Scarlet Pimple

Dougal -- good try and hopefully there will be more positive stuff from you and then your popularity will soar like an Eagle. Crowd -- I did see a figure of 3,500 or was it 3,700. In view of recent turnouts It may be construed as encouraging. Steady, like.

Gentlemen and Ladies of the Jury, please read on:- http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/30150601 That's it. "Nuff said". Kind regards . S.P.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/30065632

Fouls : ICT 2 - Motherwell 6. Looking for more goals from our front line in the second half since from these stats it seems as if Killie are under the cosh a bit. In the Dundee V Killie match , Kilmarnock have committed 9 fouls.

Remember that American song ...".....when will they ever learn...?

Nah! Nah! --see that picture to the left of his name.....I think there is life in the old dog yet. Maybe, like Scarlet, he's beginning to lose his memory and is a bit senile, but he still soldiers on like the book trooper that he is --I think? :

Gosh, Golly -- The Longman, eh? Who would have thunk it?

Done and dusted, Donview the doughty. Have you been to any Aberdeen games at Pitter Patter Park this season? Any comments?

Howdy Pards. Yngwie--Woody Guthrie?. You mean Woodrow Wilson Guthrie I presume. Wasn't Woodrow Wilson one of the American Presidents about that time? I have just seen a movie about him, his rise and fall. Quixotic, rover type character. Maverick almost. From Tennessee was he not? Couldn't stay at home with the missus for five minutes. Had to be riding on top of trains and hitching lifts on dusty country roads to ...where? Pi..ed off many music managers because he wouldn't toe their line and sing the songs rhey wanted him to which did not include rabble rousers like ones protesting against poverty and inhumanity in the Deep South .Good musician though, if you kin understand the Southern Lingo then you could get the downhome message just fine. Yep! Have you also heard of Dusty Rhodes? Australian dirt bike rider of great note I do believe. But definitely not from the Deeeep Saaath of Americky. for sure.

....."remember that the grass is often not always greener on the other side"--If we adopted that attitude in our life from the cradle to the grave then we would never get out of the cradle Biggin, and no one who really wanted to, or yearned to, get ahead in life would ever be able to......

For what possible reasons would the sane management of ICT dump Mr Hughes in favour of a player with no management experience at this level? Unless a total disaster befalls the club I can not possibly imagine any such occurrence. If Richie is seen as a future management trainee he will require to start at the bottom like all other prospects. Don't forget he may be very smart indeed and shrewd as a manager but unless you have actually been involved in coaching direct then he will have to learn that part of the trade first hand. Bughtmaster , you are correct . We do have a very smart Chairman AND he is also has character and therefore I foresee that he will loyal to his faithful servants, especially when a good working relationship has been established between them. Now I don't know Mr Hughes personally, but would there be a possibility that he may be considered in due course for a higher position at this club on the basis of knowledge, personality and character. Looking at it from a distance I would suggest--yes.

It's the Glagow Rangers as Alex hinted at. Makes perfect sense. They can't afford a lot of money since they are teetering on the brink of financial ,disaster, but they need excellent players to get back up and G. Shinnie will be a stand-out since his confidence will get a big fillip by this transfer and he can meld into the team whilst they are still downstairs. And if the "Gers" can make it up the stairs again he will NOT have done his career any harm at all by this move. I think he might perform better at Ibrox than Pittodrie .Mind you, Barry Robson says he may well be playing again next season but bringing in Shinnie and keeping Barry (aged 34--36?) on the bench more or less for emergencies or for just the second half may make a lot of sense to the Management there. That will also allow Barry to, ease out of playing footie and getting into some kind of Management position perhaps? He is cagey about that at this time but....? Man, does Graeme ever have a shot on him for such a slim figure. Only Tansey, perhaps, can send in raspers like him. Pity they both have a ..well...a slight tendency to blooter them over the bar. Whatever happens, the very best of luck to a fine player and a very good servant of the club.

