Charles Bannerman

On the grander scheme of things, erections like this are simply f@rting into the wind. It would take an incredibly large number of them at stupendous cost to create even a tiny increase in the planet's total area of cultivable land. And if there is a shortage of land in relation to the number of people that need fed, how the h?ll are they going to find the space for these much publicised "conscience savers"... the trees which people are meant to feel guilty enough to plant every time they disembark from a plane. Add to this the space needed to grow "biodiesel" and a land shortage soon builds up. Indeed food prices are already beginning to increase, apparently because of a shortage of land since so many green bandwagon drivers are using it to grow biodiesel plants. A lot of this biodiesel stuff is just a huge con since for that to have any effect you have to assume that there is a limitless supply of land on which to grow more green material - which there isn't. This whole "carbon" issue is beginning to become just a bit silly with far too many people jumping on the bandwagon to try to make a quick buck or build up a reputation. Here are one or two suggestions if you want to save the planet. 1) Don't reproduce. The ultimate cause of CO2 emissions is PEOPLE, so the problem really is the fault of folk like Al Gore who has procreated all of FOUR CO2 producing children. The condom will save us! 2) Don't do your garden or cut your grass because doing so reduces the capacity of the planet to photosynthesise. 3) Send the entire management corps of Ryanair back to the building site.

CD... there was a severe nationwide shortage of housing immediately after the war, made worse by a rapidly growing population of baby boomers. One of the solutions to this was the Prefab and permanent council housing estates also went up all over the place. I would imagine that the recently elected Labour government, with all its Welfare State ambitions like the NHS, would also have had public provision of housing high on its list of priorities. Much of Dalneigh seems to be from the fairly immediate post war period although some parts like Dalneigh Road and Laurel Avenue may have predated the Swedish houses such as the one which we moved into (and which was not split new) in 1958. There may have been an element of returning soldiers from big cities but I do remember Dalneigh as being predominantly Invernessian and certainly the influx was nothing like central belt oil workers into Alness in the 70s. As a result of all this, Dalneigh Primary School was built in the 50s (and its architectural first cousin Hilton to cater for a parallel development there) and when I was a pupil at Dalneigh from 58-65 it had two classes in ever year plus a senior remedial class giving a total of around 600 pupils. If younger readers are questioning my totals, 40 odd to a class was commonplace then! Inevitably there were lots of young families then but as time went on the same people tended to stay there, no longer with primary aged kids so the roll of Dalneigh School shrank into the 70s.

As it happens I've just returned from a Rotary Club talk from Councillor Dave Henderson who gave a showing of the old slides originally collected by the legendary Inverness local historian Joseph Cook. One of these showed Cromwell's Tower towards the end of the 19th Century and the slaughterhouse (or "abattoir" if you want to translate that into more contemporary English :015:) is clearly visible behind the tower. It's a pity that the slide didn't have a bit more scope since it may have included the Citadel ground. I must take the opportunity to ask Dave if any of the other slides has any detail of the ground in it. I would imagine that the slaughterhouse was bound to have smelled of animal decay and it would have been worse in earlier days since there was also a tannery by the riverside opposite the old baths. That apparrently stank to high heaven as well and a SW wind would have blown that pong in to join that from the slaughterhouse. There was also a sequence of slides from the 1860s onwards showing the Meeting Park and Victoria Park (now Smith Avenue, Maxwell Drive, Bruce Gardens etc) on the opposite side of Glenurquhart Road. You can see how that area developed with the construction of the Bishop's palace (Eden Court) on one side and steady changes in Victoria Park on the other. Dalneigh, as viewed from Tomnahurich, is just a farm and in the main was not really developed until the 50s. It was a bit scary to realise that I remembered much of the dertail in the old slides (suspension bridge, the Duff Street slums where my mum used to threaten we'd go and live if I was bad, Castle Tolmie etc) and I also remember being at one of Jo Cook's lectures when I was a youngster.

Yup... it's called Ben Nevis.

Kiltarlity.... what EXACTLY do you mean by that statement :symbol_question: (Which, with a bit of lateral thinking, reminds me that we've not had many posts from Footballer's Wife for a wee while!)

Now that's a bit ironic! Presumably this was in Canada so, unless it happened to come from an Indian or an Inuit, there's a fair chance the individual concerned originally came from the same place as you did.... just a couple of generations earlier.

Didn't Ally MacLeod make a similar prediction about the 1978 World Cup?

