renton

Manic Street Preachers on the 2nd October, and then Mudhoney on the 16th.

Personally wasn't an issue, got a flat with the guys I was mates with in halls, so it really wasn't an issue, if nothing else it was better since I was in town and not on the outskirts (Heriot Watt)

I suppose it depends on the course, but form what I've noticed over the years, first to second is a piece of shit - second to third will have people dropping like flies.

In the latter scenario, the US, not russia is the more important ally due to thier industrial capabilities, replacing shipping tonnage during the BoA was important, in the end it was a battle they lost on tehcnical merits as the RN became adept at sub hunting, submarine technology would not be mature until nuclear reactors became the norm, only then could huge numbers make a massively telling difference. On the former, it's just very difficult to see how Germany manages to produce enough stuff in a short period of time. Bare in mind that the gemrans did not adopt a proper war economy until 43/44. It's very liekly that they owuld ahve sought an armistice rather than f**k their economy - they'd built their entire armed forces on the idea of short wars on land. They just didn't ahve the capacity for taking us on, on our own patch. I think you would have seen some form of cold war between the two later. However, Hitler was always going to go east. It's just worng to imagine that the events of 1940/1941 had no baring on the overall result, indeed, not only did they save the UK, but continued British resistance delayed the start of Barbarrosa to the point where eventually the Germans ran out of good weather and got bogged down outside of Moscow.

Held out against what? Remember we went on to win the Battle of the Atlantic and thus a blockade to starve Britain out wouldn't have worked either. The thing about the alliance that you should remember is that no one nation could win it on it's own, left to ourselves there would have been stalemate and eventually somekind of armistice with Britain as a sovereign nation but unable to wrest control of europe form the nazis and them unable to invade us. The soviets needed lend lease to keep going, that materiale was made in the US and shipped to Russia by the Royal Navy, without the UK their could be no succesful invasion of western europe by the US. Essentially Britain can't win the war on it's own but the others can't win it without us, or they themselves either.

Again it's not that simple. It would have taken them years to build a naval force that could go toe to toe with the RN, it takes three years to build a capital ship and they would have to build around 100 of them to match the RN ship to ship, asusming the British don't maintian their own building programmes. At the time Raeder said that his navy wouldn't be ready for hostilities until 1942 - and that wasn't even reckoning for building a force capable of amthcing the RN, try sometime around 1947 before the germans can close the gap.

The Luftwaffe threw everythign it had at the UK in 1940, and still hadn't recovered when it attacked the soviet union. This is not a question of numbers solely, but doctrine and equipment. The luftwaffe ahd been engineered as a close support force for the army, not waging strategic warfare with a maritime foe. It's bombers were two engined with little bomb loading capacity and it's fighters ahd only enough fuel for ten minutes combat over london form french airbases, it's leadership was disorganised and amateur and it found itsef up against a professional ofrce boasting the most advanced command and control and early warning facilities on the planet - backed up by modern equipment in the form of the Spitfire and the Hurricane. By ocntrast the Russian air force was obliterated on the ground beucase everyone was either on holiday or hungover.

Invading across the ukranian steppes with your army and an amphibious invasion are two totally different scenarios, and Germany never had the navy, or the air force, to pull the latter off.

Those 4.5 million axis troops loaded up on flat bottomed river barges, escorted by an anemic kreigsmarine, sailing into a channel defended by the Royal navy home fleet, backed up by RAF fighter command unbowed by Luftwaffe attacks? They'd be picking German corpses off of the french beaches for months. The fac tof the matter is that britain did repel invasion because it beat the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, and even if fighter command had been decimated in that fight, the royal navy could still have steamed into the channel, taken a kicking off the Luftwaffe and overpower the invasion fleet by sheer force of numbers. A German invasion of the UK in 1940 was dodgy at best and rendered completely impractical by RAF victory in september 1940.

It's very rarely acknowledged because it is complete bollocks.

