Frankie S

Excellent player, along with Jason Kerr he was one of the most solid centre halves I’ve seen at the club for a long time. Pity they were both on loan deals. Clearly has the potential to go on to greater things. Surprised Sheffield United let him go. Very good signing for Ross County.

Fintan O’Toole of the Irish Times spot on about Brexit in today’s Guardian. It was never about them, it’s about us. It was never about Europe

As someone who has spent a fair bit of time time in Brighton, I would regard it as a fairly tough adjudication. Technically correct, no dispute, but Brighton is used, even by locals, synonymously with Brighton and Hove. Common usage trumps strict accuracy in this instance I would say. It would be analogous if you asked in which city the poet Philip Larkin worked as a University librarian and then docked people half a point for putting Hull, when technically it’s Kingston upon Hull. But then again, I would say that ;-)

Dobbie wasn’t remotely match fit in the last game against Ayr, his first game back since his hamstring tear. He’s just getting back up to full speed now. Nevertheless, injuries notwithstanding, it’ll be an interesting contest between them for the rest of the season. No-one else is remotely in the race, a testament to the quality of both players.

Apart from the bit where you said ‘After the Dundee away game I was expecting Shankland to run away with it.’

Dobbie’s longest run of games in the league without scoring this season is 2. He was never going three in a row without scoring. It may way go all the way to the end of the season, but Shankland is never going to run away with it.

As debates go, it would be a short one. Given that he’s scored 32 goals in all competitions already, and that two of the games he missed were against Alloa and Dunfermline, it’s pretty much a given he’d have added to his tally.

And had Dobbie not done his hamstring celebrating scoring the winner against Thistle at the start of Dec, missing three league games, he wouldn’t have been playing catch up.

Spring 2014 film from up and coming directorial duo Justin Benson and Aaron Muirhead. Unusual mash up of indie mumblecore, coming of age holiday romance flick and horror movie. Richard Linklater meets David Cronenberg. Highly rated by Guillermo del Toro, who praised its Lovecraftian influences. Must admit I was bored by the first 30 mins or so, which was so clumsily thrown together it could have been directed by Eli Roth. The loudmouth, sweary Brit tourists the protagonist meets when he arrives in Italy were so poorly drawn (and acted) I was ready to switch off there and then. Glad I stuck with it though as it definitely improves as it goes along, though it’s not remotely bothered with trifling encumbrances such as plausibility (both a good thing and a bad thing here). It turned out to be quite touching, rather eerie, and occasionally a little disquieting. 7/10.

Naysmith’s record compared to his divisional rivals is curiously difficult to assess, because he’s simultaneously operating with one huge advantage (Dobbie) and one huge disadvantage (the shallowest first team squad in the division). It seems to me blindingly obvious that standing fourth in league, and playing some great football at times, in a season when we can rarely fill the subs bench is a formidable achievement, though the curious case of one exceptional player (who is head and shoulders above his peers) slumming it at a level well below his ability does provide some mitigation for those who would wish to temper the manager’s achievements with the customary brand of Dumfries ‘glass half empty’ pessimism.

Apologies sir, thought it was a one-off cup competition. Not been on the site much lately tbh.

There is a bit of ' how dare Britain speak out' to this. The prols will be shafted when brexit is ditched and Mr 'left wing' Corbyn is replaced by a Blairite. Anyone who actually believes we are living in a free democracy needs their head examined. Elitists and big business will prevail. The adverse economic consequences of (any form of) Brexit will be damaging to all business - big, medium-sized and small. If plebiscites are regarded as the ultimate expression of democracy, as seems to be the implication here, then going back to the public when we now have a greater understanding of the consequences of our (previously ill-informed) actions is obviously not anti-democratic, no matter how the Brexiteers wish to dress it up. We live in a parliamentary democracy however, and if our representatives had the courage of their convictions they would revoke article 50 themselves, as it’s clearly an act of utter folly and counter to the national interest, but as the majority of them seem to be terrified of the backlash from the extremists and xenophobes, they’ll most likely hand it back to the public, eventually.

I liked Harkins and will miss him. Along with Dobbie, he was the only player we had with anything approaching genuine footballing ability. When Dobbie and Harkins both clicked, we looked brilliant at times. At his best, I enjoyed the way he strolled around imperiously, like an ageing midfield general, chomping on a cigar while contemptuously dismissing his youthful inferiors. Though it must be conceded, he was Claude Rains (the Invisible Man) rather more often than he was Andrea Pirlo. Still, give me a temperamental, inconsistent midfield maestro anyday over the talentless drones we saw clogging up the midfield (and most of the rest of the team to be fair) at Alloa. Willing workhorses, with a few callow kids on a partially-filled bench, will only get you so far, and what a dispiritingly dull journey it will be. Anyway, grossly unprofessional to part company with football still to be played before the window opens, especially given our paucity of options ATM.

