Charles Bannerman

Good to see the story and photos of the Church parade in yesterday's Courier. Despite all the good natured Ferry banter I've sprayed around this forum about the Fourth, I'd be first to acknowledge that there's more tradition and social cohesion about that company than about any other from Inverness. By the way, Jock, had they stopped drilling with rifles by the time you joined?

Does anyone have an answer to a question to which I've never been able to elicit a satisfactory response? - "Apart from the fact that you make less mess by not throwing away cooking oil and you don't use up scarce crude oil resources, what's the point of burning cooking oil instead of diesel?" I've always sensed the implication from the chip pan fuel brigade that they're saving the planet by reducing CO2 emissions. But the reality is that cooking oil produces CO2 just like any other carbon based fuel when it burns. Biofuels only reduce CO2 output if they are grown specifically and additionally as fuels and create a net increase in the capacity of the planet to photosynthesise away existing emissions. Unless that happens, you just grow biofuels instead of food, still produce CO2 and also contribute to the large food price increases we've been seeing of late. Similarly, people often forget that to get hydrogen as a fuel (and it's extremely awkward to store) you have to get energy from somewhere. But sunlight on Unst... that's got to be a wind up in a place which doesn't see the bloody thing for the entire winter!

I've got a feeling that "old" Eastgate began to disappear about 1979-80 to make way for Eastgate Mark 1 (which opened about 1982) and around the same time Falcon Square also went and was used as a car park before the new Falcon Square/ Eastgate 2 appeared more recently. Further out the road Hamilton's Marts (and the Lochgorm of beloved memory of pints of lager for 2/4d!) also went to make way for Safeways (of beloved memory before it got converted to Morrisons where the cafe isn't nearly as good!) which I think opened in 1999. I don't have all the dates but the 20 years between about 1979 and 1999 saw that whoile Eastgate/ inner Millburn Road area blitzed and transformed.

Might these steps not have led into the Carlton where I remember my mum used to take me late 1950s and there were still waitresses in te old traditional black and white uniforms? On the other hand I may be wrong since my memory of Hamilton St. seems to be a bit shaky (!) although I have a clear recollection of Scoobies getting BB parades up and running out of Washington Court off the same street.

That's it - I remember now! That's how I got it confused with Mitchell and Craig!

And by "atmosphere" you mean specifically....? And is Smee suggesting that those legendary Caley Rebel Heroes were in fact relative Johnny Come Latelies?

That's also what a lot of people used to say when they piled out of the several pubs in old Eastgate. Any IRA FPs remember the assistant jannie of the mid 60s by the name of Oddjob, partly because thast was his function in the school and partly because of his strong physical resemblance to the character of that name in Goldfinger? Oddjob would wander down Stephen's Brae at lunchtime, pop into Greewalds the bookies anf then on into Eastgate... the Plough or whatever. His pathway back up Stephen's Brae at 5 to 2 (or later) was never quite so straight.

You mean ones who would ask questions like "Who was Dennis Wyness anyway?"

You mean it had to be evacuated in 1930?

Do Nairn not in fact return to Meadowbank Stadium, the very scene of their 1986 triumph when they eliminated Meadowbank from the cup and went on to that tie against Dundee?

Was there not also an ironmonger on Hamilton Street then?

Having checked it out on Google, canuck and exgrover are indeed right. So what was the ironmonger that was on Academy Street between Station Square and MacRae and Dick then? Fraser and McColl was in Eastgate, Gilbert Ross was in Hamilton Street and I had associated the name Mitchell and Craig with the other one, but that's beginning to come back as a grocer now indeed. So what was that other ironmonger which was straight out of the "four candles" stable?

Yes... I believe 1976 was your last and only one. Did you manage to get your hands on the tin of dubbin they used on the ball as a souvenir? :018: :thumb04:

We don't allow tradesmen in Inverness so we don't actually need to have a Trades Holiday. I also find that last observation and illustration a bit ironic, coming as it does from a native of the caravan capital of the Highlands - just take a look to the East of the harbour! :thumb04:

That's the one.. guaranteed to speed up any runner passing through. Note so sure about any similarity with Dalneigh though.

