Scotty

That was exactly my point when I said we are drifting further and further away from the point !!! I think the crux of this whole subject is the word "REASONABLE" .... There are definitely steps that any driver should take that are both reasonable and practical to avoid accidents, such as regular maintenance of the vehicle, being aware of their surroundings and the weather, driving to the conditions, driving responsibly (not speeding, tailgating, or overtaking where its not safe to do so etc.), taking appropriate action when unexpected weather, conditions, or the actions of other drivers happen etc ..... but I dont think it is reasonable to expect any driver to predict or even prepare for every possible eventuality that might arise, there are so many imponderables that you would never get into your car again ...... If you remember the scene from "Life of Brian" ..... "What have the Romans ever done for Us?" ..... you could have a similar discussion on this based on "What do I need to do or have before I get in my car?" ......

Think we are getting further and further away from the point in this discussion ......

I am sure that two very different stories will be presented when the dust has settled .... and like most things, the real story will be somewhere in the middle.

Thats how I read it too. Rory is another confidence player and it looks like Brew is trying to encourage him to show everyone what a small number already believe .... that he is capable of doing it at this level. I think the article referred to also mentioned consistency so Brew is clearly giving him a chance and laying out what he expects and everything else now rests in the hands (or at the feet) of the player himself. I would like to see the fans try to help him with this. Personally, based on a limited number of viewings (and many radio broadcasts), I am not convinced he will do it, but when he steps out on that pitch, the first thing he hears should not be a chorus of boos. We should not be booing our own players, no matter what. The only times I have ever booed ICT is to show displeasure at team performances (like losing 5-1 in Airdrie etc), never at an individual player. This is the same treatment that Paul Ritchie used to get and when people started supporting him instead of berating him he went on to have a great partnership with Denzil. He has been in national squads up to U21 age level and so-called knowledgeable people in the game obviously like what they see in reserves, training or wherever ... So fans, lets give the guy a break and a (last) chance to prove many of us wrong. Maybe, just maybe, this time, he will rise to the challenge because he can see that this is his chance to establish himself without having to worry about the more senior players he couldnt dislodge these last couple of seasons To Rory ..... please up your game, have some confidence in yourself and start banging them in like you have done in pre-season. If you can do that, everyone will be happy .... none moreso than yourself !!!

Not so. I have had this experience and although it did not result in an accident, the reason was not poor maintenance. My car is serviced at least every 3 months (because of my high mileage - 120,000Km in 3 years) and if I perceive anything wrong between those times I usually pop into the garage and speak to them .... perhaps the argument could be made that the mechanics could have done something preventative in my case but at the end of the day, mechanical parts will fail from time to time and unless cars go through the same rigorous maintenance routines that most airlines are mandated to use then it is a possibility. In general, I totally agree with you and I consider myself to be a safe driver. I drive at a decent speed in good weather or traffic conditions, I may bend the speed limit from time to time but mostly the roads are that full that its not really possible. I probably make mistakes driving like anyone else, but I dont do some of the crazy stuff i mentioned above !!! When inclement weather hits, I also dont go to the other extreme like some drivers do and virtually stop (which can cause just as many accidents) instead I drive at what I consider to be a safer pace but I respect the conditions and make whatever adjustments I think are appropriate. However, I can give you two examples right now that have happened to me where there were no warning signs. The first happened to me (as a passenger) near Perth and probably still happens to others in exactly the same location due to atmospherics .... you are driving along in near perfect visibility and suddenly you drive into a fog bank as you round a corner. You didnt see it because it was round a corner and there were no warning signs because prior to that you were in clear visibility. The first time it happened was freaky and it was impossible to be aware but on subsequent occasions I either warned the driver or when driving up the road myself knew where it happened so did take extra caution. The second example is from over here and has happened several times this summer .... We have had a fairly wet/humid and thundery summer so far and I have found myself driving along the highway in perfect sunshine only to then drive into an absolute downpour (rain/hail/thunder/lightning) where the sky that was blue and apparently cloudless seconds earlier is really dark and menacing in an instant. Its kind of hard to describe as there doesnt appear to be what looks like a dark cloud in the sky yet when it happens there seems to be dark clouds everywhere. There were no warning signs, but as soon as you hit this weather you need to adjust. As well as slowing down, I put on my full headlight system (dipped of course) so that cars in front and behind can see me - its crazy how many drivers dont do this, especially as 'daytime running lights' (sidelights) are mandatory in Ontario. As far as avoidable bad conditions, or conditions where you have some warning then I totally agree with you. I know the route I take each day like the back of my hand. I know where each pothole is, I know where all the roadworks are, and where I will be driving across sections of "grooved pavement", and I know where and when I have to change lanes to be in the right lane for each part of my journey so from that point of view I am definitely aware of things. Dont think we need to argue over this one ... we are basically agreeing for about 99% of it .... you are saying its black and white whereas I am saying its mostly black and white with a very small grey area in between.

