renton

Yeah fair does

If you look at our likely bench for the first game of this season vs that of the opening day of last season, we are a wee bit better off.

No went up by the same amount, DKs starting to get squeezed and it's splitting 50/50 at best. Not great.

Some pollster has the No lead in the range of 4-5 points, other pollsters have it in the range of 14-16 points. Clearly, both can't be right and if it were a 52/48 No win, then the first group are the more accurate.

Even if Yes do lose, someone is going to look ridiculous: as a professional pollster trying to drum up business, being innacurate to the tune of 15 points or more is probably not a great advert for you.

McGlynn's record with goal keepers ain't great to be honest.

Not seen much of him, played the whole game against Edinburgh City on Wednesday night there, not the quickest by the looks of it (either that, or their number 9, Alum was a total speedster)

Bollocks, away to Forfar would've been amazeballs.

Guarenteed, surely.

i used to have it, loaned it out somewhere and never saw it again, to this day it's the only Manics album I don't have either as a CD or as a MP3/FLAC file. Tristesse is a good song, the rest of it is just so ordinary and laboured to my ear.

I don't know why they just didn't make that a closed doors game. The Rovers were treating it like a kick about to be honest, even Moon when he came on didn't seem to be bothered running the length of himself. I don't think you can rightly pick out any kind of meaningful lessons from it. Certainly Bates and Ellis shouldn't play together at centre back maybe? But that seems an obvious lesson anyway. Mathews looked ok, if a bit slight of build and not possessed of the blistering pace of a proper modern right back. Callachan should try to do less? He was maybe the one guy who tries to run about a bit, but tended to take way too many touches and slow things down - it was like he was channeling Davo. Nade looks alright, and Stewart looks..... something? I think we tried to go for a bit of a fluid front line, with Nade at the tip, Elliot in a free role behind him and Stewart and trialist (whisper it....ARCHIE CAMPBELL) playing wider roles, at least in the first half, but, down the right (trialist ARCHIE CAMPBELL and mathews) we got exposed a fair bit. As I said, we were barely treating it like a game of football, and you can't take too much away from it, but at the same time I'm deflated by how ordinary we look, with none of the passing style play we had last year, even when we were losing, obviously some of that is not having a proper set of centre backs and a right back, nor our starting midfield (never even saw Scott) but yeah, we looked... ordinary. Shame that we will end up losing out on Galbraith.

I dunno, it still sounded like them, just them trying to pastiche something else. I love RTF as well, but Futurology shades it for me. It helps that Wire has developed as a musician in the last decade (his bass playing used to be functional at best, and he never got involved with songwriting) and that Bradfield is more willing to contribute lyrics - Moore remains this unknowable brilliant musician at the middle of it all. So the old songwriting duty barriers have dropped and I think there are more ideas, and more craftsmanship about them. If I had to rank the albums at the minute? THB EMG Futurology JFPL RTF TIMTTMY KYE PFAYM GE SATT Lifeblood GATS

Rather than rehash this, didn't you and VT have a nice wee ding dong about this ages ago. Why don't you go back and re-read that, pretend you wiped the floor with him and give yourself I nice big hug.

Scottish students don't get 'a free ride' - maintenance grants get repaid after all. And it's more than students who care about this. Minus the years spent dossing about as a phd student, it's been 8 years since I did my Beng, for me it's political and sociological: Education and healthcare are two of the most vital societal responsibilities. By making these as freely and widely available as possible, you massively increase the chances of a society's success, a well informed, well educated and healthy electorate makes far better choices collectively and individually than one that is not. Particularly in an age where information is far more freely avaiable, and the rate of technological change accelerating, we need more people able to thing and assess information critically, which requires a robust education system from primary through tertiary education.

Been listening to this on repeat for the last day, more or less. It's very, very good. Absolutely adore Black Square, Dreaming a City, Divine Youth (winner of the most un-manics, Manics song?) and Sex, Power, Love and Money (must have the most ridiculously catchy chorus in a long time). I feel that one of the things that really makes this album good is the vastly imporved rythm sections - Moore has always been a good drummer but the metronomic stomping drums on this album are a bit special, and the bass (often quite boring on Manics songs) is brought further up into the mix and allowed to breathe. After playing about with them since Lifeblood, they also seem finally to have worked out how to incorporate keyboards and synths naturally into their songs. This and Rewind the Film represent a very good couple of years for the Manics, their best sustained period since the late ninties. KYE was ambitious but overwrought, and Lifeblood was a failed experiment in so much as it ended up souding just like them (clearly not the intention at the time) but stripped of all vitality and warmth. SATT was to many a 'return to form' but for me, it, along with Postcards were comfort blankets with lots of B-side filler, the manics retreating into well worn themes and song structures which bookended JFPL, an album viscerally brilliant, but unsustainable obviously, given the absence of it's muse. By going away and doing these two albums, pretty much together, there is a sense of over arching themes, but it's musically that they've really stepped up on these two albums, more confident, more complex - willing to try new things.

I was there, fantastic gig.

Really? I have to say, that's not really his game. Certainly he hit the form of his life in that last half season he was with us, but strip out 1 and a half bad seasons with Dundee and Thistle, you get back to when he was with us, and his scoring form then was 26 over 2 years (or there abouts). I would've said Baird's greatest assets are in his link up play and his work rate, always willing to come deep - plays some fantastic switch balls and through balls for his team mates, not the worst finisher in the world, but not the best either (always lashes it, when sometimes a bit more cutness and subtelty is required).

This is going round in circles. I do subject the Yes campaign to scrutiny, that I don't do it to the level you demand, or find the same conclusions as you do is not my problem, I also admit my bias to yes. You, however, do not subject No to any kind of scrutiny - the fact that folk from the Yes side do, doesn't mean you shouldn't - even if you are the 1st or 42nd poster to do so - you are biased to No and you do nothing to give an impression that you are anything except an unapologetic cheer leader for whatever the No line is that day.

And you have no interest in acknowledging no lies and spend all your time chasing yes malfeasance. This latest post is yet another example of your style: attempt to paint the other as extreme so you can occupy the middle ground. And you'very never been embarrassed by the no campaign have you? Straight shooters aren't they?

swings and roundabouts. Elliot and Nade? return of the McGlynn tactics? Who needs wingers when you have brute force and all the defensive midfielders money can buy!

In other words I'm biased to Yes and your biased to no. Glad we cleared that up.

And you don't want to keep no honest. I get that you try to group folk as the 'kool aid krew' (where do you get such witty names!) In order to make yourself appear more reasonable, but let's be clear - you haven't answered my central argument. You have no In tension of keeping No honest and are happy to parrot the no line whatever it happens to be that day. You are as guilty of bias and willingness to overlook your sides fault as anyone on here, that you then try to paint the other side as exclusively guilty of these behaviours while indulging your own excruciating debate style with its loaded, leading questions are the hallmarks of real intellectual dishonesty.

Aye very fucking nice, lovely abdication of responsibility there. You accuse me of not going against the cult while at the same time never giving the impression that you do anything other than toe the BT line. You are not neutral and you never take your own side to task, just because plenty of yes voters do doesn't mean you shouldn't, the fact you don't points to you only being interested in discrediting the claims of one side.

Yet you've never once called the British state out on any of its ridiculous assertions. The reason being is that you belive everything they say, and you the temerity to call me pathetic?

If Scotland were independent, it would.