Charles Bannerman

12th man.... what arouses you is probably best left private. Whatever turns you on my friend! And yes, despite genuine initial uncertainty as to what Scarlet meant.... yes, jest did take over thereafter!

Scarlet, I'm afraid it's not really obvious at all. You said - Judging by the way ICT are playing compared to County I think they are going to roast them which actually contains a double ambiguity. Firstly you haven't said in which direction you are making the comparison with between ICT (who have made a better start than last season) and County (who have made a very good start in the SPL,) Secondly you haven't defined which of ICT and County are referred to by "they" and "them". There's nothing really wrong with your grammar on the other hand - except maybe that since you clearly aim to make a contrast between the two sides, then you might have been better to have said "compared WITH County".

Scarlet, I'm afraid from what you've said there, I find it a bit difficult to decide who you think will roast whom!

Absolutely. Q: When is a separatist not a separatist? A: When he wants to con people into believing that voting "Yes" isn't really any great deal so he calls it something else. Basically, if the separatist lobby are saying, as above, "there would still be the same links to England as today"... then why bother with this whole pantomime of a referendum? I mean I know there's been the strong suggestion that a separate Scotland would continue with the pound since no one in their right mind would go into the Euro and a separate Scottish Groat would quickly go the way of the Deutschmark in 1923 so that's their independent monetary policy up the spout from the start. That will continue to be governed by the Bank of England as it is now. Then, for instance, I'm also wondering what they are going to do to achieve the worldwide network of embassies and consular services which we currently, as British people, enjoy. Are you REALLY going to have Scottish embassies with a huge picture of Alex Salmond in the front hall in every country in the world as Britain (but without the Salmond pictures - thank goodness!) currently has. And that's just the start but I'll leave the rest to the Better Together campaign's manifesto which will presumably appear at some point during the mindnumbing two years we still have to suffer of this unsettling distraction. For goodness sake, if things are working fine as they have been for 300 plus years as part of a bigger unit, why bother separating off from that simply to run all the risks which come with being a smaller one just to satisfy some kind of political dogma. Talking of that period of history, we frequently and rightly criticise the Orange Lodge for glorifying battles which took place more than 300 years ago. But now we are going to be confronted with a referendum, the timing of which looks suspiciously manpulated to coincide with (among other things) the anniversary of a battle which took place no less than 700 years ago. How simplistic can you get?

Just because someone was born in Scotland doesn't necessarily make them Scottish. 6 gold medals were won for team GB by athletes born outside the UK. This was an event for people eligible to represent GB and NI so there is really no point trying to claim Scottish medals. Let's wait till the commonwealth games when athletes who meet the eligibility criteria for Scotland and elsewhere can decide for themselves whether they want to be considered as Scottish or not. I have no doubt that on that basis Scotland will win more medals per head of population than the English. I think the games have been brilliant. Team GB came 3rd in the medal table with significantly more gold medals than Russia and Germany who normally would be expected to be well ahead of us. Whilst the Government may have spent a lot of money on infrastructure, the athletes have been supported through the lottery and their achievements will hopefully inspire youngsters to try out a variety of different sports and we will have a healthier population as a result. Also, top marks to the BBC. Coverage has been superb - and still is through their website. Agreed completely DD. For instance you've got Heather Stanning in the rowing whose has been claimed as a "Scottish Gold". Two significant problems there. Firstly she was one of an otherwise non Scottish team of 2 - just as the two canoeists were, and Hoy was one of a team of 3 and the gynmast guy was one of a team of four etc etc. And even more significantly Heather Stanning was born in Yeovil of English parents who happened to relocate eventually to Lossiemouth and she attended a local school there (Gordonstoun.)

The proportion of Separatist supporters on here has for some time been clearly much higher than the declining minority which more comprehensive polls indicate for the country as a whole, so the outcome of this poll will without doubt be a yes. And that's before you even include the contributions of a battalion of Cybernats whose mission in life it is to trawl the worldwide web and spam every poll like this that they can find. And I wouldn't be altogether certain that Salmond's loaded question, as quoted above, is quite as likely to be the one which will actually be used. A lot of things still have to go through a great deal of scrutiny which might not feel minded simply to contribute to the SNP's wish list.

In your first quoted sentence, you sound like one of these poor Caley Rebels who keep telling us that they "know" battalions of fans who allegedly still stay away from matches because they didn't like what happened. By the way, does your list include Shir Shean who clearly loves his country sho much that he shtays in Shpain? And, worse still, your second quoted sentence predicts a chilling scenario of degeneration into a rump community of sad "Little Scotlanders" with not a lot more to their lives than sitting round their TVs, painting their faces blue, watching their Braveheart videos or repeats of Archie Gemmill's goal again and again and whingeing on about the English.

