velo army

The Holland game has obviously been mentioned, but I remember, for some reason, the new year OF game in 1998 that Celtic won 2-0 (both unstoppable goals) and he was unbelievable. Brattbakk gained a reputation as a bit of a dud at Celtic (very unfairly imo) but against another keeper he'd have had a hattrick in that game and his Celtic career would have been very different. It might be against the grain to say this just now, but I felt that Goram was one of those players who was profoundly gifted but wasted it by not looking after himself. He was tremendous for Rangers, and he won loads of trophies, but he should have had 100 caps, and played at a higher level than the Scottish Premier Division. The man had supernatural ability to stop shots. It's awful news.

Hate to bring the mood down further, but one of the consequences of school massacres that isn't covered much is the cost of medical care that bairns who died (but didn't make it) received. Parents who are having to deal with the sudden bereavement now having to sell their house due to the 200k or so major surgery sets you back there. A few bankruptcies came as a result of that too. So aye, I'm super grateful for where I live.

I was £200 for treatment for fire ant bites (an injection of something and a smashing chat with the Polish doctor about Scotland's upcoming clashes with his homeland) plus about a tenner for a cream at the pharmacy (there were tablets too, but they gave you the runs and I didn't need to be running into Florida's long grass every half hour......I was on a bicycle tour, I should add). It was a pain in the bahook filling out the forms too. I'd have thought your Mrs' travel insurance would have covered it as it was an emergency. What's even scarier is the hospitals/insurance companies who charge for stuff, but then when you query it they quote you a different, much lower price. Dreadful.

I agree, and I don't particularly think it's healthy to have heroes without the reminder that they, too, were human beings with flaws. The thing is, and I'm not saying you're doing this, I guess I'm projecting a lot of other conversations and writing I've seen onto your posts, but what I've seen a lot is actually a magnification of these flaws that are then used as evidence to discount the greatness the person in question brought to the world. As I said, Burns is revered as a poet. I haven't seen much of people elevating him as a man whose life is an example we all follow. He is revered because he was a poet who wrote about things which touched people of all classes. Shakespeare was the same. My main disagreement with you here is that the "negatives" you point out are evidence against an argument nobody is making. I'll also own that I get pissed off at what I see is prurient censoriousness which I feel has a cynical and mean spirited undercurrent, which says that past artists have to be viewed through current identity-political glasses and that we should all be aware of Mozart's sexism, Beethoven's racism or Shostakovich's homophobia and we should always be reminded of it when we talk about how great their music is. I appreciate this may not have been what you're going for, and I definitely projected that meaning onto your post.

He never went through with it though, and became more strident in his abolitionism. Slave's Lament was probably pretty controversial at the time given that the popular view was to view slaves as little more than cattle. Do you think he should be condemned for having considered it through poverty and desperation at the time even although he never did it? I've been to loads of Burns events in my time and I haven't seen too many folk being overly hagiographical about him. Burns is seen as a national hero because he wrote great poetry and used his poetry to point out religious and moral hypocrisy at the time. He's elevated because he was of these parts and wrote in scots. Also, you can't dismiss arguments just because they don't suit. He lived in times where the equality of the sexes we have today would have been like a fever dream back then. He may have been ahead of his time actually if we look back without the prurience of today's lens. And to the poverty thing. Only somebody truly desperate and on their uppers will know what it means to have to take a job or starve. Survival tends to trump morals. Also, and this is crucial, he didn't bloody do it. He spent approximately zero time on a slave ship. It's well documented how tortured he was about having to do it, but once he had a promise of income which meant he wasn't going to go to penury, he stayed where he was.

The big thing that stops me using racism as a stick to beat the USA with too much is the fact that it was the result of slavery and the triangular trade, which built some awfy nice buildings in Glasgow. It is brutal though and no amount of representation at the highest level can distract from it.

Aye, gentrification of popular culture is another not so PTTGOMN.

Waltzing season sounds better than Marching season.

I heard a guy make a joke that he had recently been given a year to live, so would be doing it sober to make the time go slower.

Judging the attitudes of folk 200 odd years ago by the morals of today is daft and is often the cutting off of your nose to spite your face. We celebrate and have a national holiday for a fucking poet. Not a soldier, or man of violence, but a poet. he's not held up as a national hero for being a flawless human being, but as a great poet. It's one of the wee things that make me proud to be scottish tbh (and I'm no tartan gonk....although I'll vote yes and I wear a kilt to scotland games...so maybe a bit). As a classical music fan and a fan of impressionist art, I'd suggest separating the man from the art. I don't even think Burns was that bad. He fucked about for sure, but he was a seducer by the sounds of it, not a predator. The slavery boat thing was because he was dirt poor. We might think (with the prism of retrospect) that we would definitely not work on a slave ship, but if poverty is a good balm for cognitive dissonance. I can't believe that decrying McCartney headlining Glastonbury is a controversial take. He was a great songwriter but f**k me, Glastonbury and pop music should be for the youngsters and should be broadly inaccessible to the middle aged. I know nothing about the current scene, but surely they could get somebody with charisma, presence and high octane music to be the one act a'body is looking forward to.

That's not terrible to be honest. Take away a few of the drums, add in a couple of bass flutes, tenor flutes to carry the melody, piccolos to provide harmony and descant (and I do love a descant) then you've got something.

