LongTimeLurker

He seemed to be able to track down the poster who used TomJohnstonsmagicjobby as a handle on here and got him to cease and desist, so suspect he knows his way around this forum.

There is a school of thought that all bird species are descended from the dinosaurs, so that's not necessarily true. Beyond that sometimes it's better to let the other person have the last word and let others decide what it said about their IQ and emotional maturity level.

The potential for a car crash in all of this is that the Lowland League playoff games are currently scheduled for the first two weekends of May and that means champions would need to be sorted out almost two months before the junior season typically ends at the moment. There would be a lot to negotiate if the east and west superleague hooked into the LL in pro/rel terms.

...and why would it be Rey that rises so spectacularly to meet Kylo if there are lots of force sensitive people kicking about like the wee guy at the end, and why would she so conveniently run into BB8 and Finn in TFA and know how to fly the Millennium Falcon. You don't need to be a plastic light sabre waving fanboy to expect some sort of explanation for that before the end of the trilogy.

Difficult part is when it has to be voted through by members at an AGM. Think it is Clydebank, Girvan, Rossvale and Gartcairn that are most likely to go for it as they are not traditional junior clubs and it might be the smaller ones that have little regular support and are more under the control of direct participants that might be willing to give it a go if they are not too far off on licensing. At the very least the clubs should be able to use this to demand that the fixture list gets sorted out or else as Kilwinning Rangers appear to be doing at the moment.

Check back through the thread and the first part appears to have been answered in the affirmative.

The thing that remains to be explained about Rey is why she is so strong with the Force and the Anakin reincarnation thing would tie that up nicely and silence all the Mary Sue complaints once and for all, especially if she is going to be the founder of a new Jedi Order with Yoda showing up as a force ghost to guide her as appeared to be the reason why she would wind up with the old books from the island. With that out the way they have a clean slate for the next trilogy revolving around the first generation of new Jedi that she trains. Given the same director is involved on that as with TLJ the only reason for the convoluted casino planet side plot appeared to me to be to set the stage for that in some way.

Think the powerbrokers would have two major problems. Firstly persuading the HL to move away from its current 18 team format and potentially include colt teams from Perth and Dundee, and secondly persuading the smaller full-time clubs in the west of Scotland that the SoS league is where their U-20 development side belongs. The moves by BSC Glasgow would help to address the second issue with potential entry into the new League 3 being their true unstated motivation.

There was a newspaper article a few months back that I am currently unable to find that claimed there was a plan to start a new ten club League 3 with four colt teams and the top HL and LL clubs that would have automtic pro/rel to League 2 and that the bottom club in that new division would have the playoff game with the HL and LL champions. Find it hard to believe that a club like BSC Glasgow are doing something on a WoS League in isolation that is not tied into other moves that are already underway at the moment on league restructuring given they would stand to benefit from that type of restructure of tier 5 of the senior grade's pyramid.

The more obsessive fans that understand all the timelines involved think the sister of Kylo thing doesn't work. No idea how that works, but they usually get those things right. At the end of the teddy bear's picnic film in the first trilogy Anakin Skywalker appeared as a force ghost along with Yoda and Obiwan Kenobi after Luke had a funeral pyre for his father's remains. That raises the question of why he doesn't return Yoda and Obiwan style to tell his grandson Kylo Ren to get a grip and drop his Darth Vader fixation. Think the answer is that he has since reincarnated as Rey somehow and the next episode will be Vader wannabe last of the Skywalkers vs Anakin reincarnation and new chosen one bringing balance to the force. The wee dude with the broom at the end will probably be the hero of the next trilogy, so Rey is very much expendable if Daisy Ridley sticks to her guns about being out after the three trilogy films she is contracted for and will probably be no more successful than Luke was on bringing everything to resolution anyway given that would be no more trilogies.

Would be good, if that was really the end game, but do the existing SFA full members want 160+ junior clubs gatecrashing their party when it comes to receiving subsidies from the SFA? Why not just have the east and west superleagues hooking in as feeders to the LL and have any junior club that gets licensed and wins the league title in the LL playoff? The only reason to launch a WoS league is to keep the juniors semi-detached and blocked from pursuing club licensing and full SFA membership. I strongly suspect any WoS league is really about shoehorning colt teams in rather than having the likes of Talbot, Clydebank and Pollok gatecrashing the old EoS premier's new playpen, unfortunately.

Not sure it really ripped up where TFA was heading, if you had no preconceived ideas from the extended universe. On Rey's parents, for example, people tied themselves in knots in youtube clips for two years over it, but in the final analysis what kind of parents other than a pair of total wasters would leave their sprog in the care of a character like Unkar Plutt? That was a good fit for what happened previously and I suspect it's heading for a reincarnation of the special one reveal from Yoda's force ghost in the last installment of the trilogy now Luke's out the way because a "Rey I'm your son" moment would have been too weird. On Snoke, is the lack of back story any different from the way the Emperor character was handled in the original trilogy and was the death not somewhat similar? Nothing hugely untoward there. The character was very much in the way of the ultimate Rey vs Kylo showdown that will round it all off, so had run his course as a plot device, if Kylo wasn't going to be redeemed.