I would've been in the same boat as you but I got my funding extended to March (or so I hope, that's what the boss said but you never can tell). A good thing to, as I need the time to really get a decent set of results, will probably be able to publish a couple of journal papers and get my lit. review done by christmas. I don't envy you and am truly thankful for DTA funding, god knows what'll happen if my boss has fucked up

When's your finish date?

yes, because you'll have run out of academic qualifications to go for.

I suppose it would depend on the course but most likely, yes. HNDs represent a specialisation in the intended subject, and over the course of two years are worth at least one year of uni, possibly two if you stretch it. In general, if you get to the end of a first year uni course and want to switch subjects, depending on how far you want to move away from the original course might see you booted back to first year and all the financial headaches that entails - the same goes for an HND i.e. you might get on the course but ahve to do the first year, and SAAS might get a bit funny about that. Also, realistically, in the current climate with limited uni places available, turning up with an HND in history and wanting to do a uni degree in physics might not be the best idea.

Your out by a couple of years there.....

Good on him, notice he elected to take the one year deal. Hope he does well down there.

... and still not a patch on the graphic novel.

You know, the animation in that wasn't all to great. For really decent and consistent* animation in the 80s you want M.A.S.K or the Galaxy Rangers. *Transformers used two seperate studios to do the work, one of which was very good the other was utterly abysmal.

The reason we end up hoofing it so much is what I call the davidson play. Keeper passes it to full back who get's pressed, ball goes to centre half, Davidson trundles back into the defensive line wanting the ball, Centre half gives Davidson the ball who promptly gives the ball back to the centre half, who then has no choice (striker is starting to press behind davo) but to send the ball back to the full back who now has no real options - Davidson is out of position leaving two markers on Simmons or the winger who will have to have ocme deeper - but to hump the ball forward to a striker who has come wide to recieve the ball in the channel. repeat ad in finitum for at least 75 minutes.

I do agree with you to a large extent, Williamson does leave his full back exposed far too much due to his wandering out of position, it's that that makes him dangerous going forward as he tends to drift in side or arrive late at the back post which obviously draws another defender and creates space, or finds himself unmarked. If we could play him in some kind of advanced role behind the strikers he might thrive. As it is he has a tendency to hide behind a defneder if it's not going his way, other times a verbal kick up the arse tends to concentrate his mind more. We have to accept certain weaknesses from all our players, we are a not very good first division team after all, what we hope for is that on any given day each players strengths coutner balances the other's weaknesses, and that is what we've been lacking the last few games.

Pure guess work, but I'd imagine your a lot less skint than us. Our financial situation is precarious at best, and not half as good as many Rovers fans seem to assume it is.

Agree with you regarding Davidson. Williamson's issue is that he falls between stools regarding what position he should play, however he is useful to have around - I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that he 'is not a good player' although he has shown precious little form lately. Wilson had got to grips quite well with the first when he broke his arm, and to say he's gone backwards is ridiculous, he's still coming back form several months out and last night showed some flashes of that returning form. As for the new guys, nothing I've seen from Dyer suggests that he is a bad player, he got hung out to dry against cowden and was up against a lot of talent last night, nevertheless he did well enough, if you do everything right, and the guy is just stonger, faster and with better reactions, is that your fault? Jury is out regarding McBride.

Depends on context but from what I've been made aware our best terms were definitely not enamouring him. Sure, signing for the rovers would be a possibility, but a remote one at best. I expect to see him in a Partick top in two weeks now.

No need for melodrama, the guys we have didn't turn into bad players over night. We have half decent personnel and our target should still be attainable, i.e. staying in the division and maybe not getting sucked into a dog fight, and that really can only be the height of our ambition this time round. We've come on leaps and bounds under McGlynn, but it was always going to get harder to provide year on year improvement. I'd be the first to suggest that Davidson and Simmons shouldn't play together, and as the game got more stretched last night I thought walker made a good claim for one of the CM berths on saturday, time will tell. In other areas, depsite being up against guys with a lot of pace and power, I thought Dyer had a better game, he's getting there. Wilson looks to be getting forward more and that will only help. I still wasn't impressed by ellis and Murray as a partnership but as Hill and Ccampbell become fit that will sort itself out. while up fornt our strike force did as well as it could with the opportunities they ahd and were unlucky rather than incompetent I thought. Yes, the team ahs issues just now, and I'd be the last to gloss over them but there is no doubt that we picked up a bit after saturday and facing a superb team like DU was never going to be easy. We have to pick the positives where we can and accept that at least the team's tempo should have improved for saturday. We are not fucked, not yet (albeit if EF put us to the sword then I might just retract that statement) Here's the issue, the money we might ahve spent on Smith went into getting Mole, and even if it didn't we were not offering Smith the kind of wages that would have made him upsticks anyway - it's not that likely that he would ahve come for the wages we had (pre-Mole).

