Scotty

We also have Shane Sutherland on a PCA.

indeed ...... Its the same over here .... all we get in the news is the guy down south spouting nonsense whereas in the North, our leaders are surprisingly eloquent and pragmatic. I still say they were late to the party in the first place but they are there now and that's what matters. The big thing is that it seems they are all working together, along with health officials and experts to try and crush this. Our city mayor has stayed largely quiet and let the province and federal leaders do most of the speaking. Prior to the coronavirus the (Conservative) leader of Ontario (Doug Ford) was regarded by most as a complete idiot with daily comparisons calling him 'Donald Trump north'. He is the older brother of the infamous 'crack smoking mayor of Toronto' (Rob Ford) and was prone to make rash statements, bold claims, and to put measures in place that he had to walk back just a few days later when the s*** hit the fan or he was advised how impossible or stupid they were. However, during this crisis he has been rock-solid, collaborative, and dare I say it quite eloquent and down to earth. When Trump stopped the 3M company from sending masks to Canada he ripped him a new one and basically told him that repercussions would be coming (Canada provides the raw materials for these masks in the first place) if he was so insular and DT backed down. He has backed measures to help those furloughed, and he has come across as sensibl while his former friend to the south just sounds batshit crazy !! Hopefully that level of statesmanship will continue after the crisis and he does not go back to old ways.

Personally - in my unqualified opinion - it depends on how it is handled in each country. The more stringent the controls, and the earlier they are imposed the quicker it seems to dissipate and with a lower curve and potentially the quicker things can get back to whatever becomes the new normal - at least that's my hope. I cite New Zealand as a good example and the USA as an example of what happens when those at the very top make sure its not taken seriously. My personal experience .... We travelled before the pandemic was declared when cases in North America and Africa were very low. We went from Toronto to New York then to Seychelles via Nairobi Kenya. We agonised over going/cancelling/turning back right up to the point where we got on the plane for the longest leg of our journey from New York to Nairobi. We decided to continue because we were part of a group of 5 and had all our 'equipment' with us (masks, gloves, disinfectant wipes etc) allowing us to sanitise surfaces as best as we could, and because, at the time, Kenya and Seychelles had a total of 1 and 0 cases respectively. I'll skip the holiday part other than to say it was great, although we did have a few COVID related changes to our itinerary on the way back, but what shocked me was the level of screening on the journey from the so-called developed nations. I kind of understand the lack of screening on the outward journey as all 5 airports we used (Toronto YYZ, New York LGA and JFK, Nairobi NBO and Seychelles SEZ) had little or no cases. However, arriving in Nairobi, with only 1 case in the entire country at that point, and within 50 feet of the airplane ramp we were screened using thermal imaging cameras and also a thermometer 'gun' pointed at us while you were standing on the spot required for the thermal imaging. The same applied on arrival in Seychelles where health officials boarded the plane to check you first then you got off and went through the same thermal imaging process before being allowed to enter the country. On the return journey (when things had gone somewhat exponential in both North America and Europe) we had the same temperature and thermal imaging checks leaving Seychelles and entering Kenya but nothing at all in New York at JFK, LGA or on arrival back in Toronto. NOTHING . We were handed a leaflet in Toronto saying we should consider isolating ourselves for 14 days (which we were going to do anyway) but that was it ..... Its got more stringent now with border closures, mandatory quarantine for returning travellers and lockdowns but to me it was like closing the door after the horse has bolted. I have kept an eye on all these places since our return .... Seychelles has had a total of 11 cases, none fatal. 6 have now recovered and tested negative multiple times and 5 remain in hospital/quarantine but none in ICU. All but one were incoming travellers who were identified and isolated at the airport and sent to the quarantine hospital they established on a specific (normally uninhabited) island. The other case was a baggage handler at the international airport which prompted them to close down the airport that day until the end of April. They had already banned all cruise ships and yachts from entering territorial waters or berthing in the Seychelles. A couple of weeks ago they said everything but supermarkets had to close and last week they stopped all supermarkets from opening after 6 and now all cars have to be off the road by 7 until 6am next day. With the exception of the baggage handler who presumably acquired it from someones luggage there has been no community spread. On our last day on the islands, our trip back to Nairobi was delayed by 14 hours (original flight cancelled and we were put on the next one which was consolidating the two flights) ... the airline put us up overnight in a resort hotel. We were screened on our way into the hotel as well by the same contactless thermometer gun. Kenya had 1 case when we arrived and now has 303 total as of 2 hours ago. A total of 14 fatalities only one of which was a foreign national and 83 recoveries out of the 303. When we were in Seychelles, Kenya banned all foreign nationals from entering the country. You could transit through the airport (as we did) but you could not come in. They were vigourously screening at the airport as I mentioned above and have pretty stringent quarantine and lockdown measures in place including curfews and quarantine centres for those who may have been exposed. They have just said they will not relax these measures for the holy month of Ramadan which is a pretty big statement to make. USA had less than 400 cases in the entire country when we left (less than 100 in New York) but on the day we came back they announced 10400 for the country and 5700 new cases in New York alone ! New York City (not State) now has around 140,000 cases and 10,600 deaths. The USA has 827,000 cases and more than 45,500 deaths. This is a country that is still complaining about lockdown, protesting (in groups) to lift the social distancing rules, had no screening at the airports until recently, and has an executive branch that quotes Fox News for its miracle drug that has not been tested or proven effective in any way. Canada now has 38,422 cases with 1834 deaths and 13,188 recoveries. In Ontario there are 12,145 cases, 659 deaths and 6221 recovered. In Toronto the city website says we have 3820 cases, 190 deaths and 223 recovered. Extensive lockdown procedures are in place and have been since we returned but some measures were slow to start in my opinion. We are now seeing a flattening of the curve since more stringent measures were put in place but we were behind the pace in my opinion. Our city government, Tory provincial government and Liberal federal government have been pretty much in sync through this all and despite being slow to start the collaboration at all levels (especially compared to our neighbours to the South) seems to be helping a lot. Stay Safe, Stay Socially Distanced, and Stay Alive folks ... and a specially big thank you to all our members here who work in essential services .... that is aimed not only at nurses, doctors or other first responders who are putting their lives on the line every day but also to those unsung essential workers who are still working in supermarkets, as posties, as carers, delivering the stuff ordered online, or any other number of roles that could put them in more danger. True heroes all.