DJS...these league tables are very interesting! Although it was founded in the Working Men's Club on Bridge Street, I hadn't been aware that the Highland League had been as Inverness dominated in the early years as the tables show. Indeed in 1896/7 the only teams to finish the course were the four from Inverness and the following season there are no fewer than six Inverness teams (seven if you include the Camerons). Also, with the exception of "Aberdeen A" which is perhaps something of an anomaly, the first time the trophy went out of Inverness was to Buckie in 1920. It's also interesting to look at the extent to which the League has been geographically turned inside out in more recent years. Since national league football came to the north, the HL has been overwhelmingly dominated by the Aberdeenshire FA teams and indeed last season it was almost a complete top - bottom, Aberdeenshire - North FA split. Really since 1994 the only North team to make any great impact has been Clach, especially around 2003 and 2004. Now it seems no one in the North can match the kind of money being piled into the likes of Buckie, Inverurie, Huntly... with ther possible exception of Nairn who seem to be fairly well resourced and are at the moment the leading team from the North area. However I just wonder where all this "big money" strategy among HL clubs will end? It happened in the 80s but the bubble inevitably burst.

Remember the chipper - think it was where the Chinese is now - but forget his name. Do you also remember the horse trough at the junction of Wells St and Kenneth St.

So who was responsible... the "traitors" in the stand?! Stuart McKimmie, Alex McLeish and Eoin Jess were in the stand that night as well by the way. Was it not that night that Jock McDonald was leaving the ground to be confronted by a group of Caley Rebels MOONING at him in the Howden End? Jock's immediate reply was to comment that what they were showing was a lot better looking than their faces. :015:

I would have scruples about what lawyers would charge to explain what "demur" means. :015:

But, unlike lawyers, teachers won't charge for an explanation of what it means!

The Urquhart header was early in the second half at the Distillery End, midweek in May 1994 to give Caley a 1-0 victory over Thistle in their last encounter and both clubs' second last game ever. Urquhart indeed was not registered and Jim F did pay up the fine on the spot at the next League Management meeting. If you have got a ticket for the Legends' Night you will see this goal early in the video presentation which will go ahead on two large screens during the meal. It runs from the earliest merger negotiations through (I think since production is not yet complete) to the St. J game in May 2004. All credit and many thanks to Mantis without whose superb DVDs this project would not have been possible! :021:

That's because in this hyperbolic age, all "sheep meat" tends to be called "lamb"!

Only lawyers "demur"! :015:

In fact was the strip with the very narrow stripes not what they had in the early 90s up to the end, with the last broad black and red stripes immediately preceding that? I remember going to the launch of a Thistle strip in the Haughdale just before the merger and that might have been the narrow black and red one. I have a particular memory that lunch was outstanding but I also recollect a green away strip seeing the light of day on that occasion. That, I believe, might have been Jags' very last away strip and I'll tell you why. I'm sure that was what Mark Mitchell (ultimate Jags Rebel) was wearing on Cup Final afternoon in May 1994 when Brewster scored the only goal of the game for DU v Rangers and the Wickers were demolishing the Jags enclosure and loading it up on a lorry. I was doing interviews about this when a tearful Mark Mitchell, wearing that green away top, came up, wished Academy all the best in their new career in the Highland League, and disappeared along Kingsmills Road.

Now a Hoover mender's shop while Tait Grant's is a restaurant (but iIbet they don't do the best gammon steaks in Greig St..... that's definitely Gordy at the ICT Club!)

Except that there wasn't a Thistle strip for 1994-95!

I agree. Someone has done a very goos job of condensing the while thing. Just perhaps a couple of quibbles I might have. It says that the SFL application was lodged "after" acrimonious warngling,. i could equally argue that this should be "in advance of"! There is also a sort of implication that Telford Street became the new stadium but all in all that is very good indeed, given the extent and complexity of the subject matter.

So short that it might best be merged with the thread that ran a while ago on "oxymorons"? :015:

Tailor to jeweller.... what you might call "diasporate" jobs! :015:

Salvadori's in Greig Street. Wonderful ice cream with the option of raspberry cordial on top. I've said it before on this site, but what a wonderful snapshot old Caleyland Greig Street was. Cushnie's Post Office, the Chemist, Salvadoris, the Coop, Morrisons, Frank Hills, the Caley Club, Jimmy Munros, the paper shop (previously Baddons the bikeshop), Diggar's barber shop which is worth a thread on its own. (As a young Brooman said to me during the merger "Diggar McGillivray is hardly cold in his grave and look at what they're doing to the Caley!")

They do. It's called the Fans' Forum on the Unofficial Website. The only difference is that contribution is open to all takers so the quality is a bit more variable.

Now I'd completely forgotten about that! (The trophy is still in the IRA cabinet though.)