L. Brilliant

That's all pretty daft eh. You're probably only joking. We've got about the same fanbase as Livi, Ross County, probably more than Hamilton and not far off St Johnstone. For clubs that don't just go radge in their overdraft and hope they find the end of the rainbow, the normal way to do it is work out how much those fans are going to spend into the club, what other income is guaranteed or very likely, and spend about that on their team and stadium (while trying to bring a few young players through etc). There's about 12-15 teams in our bracket, along with those above, and when we're on the upswing we compete with them. Meanwhile, Motherwell, Killie, St Mirren, Dundee etc, even Hibs or Dundee Utd are never more than a couple of bad decisions away from that level temporarily as well. Getting into the top tier is a rare thing and is the very top of our reach. We could build a team for the premier more slowly, but the momentum of just having been promoted was always going to be our best chance at competing to go up. That, or having come down again with a bit of money earned in one frugal premier season. Maybe your pals will only be happy with top 6 but that's 2-3 times a century for a club our size, the majority are realistic about what success looks like for us.

Here - I was about to post without watching it again. But look closely: Parry lifts his hand to Ugwu after the ball's past him. It's obviously not enough to knock him down and it's not violent. But it's making contact with him when the ball's away. With the 'making himself big' argument, that move is done to give yourself a chance of blocking the ball wherever it goes, it's not a deliberate attempt to play the ball. Shroedinger's ball maybe. A defender couldn't use that logic against a player running towards him. But Parry doesn't do that, he tries to play it - yellow card only. Until the hand comes up and plays Ugwu. In a really pathetic way, the ref could have it almost sort of right. 5.55 in the video. Game's gone etc

Far from being just because us jealous diddies hate them etc, it's just giving them an extra means of hoarding players who the other clubs can't then develop. Other clubs whose only hope of competing above their level now and again is bringing through some players they could never afford to recruit as adults. Just one more way of cementing dominance for two clubs. If we have a meritocratic pyramid now, the very least we should be countering with is that they start in the Lowland League. The real answer needs to be that in the interests of a competitive top league (and credible lower leagues worth competing for), this is not allowed at all.

Armstrong's fine there, just a wee bit wee for back post headers. Gives you enough in the forward half to make up for it IMO. Mon. Bit scary to play a huge game on the front foot but I hope we do.

Confidence shouldn't be too knocked by taking the high-flyers to ET. We don't have the squad (defence especially) to sustain a cup run and a serious playoff campaign. This is fine. Good to see we can compete and any eventual playoff opponent you'd expect to be poorer than Livi.

Well I couldn't have called that one much more wrongly and that's fine by me. Never seen a derby win like that in 30 years of going, even the 3-0s were tight games until something turned them but this was an absolute lesson. Not one for getting it up Stevie Crawford, a big player in our history and obviously had a bad time last night. Need to find time to watch that all again. Here, one shout out for Dan Armstrong who was maybe unfortunate to be dropped but came on in a defensive position and gave a really professional display, did his bit with discipline. Wingers might be hot and cold by nature but he applied himself and mucked in there. Fair play.

Not been on much so I didn't real I there was so much negativity about King. He's doing a job I reckon but not the kind of job that makes you popular. No matter how good a win would be here we're not going to be as open as the first half of the season. King will play and sit I reckon, and yeah he'll probably pass it sideways a lot, because he's supposed to. If this goes well for us it will be stuffy and short on chances, but if Vaughan is able to start I think we're looking there for something to come off for us, or a set piece obviously. Going to be tight unless we have a nightmare again.

Too right. Find myself listening more and more. Did you see them at Celtic Connections thon time?

Chile continued

Don't get me wrong I like the Drift and Tilt and that but I also like this pish one quite a lot

If he can play in front of the defence and offer a bit of protection then I think it makes plenty of sense. Some of our central defenders have obvious weaknesses but near enough any CB looks bad when they're left exposed.

The obvious point is that he should be in line with the rest of the defence and if he's captain I think holding him responsible for that is fair.

Enjoy your blank screen and Twitter updates professor!

I just popped in to see if anyone had posted Everywhere at the End of Time. Bleak AF but really amazing.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/gary-numan-says-he-was-paid-37-from-a-million-streams-2860258

The price per stream is very low either way - and it's the same whether you're Celine Dion or Billy Bin Juice. The streaming giants make massive profits, because what punters actually pay per stream is obviously not as low. But I don't really expect them to do anything other than keep as much as they can get away with, I blame the artists for giving it away and then complaining afterwards. I feel pretty strongly that older acts feel wrongly entitled to an income off their music, because they once made one - and they then accrue big production costs to make a record with no guarantee that it's good. A track or bundle of tracks is really only 'worth' what someone is willing to pay for it, and most consumers don't care whether it cost £0 to make in an attic or £50k at Air Studios. The entitlement distorts the debate IMVHO. But, if you want someone to keep doing it, and you want them to have a budget, buy something from them - bandcamp is worth exploring. But the question was about streaming recommendations. Spotify is good for me, there are things missing but the selection is still vast. Playlists and so on are convenient both for organising what you like already and for finding things through others. I think there will be a trend though, that no-hopers pay to be streamable on these platforms, next big acts with backing, while middling acts look for better value by staying off and directly selling instead (bandcamp is only one example).

What do you base that on? I don't think it's correct. I think the price per stream paid to the owner, whether that's label or publisher and whether that is also the artist or not, is known to be very low. Basing that on the royalty statements I get myself - and I repeat it's price per stream I mean, not claiming to be a big hitter. The problem is that artists, whether it's directly or through labels, give their music away to these platforms and don't collectively bargain for a fairer value. I don't really think it's down to the consumer to then find some way of rectifying that though, so have no qualms about people using Spotify or that, like I do myself (it's convenient). I think Bandcamp is really good as well, quite myspacey in a good way. I feel like it should be more streamy, and I imagine there's an app that would let you play more varied stuff together? But I don't have any space to install anything anyway. As a user, I would probably recommend Spotify and I do pay the tenner monthly. As someone very minorly invested in returns for 'artists' I'd say fill your boots torrenting stuff, but when you think something's particularly good buy something off the band. For me that'll be vinyl in rare cases or a t shirt or whatever. I'm not going to cart CDs around and I've probably already got a wav file...

Glad to be schooled in the 80s and 90s when the difference between 'worse' and 'worst' was not some mystery you just had to have a guess at. Even with Black Lace blaring I managed to absorb it.

Happy to play this later when we'll have McDonalds back and maybe somebody new in?

Don't think the formation can be blamed so long as we have guys filling in. I'm not keen for saying individuals are pish etc but we know that was not the first XI and crucially it's a right footed CB at left back (regardless of what a professional shift he put in there). Opponents don't have to be that smart to capitalise on this. If there's any budget at all I'd hope we were looking at guys that can cover multiple positions and ideally someone would be left footed. All depends on our ambitions for the season I'm sure. If three big boys up top is really our plan B until Vaughan features then it really needs work.

https://open.spotify.com/ Find the web player for desktop computer here. Sign in here with the same details and you should find the same stuff, but adverts will interrupt your listening. Assuming it's all there, download the spotify app on the new few, sign in again and there it'll be. There are a few variations on the membership, like family membership £13 a month or so. On behalf of all songwriters and composers, please consider some other method of consuming that pays us better

Not suggesting it's a 'should-win' or that I expect to, but it is a huge game given the run of games that soon follows. Would be reluctant to take a draw on that basis. Tight one though.