I think you are right there. Double trap possibly. At the Paris Games in 1900 they used real pigeons!

Yeh mayte.... 'aindy wiv the old shooo'ah! Get the old Ruud Gullit to hit the Joe Cool on the Princess Margaret! By the way, did the Opening Ceremony feature dancing chimney sweeps? I hadn't actually been aware that shooting hadn't been been going so well for Team GB. I suppose there's always the danger that something will give way somewhere or not quite come up to the mark. On that subject, the entire Austrialian nation seems to have been struggling this time round. It used to be the case that the Aussies were so good at so much that the whole world used to pinch their coaches. Maybe they have none left! I had to laugh yesterday when Team Oz eventually did come good and Anna Mears beat Victoria Pendleton in the women's cycle sprint final (albeit after a controversial demotion in the opening ride). The Australian coach embraces Mears in front of an open mic with the immortal words (I won't try to do the Crocodile Dundee accent phonetically):- "I am SO f***ing proud of YOU". About a billion people must have been thoroughly entertained.

Unfortunately this thread took on a Separatist dimension round about post #6, to which it has been necessary for a number of posters to respond. Before suggesting that the thread should return to its original theme of gold medals for Team GB, I would only want to point out on the motto theme that I am very pleased to be a member of the increasing majority north of the Solway - Tweed line for whom "Patria" = "Britannica". But to return to the Olympics - maybe we should mark Team GB's stunning success by adopting a motto for that as well. How about something like "Better Together" maybe?

But hey... what are six Olympic titles when set against Archie Gemmill's goal?

You mean "Glasgow's" Commonwealth Games - which they will be to us in the Highlands just as much as the current celebrations are "London's" to the separatist faction, who must now be blubbering into their whisky at the current success of Team GB and the national pride which that is generating. Please remember that a lot of objections which the Scottish separatists come up with regarding rule from London apply at least as much to us in the Highlands with respect to rule from Edinburgh - which a Yes vote in 2014 would endorse. More so, perhaps, given the current Holyrood trend to focus power in the central belt - ie on themselves - for instance by creating single Police and Fire and Rescue services and trying to buy "yes" votes by ordering a Council Tax freeze - hence depriving local councils of a lot of freedom of operation and concentrating even more power in Edinburgh. But to return to a sporting theme - I can't think of a more overstaffed and inefficient quango than Sportscotland! PS - as I write, Hoy has just won that magnificent sixth gold medal! But this is a total which he would never have reached if he had had to rely on back up from members of Team Scolympia rather than Team GB in team events - a fact which I understand the great man himself is more than willing to acknowledge, along with the importance of the training facilities and partners he has had in England. I have a strange suspicion that should the worst come to the worst, a lot of potential Scolympians would suddenly unearth English grannies

Fund Team Scolympia with Barnet Consequentials I say! Very interesting, though, that you seem to think that a wee population like 5 million is going to find medal capable team mates/ partners for the likes of Hoy, Stanning, Grainger etc etc in the same way as one of 60 million did. And of course that's assuming that people like Stanning and maybe a few others who were born in England would even half think about competing for separatist Scotland at all when they have the reassurance of the bigger base to play for. In fact I doubt if Stanning - possibly along with others - is even eligible for Scotland. Presumably your sports facilities will come out from what's left of this imagined "bottomless pot" of cash AFTER it's been used to pay for all the separate embassies and consular facilities across the world and various other facilities which would presumably have to be created as a top priority?

I am quite aware of that. It's exactly as they should be. Scottish competitors who are members of a team are credited with the proportional part of the medal - just like the non Scottish ones are.

Mmmm... well that doesn't quite seem to square with this statement - The majority of Team GB's medals are from English athletes, with 13% from Scotland, 2% from Wales and 4% from Northern Ireland. Another 9% are from overseas originally, although all Team GB athletes are British. Nearly a third of English medal winners are from the North, Yorkshire in particular. Which in turn is a quote from from this Guardian database... http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/datablog/2012/aug/06/team-gb-medal-winners-background#home And of the Scottish medallists, just about everybody (apart from Murray in the singles and the swimmer who got silver) who got medals as part of Team GB did so in events where they were partnered by non-Scots and would REALLY have been struggling even to qualify to be there at all if they had had to depend on Scottish partners as part of Team Scolympia. And that's before you consider that fact that Team Scolympia would be left scratching about north of the border for non existent training facilities which they currently enjoy elsewhere, and mainly in England, as part of Team GB.