Courtesy of LG, here is an image of what it looks like. click on image to see a larger pic [attach=1] DSM00.jpg_thumb

Whilst I would agree with what you say in principle, there are grey areas .... You can have a perfectly maintained car and things can and still do go wrong ... brakes can fail, tyres can suffer a blowout, problems with the road surface (potholes, "grooved pavement*", slippery conditions after rain etc) can multiply the effects of a small error. However, people are indeed overwhelmingly to blame for pretty much most accidents. *grooved pavement - the term they use over here when they scrape the top inch or so off the road surface leaving something that looks like the lines a fork would leave if you scraped it (gently) through a perfectly smooth and flat piece of pizza dough or something like that.

Just realised that I have also travelled a portion of Route 66 between Bloomington, Illinois and Chicago !!! It is now called "Historic Route 66" : http://www.historic66.com/ Would also like to add to my list from above to include places like the Grand Canyon, the Bay of Fundy and any other geographical or visual wonders in a similar vein .... I am lucky enough to live less than 2 hours from Niagara Falls, yet the last time I was there was before I moved to this country !!!

LG, Thanks for the offer, and I know I could get one from you or someone else if I was certain that I wanted one. However, as I will not be at the game, I will give this one a miss. I just wanted to highlight to yourself that the fixed postage costs via the online shop for lower priced merchandise may not be an ideal solution for most customers.

Not a criticism, as I know its not your fault, and you will always do your best to help (as witnessed above), but unless the club have drastically reduced postage rates for online orders thats not much of an option for those outside Inverness and something you may want to consider if you guys run out of stock but the shop still has them. The postage fees seem to be a set price regardless of package size or weight [£14 outside UK, not sure about inside - think its a £5 flat fee] and that is fine if placing a decent sized order but the last time I wanted to order, it was something like a calendar and the postage came out to significantly more than the calendar itself ... even though the actual cost for someone to actually post it to me from a post office was pennies ! All in all, will give this one a miss I think ... wont be at the game so its only fitting that someone who goes can have the chance to buy it :004:

LG - If any of you have a paypal account we can put up a link so people from further afield can order if you want. ......

I wasnt experienced driving in heavy traffic when I left Inverness but with a daily round-trip commute of 70 miles on the 401 highway, which has been named as the busiest stretch of highway in North America and the busiest Truck route in the world [SOURCE], you learn fast. I have seen it all, good drivers, bad drivers, slow drivers, fast drivers, drivers on the phone (still legal here for now), drivers reading maps, drivers eating, putting on make-up, playing with GPS devices or iPods etc and my personal stressmakers .... drivers swerving in and out of lanes every few seconds usually without looking and forcing you to break sharply (this is even more scary when you consider that the highway ranges from 3 lanes to 9 lanes in each direction and has no HOV lanes described by SP earlier) or drivers racing to the end of 'crawl lanes or merge lanes as they are called here and pulling in at the last second. When you see all this on a daily basis - I call it the "Wacky Races" - you realise that the accidents are almost always the fault of the drivers and nothing to do with the road itself. The only time you might not say that is in the midst of a cold Ontario winter when there is a lot of snow on the ground and even then if you have winter tyres and the sense to adjust your driving to the conditions you are normally fine. On my last trip home, we flew into Glasgow and drove up the A9 (and back again at the end of the trip). I had never driven the A9, and had never driven in Glasgow but that part was easy as it was early morning on a Saturday. Getting to Perth was a breeze, mostly dualled, clearly marked, and no big issues. Beyond Perth, I could not believe the number of bad drivers I saw, mostly to do with impatience and overtaking where it was not safe to do so, but also in the dualled stretches where numpties would try to get ahead of as much traffic as they could before it turned back into a single lane in each direction. Driving back to Glasgow was equally fraught with stress from Inverness to Perth and it was actually less stressful a while later when driving through Glasgow towards the airport in rush hour as it felt more like Toronto !!! The A9 should have been dualled from top to bottom years ago. Safety is way more important than "efficiency" and the trunk routes to/from all major population centres like Inverness / Aberdeen / Dundee etc should be at the very top of any list.