Bit of a late post on the subject, still quite bileous after saturday if truth be told. That was the outlier from last season, the half dozen games where players, coach, manager all got it 100% wrong and we got a pasting, that was saturday. In truth it was near the effort levels put in against Airdrie in the 3-0 gubbing last year, or more worryingly, the non shift put in against Berwick. Where to start? The central two at the back did ok, although Murray had an uncharacteristically sloppy performance in giving the ball away, and Ellis, for all his height really isn't able to use his strength as well as campbell or Hill, and against Dempster that became an issue. I can only imagine that McG did not take this as a serious game, otherwise why pitch Wilson in from the start after only fifteen minutes against Stenny, where he looked far from ready. Looking down the left hand side of that team, it's obviously all new and you have a problem here. neither player, Dyer or McBride was able to give the other much support, It's tempting to put more onus on McBride who was clearly being marked out of the game by his ex colleagues, leaving Dyer stranded. My temptation would be to pair one of the two with a more experienced player. Mcbride lacks Smith's defensive work, and Ellis is needed presently to cover that centre half pairing. I'd be inclined to use Ferry out there, he can sit deeper and give Dyer more cover (until the latter is less rusty and more confident), sure he won't get up the pitch as well but he'll hold on to the ball, finds good space and can pick a pass, which giving the other big problem we had on saturday is surely a blessing. The midfield two just don't work. Neither is inclined to get up the pitch and move beyond the two strikers to pull a defender away from the strikers, thus neither create space for the strikers moving forward (on occasion Davo does to be fair to him). Simmons tends to play within himself to often but is still a better footballer than Davidson. You can see it the way Simmons holds on to the ball a bit longer, trying to drag his marker in close and commit him before releasing the ball. Davo tends (or I find that he does) to release the ball to early and thus no space is created. He also has a bad habit of coming deep, almost into the centre half position to pick the ball from Murray and then give it back to him. He should either stay more advanced to recieve the ball from centre half, or turn and find a ball forward, to often he does neither. So we end up with a flat centre two who don't move enough to create space and consequently we end up trying to play through two banks of four players to get a sniff at goal. I have no understanding of what Walker has to do to get a game, he is easily the best CM at the club. Indeed in 3 of the 4 midfield positions on saturday I'd prefer him to the present incumbent. He has the fitness to last in the position, can play a pass and crucially will get forward and make space for the strikers. Everyone else can see this, yet he has been used very sparingly in the pre season. Williamson is basically a passenger for large spells of the game and tends to hide a lot. Up front, I thought we started with our best striker partnership on the bench. Mole will hold the ball up and Baird has a better brain and more pace than Weir. Surely that was Weir's last chance to stake a claim for one of the two starting berths up top. As a striker I feel he's gone backwards a bit since we got promoted and I wonder if his future is as a wide midfielder where when he does go outside he can beat a man. In the case of Tade I'd move him out wide right and he will terrorise most left backs in the division. You can understand McG's prediliction to having him more central as he is athletic enough to cover every blade of grass but he is better starting from wide, and as both he and Weir have a tendency to play that way, one of Baird or Mole, who will stay more central has to play in there. Clearly, that was unacceptable as a performance. That is not his best eleven but given that much of that is what has played all the friendlies it gives me no great hopes for the games ahead. Rovers really need to get there act together, I understand the temptation is to sit with a deep midfield and play over the top to Tade, but that only works against teams like Dundee who'll come and play a high line, anyone playing a more cautious game will kill us with that eleven we started with.