milton75

Sadly this is just the way of it. I think that's been the case for me since I was about 30. Once a year or so I'll have a hankering and get one and regret it for hours afterwards. Avoiding chip shops is a lot easier since I moved to Bishopbriggs anyway, as they are uniformly appalling here.

When I was a student in the mid-90s there was a chip shop on Sciennes in Edinburgh and another just up from there on Causewayside, both of which did very cheap half-pizza suppers. I lived just up from there and would frequent regularly. Not only is the half pizza more affordable on a student budget, but I always felt that it was better because it got put face down on the chips and they got embedded into the molten surface. A whole pizza would be folded in half therefore losing this element of the fun.

To be fair, while I appreciate that both are an improvement on Ayrshire, if you were inviting me to have a coffee in Braehead or Silverburn I don't think I'd invest much effort in my reply either.

Both this: And this: Are better than the original.

There will probably be a silent protest at the next home game. Maybe even some audible tutting will be heard, reflecting off the waxed Barbour jackets in the crowd.

You missed nothing.

Mrs Milton gets annoyed by how happy scam calls make me. We have a landline that comes with the cable service and that we don't want or use. No-one has the number, so on the rare occasions that the phone rings it's always some idiot scammer. I've been involved in many many car accidents, and when they excitedly transfer my to the "legal expert" I tend to be delighted but surprised that they'd already heard of the accident, being as it only happened a few days previously. Sometimes the accident turns out to be me driving into a queue of schoolkids at a bus stop, sometimes it was a gang of youths who crashed into my car before dragging me from the vehicle and raping me. Often I was killed in the accident, and on one occasion I was speaking to the caller from the afterlife, where I was now at peace but still wanted compensation. I also have a lot of issues with my internet that involve helpful people trying to get me to type cmd prompts into my laptop to resolve the issue. I tend to need a lot of guidance to get this right, especially when it comes to typing them correctly and reading what comes up. Often what comes up is quite insulting, sadly.

Might pop on some Cure before it's cancelled forever.

If David Jason turns out to be a nonce I'll be delighted, as the sort of people that think Only Fools and Horses represents a pinnacle in British comedy are utter dimwits and will take it very badly indeed.

Rolf Harrisn't?

Bishopbriggs these days, and it actually is shit as it turns out. From what I experienced of Fallin, on the one occasion I had to go there, they wouldn't ban me for that. They a) wouldn't know what a mushroom was, and b) would think I was speaking a different language anyway. A depressing indictment of how unimaginative and tiresome people are in this country.

RE mispronunciation of place names. It is very slightly diverting/irksome when it happens routinely, e.g. on TV by sports commentators, but even then it doesn't really matter. In my experience the people that get more exercised about it are losers from small no-mark towns, who still live in said small no-mark towns, who think that anyone else should care in the slightest about the pronunciation of their beloved shithole. We don't care. Not one jot. If I'm lucky I'll never again have to visit Fallin or Strathaven or whatever. I came here for one day, took a look around, and vowed to avoid the dump in future.

The good thing about that belief is that you can use it, if you are minded to, as an argument demonstrating that free choice is something that simply doesn't exist as everything, to god at least, is pre-ordained. Catholics in particular seem to get upset when you tell them this.

I agree with much of that, however my point regarding "hard border" as an ominous concept pertains to not only a whole gamut of attendant psychological and sociological upsets that this would present, but also the spectre of "loss of access to market". You're correct about the reasons NI has been pandered to, but the mechanics of dealing with those issues are now there for all to see. So if nothing else the argument becomes not that Independent Scotland "must suffer x consequences", and more instead that Independent Scotland "will suffer x consequences", because there's no political expediency to working anything else out. That comes across far more poorly to the electorate. Lastly it seems unpalatable that we reward bad behaviour. Anyone that's dealt with a truculent toddler knows this isn't a good policy. We're stuck with a section of the country where the locals have been blowing each other up for decades so everyone else has to bend over backwards to accommodate them (and let's not forget it STILL isn't good enough for many in the DUP). I encourage the locals of Glasgow and Edinburgh to start an attritional civil war for the next 50 years. Find out what treats we're fed to get them to stop.

Which, given the utter shite in the P&J, speaks depressing volumes about the backward and reactionary character of a great many in that region. ETA - that's not to say The Herald or Scotsman are good. The Herald has been shit for about 15 years and The Scotsman has been shit since about 1990.

I think you're focusing too much on the "frictionless" point. If Scotland was Independent and in the EU then it is true that there could not be frictionless trade with the rUK. However, what this deal demonstrates is that there could be access to the rUK market with considerably less hassle than could historically have been the case. Also, and somewhat importantly, it also completely refutes the claim made by many Unionists that an Independent Scotland would by necessity have to have a hard border with England. That's clearly not the case, and it will be interesting going forward to see anyone claim otherwise.

Good to see OUR KING Charles meeting Ursula von der Leyen today. The DUP will be having a totally normal one as a result.

I appreciate we could mention Neil Oliver most days, but this is getting wild now.

This chat about hotels in Qatar, Dubai, etc.? Nothing to do with the World Cup or the number of deaths in stadia makes any odds to that. If you think a hotel stay in that sort of soulless shithole is a good idea then you are trash. It's pretty simple and easy to understand. "Where should we go on holiday? Where should we see another culture, eat interesting food, see sights?" "F*ck that. I want to go to a hotel filled with vapid try-hards and buy some discount gold".

But coincidentally a large proportion of those complaining about wokeness are racists and bigots.

I'll happily join you. On that bit of road, you have no idea if the cars are parked or stopped at the lights which can make you feel foolish when you stop behind a parked car that doesn't move when the lights change. And talking of double yellow lines, I was out for a walk one lunchtime and saw a car parked on the pavement (with hazards on) simply because there were double yellows. They must've thought that was acceptable but I was seething. There's always a selection of dickwads parked there. Ubereats and Deliveroo type fannies picking up shit from the Subway, the chippy, or the restaurants. Or twats going in themselves. They usually leave their fat munter partners in the car, hazards on, while they queue in the chippy. It's not even a good chippy. It's shit.

This is of course true, but I don't really care about those guys. Under usual circumstances van drivers would be one of the c-nts on the road I gripe about. But in this situation it was simply pleasing to witness the worst getaway ever. When your car is festooned in ads with the phone number to book a cab, chances are you're not going to go unidentified.

I recently saw a cock of a taxi driver cause an accident. I was in Bishopbriggs town centre and a taxi did an illegal u-turn around the lights, marked in in blue below. He didn't even indicate and two vans behind him both had to slam on their brakes and collided with each other. He then pulled in to drop his fare off at the Bank of Scotland and then fled the scene heading North. I was standing where the red dot is and saw the whole thing, as did a bunch of others, and the two vans pulled in beside us to exchange details. Amusingly the old woman standing next to me had got the taxi company details and gave it to them. They then went into the bank and go the details again from the lady he'd dropped off, and they reported the fud to the cops.

Larbert is haunted full stop.