velo army

This is just fuckin beautiful sir. Just beautiful.

I have equally fond memories of that day, jumping about on the pitch and there being a tannoy announcement that there were no bridies left in Forfar owing to the large crowd that day After half an hour of the match!

I fuckin love Forfar and one of my favourite ever games was when we won the Second Division up there. McGrillen's opener, Barry Elliot's clincher and me in a circle with the team on the field with my arm around a shirtless Archie (). Genuinely upset that I can't go to this as a fan. Cracking ground and lovely wee town. Thistle to dominate, get 45 shots on goal (3 on target) and to be pinned in our own box for the final 5 minutes with Forfar scoring in 90 + 6mins. 1-0 Loons, and not even a bridie to take my mind off it. Sad.

Unashamedly festive at the moment so I was daunering up Union St whistling "wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas" from a Muppet's Christmas Carol. After that I was whistling awa to "Bist to bei Mir" by Gottfried Heinrich Stolzel (from the film "Joyeux Noel"). It'll mainly be Christmas songs for the next few weeks I imagine.

I don't like this being framed as a "disease" but it is a real thing. In fact, it's wholly natural. We're supposed to take it easy in Winter, it's what we're evolved to do; get enough food in and stay warm and do not a lot until Spring. It's only in the last 150 years that we've been required (demanded?) to keep up the same productivity levels throughout the year that we now hit a wall. As soon as it gets to 3.30pm and the lights go off outside I can feel my body being flooded with melatonin. My whole being just wants to do f**k all after that time. I force myself to do uni work, but it feels like my whole being, physically and mentally, is wading through tar. I can see this hitting particularly hard this winter. The loneliness caused by the imposed isolation is going to exacerbate the feeling of melancholy most feel at this time of year, and the anxiety levels which would normally be soothed by being in physical proximity to friends and lovers are heightened. Be really gentle with yourselves this year a'body. Do what you need to do to take care of yourselves. This might mean taking a day off here and there. For those on zero hour this might seem like financial madness, but taking yourself out to walk up a hill or play football with your pals might be the radical self love you need (and I was, until a few weeks ago, on a zero hour contract too). This isn't an individual disorder by the way. There is nothing "wrong" with you if you experience this. Like almost all depressive "disorders" it's mostly caused by us living a life contrary to our nature. Capitalism demands the same effort all year with no regard to the seasonal rhythms of our bodies, and when our bodies and souls rebel our social conditioning tells us that there is something about us that needs to be fixed and adjusted. So in short, aye, I do experience this, and at times pretty badly. I used to see it as a problem I had. I now see it as a reminder to nourish myself with food, rest, outdoor activity and oxytocin (ask your friends for a hug....shitebag if ye dinnae!!). To be clear this is a reminder that I don't always listen to and I find myself numbing with alcohol and takeaway food, so I'm not putting myself on a pedestal here. Take good care of yourselves chaps/chapettes/chapneutrals

Do they say who their big team are?

Stanley Milgram found ^^^

Fuckin hell lads, can you just not? Just use the ignore function and save the pages and pages of utter roastery.

Too lazy to read the thread but just popped on to give the Frangipane Mince Pies from Sainsbury's the massive thumbs up. I'm a traditionalist normally, so I favour shortcrust and mincemeat, no salted caramel for me thank you, but the above pies are the business. Thank you.

Laughed my baws aff at this.

It makes Celtic Park look like a Soviet monument of some sort.

Ioan Ganea found ^^

I obviously haven't watched the doc (cheers for the heads up a'bdy!) but if that's what's been put out as a tribute to Maradona then that's a disgrace. Just a sop to the gammon demographic and an excuse to stoke English nationalist sentiment by the sounds of it. Still, it's delightful that Maradona inspired such seethe even if, as has been said before, he rarely talked or gave a thought to that game afterwards.

I'm in exactly the same boat. I tend not to be overly arsed about "celebrity" deaths, but his feels important. I actually bridled at the use of the word celebrity in your post as it feels like it's more than that (although I know you didn't mean it trivially). I wonder if he truly understood the impact he had here, not just being utterly spellbindingly brilliant, but the impact his goals against England had on our esteem of him. I know some folk wince at the mere suggestion of anti-englishness, but there's no denying the audacity of that goal and the indignant fury it unleashed has been instrumental in our affection towards him. I know that sounds a touch purple, but the TA don't have a song about Pele, but we do have one about Maradona. The presser where he is asked about the handball and he responds by pointing out Hurst's goal that didn't cross the line is absolute shithousery gold.

Watch the highlights of him v Belgium. Argentina are defending a corner. The ball breaks to DM in his own box. He just nonchalantly lifts the ball over a Belgian player's head, takes it again and then skins another. in his own box. In a world cup semi-final. With very little room for manoeuvre. Powerful stuff. Someone mentioned his training regimen. He was actually remarkably fit because he hired a personal coach. He was ahead of his time in that regard and I reckon this was part of his genius. He knew that he was different and needed different training. He recognised what he needed in Italy that he didn't need in Spain (faster reactions and just quicker pace) and hired a coach whose remit was to give him that. If you guys haven't seen the documentary "diego" it's wonderfully eye-opening and puts a lot of stuff in context. It shows how alone he was at Napoli, and conversely how he couldn't get any peace. I recommended, although I'll be a sobbing mess if I watch it at the moment. Here, how utterly delicious are the amount of English tears being brought forth by his death? I think it's what he would have wanted.

On the contrary I think he would have shown himself truly to be the greatest ever if he played now. The absolute brutality of the challenges he had to endure on the field would be gone now and he'd be unbeatable. He had a bigger personality and greater leadership than Messi and he would have won umpteen world cups with Argentina now given the players they have. The way the game is now he would have been looked after much better now. The way he was treated at Napoli was awful and allowed the worst of his demons to surface. This is really sad news.

I thought there were rules about outing posters..... I'm pissed off at myself for clicking on this as my youtube will now be choc full of charlie and the bhoys or somesuch.

Similar boat here. I cycled across it 6 years ago and it was eye opening how fucked up it was. The aforementioned poverty, the ubiquitous flags, the worship of the military, churches everywhere, people being friendly but with a huge chip on their shoulders about the world "hating America". There is more I could list which would be obvious, but man, I was alarmed at how poor it was. I also quite enjoyed parts of it. Kansas is underrated (when cycling across anyway) and Montana was stunning (weird redneck population though; the most blatantly and frequently racist people). Colorado had the most attractive women by far (visiting Boulder and Denver was like walking through a sports illustrated issue) and the nature there was nice too. It all felt incongruent, like the people and buildings didn't belong (which, of course, they don't). It all made me pretty grateful to be Scottish tbhqfhwy (to be quite fucking honest with you).

I want a former Norwegian fighter pilot as our next performance director please. Thank you.

It's no wonder that the players lack hunger and intensity if he keeps slaughtering them publicly after a defeat/poor performance. We've seen this apparent lack of self-awareness from him before and it's only ever gone one way. I'm torn between my ardour for a timplosion and my loathing of tri-***-phalism (the latter portmanteau needs work) so I can't enjoy this as much as I'd like, but it must be hugely frustrating for Celtic fans to see.

I'm gonna assume that GR had his tongue firmly in his cheek. Slovakia and then Israel brought us back down to earth a bit. I reckon with a full team (Fraser in for Christie, Forrest in for O'Donnell) we can give each of these teams a game, but we need to magic a goalscorer from somewhere.....

Something to do with Berwick, I think.

Baracus incoming.

This ref has been pish. It's not an excuse or anything, but he's been hugely inconsistent. Oli Burke has looked good, but the lack of penetration is irritating.