John Hughes managed to stifle the negativers for a period but now, like the gophers in the prairies of Saskatchewan who appear out of their holes when the snow disappears, to see what's around them, here they manifest again: N for: Negativers, Naysayers, Not helpful, Not uplifting, Naughty, Narky. Even nasty, Not unlikely to depress Nattering about nothing really significant Nebulous at this stage N...... in the woodpile undermines the ship. Note that one swallow does not a Summer make. Nero fiddled while Rome burned but our Management is much smarter and much less mad than him. Notification: We will be in the top three no matter what at the end of the season. Now there's a thing that we should talk about. No player is indispensable and no player can not be trained by John Hughes nor remain at this club for long if he doesn't want to. Never say never, --when there's breath left in the body. Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah Na. Nightie night and remember....never quit 'cos it aint over till the fat lady sings. JINGS!

Very innovative. Deserves great reward. If it brings a lot more fans in to see our team performing as they are then that exactly what we need to foster more enthusiasm to come on in and support the team.

In the La Scala on a Saturday morning one of my favorites was "CLANCY of THE MOUNTED" and there is not much more Canadian than that red tunic on the large polis with the large hat, leggings and spurs on his boots. Yep must have been a harbinger for me of things to come. Does anyone remember Biggles at 6p.m or 6.30 pm on the Home Service or was that too close to the 2nd world war for comfort such you all stayed in the womb for an extra year or so till the storm passed? Flight Lieutenant Bigglesworth of the jolly old RAF and his jaunty Navigator, Algernon. You younger guys don't know what you have missed. There was no cell phones in them thar days , not even a land line in our house or anybody else's for that matter. When my first child started to come out I ran along the street full tilt at 3.30 in the morning to get the midwife because we didn't have a phone in the house. Very soon you will send the drone to p ick her up I figure.

Dunno about all that Mantis. I rarely drink in bars but if you paid $7.95 for a pint then they saw you coming. ha! ha! Just let me retort by reminding you that I paid about eight pounds in Inverness Museum for a small soup and a roll and a cup of coffee and my sister had a coffee and a bun and that was 6 years ago. So maybe you were in a museum, mistaking it for a bar cos it had a stuffed Moose head on the wall. And also the beer is stronger here so maybe they didn't want to have to carry you out. Seriously when half the big money is situated in Calgary these days of course they are going to pump up the price. The place is buzzing . About the gasoline--6 years ago I was shocked at the cost of it in Inverness -double what we paid at the time for the equivalent of a gallon, being 4.55 litres imperial.This is the American and British standard which I used for comparison so work it out. So, an imperial (British) gallon here in Canada is just that, a gallon. An awful lot of people go down across the nearby border into the U.S. to buy groceries and gasoline and do save a lot of money but to me that is just a boorach unless you want to stuff your boot to the gunwales with stuff. Booze is also cheap there and my wife brought back a bottle of whisky which cost her $10 or about 5 to 6 pounds. Here in the Wild West we also have to pay considerably more than in Toronto where Scotty resides. When they are paying $1.18 for a litre in Toronto (we serve it in litres, not gallons) the price we will be paying here in Vancouver, some 2,200 miles further West, is closer to $1.35 or more. Earlier this year we were paying $1.50 per litre but the decrease in the price of oil on the stock market allowed for a reduction now to about $1.28 per litre in Canadian dollars.

Jim --glad you liked the reminiscences. If it wasn't for the National Service I would never have met Bughtmaster who, incidentally, is a fine landscape painter as well. AND he can paint some nice pictures with words too. But I can hardly credit the misery that they put him through 'cos I didn't have to put up with that much horror. The worst we suffered in training was to be sentenced to the "Tinroom" --where the dishes were washed and everything was greasy and smelly and thus not a pleasant experience. Once the rat of an instructor with the name of corporal Stewart singled me out and smashed my mug on the roadway. Why? To this day I haven't got a clue--obviously he didn't like my face or something. As for National Service itself, it's like most things in life, has positives and negatives, boredom and excitement from time to time and it teaches us to experience things that I would not have, had I not been press-ganged into it. Thus it does broaden your horizons. Personally, I am still in favour of it for all young men about to step out into the big, bad world, but perhaps 18 months would be quite enough for anybody rather than 2 years. On the other hand it sounds as if Bughmaster did much less work than I did and spent his halcyon days playing games and visiting other airfields, the lucky sod. After all, Shleswig Halstein is cow country and the pace of life was probably very slow there and that's why these guys were predominantly playboys? Brylcream boys, like .....? Did you get up in any of the aircraft on your base Bughtie? I never did, I just saw the Americans getting better food than us and had much finer-looking uniforms than us but otherwise it was duty and dullness really. I used my spare time to study for my eventual exit from the RAF an getting back into a regular job.