Nope, I most definitely like weird movies, and not just ‘weird’ movies - favourite movies, for today anyway - Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais), Stalker (Tarkovsky), and Inland Empire (Lynch). Admittedly it’s no masterpiece, and were it not for the director’s idiosyncratic stylistic flourishes it could be labelled a disposable genre flick. It’s also derivative - it’s very Evil Dead / Sam Raimi at times, and if I was Clive Barker I’d be looking for royalties - the biker gang might as well have been led by Doug ‘Pinhead’ Bradley. However, it does have a nicely offbeat, off-kilter sensibility. I actually preferred the ‘boring’ opening stretch to the high octane revenge movie denouement (such films tend to degenerate into formulaic exercises as the bad guys are picked off one by one) , but there were great moments sprinkled throughout IMO. Despite all the aforementioned faults, still loved it.

Absolute dereliction of duty from the PM, putting (temporary) self-preservation ahead of the national interest. This hapless government should already have been skewered and filleted, but Corbyn the Imposter is hardly Vlad the Impaler. Sturgeon attempted to rouse him into action via Twitter, but she was clearly labouring under the misapprehension that the eviscerated husk masquerading as leader of the opposition was still breathing. Most accurate description of Corbyn that I’ve seen today (on the comments section of the Independent website): ‘a bumbling ideologue who’s a bit thick‘. Labour leadership still defiantly trying to avoid taking a position on a second referendum despite the membership being overwhelmingly in favour. Both May and Corbyn stalling pathetically as the Doomsday clock ticks relentlessly on. It’s long past time to take on the extremists, not pander to them as the cowering incumbents of the major political offices have done for far too long. Time to confront the utter folly of Brexit, discredit it and dismantle it.

Armando Iannucci’s most fevered imaginings have been rendered quaintly redundant in the context of Brexit and Trump. The Thick of It and Veep look like The West Wing these days: dewey-eyed, optimistic celebrations of the competency of our leaders. Omnishambles is clearly insufficient to cover it. Catastrogeddon perhaps? Nope, still too too wishy-washy.

English MPs are running scared of the xenophobes. The vast majority of MPs think Brexit is an irredeemably idiotic act of national self-harm, but they continue to appease the racists due to some misguided combination of the self-preservation instinct and outright cowardice. Labour’s position on this is more convoluted than a contortionist with his head lodged firmly up his arse. Exhibit A; the following article (a conversation between the supremely rational Stephen Mangan and Emily Thornberry, who like many in the Brexit debate have been cowed into saying almost the opposite of what they believe). Inane utterances of shadow foreign secretary

As Tom Peck observed in the Independent the other day, we can look forward to the charade of a debate between ‘a Remainer pretending to represent Brexiteers, and lifelong Brexiteer pretending to be on the side of Remainers.‘

Nope, you’re not alone. Borderline weird crush material, but would certainly be happy to discuss my late fees with her. About the only reason I’m continuing to watch this car crash. Tim Martin needs slapped round the head with a full keg of one of those continental lagers that he refuses to stock in his shit pubs.

It’s funny how most of the folk that think that public plebiscites (rather than the parliamentary kind of democracy that we’ve favoured for centuries) are the ultimate expression of democracy, now believe that a further plebiscite, when the consequences of our collective idiocy have become glaringly apparent, would be ‘undemocratic.’

Don’t think Sheffield United have any plans to enter the Scottish Cup this year.

False dichotomy. You know we’ll make a c**t of it then too.

Really surprised at the favourable press reviews. Inside No. 9 is great at it’s best, but that really was a load of self-indulgent twaddle.

Mandy Not often a movie featuring an unhinged performance from Nic Cage actually upstages him in the batshit mental stakes, but Mandy manages it effortlessly. An absolute blast from start to finish, a bit like The Evil Dead meets Hellraiser with touches of H.P. Lovecraft, David Lynch and the Brothers Grimm thrown in for good measure. Dreamlike, surreal, beautiful, terrifying and hilarious. The music and sound design by the sadly-deceased Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson is fantastic - immersive and atmospheric. Looking forward to seeing what director Panos Cosmatos does next. 9/10