsay, Isl of Bute

Logan Botanic Garden in Dumfries & Galloway Culzean Castle, Ayshire View of Holy Isle, from Isle of Arran

Once again, I really don't find the way HMRC are going about this as very ethical. They are changing the rules once again and backdating it and creating a situation where people are possibly using tax breaks in good faith and then being financially ruined with the fickle tax man changes his mind. Surely we need more clarity than that at the time, and in an ongoing way? Surely looking to lower your tax exposure by taking advantage of legitimate schemes which take advantage of tax laws that HMRC create, is something that you should be able to do with confidence? The way I see it is that the tax man should make the rules and then everyone play by them. The rules should be intelligent, transparent and be there for good reason, giving good reason to use them. Weren't tax breaks for the film industry there to encourage filming in the UK and boost our ailing movie industry? I believe Canada do the same meaning a lot of down-town New York scenes in films are actually in Toronto. HMRC seem to be making tax a very dangerous minefield and a nightmare to negotiate. It means many people may only feel safe in paying more tax than they are due and many tax breaks there to help parts of the economy underused and under-invested. Now people paying more tax might sound like a good thing these days, but shouldn't it just be fair and clear, and people pay the fair and clear amount? As Craig says, it gets even worse in that the penalties are so large and the demands so huge that people who may have been perfectly legit cannot afford to appeal and have justice done. It all sounds as crazy as the film Catch 22. There MUST be a better way and the energy put into clawing back the £4.4B in tax EVASION as well as making watertight, but fair and clear rules that people can follow without a mind reader and a clairvoyant? I have absolutely no respect whatsoever for HMRC and I'm sure less and less people do, which is not a good thing for a government trying to nullify the deficit.

Some strange things said in that interview... He seems to say people make use finances as an excuse but then says the product is poor due to the pitches - good pitches cost money. He also says we'll have played Hibs seven times by the end of the season - IF on the off chance, we meet them in the cup final, I count that as six, otherwise five. I also see Tottenham as a reasonably big club of a level where you would expect them in Europe quite often as say the fourth placed team. He seems to be arguing the game would be better if it was always the same four or five teams that qualified - say Man U, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, with the new, artificial anomaly of Man City butting in. A straight 16 team league obviously would not improve the game or it's attractiveness in Scotland without some jiggery pokery, that one seems a bit naive and not so clever. Not particularly impressed with much in that interview, but think many will see it as gospel...

TO be fair, I think the difference is that the club itself wasn't involved, I think it was players independently investing their money and claiming the personal tax relief.

He's actually fairly accurate if he's talking about Moscow, Ayrshire... He's only 33 degrees out for the Russian capital... Thing is, that although he means we're on a similar latitude it is totally irrelevant as we have a very different climate to Moscow. It has a continental climate with average extremes between 24 and -11 compared to 19 and 2 degrees for Glasgow's maritime climate which is also affected by the Gulf Stream. They also have a completely different precipitation profile. When you compare Glasgow climate to anywhere, its latitude pretty much makes it an anomaly due to the GS, and so not a good metric. I really don't see how our incredibly mild winters which allow palm trees to survive around the Firth of Clyde make it one of the harshest environments.

I don't get how the story is related to the headline...

There is a commodity there - as long as there are viewers there is advertising potential, that's the market value the BBC have to compete with. With Sottish football generally having twice as many viewers per capita than England with the vast majority supporting spl teams and have roughly 10% of their population, that would value us about 8.5M for the highlights. However let's say halve that due to supporters of lower English divisions tuning in to MOTD and you come to 4.2M. Topping is asking for about 75% of that. So sounds about right. The reason we don't have a market for live games is that with sky it's all about subscriptions. The problem there is that many Scots pay for sky whether Scottish games are shown or not, as they choose the English Premiership over Scottish games. They are the ones to almost totally blame for the pittance we got there, while we were still in the top tier.

I would guess nothing, or next to nothing.

Even if we wanted to, I really don't see how we actually can forget, when the BBC, so many people in the press, Celtic fans, other teams' fans, prominent haters and others, are continually, snidely going on and on and on about it every where we look and listen. We also have repetitive threats to our trophies to deal with on a regular basis and constant references to us as a club that died. McLeod needs his head examined as what he's saying is completely out of touch and not even slightly consistent with reality. Kind of like just about anyone who has been touched by the disease of that cancerous club.

I'm not a fan of Law but Clark has yet to show himself to be an asset in the higher level games. If Law doesn't hide, he's at least capable of a top half of the SP performance. I don't see Clark as a top 6 player and Championship might be more his level. Sheils has been a reasonable impact player as others have been saying but doesn't seem to play so well from the start, but again I see him as a top 6 player. The main trouble with both those choices is that neither are top 3 players, which is what we need.

Would be happy to pull the plug on the BBC and give other broadcasters a chance.

Rangers' promotion has given him some backbone.

It's an easy decision to name Waghorn as a sub as we have seven places for three subs and not many players fit and eligible to fill the bench...

I don't think Warburton is genuine about this being the same as usual, I think he'll have a special formation for this game, and try to pull a surprise out the hat. It's what all the best managers do - you don't win much on a level playing field by being predictable.

If we had a decent ref it could have been a ruse to get Brown set off, as he'd likely see it as an opportunity to highly intimidate a young player - but it would only be at the expense of the health of a player under our charge...

For me, Walter wasn't playing a game, he was saying something that needs to be said. He's speaking for all of us - the memes among the rest of the clubs are so strong that like many abusers they have deluded themselves that they can keep kicking us and attacking us and we'll simper back all coy, apologetic and submissive. That happens to some victims, but our reaction is also normal for those of a strong constitution.

I can't see Zelalem coping with the physicality that the game will likely have. I also don't think he's mentally strong enough yet.

When Celtic almost went to the wall, what did Rangers and Rangers fans do to them? Eh..., nothing. We didn't even seriously mock them IIRC.

He might be fit enough for the last 5 minutes if we have a 2 goal lead... However, I can see us using all our subs by about 70 minutes. I think it's going to be pretty frenetic and our fitness levels will be highly tested. I assume it will be an easy week at training with respect to fitness, with more emphasis on the tactics and getting to know the opposition, as well as some set piece practice. Minimising fatigue could also be a reason for a slightly underwhelming shift against Peterhead at the weekend, despite the score and domination.

Can't see him starting. Maybe on the bench...

Ok, a figure of speech, I meant the board duties of chairing board meetings and setting and driving the agenda and providing leadership - as well as a load of other stuff. Month to month then...? BTW Is it not the chair that the CEO is responsible to, and with whom he liaises with and takes advice and direction from? That sounds week to week... My point was that I thought a lot of that stuff could be delegated to another board member, without that person needing the appellation of "Chair".

We should be nursing our wrath to keep it warm...

The most obvious thing here is that despite a more Rangers point of view, his thoughts are balanced and fair. Why can't so called, professional "journalists" do that? Also C&C Hartson and Sutton.

I don't think they will be admitting anything like that - this will probably be covered under some sort of warranty period, and I expect the issues to be blamed on unknown factors out-with their control. The contractor may not be paying either, depending on whether they insure themselves against this sort of thing (if that's possible).