Charles Bannerman

You'd have to cycle bloody fast down the runway..... By the way, has no one thought of imposing a Bike Tax to pay for all these cycle paths that none of them uses and all the inconvenience they cause over taxed car drivers by getting in the way and slowing the traffic down? Oh yes, and annoying the **** out of you with these flashing front and rear lights!

I'd thought about going along to support it until I realised that they were including a whole lot of Irish things in it like Guinness (which I don't like) and Irish Jigs (and presumably yon funny dancing where you flap your feet about and keep your arms straight down by your sides - I Flatley refuse to do it :015:). So I deicded instead to help a couple of very worthy individuals to celebrate their birthdays!

Yes, I actually saw Golabek's goal (wonderfully worked it was from the left too) but nobody realised it was County's 900th. It was only when I was looking in the Jailender site that I saw a reference to it.... along with a personal plea for me to give it a mention, which I was delighted to do in this morning's Cup preview. PS - it actually came 5 minutes BEFORE Grant Munro's! :003:

Ooooh... duckie.... could you get me signed up for one as well!!!??? :015: Must head for Borders to get these books of Commando mags!

I wonder if that might have been a consequence of the hiccup which took the gmae off air for the first 10 minutes? Or was it just labelled wrongly?

I can guarantee (probably with support from Caley D) that Hilton is now wonderful, with their ?2.99 chicken supper a top of the list delicacy. Ronnie's in Eastgate was where IRA kids used to go for their "dinnur" - he must have made a fortune out of that. I was outraged to see that the West End (Serafini's) has now become a Chinese! :33: :018: :020: There used to be an excellent one almost opposite the Phoenix on Academy St, but I think that went Oriental as well many years ago. What about the one on Wells St? Long gone, I fear, and I presume Jojo moved from the Bught up to Hilton before his son Mike took it over. Remember also that van that used to go around town? I recollect it used to spend long periods of time parked on the roundabout down the Ferry (South Drive or West Drive I think.) Did the Rendezvous not used to do chips as well?

How could I have forgotten that one?!... and missed out on DUMKOPF as well! Think I'd be struggling to get much better than a Grade 6 in Foundation German with blanks in my vocabulary like that.

That's funny... neither did I! Was it because battles against the Germans were in a more familiar European context or was it that victory (since "we" - give or take the odd evacuation of Norway - never seemed to lose in these comics!) over the Third Reich was always sweeter? :003: I'm actually quite surprised they're still on sale! I thought PC would certainly have put paid to them by now, but it still seems you can say "achtung Englischer schweinhund" and get away with it!

Paul actually gave her a Christmas present. It was a spare leg, but it was only a stocking filler! :015: And judging by SMEE's reaction there, The Sun seems to have done a pretty good job on "Mucca".

Remember those graphic pieces of fiction recounting deeds of derring-do in the Second World War? Full of clean shaven, square jawed, heroic Brits, larger than life Yanks, sinister, cheating, Geneva Convention-breaking Nazis and buck toothed, cowardly, POW-abusing Japs. Some wonderful war yarns, though. These mags also seem to have provided the vocabulary for Foundation Level German when that came along in the 80s. Germans, it seems, manage to express themselves entirely through the medium of phrases like "Gott in Himmel", "schweinhund", "kamerad", "jawohl mein oberst", "aaargh" (when shot), "schnell" and "sieg heil". Japs, in contrast seemed to say "aiiieee" when shot and little else other than "banzai". And the Brits, of course, didn't actually get shot very often in Commando comics. 64 smallish pages for as little as 6d in the early 60s, but what were the other series of similar small paged publications? Was "Warlord" one of them or was that a separate comic? Talking of comics, are there any former Valiant readers out there? Remember Captain Hercules Hurricane and his Pint Sized batman Maggot Malone? The Captain was rather prone to getting into a "ragin' fury" if he was crossed by any "squareheads". Wonderful days!

