WaffenThinMint

To be fair to the journalists, in part they are expected to play upon Old Firm fans own delusions of grandeur. There's one in my work who is adamant that his half are one of the biggest clubs in the world, has one of the biggest supports in the world, and deserves to be treated as such every time the mythical European League/Atlantic League crap starts doing the rounds. By way of comparison, the Calcutta derby between Mohun Bagan & East Bengal regularly gets crowds of about 80 000 (whilst the rest of their league's clubs only scrape by on a couple of thousand at best - sounds familiar?) but no one outside of India gives a shit about them because they're two big clubs in a diddy league whose support is largely based around appealing to petty sectarianism & whose performances against clubs from outside their wee pond range from competent to embarrassing. Indeed a rival India Super League has been set up along more professional lines specifically to circumvent the poisonous stranglehold those two sides have on the domestic game & appear to be having some success.

No matter what he's claiming, it's pretty obvious it's because of Corbyn that he's going. Paul Nuttall's first proper test as a leader & failure by Labour to keep this seat could trigger off others jumping ship. Certainly the locals only let Labour keep it because Reed was so up the nuclear industry's arses, but it's almost written in the stars that Corbyn & the Momentum lot will interfere with the selection process to put one of their own kind up for it. Could be interesting.

The Russian ambassador to Turkey has been shot in Ankara. That'll be Dobbie Putin looking for everyone to butter him up again.

Or businessmen wanting to exploit the powers of a local council for commercial ends - the old District councils were almost master classes in this. A big part of the problem used to be that all they were paid was expenses for a role which could eat into a lot of their time - & they're expected to be available to their constituents 24/7 (in practice is another matter). Think what it must have been like in the days before answerphones became affordable & you'd get council tenants phoning you at 3 in the morning because their pipes had burst & expecting you to wave a magic wand! So only the retired or those with dubious motives would want to be councillors. The system's not perfect just now, but better than what it was, & the change to multi-member seats has definitely forced councillors to behave less like children (some areas more than others, true).

If it's any comfort, "Whistle Stop" was used in a McDonald's advert a few years back & had the same effect across the globe (although McDonald's motivation was it had been used in the Hampster Dance meme). Good old Roger "King Of The Road" Miller. By the way, the police are getting younger, getting younger every day: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38356152

What can I say other than HibeeJibee would have been proud of that one. All the damning facts, concisely put & left largely to speak for themselves. It's worrying to hear any supposed SNP supporters going already down the road of arrogance long taken by Labour that other parties are "taking our votes". The SNP took a long, long time to get where they are today, & a big part of that was learning (the hard way) not to have the hubris of the old "big three" in taking voters for granted or to expect others to stand aside for them. The SNP are a minority administration, they need to learn to work with other parties (& others in turn with them) or it's the very Scotland they want to change for the better which loses out. Moreover the SNP (to paraphrase an old song), had better not forget it's we who put them where they are now - and we can put them back down too.

I was perplexed when the government decided to ban National Action - a shower of pathetic spotty wee fannies whose activities in practice outside of bigging themselves up 24/7 appeared to be youtubing themselves and trolling - until the BBC reports about Tinfoil Theresa going after Labourites cosying up to anti-semites, whoops "anti-Zionists". Somehow I doubt that her new found stance is going to result in Eddie Morrison, Kevin Watmough, Richard Edmonds & their ilk getting their long overdue bed & board c/o HM Prison service & this precedent simply being an excuse to uselessly bash HM Loyal Opposition when they're doing such a splendid job of destroying themselves.

Edinburgh City's first victory over Stirling Albion - or their first win over them since 16th April 1938, depending on your viewpoint!