Guess if anybody is in the know on here they've been told to keep it under wraps. As things stand there's nothing stopping a Colt team playing in the EoS or SoS, but they can't get promoted any higher from there. Hibs operated a team like that in the EoS a few years back, so there is even a recent precedent. The end game though appears to be eventual entry into the SPFL through promotion where the Old Firm are concerned. Given that appears to be about as welcome as an Ebola outbreak among the followers of League One and Two clubs, the full-time clubs probably need the nonleague full members on board when rule changes come to a vote at SFA level, so some wider revamp of tiers 5 and 6 and cash injection might be on the cards.

Happy Life Day everybody!

To be fair though all of the films had major plot issues like that. Rogue One was an elaborate way of finally explaining away some of the absurdities of the original installment. In general this latest film focused on providing an entertaining couple of hours to the watch it once and then move on mainstream audience and was basically the Star Wars version of Bill Schatner's it's time to move out of your parents' basement Saturday Night Live skit where the obsessives are concerned by deliberately not focussing on Snoke's backstory and Rey's parents. What George Lucas needed to do at some point with the prequels basically instead of going all trade negotiations and mitochlorian on the audience.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/poll-half-of-scots-back-an-independent-scotland-in-eu-1-4646247 16-34 year old 66:34 Yes 55+ 36:64 46% of 2017 Westminster Labour voters would vote Yes, while 14% of SNP voters would vote No 19% each of Better Together and Indy voters have changes sides since 2014. Better times ahead again for the SNP by the looks of things if there is a soft Brexit as the deal over the RoI-NI border seems to require.

A reminder on what the SPFL have been up to on Colt teams and that it isn't just the Old Firm that are potentially involved even if that's the angle that the Daily Record always talks up: https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/competitions/premiership/spfl-consider-introducing-colt-teams-into-league-system-1-4473517 Glenconner claimed a while back that six SPFL clubs had expressed an interest:

West region clubs are affiliated SFA members even if they are not full SFA members, so if you are trying to launch a new league under the SFA you would normally be expected to notify all potentially interested parties as happened with the Lowland League. Beyond that it's more a case of them not actually needing lots of junior clubs to be involved to potentially be able to do this than not wanting them.

If EK and Cumbernauld Colts do the same, and you throw in Glasgow Uni and Bonnyton Thistle and a few colt teams, this could easily be launched with little or no junior involvement. When the Lowland League was formed junior clubs were contacted as a courtesy but there was no huge expectation that any of them would actually join as the EoS premier clubs (mainly Spartans) were setting the agenda and were pushing their own selfish self-interest rather than some grand vision of building a genuine pyramid. There have been media reports about the Old Firm colt teams joining the senior grade pyramid as soon as next season and this is probably the only way they are going to get their foot in the door, because the lower division SPFL clubs are not going to agree to having them parachuted into League Two.

Suspect it would all quickly be headed off at the pass by a posse of irate pensioners on moblity scooters where the vast majority of junior clubs are concerned. The way it might happen is with a mix of colt teams and ambitious amateur/youth clubs with only the four recent additions to juniorfootball (i.e. Clydebank, Girvan, Rossvale and Gartcairn) being likely candidates from the juniors. Time will tell.

It probably ties into providing a viable starting point for colt teams to enter the senior grade's pyramid as I doubt the powers that be at the SFA would care about the issue otherwise.

Thought the film was OK (if far from a classic) apart from the Leia flying scene (although I guess it was a useful improvised plot device to sideline Carrie Fisher until they needed to trundle her out again for one last reunion with Luke, as a character was all too obviously added in out of nowhere to take what were originally going to be her lines if her acting had still been up to snuff). But apart from any nitpicking over the laws of physics, getting Mark Hamill to play a bitter old hasbeen was probably the best way to deal with his limited acting abilities as he really just needed to be himself for that and I liked how they handled Rey's parentage. Tempted to trawl through old posts to revisit that issue with the posters who thought they knew for sure she was Luke's daughter and were waiting for a plot that revolved around Mara Jade or whatever she was called.

Lots of Gaelic names got anglicised over the centuries. McDaids appear to have changed into Davidsons in my family tree a few miles over the partition line from the failed gerrymandered and demographically doomed Orange statelet or whatever the prevailing terminology on here is at the moment. I suspect that a DUP politician like Jeffrey Donaldson could easily be descended from McDonnells if you went far enough back. The idea that one side in Ulster are usurping planters and the other indigenous dispossessed natives doesnt really stand up too well to close inspection, because converts have always been accepted in both directions and there has always been a percentage of mixed marriages taking place.

Farage and co are not going to go away obviously, but a huge chunk of Leave voters never wanted a Hard Brexit so now that Theresa May has finally been forced to follow what rationality dictates rather than pandering any further to the crazier portion of Leave opinion I think it will be difficult to reverse the momentum towards a soft Brexit revolving around a Canada style free trade deal with a transition period extended until it can be fully implemented.

Great article on what has happened from Dublin, although think he's wrong about the DUP at the end not getting what they want: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-ireland-has-just-saved-the-uk-from-the-madness-of-a-hard-brexit-1.3320096?mode=amp The last thing an Irish nationalist is ever going to be able to state is that the DUP have come out on top as a zero sum game mentality still very much applies that precludes the possibility of both FG and the DUP being justifiably happy with what has just unfolded. It will no doubt be much the same from a Unionist perspective in the News Letter on how the RoI has to have lost in some way. Overall though the RoI-NI border has been the issue on which the Hard Brexit of the "swivel-eyed loons" and their "great blue yonder of Empire 2.0" has foundered and thank fork for that.