Weans in America can get arrested for daft wee wean stuff when they're at school. There are police officers in school now who arrest actual children for any breach of school rules. They've been known to use excessive physical force too. The polis in the USA are generally thick bullies. That's in schools. The school to prison pipeline is not something we talk about here. Also actual school children have to do actual drills to prepare for massacre by AR15. Being a child in America sounds traumatically stressful. The Abortion Act 1967 is going absolutely nowhere. Say what you like about the Tories (and I'll join you) but they don't seem to be on a mission from God to completely erode bodily autonomy. Women in America can now be arrested for having a miscarriage and if you are raped and get pregnant, that's your life now. After they fix the next election, the US supreme court will then go after Obergefell v Hodges, which overturned anti-sodomy legislation. After the SCOTUS overturn that then police will be able to knock down your door if they suspect you might be engaging in sex with your fellow man. You might think that this only affects gay men, but what if you have a pal or cousin staying over and you have an affectionate relationship with them? Some neighbour grasses you up and you've got a few blue shirts battering down your door and arresting you "on suspicion". That's not to mention the stories that are no longer in the news. Michigan still has poisoned water and the effects of that will be felt for generations. The elimination of first nation culture and society will be complete now that their lands are no longer sovereign. Latin American children are still separated from their parents in concentration camps. There are strong rumours that the children are being adopted out to willing white American parents. The Tories definitely want to ape the US in some ways. They'd privatise air if they could, and you just know that they salivate at the thought of performative patriotism and pageantry at every sporting event and school assembly. I don't think they could, or would create the hellscape they have (and is getting worse) in the USA.

I sense an incoming change of avatar....

Absolutely devastated to read this tbf.

It's getting one too. I cycled across it 8 years ago and there are parts that are beautiful. It was hard to ignore a lot of the negatives, and I wasn't the least bit surprised Trump got in. The Christianity I encountered (white Christianity at least) felt mostly sinister and cult like. Some great people, like everywhere though. The power grab going on right now is awful, but hopefully it will precipitate an American Spring type civil uprising. It's an absolute hellhole right now though. I don't think that's too subjective either

Obviously there is a thread for US shootings, and one for both Trump and Biden, but given all of the stuff going on over there, and it's apparent descent into fascism, I felt it was time for a thread to cover all bases. Abortion laws, anti-LGBT laws, Fascist militias parading with police protection (contrasting with snipers and armed police surrounding women protesting the overturning of Roe v Wade), increased gerrymandering and the courts seeking to erode further freedoms means that the USA is an increasingly grim place to live. So aye, post your news articles, photies and tweets here as we document America's journey towards Theocratic Fascism.

Dinna stert.

Aye I hear that. I was just thinking that if it comes back to Europe in 2034 England should be ahead of Spain, but it was pointed out to me that they'll probably get the Euros in 2028, so shouldn't get the WC 6 years later. Who would you have for a European host that needs football spread and promoted? The Scandi/Nordic nations could be a shout but only have 4, perhaps 5 stadia if Norway at some seats to the Ullevaal. We could maybe join but that would be an extra two stadia at most. E.T.A I just checked and you need 6 stadia with a capacity of at least 20,000, which would probably work in Scandinavian favour. A Scandi world cup would be great.

This is increasingly the case against America too. I know it's not very P and B, but England are surely due hosting duties in 2034. It would be horribly nauseating, obviously, and it would be chuckleworthy if they were denied again, but they'd surely be at the front of the queue.

Pater Army does this. I bloody love it. For a man with a sonorous deep bass voice he can fair make the leap to falsetto. He really elongates the "heee" part of it too. Wonderful stuff.

Apologies for taking this thread away from it's original intention, which was to discuss whether a Brazilian playing in England would have made it into semi-recent Brazil squads, but I've always enjoyed the fact that, in answer to the question "who is the greatest ever Scottish player?" Kenny Dalgleish says it's Denis Law and Denis Law says it's Kenny Dalgleish.

She's a fine looking woman.

Wid, in that case. I don't think she does though.

Fandabidozi again today. It says a lot that Karl Urban can put on the worst cockney accent since Dick Van Dyke, with the accents in his flashback being even worse (and obviously not being the UK at all) and I don't care. It's just brilliant. Sorry to hear about Erin Moriarty and her surgery. She's a young woman and I don't think that's a great sign when you get it done that young. Anyway. Seeing more of an insight into Noir was superb. That was a really fucking well done scene. I don't know if that's in the comics but it was absolutely brilliant. It was tender and sympathetic, wonderfully done. Agreed about the character of Soldier Boy. He's awful, but captivating. The line "if you're going to get hysterical I'll have to slap you like I'm Connery" had me wheezing. They get so many satirical references into the script. Here, how the f**k does MM's wife end up with that wee scrawny p***k? That's the only unbelievable relationship in this series, but he's well played and I feel genuinely uncomfortable when he's on screen (the wee guy, not MM). His wife is a beautiful woman too. His family are actually really well cast. Anyway. I'm excited for next week.

Fair enough. I read "I'm perfectly happy with them having to trek down to a shite comedy show to work out for themselves that they're having their time wasted." and took too much of a leap in interpretation. I actually am not happy that the police go down to see for themselves, as that in itself can be intimidating. It represents the possibility of prosecution for saying the wrong thing or making the wrong joke. I understand that a lot of the times "cancel culture" is as you say, bullshit hype where people have done well out of it (see Robinson, Tommy and a host of similar grifters), but the presence of a whole host of folk who have merely been held to account and faced consequences doesn't mean that there isn't an increase in puritanical censoriousness and threats of livelihood being taken away for those who don't conform, or who voice opinions counter to what is accepted. Making it fairly normal for police to investigate jokes for being offensive is regressive.