Our company has offices there and I speak with people there or from there frequently ..... some tell me they fear it is already too late and that SA will go the way of Zimbabwe soon. seem to remember you submitting a photo for one of the rogues galleries many years ago ...... people wearing ICT tops in strange places [attach=1]

I have been lucky, I have crossed a few off my list in recent years - Denmark, Sweden, Cuba to name but three. But there are still a few that are always on the list along with a others that come and go depending on my mood. Always on the list - Australia: [sydney, Great Barrier Reef, but also Perth in Western Australia because some colleagues tell me its beautiful.] - Machu Picchu: [Have seen the pics and heard stories from Big Stew, and it looks and sounds wonderful.] - Morocco: [Was somewhere we considered last year but decided against it. All research we did made it look/sound good.] - Egypt/Israel: [i like history and early political Geography - cant get much more ancient than this neck of the woods.] Used to be on the list but arent any more - Mexico (or Mexi-NO as we now call it): We almost went last year but a lot of Mexico is viewed in the same way as Ibiza or Ayia Napa to us on this side of the pond. Several Canadians were murdered or died in "mysterious circumstances" there last year and there were also several high profile cases of wrongful imprisonment. These incidents slid it way down the list as far as we were concerned. The icing on the cake, and the thing that tipped us over the edge and put this firmly in the NO column was watching "America's Most Wanted" [Crimewatch for the US] and seeing how almost every other case ends with the suspects whereabouts being suggested as Mexico. Recommendation - Cuba: If I were to recommend one place it would be Cuba. We went there 5 years ago for our honeymoon, and went back there a few weeks ago for our anniversary. The country is beautiful, many (most) of the people speak both Spanish and English, the weather is hot (but humid) and despite what many may think of Castro or communism, there is bags of pre-revolutionary history still evident - especially in Havana. The people dont have a lot, but many are happy for what they do have. We felt safe everywhere we went and didnt encounter any issues although the 'jinteiros' do grate on you after a while. These are 'professional' hustlers who try to get you to buy fake cigars or rum or to hire taxis or cars or go to 'palidores' [restaurant in someone's house] or to bars with them. They are all on a sort of commission from the place they take you to and can be very persistent. We said no to them all as we had read about it before arriving but you cant help wondering if some of them [especially the palidore ones] were actually offering an authentic service. The architecture in Havana is excellent. There are many really old buildings that are in great condition and given its history of being in various different hands over the last few centuries, of lots of different styles - from the "Capitolio" inspired by the US building in Washington (and built when the US was a friend), to the Spanish governors house in Old Havana that has a cobbled street outside made of soft wood so that the sound of horses wouldnt wake him up when he was sleeping. However, the residential houses are different, many are crumbling because of a lack of money and also because Cubans are not allowed to own houses, they are allocated to them meaning there is less incentive to do renovations and such like. As for beaches - Varadero is great - huge tracts of very white sand and when you step into the ocean it is warm ... none of this shivering like we used to get at Nairn beach, instead its like stepping into a warm bath. Snorkelling, Scuba Diving and swimming with Dolphins just cement the location as an island paradise. Who knows what might happen when Fidel finally dies or when his brother Raul either dies or is no longer President .... I hope it doesnt go the way of Mexico, that would be a crying shame.