Sorry BC but, with 30 years of athletics coaching behind me, and I'm being perfectly objective here, it just took a look at each of the two sides to see the difference in levels of conditioning. Aaah... Shanghai.... isn't that the estate that you (well "we"... not you personally) run through towards the end of the Nairn 10K and - even though you've got more than 5 gruelling miles under your belt and it's uphill - you still manage to run that bit faster!

2-0 Nairn. They got a couple of early goals and that was it. They probably deserved it but it really was literally "men against boys" since Caley Thistle stuck by the spirit of what they agreed and played a very young team. On the other hand it was interesting simply looking at the two sides - you couldn't help but notice that the ICT team looked quite a lot more athletic and conditioned. To be quite honest one or two of the Nairn players looked a shade on the portly side... in fact you could be forgiven for thinking at a distance that Colin Montgomerie had offered Nairn his services since he's not got anything else to do this weekend!

So am I... but I may be less certain about that late of a Saturday evening whilist availing myself of the hospitality in the Heathmount Hotel!

That would be Kirsteen then would it?

A couple of questions. Firstly, have you been able to establish who the directors of the company concerned are? Secondly, do a) This company or b ) The Trust or c) Both or d) Neither enjoy limited liability status?

Miss M.I.M. Taylor. She had retired by the time I got there, but was still well remembered by staff. She was tiny and used to keep a box in her lab to stand on so she could belt bigger people. She was also extremely fierce. I had Maude for Physics up to O Grade and then for Higher and SYS a couple of guys you wouldn't remember (Andrew Halkett and Jim Wilson) who were recent arrivals and didn't stay that long.

He would, wouldn't he! It's a pity you didn't ask him for his comments on the fact that, before the merger, an average of around 600 fans combined watched Caley and Thistle playing in the Highland League. Now, following progress within 10 years to the SPL, an attendance of 3501 is regarded as disappointing. And yes, I do know, among others, one very conspicuous anti merger protester supporting ICT. Mike Shewan (aka Gemmell) was a leading "Rebel" and one of the five of that group at one point lined up to take over in the event of the Rebels managing to oust the established Caley Committee. He has now for some years been a member of the ICT Management Committee and his jobs at home games include manning the end of the tunnel... as it happens with ex Thistle committee man John Falconer. These two have become the best of friends since 1994 and that to me epitomises what this merger has been all about. (And apart from Gemmell, the Social Club is full of old Caley fans after a home game.) Yngwie... I wonder of your "chap" might have been Alan Douglas (aka Buenos Hornell). I noticed after ICT's accounts showed a loss the other week he was doing his level best to doomsay on the Courier's website. It's a pity nobody pointed out to him that the profits which ICT had returned for each of the two previous years were just the kind of money that Caledonian FC used to struggle to make as total annual turnover in its latter days. On the other hand that might still be too much for this Lifelong Caledonian Fan to absorb since he is presumably still trying to find out who Chic Allan was. :thumb04:

That's possibly because one of the Einstein equations from one or other of his Theories of Relativity specifies that as the velocity of a particle increases, so does its mass. The equation is m(v) = m(0)/square root(1-(v-squared /c-squared)) where m(v) and m(0) are the masses at velocity v and at rest, c is the speed of light and v is the velocity the thing is going at. This function hardly moves when v is a low value (so under normal circumstances we just don't notice the effect) and only increases appreciably when the speed of light is approached. At 96% of the speed of light, the mass of the particle ihould be almost 4 times its rest mass and, in terms of Newton's 2nd law, requiring that much more of a force to accelerate it any further. By this stage, also, the function is increasing quite quickly so I could guess that 0.96c might be just about the limit.

Do girl dogs do that?

I meant that the guy from Oasis's wife looks like a cleaning lady... not Scott Paterson - in fact I don't even know if he's married.