You lot are as bad as Tommy who has been known to hold me personally responsible for any minor error in the BBC weather forecast! I really don't know why it's not possible to get many SPL games on the BBC overseas, nor can I claim in any way to speak for the BBC to whom I am a mere humble freelance contributor. However it very much looks to me as if the problem lies with the clubs and not with the BBC inasmuch as it appears that a number of clubs are not prepared to have commentary of their games broadcast free to air worldwide. I believe that ICT is not one of the clubs concerned. By the way there would seem to have been a technical problem until about 3:10 on Saturday. This certainly affected the coverage on 92-95FM in the Highland area. I'm not sure if it also affected internet coverage, ie whether the problem was between Love St and the studio or between the studio and the transmitter.

Yes James, but a whippersnapper like yourself wouldn't remember the days of record players without a single electrical part which relied on big "HMV" horns to amplify the sound created by the interaction between a huge thick needle and the surface of a bit of solid bakelite which went whizzing round 78 times a minute on a turntable cranked by hand. (Neither do I [HONEST] but I do remember seeing them on Dr. Finlay's Casebook! :015:) I wonder how "Iron Maiden" and "Metallica" would have sounded on one of these gizmos!? :003:

We have an expression in Inverness in response to statements like that.... "yerjokeenmun!!!" However, at your age, I do envy you your full head of hair. Perhaps we can discuss the secret behind your hirsute condition over the table at tonight's "freebie"! Oh, and by the way, I was 44 when I had to submit to the use of glasses.

Oooooh... you are awful...... but I LIKE you!

Jimmy was the oldest player in the Highland League even before "modern times" began. :015:

I was just dismayed at the @rse we... or rather I.... made of the "countries with one border" round! As for the ICT round, Dennis first to 100 caught just about everybody and for the international caps we were only thinking about current players. Apart from that, I had never heard of the rugby guy.

I'm free!!!

Overseas games? No problem for Caley Thistle! Ross County away... across the Kessock Ferry!

I'm very much with you on that one. This seems to be a phrase which "admin" people and politicians just seem to throw into monologues at random intervals. Also "rolling out" which was far as I am concerned means "imposing the latest silly idea on everybody". And... "while you sort it out, I'll go and shag the ball" Interesting indeed how meanings change. When the USA entered World War 2, Winston Churchill described Franklin D Roosevelt's reaction to his (Churchill's) joy with the words: "He thought I was gay".

DOUG RITCHIE, BREAKFAST VERDICT - PASS WITH HONOURS. :025: In the best educational traditions, it is good practice instantly to reward positive behaviour and as a result I told Doug that evidence of his honourable self denial this morning would be posted here within the hour. Rotary Clubs from throughout Inverness gathered for breakfast at MacRae and ****'s showroom to witness the launch of the Jaguar XF... and of more concern to ICT weightwatchers, for breakfast. However I can now confirm that Doug succumbed only to a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea (without sugar.) To start with, I thought he was perhaps trying to escape my scrutiny since he seemed to get to a table at the other end of the room with the bulk of a Jaguar XF in between us. But as I went up for my second plateful of bacon, sausage, beans and tomato, Doug called me over to advise me that he had restricted himself to the aformementioned cereal and tea (without sugar). And this was also confirmed by the gentleman sitting on his left, whom I have known for some time and whose integrity is guaranteed by the fact that he is also a Caley Thistle fan. So well done Doug.... only 53 days to go.

Hilarious but, er... perhaps we should remember that this is the place that actuallty WON while Inverness's bid was turfed out at the very first stage, thus spawning the most expensive wooden spoon in history (aka the Highland Year of Culture.)

:015: I think it was actually called The Gondolier.

Indeed it was and it was possibly underused as a result. There was a bit of daylight, though. The Caledonian Canal was finished in 1822 and the 1840s was the great decade of railway development, although it was a bit later than that before there was significant coverage in the Highlands. By then canals had outlived their usefulness. On the other hand, the canal was used for short distance trips within the Highlands. For instance the Glenurquhart shinty team which came to Inverness for the Great Game against Strathglass travelled by steamer from Drumnadrochit to Inverness.

No, you mean Grassa was in YOUR class. :015:

I don't know if SP is necessarily confusing General Wade (1720s and 30s) and Telford who built the Caledonian Canal which opened in the early 1820s. There was a long interval between them.