Charlie--it sure sounds like you were a bit of a lad when you were a teenager. Was that because you were either irrepressible or just plain precocious? Myxamatosis? Why, I'm beginning to warm to you . And , HighlandRover, when you were doing yoir deliveries I suppose you looked very hirsute (Woodstockish, like) because you didn't have time in the morning to use your...Rolls.... razor as much as anything?

Eagle 4 Caley--I noticed the lovely and lyrical background too. But that's only because I am so sensitive. Just like you, I suppose--- birds of a feather ( an Eagle and a Hawk) flock together? Willie Collum, actuellement, appeared from the highlights to be full of self control and rather good with his decisions. Credit where credit is due, now guys. Maybe he will calm down now. Great highlights, great goals. What a lovely day you got too. One day we will get 4000 souls in the door and then I will be a happier camper. For the life of me I can't understand why more fans don't come to the games. The pitch looks good, the surrounds are idyllic, the players are motivated and generally superb and the footie and commitment is (or seems to me to be) outstanding.

IHE.... where is was the Tarry isle located again?

Charles --MAYBE YOU'VE HIT THE NAIL UP[ON THE HEAD!

Probably the climate Alex. They go to these areas probably because they want an easier climate and time of it. The article spells it out for you..those who want big money had better come prepared for hard work ---which is also dangerous sometimes if you don't do what your are told and ignore advice etc. Mind you the rigs usually pack up in the winter so they work long hours in the warmer months. Not sure why you are asking me these questions though. Maybe you can enlighten us as to the answers? I only posted the comments as gleaned from what I have seen re the workings of these rigs on T V and the information well detailed in the article. There are many other high paying jobs in Alberta other than operating oil rigs. 5 or 6 years ago waitresses in Calgary, the capital, were earning $31 per hour plus tips which I have no doubt were very remunerative. There are also very remunerative jobs working on the pipelines that are being put down across Alberta and other Eastern provinces now running oil or bitumen to Eastern ports and one huge one in Northern B.C. destined to export stuff from Prince Rupert on the West coast. It's the subject of controversy but the Feds have approved it so the protesters will have to work very hard to derail it now. Especially since our Premier is obsessed with getting LNG out of the ground as well here in B.C My one question to you is : when you say no opportunities, poor conditions and low pay what country and what industries are you referring to? If it's Canada then maybe they are not that skilled workers or maybe they are not too keen to put up with hard work in difficult locations--again, the article highlights that possibility. But I have never ever heard of low pay being an issue anywhere in the oil patch(es) here in Canada. Look, nothing is for nothing--these jobs usually attract people who are wilo8ing to pout in a limited time to make a large sum of money and then go elsewhere. But those who do make it and are on the regular payroll of the large companies in Supervisor or management positions have paid their dues, stuck with it , gained recognition and favour and moved up from a low position to one where the conditions are probably better with higher pay and greater responsibilty. The last thing I would mention is that oil extraction and refining is not the ONLY profession in this multi-cultural country. If you get hired because of your qualifications then you can do very well just as you can in any other part of the world. Except, in other parts you often have to contend with discrimination or other barriers to advancement. And the sports played here can range from snow-shoeing to field hockey, cricket, rugby and so forth ad infinitum. All I am poutting forth is that this all adds up to one thing: OPPORTUNITY.

Poort Willie Collum. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't!