LongTimeLurker

What was so bad about lower division football in the 1970s other than avoiding getting your head kicked in if you were foolish enough to go to an away game in Alloa? No plastic seats, no plastic pitches, fans still went in with a kerry oot. Simpler times...

My understanding is Bo'ness United (not a member and views expressed on here are purely my own) were actively exploring the possibility of moving to the senior grade at the same time as Kelty and Bonnyrigg were and were not roundly rubbishing the whole idea of the pyramid. Bear in mind that it was a lot easier for EoS premier clubs to take the plunge initially than it was for junior clubs that had to get the idea through club AGMs often heavily skewed towards an older generation that was still very attached to the junior grade. If Bo'ness, Bonnyrigg and Kelty had all joined the EoS at the same time, one of them could have easily been waiting four seasons to progress to the LL given how strong LTHV were at the time because of there only being that one promotion place available. More could have been done to smooth the process for the junior clubs that were actively looking into it. In the west, clubs were being told they would have to join the SoS to even be eligible for licensing. If Kelty hadn't done what they did by moving to the EoS, we could easily still be listening to Tom Johnston droning on about 150k toilet blocks.

Can understand why Bo'ness United can be targeted for this sort of comment right now but Tranent are only 5 points behind East Kilbride with a game in hand. The Lowland League is becoming stronger and will eventually be the division it always should have been if it had been filled by on field merit considerations rather than by an application process but there are still some clubs at the bottom that are at least a couple of tiers higher than they really belong in pyramid terms.

Gary Jardine of Civil Service Strollers

Yes, that happened after being promoted out of their district league and winding up in a second tier of the east region comprised mainly of clubs in the Lothians (including Dunbar AFAIR). The irony was that after moving to the North Region they initially were placed in a second division west comprised mainly of clubs in Nairnshire, Moray and Banffshire. They are an Angus club so it would arguably make more sense to be in with the Midlands League now from a travel standpoint.

Think it's noteworthy that the Ukrainians are advancing outside Bakhmut/Artemivsk in recent days: given that's the one area where the Russians had still been advancing in recent weeks and where Wagner forces are said to be concentrated. Maybe all the hype about Kherson deflected attention away from the real target again.

Sure but how realistic is that? A significant portion of that old alignment has been built over in both Ellon and Peterhead and wasn't it narrow gauge?

The Slovene stereotype in the former Yugoslavia is that they are misers and Austrians pretending to be Slavs.

Was it even as far along as a formal proposal? If the Midlands League could persuade Jeanfield, Luncarty, Kinnoull and Montrose Roselea to move back to the old Tayside region format having two divisions would be easy enough. No idea if there's any appetite at any of those clubs for that. Things are where they are not because it's the ideal league format but because it turned out to be the only available way out of an insane blazer politics logjam that finally got everybody into the pyramid. The Midlands League are probably just going to have to make the best of it basically if the four clubs mentioned above are happy where they are. Unless something finally happens with Breadalbane...

The Borders railway was mainly a Lib Dem hobbyhorse AFAIR more than an SNP one but the SNP hoped to eclipse them in the Borders so went along with it. Think Labour didn't want it to run past Gorebridge given there are few Labour voters past there and the Tories were the main opponents. The SNP will be hoping the Tories are opposed to give them a local issue to champion but it's reasonable to question why Alex Salmond didn't try to get this done when he was first minister.

Guess it pays to be a marginal constituency just like it did with the Borders rail link: https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/msp-secures-snp-commitment-to-north-east-rail-3888673 Peterhead appears to be included as well. Aberdeenshire council has always protected the old alignments for the Buchan line so this is easier to do than most reinstatements would be. Not sure the Peterhead angle would ever happen given the detour to Maud that's involved.

Sore one yesterday but here are a few youtube clips from it:

Think that's a bit of a stretch given Andrew Carnegie ultimately handed all his wealth away in an American context and is hence remembered as a great philanthropist. The Scottish stereotype in The Simpsons isn't Mr Burns but Groundskeeper Willie. In Star Trek it was Scotty. Don't think being miserly figured particularly prominently with either of them. Think some of Sir Walter Scott's novels had a role in building that stereotype in a UK context.

It has to be Rishi Sunak to stabilise the markets but if Johnson vs Sunak goes to their far right Col. Blimp membership the candidate with the lighter skin tone will no doubt win as happened last time when the other candidate was clearly way out of her depth but knew how to remind people a wee bit of Maggie T and tell them what they wanted to hear about lower taxes. Johnson shouldn't touch it with a bargepole given his legal issues but is an unscrupulous malignant narcissist so will no doubt try to make a return.

...and now come the freak outs on Russian telegram accounts:

True, but the question is always whether Vlad sees it that way. This sort of thing has been the missing ingredient on a withdrawal as opposed to an evacuation of all non-essential people so far: From what I've read in the past Nova Kakhovka can be shelled quite easily from Charivne so that would be highly significant. Guess it's time to check in on yet another Accies defeat.

Spanish people list their father's surname then their mother's as their full name, so Torres is probably correct in our way of doing things.

Sanchez?

Is it a withdrawal though or are they just evacuating all the people that don't need to have around from a military standpoint so there is less strain on their logistics? Reasons for skepticism are that Vlad needs to keep the Ukrainians as far away as possible from the inlet for the water supply canal to Crimea and if they lose this bridgehead over the Dniepr it becomes much more difficult to ever reach Odesa and Transnistria. No idea what the answer to that is but if something seems too good to be true...

The WoS premier looks much the same as the old West superleague did so understandable enough if people still use that terminology.

I've told people from Eastern Europe over the years about stuff like being stopped by a group of East German fisherman on the street in Lerwick back in the mid-80s and being asked where they could buy several hundred cans of beer for their entire crew. They refuse to believe that could have been possible. The one guy who spoke English (no doubt the Staasi dude if trusted to do that) was having difficulty understanding the locals understandably enough and didn't do much better with my central belt accent so we wound up communicating in O Grade level French. Hope they got the beer in the end. Been a while but think I recommended McEwans Export.

...the Shetland Movement will rise again. Lerwick has had a diesel-fueled power station for decades so the new grid connector cable to Scotland from Shetland has always mainly been about exporting excess wind power: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Wind_Farm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_HVDC_Connection £660 million is being spent on that. Recent events in the Baltic show how vulnerable projects like that potentially are to sabotage but think the idea that the Russians came along in a sub and snipped the internet cable is paranoia more than anything else.

Something they would need to do if they are chasing licensing this season.

Allegedly there was a woman in Georgia who managed to accidentally cut the entire Republic of Armenia off from the internet with some unfortunate digging with a garden spade.