Very poor turnout, only 37% compared to 70% at the last GE. Caroline Johnson (Cons) 17,570 (53.51%, -2.68%) Victoria Ayling (UKIP) 4,426 (13.48%, -2.21%) Ross Pepper (Lib Dem) 3,606 (10.98%, +5.33%) Jim Clarke (Lab) 3,363 (10.24%, -7.02%) Marianne Overton (Lincs Ind) 2,892 (8.81%, +3.59%) Sarah Stock (Ind) 462 (1.41%) The Iconic Arty-Pole (Loony) 200 (0.61%) Paul Coyne (ND) 186 (0.57%) Mark Suffield (ND) 74 (0.23%) David Bishop (Bus Pass Elvis) 55 (0.17%) Con majority 13,144 (40.03%) Electorate 88,712; Turnout 32,834 (37.01%, minus 33.23%) Bad news for UKIP - no question about it. Their share of the vote went down after all their efforts & they came nowhere close to beating the Tories. Bad news also for Labour, who despite campaigning on the issue of local health services saw their share down 7%. Good news for the Lib Dems though, doubling their share of the vote and actually managed to beat the Church of the Militant Elvis candidate David Bishop this time (unlike in a certain local council by-election two years ago)! Marianne Overton's vote went down by 341 votes, but her overall percentage of the vote went up a respectable 3%, and for the third time in a row has saved her deposit. Less fortunate was the other Lincolnshire independent councillor, Mark Suffield - the first to hand in his nomination papers - whose behaviour at his local Armistice Day remembrance service (after which he claimed to have "withdrawn from the by-election) may have resulted in so few of his supporters bothering to turn out for him; along with the accusations of attempting to split the vote & cost the official Lincolnshire Independents adopted candidate her deposit. The biggest embarrassment must have been for the Green Party and Fighting 4 Grantham Hospital campaign candidate Sarah Stock. "Save our local hospital/A&E" candidates are all but guaranteed a respectable chunk of the vote, yet despite the joint endorsement she did piss poor.

You're having a breakdown here: already you've backpedalled from "The BBC does not rely on viewing figures, as a public broadcaster those are irrelevant." now to "Any public broadcaster is much less dependent on ratings"! But to get back to your claims which were - and I quote - " a public one like the BBC makes the exact same amount of money anyway whether anyone watches at all" (wrong!) and "it's budget is unaffected by ratings" (wrong!) About 20% of the BBC's funding comes from the BBC's commercial businesses: selling on programmes and spin off merchandise (DVDs/BluRays, tie in books, etc) which can be sold both here and abroad. To quote from their website: "BBC Worldwide is the main commercial arm and a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The business exists to support the BBC public service mission and to maximise profits on its behalf." So much for it "makes the exact same amount of money anyway" and that "it's budget is unaffected by ratings" when 20% of its funding comes from commercial interests - a matter of ever increasing importance with the corporation being told it has to save £550m a year by 2021-22 ( £150m of that by the end of 2017). Indeed, in 2014/15, BBC Worldwide generated profits of £138.6m and sales of £1,001.8m, which resulted in a £226.5m return to the BBC (a record) for budgeting on whatever it pleased the following year. So no, the BBC does not make the exact same amount of money regardless - a sizeable chunk of its budget is determined by how much people worldwide (whether other broadcasters or the general public) are buying into their products & services (which is one of the major complaints from competitors such as Sky that - in receiving public funding and getting to profiteer from the exploitation rights partly funded by it - the BBC gets to have its cake and eat it, But that's another debate entirely, & tough titty Sky, etc. as far as I'm concerned!).

Actually, @20% of the BBC's funding comes from the BBC's commercial businesses (primarily BBC Worldwide) & 5% via direct government grants (mainly from the foreign office in return for the BBC World Service) which they are expected to become more reliant on rather than rely on the licence fees more & more are dodging. This has been the case for almost a decade, & hence the increasing reliance on resellable "brands" such as "Dr Who" & "Strictly Come Dancing" along with the whole historical chick lit craze a few years back (Pride & Prejudice, etc) with a high revenue generation value both in the UK and abroad (for both broadcast and in DVD/BluRay sales). So, as I've said, your claim that Auntie Beeb "doesn't rely on ratings at all" is laughably incorrect. That's my point - it's supposed to be a Gaelic channel, but has English interviews that don't even have Gaelic subtitles when being conducted (in the same manner TV shows shown in English have subtitles when people are speaking another language). If the point of Gaelic broadcasting is to encourage people to learn & continue using the language, they're not even pretending by this omission that showing the games is anything other than artificially inflating the viewing figures to justify the channel's funding sources.

Ah yes, so that's why the soap Eldorado was cancelled with indecent haste, why the Daily Mail's favourite BBC 2 show Gaytime TV (no, really!) bit the dust after four years, why BBC Alba shows football matches where the player interviews are all in English instead of Gaelic in order to artificially inflate its viewing figures & justify its existence & EU funding (though not for long, of course)... need I go on?