So I wonder how the cycle Team Sprint would have fared if Sir Chris had two Scottish sidekicks rather than the ones he had? Then there's rowers Katherine Grainger and Heather Stanning and canoeists Tim Baillie and David Florence. What price their pairs golds with purely Scottish partners? Sir Chris... that's the guy who has said that he couldn't have done what he's done without input at GB level and who trains in England along with the British team because there are no suitable facilities or partners in Scotland... as is the case with the likes of 400m hurdler Eilidh Child, modern pentathlon world champion Mhairi Spence from Inverness and a host of others. I really don't think Team Scolympia, fending entirely for itself, would figure very prominently at all on the medals table in individual and especially in team events, where the vast majority of Scolympian combines simply wouldn't be viable or even able to reach Olympic qualifying standards. Team Scolympia is simply a recipe for a great majority of Scottish sports performers to under achieve.

Are you taking the p*ss Yngwie? I do actually know a little about him though. I read that BBC item a couple of weeks ago and immediately remembered reference Alex Main had made to him in "Caley All The Way". Cornet was a major player for Caley in the early years of the 20th century. He was huge apparently and played in a variety of positions including RB and GK - perhaps the prototype for Ross Tokely! He used to train at the old Montague Road baths which ceased to fulfil that function in the 1930s when the Friars Street pool opened and became a Coop for a while in the 80s before demolition. Arguably Cornet is right up there as one of Inverness's greatest ever sports performers but would be seriously challenged for that accolade by the likes of Ian Young (Empire Games 100 and relay bronze medallist), Eddie Alexander (fourth Olympic cycle sprint 1988), Ewan MacDonald (3 times world curling champion) and more recently Mhairi Spence (2012 world modern pentathlon champion who competes on Sunday 12th in London). Then you could add in other Commonwealth Games folks like the Riddle brothers, Neil Fraser the hurdler (and former Caley youth player) and Myles MacKintosh the swimmer.

Yes, great to see. Heather Stanning also spent much of her youth in Lossiemouth where her parents still live (and there are plans to paint a post box gold!) This also took the wind out of the sails of certain noisy red top tabloids which had large front page splashes this morning about the cyclist dubbed "Wiggo" in tabloidspeak becoming the first Team GB gold medallist. But the great thing about today is that not only did Team GB get its first gold, and the first ever rowing gold for British women, but Bradley Wiggins also matched that later in the day to become GB's most bededalled Olympian ever. How these guys have managed to recover so quickly from the Tour de France is quite remarkable.

Today at the stadium I came across promotional literature for the ICT "Walk of Fame" where, for £80, a name can be engraved for posterity on the likes of a step in the main stand. Accordingly, I think we should have a whip round on here for the £160 that it would cost to engrave, in a prominent place, the names of "DOUGAL" and "BUENOS HORNELL" :lol:

I've just taken a look at my copies of both publications and the situation appears to be as follows - Caley all The Way - ambiguous. It says "Copyright: Alex Main, Caledonian Football Club, Inverness" which to me doesn't make it clear whether copyright is held jointly by Alex AND Caledonian Football Club or by "Alex Main OF Caledonain Football Club". Given that CFC voted in 1994 to invest its assets in ICTFC, I would imagine that any copyright entitlement of CFC would be transferred to ICTFC. I would suggest that Alex himself and maybe Jimmy Falconer or Ally MacKenzie could be consulted and then Kenny (who gave approval for my book) approached on their advice. Hub of the Hill - even more ambiguous. There is actually no copyright declaration that I can see although some photos are attributed do the late Dennis Eames who, his widow Anne told me a few months ago, was also responsible for at least the majority of the text. Once again ITFC voted to invest its assets in ICTFC so maybe Kenny could clear this again, possibly also after a "courtesy call" to Anne Eames. I think it would be a great idea to have these two fine publications online on CTO.

This is a football match we're talking about here, not a blooming seance!!! :lol:

Would that be Scotsmac or Pomagne?

Let me guess.... you are Peter Corbett in disguise? :lol:

Did you get your "coupon" at the same time? And did to have a very long wait while Diggar went out on to Grieg Street to shout good natured abuse at John Brooman or any other unsuspecting passer by before returning to complete your short back and sides? Good days, dodgy haircut, probably the short back & sides led me to joining the Army. Mixed fortunes witht the coupon, mainly losses As I recollect Diggar was actually an ex Army barber, I think originally at Fort George. He was certainly in the Burma Star Association. Maybe it was when he was over in that neck of the woods that he started the tradition of the North Korean "dodgy haircut" like the one the Little Fat Leader has. And IHE... given the rarity of the "Jeggie" publication, I suspect it may be worth rather more than 5p!

Do you think they would bend the BV rules if Afghanistan had a team in and allow them to compete in burkhas?