Got a bunch of photos from back in the day of a lot of the characters from this site. must go through and post them. ... but once upon a time I took my ICT scarf on holiday and it saw some strange and exciting places ... Camp Nou, Bernabeu, and the Sahara Desert in Morocco.

Coronavirus is - quite rightly - a serious and depressing story with no lack of sadness, fear, tragedy and stupidity in the media and in real life. However I thought to start a thread where we could perhaps share some of the inspirational, lighthearted, or positive moments that have come from this adversity. There can be no better place to start than this guy .... "Sir" Thomas Moore, he hits 100 on April 30th ... someone give him his knighthood on that day please! It will likely be one of the few times HRH would be able to give a gong to someone older than her and he deserves it way more than some celebrity. £18.5m raised so far on his just giving page (https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tomswalkforthenhs) . biggest amount ever raised by a single fundraiser ever on that site. wow. just wow.

have a smilie face for your trouble

may also be a few folk who have suggestions or questions about features of the site they dont know about .... like our stats pages too - that are now pretty well up to date - for example ! or ideas for features we dont do ... its healthy to have a discussion like this from time to time and to hear what works or doesn't work for the site users ... @CaleyTennis - I also would not base your decision on this small-ish sample of users. We definitely do not represent the entire ICT supporter base even if we would like to. There are people who dont come here for various different reasons in the same way as there are people who dont do Twitter, Facebook, IG etc. I learned a long time ago to stop trying to please everyone and to not take it personally if someone said they didn't come here for a particular reason.

cue the lawsuits that name both the SPFL and Dundee FC as defendants if Hearts, Partick or any other team is relegated now.