If you think the BBC doesn't care about viewing figures, there's a few tins of tartan paint I'd love to sell you. Or alternatively, the proof in the pudding - Eastenders. Started way back in the days before governments insisted they made money as much as spending it (the primary reason behind the Dr Who reboot), this was purely because Auntie Beeb was sick of getting creamed by Corrie in the ratings all the time & decided a tabloid soap was the way to succeed, which (for a time) it did.

OK, let's give you the two syllable words & big pictures explanation. The BBC relies on good viewing figures to justify the budgets they set for their programmes & ultimately the money they get from the government to exist. Therefore, you have on not-so-popular shows such as Question Time people whose very presence is likely to artificially boost viewing figures, such as yesteryear celebrities (Johnny Rotten, Jarvis Cocker, Boy George, Stephen Fry, etc) or people from parties popular in the zeitgeist for a bit of "oh the humanity!" feigned outrage. UKIP at their tabloidy worst fit the bill so well, they're almost like the BBC created them for the job. You also allow the various political parties to stuff the audience with their own agent provocateurs by giving them tickets you deny thrice before cockcrow you are doing, in order to ensure you get a lively debate & not your average dull town hall hustings. If you watched QT regularly, you would know people being hidebound over a particular issue for several weeks in succession really is nothing new eg. the Scottish independence referendum, which was the subject of English seethe for months afterwards at the sheer audacity the vote was allowed in the first place.

There's a simple reason for that, & that's the willingness of especially UKIP members to drop everything at the drop of a hat to accommodate the merest number of seconds of media time proffered; combined with the fact other major parties' people have to go through hoops nowadays before they are given "clearance" to speak to the press, whereas UKIP's slapdash organisation has given members more freedom to do so, to both the party's advantage & disadvantage. The BBC are doing the right thing for their ratings by exploiting this - stick a Kipper or a Scot Nat on, you get people watching (even if it's only to shout abuse at the telly). Stick someone from the Greens or LIb Dems on, people watch something else.

The Hobbits have needed a miracle to get back in the race proper, and they've got their miracle - now it's all down to who is going to hold their nerve. Well done to those in charge for taking victory with such immense good grace, as per their Twitter thread: Perfect timing too, coming on the day Edinburgh City finally got off the bottom of the SPFL & indeed jumped up above two other sides (including Montrose, who have stood on the trapdoor more times than John Babbacombe Lee) to prove coming up from the Lowlands isn't the step too high the naysayers sneered.

It was Talk Radio with a seasoned journalist - what did she expect, Lorraine Kelly type fluffy bunny questions about who she thought was going to win Strictly? It was a standard question raised since the EU referendum (what defines a legitimate mandate & what does not) & one she ought to have had a prepared answer for, that she did not & had to be rescued by her agent is beyond pathetic.

Your intention was good, DeeTillEhDeh, the delivery unfortunately sucked. Anyway, it's the LibDems that have always been known as the Dead Parrot Party due to their logo. Back on topic, there's far too much being extrapolated over the Richmond Park result. The Lib Dems were the only organised party machine fighting the by election in a seat they once held & the truth is failure to take the seat against an independent with no party machine (and it has emerged little local organisation worth talking about) would have been the final nail in their coffin. Having been given a free hand by Labour (who have a long history of token campaigns in seats where Liberals stand a chance of unseating Tories) and the Greens, and the by-election being turned into a localised poll over Brexit in a strong Remain area, really there was no way that thing which looks like one of the growly vamps from the old Buffy The Vampire Slayer series ought to have lost - & I suspect the Tories behaviour (warning local party members on the QT of the consequences if they campaigned openly for Goldsmith) wanted one of their own taught a lesson about what happened should you try rebelling against HQ. Already Olney is proving to be a complete disaster, her party obliging her to flounce off in a huff in the middle of a radio interview a mere three hours after being elected. http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/listen-julia-hartley-brewer-trolls-sarah-olney-second-election/ Next week's by election will be interesting purely from the point of view the Flip Flops will not only have to fight UKIP again, but the strong Lincolnshire Independents, whose candidate Marianne Overton took 3,806 votes (6.4%) in 2010 and 3,233 (5.2%) in 2015, & of course a proper Labour by election machine anxious not to finish third behind UKIP. A disastrous result for the Fibbers will put matters nicely back into context.