Gleaning info from various sources (BBC / various independent sites / Dinamo Site) 1. A fee has been agreed between the clubs 2. Personal terms have been agreed between the player and Dinamo and that should be it ..... However, for some reason 1. Dinamo appear to be witholding a portion of the fee. 2. Dinamo published the transfer documents on their website. 3. The accompanying text suggested they were considering reporting ICT to both "UEFA" and "FIFA". The first point is probably not that unusual. Until Dinamo get all the documents and International clearance from UEFA then Marius is technically still an ICT player and not eligible to be selected (Romanian league started this weekend I think). Not sure why they would do the second one, it does seem quite unusual but points to some possible dispute and that they were showing the documents in support of their side of it. The third one - and my translation could be way off as the original commentary was in Romanian - seemed to suggest that whatever the dispute was, the clubs didnt think they could resolve it amicably and it might have to be referred to the governing bodies. I just went back to the Dinamo link and it appears the photos of the transfer documentation and the veiled threat to bring in UEFA and/or FIFA is gone so perhaps the clubs have sorted it out. Still nothing on the official website so lets hope the final dotting of the i's and crossing of the t's is taking place as we speak and the saga can be put to bed.

:clapping03:

Not really, Caley ceased to exist in 1994. It is however strange that there is nothing from Caley Thistle. I guess not all the i's are dotted or t's crossed.

He made 6 starting appearances in 06/07 and the longest run of games was 3 back to back starts. STARTS [attach=2] SUBS APPEARANCES [attach=1] sub.gif_thumb

Right now, Don Cowie is our major attacking threat ..... [attach=1]

He didnt get some form of honour after his long career in broadcasting ? I didnt realise that and think its quite wrong.

If we are going to do something sensible with whatever windfall we get from the sale of Niculae then tieing up the likes of Black, Cowie etc on longer than our normal two year deals would get my nod.

I didnt say that. I merely pointed out that he has made considerably more appearances than the other youngsters. I am applying the same logic that others are using to back up Rory. You cant judge him till he has had 5 back to back games, or you cant judge him because he only comes off the bench .... well if thats the case, how can you judge someone who has not made a single appearance fr the club in the same way as someone who will make their 60th soon. Let me re-iterate though ... I am not bashing Rory, I am saying I hope he does it ... but he himself needs to step up a gear and make it impossible for Brewster to NOT give him the 5 back to back games you speak of. If he can do that and start banging a few goals in then FANTASTIC. I am going to split this topic off and call it something like youngsters .... or maybe merge it into the forward line thread because, as interesting as this discussion is, it has gone way off topic from the original.

I wouldnt say so ..... Rory has made appearances in each of the last 4 seasons racking up 13 starts and 44 sub appearances. Zander has started 2 games and come on as a sub in 4 Vigurs has started 1 game and come on as a sub in 3 Kerr has made a single sub appearance Wood & Gillespie have yet to appear for the first team

I will give you that one. the most he has made is 3 back to back starts.

Dont think I would argue with that. As for Rory, I want him to do well, I REALLY DO !!! I want ANY player wearing an ICT strip to do well but he has to up his game somewhat. He has scored 5 goals in 44 games and that is not good enough for a striker. I will concede that many of those games were brief appearances from the subs bench so the total may look worse than it really is, but if we discard the sub appearances he has made 13 starts and in those games scored twice (V Gretna and V Ayr). [15% strike rate] His 3 goals from the subs bench were V Dunfermline (88mins after coming on in 76), V Motherwell (88 mins after coming on in 83), and V Dumbarton (72 mins after coming on in 67) so he can definitely do it from there too even on short appearances ... if his head is together. He has had a good pre-season so far and scored a few so lets just hope it has increased his confidence to the point were he can regularly hit the back of the net for the first team if selected. I would love to be sitting here this time next year saying that we were right to persevere with the lad and how well ALL our youngsters did in the 08/09 campaign. EDIT: correction for above - i mentioned 5 goals in 44 games. he has actually made 44 sub appearances and 13 starts so its 5 goals in 57