We have our own page : https://www.facebook.com/CaleyThistleOnline/ where all our articles and stories from here are promoted, and a few years ago we also toyed with the idea of a group instead of this site (went as far as creating a test group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497130873636709/) ... but decided as a lot of our users were not on that platform and it did not give us the structure or the content that we have had for the last 26 years that we would just continue as is .... Is there something specific that Facebook groups offer that we do not on CTO which you would like to see? I tend to find most FB groups (and forums for that matter) run for a few months/years until the admin(s) lose interest then it just stops and slowly decays .... This forum is lucky in that we have a critical mass of users who literally keep it ticking over whether I or other admins are actively posting or not. Always happy to hear new ideas for features or to point users to features they may not be aware we already have --- like blogs, clubs/groups, downloads, photo galleries etc etc etc .....

Cant remember who suggested it ... but the fairest I have seen so far is that 2 are promoted from each league to the league above with no relegation. The Premiership is then (temporarily?) expanded to accommodate those two promoted teams. Maybe its personal bias as ICT would go back up, but it seemed pretty sensible ..... In terms of re-org, if it ever happens, I would like to see something quite simple .... 2 leagues only with 20 teams (or thereabouts) in each. You play each other twice in a season, once each home and away with 2 up and 2 down and possibly playoffs for the next 2 positions. Playing 4 times then potentially facing each other in cups has made things really stale. Retain the promotion to/from HFL and LL and maybe even expand that with the latest suggestion from the likes of the NCL to have promotion to/from the HFL/LL from the junior/welfare/amateur ranks. I would also like to see the SPFL and the broadcasters come to their senses about streaming or broadcasting content ... I still dont think they are leveraging online content to promote themselves and are focused on monetising the content in a way that is simply not appealling to most. I have said it before, I can legally watch football from all over Europe on my telly on a Saturday morning without anything other than my normal cable package but woe betide me if I want to listen to Open All Mics, which is essentially no more than a discussion programme where they cut to the grounds and do goal notifications. Its not even commentary FFS !!! When Scottish football is broadcast over here it is on a premium channel from the provider I already have and will always feature one of the twins against someone else. I dont mind paying for the content, but please look at what is in the content, what the entire package is, and how to make it more interesting to more viewers.

Scottish Rugby has already declared the same ... I think this is what will happen. https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/scottish-rugby-declare-season-null-and-void-with-no-promotion-or-relegation-from-any-division-195348/

Going to give a shout out to EuropCar, especially the guy i dealt with in the Eastgate centre kiosk. Was in town last year after unexpected bereavement and as anyone knows these things are fluid in terms of timings and getting estates and property sorted so we had to stay longer than anticipated. I rented a car at Edinburgh airport but booked through a third party. When I had to extend I got the runaround from EuropCar and their magical mystery switchboard adventure and from the third party with the only real suggestion being for me to drive the car back to Edinburgh then re-rent it ! I saw the kiosk in Eastgate by accident and spoke to the guy there who went into the system and basically slid my booking along the calendar ... I had booked and paid for 7 days and he amended the start and end dates to cover the new dates. Took him all of 5 minutes and said "don't be daft" when asked what the additional cost was .... Top notch service and I know where my next bookings are likely to go.

run it however you see fit ......

Scotty HT: 1-1 FT: 2-1 1st ICT: White 1st Opp: Dobbie Crowd: 1466 CDN Girl HT: 0-0 FT: 0-0 1st ICT: Doran 1st Opp: Oliver Crowd: 1501 SOS HT: 1-0 FT: 1-0 1st ICT: Todorov 1st Opp: Hamilton Crowd: 1688

THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Inverness CT -V- Queen of the South PREVIEW 10th March, 2020 @ 7:45pm, Caledonian Stadium Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Media Coverage AUDIO COVERAGE BBC Sportsound BBC Sportsound [UK Only] LIVE TEXT (ONLINE) Sporting Life BBC VIDEO SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel TEAM LINEUPS Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

I have passed the info to our chairman. I am sure he got it from a few others too.

Scotty HT: 1-1 FT: 1-3 1st ICT: White 1st Opp: Trouten Crowd: 933 CDN Girl HT: 0-1 FT: 1-2 1st ICT: Keatings 1st Opp: Millar Crowd: 875 SOS HT: 0-0 FT: 0-1 1st ICT: Doran 1st Opp: O'Hara Crowd: 1004

Scotty : Elgin @2.20 CDN Girl : Clyde @ 1.90 SOS : Dunfermline @ 1.80

THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Alloa Athletic -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 7th March 2020 @ 3pm, Recreation Park, Alloa Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Media Coverage AUDIO COVERAGE BBC Sportsound BBC Sportsound [UK Only] LIVE TEXT (ONLINE) Sporting Life BBC VIDEO SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel TEAM LINEUPS TO FOLLOW Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

There are a few folk on here that are club officials ... but we can certainly pass this along if they don't see it.