Nah, I've got a girlfriend who's better than that.

Debatably a better band when they ditched Frankie boy - a friend sent me The Tall Ships & Map Of The Past a few years back & couldn't believe this was the same mob behind Calling All The Heroes & Still Too Young To Remember. There's upping your game, & there's releasing back to back albums which sound like everything good about old Rush & old Genesis combined. Despite twice getting nominated for the best album in the Prog Rock Awards (both times pipped by Rush), it appears they got disillusioned with the lack of sales & have packed it in again. Shame.

Previous ward results: May 2012 :SNP 1624 Ind 955 C 547 Lab 472 LD 109 May 2007 : SNP 1902 Ind 1322 C 789 Lab 677 LD 504 The seat was certainly a personal hold for one of the Spinks families (they of the Smokies) who got a quarter of all the first preference votes alone, & with them out of the equation the SNP were always the best placed to pick up, especially with such a poor turnout of 21.5%. Interesting to see the Tory candidate picked up the best from the Spinks departure, considering how unpopular the Tories have been amongst the fishing community over being largely for the Remain campaign. The plot further thickens with rumours the Tory election agent didn't exactly do a day's work over personal axes to grind with their candidate. Atypical bad turnout means bad Labour night (almost a quarter of their vote could only be arsed), but what were the LibDems thinking standing someone from Forfar as their candidate in Arbroath (& one that's only moved up recently from York at that!)?

Most of those in the west of Scotland have that many tattoos the only places left to stick any tattoos on them would be their internal organs.

The trouble is that it's historical and cultural significance in a British context to be honest aren't any greater than that of a large number of other historical buildings in the country. It's only been since the times of Silly Billy that Bucks became a royal residence & even then it wasn't until Victoria that it became a semi-permanent one. But yes, agree completely this is a waste of a unique opportunity. Turf the royals out, repair it, give it to English Heritage, and let's have another London site to fleece gullible American tourists of their ill gotten money. It would also make a bloody excellent setting for outdoor concerts.

You asked for this:-

A few hours and the inevitable later... https://twitter.com/kittycatboyd?lang=en "This account's Tweets are protected" Hmmm, wonder why that is? Pro-EU panellist blasts Brexit and then admits she DIDN'T VOTE AN ANTI-Brexit Question Time panellist has been humiliated after she revealed she did not vote in the momentous referendum on June 23. Cat Boyd, who co-founded the Radical Independence Campaign and Scottish Left Project, heavily criticised Britain’s decision to quit the European Union this year but was quickly ridiculed following the revelation. She first ripped into Theresa May's party for allegedly not having a Brexit plan, and said: “I think it’s going to take a very long time for any type of plan to emerge. “This referendum was thrusted upon the general public because of a split in the Tory party. Politicians who drove round in that Vote Leave bus are liars.” But when BBC presenter David Dimbleby asked the trade unionist how she voted, she revealed: “I didn’t actually vote. I abstained.” This led to raucous response from the crowd in Stirling who were itching to lay into the Scottish independence supporter. One seething audience member said: “How can you sit there and talk about it if you didn’t even vote? “We’re sitting here listening to your opinion, you didn’t have an opinion, you didn’t give it at the referendum.” Ms Boyd attempted to cover up her glaring error, and said: “I technically was out of the country when the vote took place." But this only stoked the frenzy of the furious crowd with one audience member shouting: “Rubbish”. A hapless Boyd then attempted to justify voicing her opinion despite not voting by comparing it to picking between going to dinner with George Osborne or Boris Johnson. Her struggles did not go unnoticed on social media as many viewers took to Twitter to blast the panellist. One user wrote: “Cat Boyd's credibility on Question Time was undermined by her statement that she didn't vote in EU referendum.” Another user added: “Cat Boyd complaining about the EU referendum result whilst not even voting on the matter.” Her backtracking was considered a “meltdown” by other Twitter users. Charlie Legg tweeted: “Never seen anything quite like Cat Boyd meltdown on Question Time after admitting she didn't vote in the Referendum… Put up or shut up.” Ian Funnell added: “If you want to see whats wrong with the left just look at Cat Boyd lecturing on Brexit then admit she didn’t even vote.” Wonder what excuses will be trotted out for her shitgibbonry this time?