I dont think so but we have been migrating from cpanel to interworx and interworx does use letsencrypt. Our certificates are applied via cloudflare usually. in the process of checking everything but https should be working again now.

Tragically Bronson is not the first site member of ours to have passed away over the 25 years the forum has been active, and unfortunately he wont be the last, but the news this weekend seems to have affected a lot of us deeply as we have known him a long time even if we all had different degrees of closeness to him. I have been thinking about things a lot since I heard about this and would like there to be something positive to come from his passing. The Bronson Legacy referred to in the title of this post if you will. I do not know what fits, how best to phrase it, or even if we are able to do something lasting and beneficial on the site but FFS we need to look out for each other somehow .... I have seen comments on Facebook and elsewhere where members of our site have posted the offer to be there for others who might need to talk. I also hold my hands out and say the same thing to anyone on this site whether we know each other or not and whether we have crossed swords or are best of buddies. If you need to talk, I am here. If you need to vent, I am here. If you need a second, third or fourth opinion, I am here. I am no expert or psychologist, but I can do two things quite well ... listen and give an opinion. Many of us are the 'strong silent type' and that stoic Highland reserve is how I used to deal with things as well. It's a man thing, it's a Highland thing, and it's most definitely a Highland Man thing. Over the last two years my personal life has been less than perfect. 2018 started (on Jan 1st) with the suicide of someone I knew from the Toronto FC supporters group who didn't realise how much he was loved and revered (and still is). After watching an uncle die from Prostate Cancer, I was then diagnosed and treated for cancer myself and will live with some side effects forever but the crucial thing is that I will live. I also lost my mum in June 2019, two days after returning to Canada from our last visit to see her. Through it all I had the support of friends on both sides of the Atlantic, family and colleagues and this helped. I was in a dark place a few times but someone was always there with encouragement or a quick word. Its amazing how even asking how someone is doing can be uplifting and bring you out of that slump. It also helped me shed that stoic reserved approach. I now view life as too short and bottling stuff up is less of an issue now. I now participate in Movember each year and one of the key cornerstones of this is mental health (along with Prostate and Testicular cancers). I have talked openly about my cancer and told colleagues at work that if anyone is scared to go for testing or wants to know what happens after a diagnosis, I am here. The same applies for trying to remove the stigma over talking about mental health. I have added the MikeysLine link to our site pages over the weekend and there are a couple of other links below to sites that may help or form the basis of some small thing we can do for our little community here .... because thats what we are, a community, and community means looking out for each other even if/when we dont always get along. Please use this thread for comments, links or brainstorming anything you think we can do here. https://uk.movember.com/mens-health/we-need-to-ask https://letstalk.bell.ca/en/ways-to-help

It is with heavy heart that we must post of the passing of Simon MacDonald (Bronson). We have heard the news from multiple sources this morning. Simon was a stalwart of this forum from the very beginning and we offer our deepest sympathies and sincere condolences to all friends and family. Rest In Peace big man.

Scotty HT: 0-0 FT: 1-1 1st ICT: White 1st Opp: Doidge Crowd: 10689 CDN Girl HT: 1-0 FT: 2-1 1st ICT: Doran 1st Opp: McNulty Crowd: 12333 SOS HT: 1-1 FT: 1-2 1st ICT: Keatings 1st Opp: Allan Crowd: 11555

THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Hibernian -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 28th February @ 7:45pm, Easter Road Stadium, Edinburgh Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Media Coverage AUDIO COVERAGE BBC Sportsound BBC Sportsound [UK Only] LIVE TEXT (ONLINE) Sporting Life BBC VIDEO LIVE ONLINE [UK Only] : https://www.bbc.com/sport/live/football/51633608 SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel TEAM LINEUPS TO FOLLOW Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC