Charles Bannerman

WHERE'S the Internutter party? I seem to have forgotten the name of the place! :003:

On the assumption that L_G is unavailable that night, I'm sure Paul Sheerin could point you in the right direction.

If you listen out to Sportsound on 810MW tonight there should at some point be an interview with Craig covering a fairly wide range of topics.

I remember Davie as a great Caley centre forward. Sad to hear of his demise.

Academy Old Girl then?

He would deserve a whole lot more than a Queen's Medal for gallantry if he did that!

I think there's a bit of a "Zulu" factor operating here. What I mean is that, after the action at Rorke's Drift in 1879 (as immortalised by Michael Caine and Stanley Baker in the film) honours... including a fistful of VCs... were showered out by the dozen. But much of it was PR and spin. Lt. Chard, who had been in command, was in fact a very average, if not rather ineffective officer but the successful defence of the mission station needed to assume as big a public profile as possible to obscure the complete foul up there had been at Ishandlwana a few days previously where a whole British column has been massacred by the Zulus. To a large extent Guy Gibson and the Dambusters enjoyed the same dubious process after what in reality was a not particularly effective raid in 1943. Similarly, "Smeato" has become symbolic of the "successful" fight against terrorism and of Joe Public's glorious and heroic role in it. No doubt the man did something very brave, but I do also believe that his contribution has been over dramatised. The fact that, if he is not this already, he can very easily be transformed into the "caricature" Weegie only helps the process. He's straight out of River City and is invaluable to a government which is struggling badly in the polls. Smeato is also 24 carat Sun material. Sunreaders just love guys like this and he has been idolised by a newspaper which has an incredibly accurate handle on the way its "readership" thinks... or perhaps more accurately fails to do so. Smeato now has his own column in the Sun and today's cartoon shows the queen handing over his gong and asking if "one might now get a mention in your column." But make no mistake about it.. and I hope Smeato is aware of this.... the boy just has to commit one indiscretion in his private life and the "shamed former airport hero" will again feature on the front pages of the redtops but in a completely different light. Yep, there is definitely something Faustian about Smeato's relationship with the media.

Agree totally. At busy times it's desperate getting from the Bught/ canal area to the city (stuff it... TOWN!) centre. Completion of the SDR would help greatly and is an urgent priority as far as I'm concerned.

Is this someone in one of these populist TV programmes, much loved by the redtop tabloids, where people phone in and vote for nonentities? I believe Miss Goodsir met a goodsir and emigrated to New Zealand with him. (This thread is becoming seriously diverted.)

Miss Cuthbert... a bit before my time but I've seen photos of her in the school archive. A pretty fierce looking woman perhaps, but maybe not quite in the same league as Parrott!

".... to which you subjected us all"!

There is a distinction between individual preference, which is a matter of personal taste, and the fundamental which is the unacceptability of one human being battering another on the head until one of them has been incapacitated to the extent he is no longer able to stand. (And if neither succeeds, declare a "winner" on the basis of the "artistic merit" with which their respective attempts to do so were made!) I don't particularly like watching certain types of "running" (I'm not sure whether that's to be taken literally or has been used as an uninformed simplification of the sport of athletics) myself and American football is - to me but not to those who like it - simply the most tedious activity on the planet. There are other activities which I do like and which others may or may not, and that is all a matter of personal preference. But there is something fundamentally uncivilised about boxing, and that is even before you look at the state of the face of the chap who got that award on TV on Sunday night. It is also before you begin to consider what Johnboy quite rightly highlights in terms of damage to the inside of the head. In addition, I reject the "apologist" (and slightly patronising) viewpoint that boxing "does an awful lot of good for these poor lads in deprived communities." There are plenty of other methods of diverting boys from "mugging old ladies" than encouraging them to mug each other.

It was a great save but I thought his decendents were from the Congo. I would have thought his descendants are largely as yet unborn. His ancestors, on the other hand, may be of Belgian colonial origin. In fact it's amazing the extent to which countries which formerly had colonies benefit in a sporting sense from immigration from these colonies. In the case of the GB athletics team, I don't think it would be up to much had we not had an empire. I have to admit that when I first heard of the Hibs keeper on the radio, I thought he was a Scotsman by the name of MacAlambie. Either way, he's an excellent goalkeeper and indeed both keepers were superb on Saturday.

What a terrible indictment it is of the Great British Public that, of the three BBC Sports Personality prizewinners, two should represent an activity where the main aim is to bludgeon your opponent into a state of incapacity and insensibility! Should this activity really have any place in a civilised society? One of these men, who had been "fighting" the night before, even appeared at the awards presentation with a badly cut face, presumably as a result of what he had been doing. What kind of message and role model does this convey to youngsters? I find it bizarre that absurd Political Correctness can dominate our daily lives to a ridiculous extent but yet this thuggery still seems to be acceptable. NB - this post, to which I don't expect a particularly positive response, is NOT a windup!

Commentary on BBC Radio Scotland 103.5-105 FM from Mr. Bill Leckie with summaries from Mr. Brian Irvine. For the sake of Scotty and the other "diasporate housewives" :003: I hope this is a game which can be obtained worldwide.

I once met this guy, an ICT fan, in a pub on Byres Road one Saturday night when I was down for an athletics event at the Kelvin Hall and Caley Thistle had been at Firhill. The poor guy had been lifted by the cops before the game and spent the afternoon in Maryhill Police Station. He was a primary teacher from the Edinburgh area...... but it wasn't Mantis!

Is that a pub in the Royal Mile? :003:

Absent Friend appears to have quite a clear understanding of the way these things work. Negotiations on contracts are quite often more complicated than is superficially apparent and the waters are often unhelpfully muddied by wild speculation in the media (q.v. the Neil Warnock affair). As AF says, a club cannot possibly make a categorical statement until the whole issue is beyond any doubt. That takes time even though it's perfectly obvious what is going to happen. There is also the additional complication that, from a PR point of view, it is far better for a club to make an announcement at a press conference at which the new incumbent is present for interview. In Malky's case, that is the regular ICT conference at 1245 tomorrow (Thur). One way or the other, there is often a lag between the point where someone is going to be appointed, barring the unforeseeable, and when he can be wheeled into a press conference as the new signed up man. During this period it is perfectly normal for the media to report the story as "fact" once they are reasonably sure that is what will happen although nothing can be confirmed by the club. It looks to me as if this, along with the statement on the Chester site over which ICT has no control, is what has forced Graeme's hand today, 24 hours in advance of plan. In fact it is by no means unknown for somebody to take a swing at a story even earlier than that and hope for the best, taking the risk of egg on the face and I have seen some very eggy faces! Chairmen and Football Directors often derive a whole lot of mirth out of reports from time to time that certain individuals have been appointed by them. For instance I recollect an authoritative statement in an Aberdeen based daily newspaper some years ago that Bobby Wilson had been appointed manager of Peterhead! The fundamental problem is that in football it seems almost impossible to keep what is known in business as "commercial confidentiality".

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark". It's a quote from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (Prince of Denmark), made by one of the Elsinore palace guards when he sees the Ghost of Hamlet's Father. The quote is nowadays taken as indicative of something corrupt..... so, although SMEE used it in the context of Inverness Storewars, the most likely place you'll hear it at the moment is presumably in relation to Labour party finances!

A wineshed of Clachers. A dictatorship of Jambos. A genuflexion of Celtic Fans A fluteband of Rangers fans. A despair of East Stirling fans. A Carbuncle of Albion Rovers fans. A litigation of Partick Thistle fans. A relegation of Livingston fans. A linoleum of Raith Rovers fans. A Jail(end)ful of County fans. A parsimony of Aberdeen fans. A Woolmark of Aberdeen fans. A discovery of Dundee fans. A nursery of Falkirk fans. A misbehaviour of Milwall fans. A total lack of Gretna fans. A sting of Alloa fans. A Pele of Peterhead fans. A disappearance of Rangers fans (after about 75 minutes when they're losing) An expectation of England fans.

It wisnae me and it wisnae you, but let's not reveal anything more than that, Richie!! (Trust all is well with you?)

Naw.... just bad for typos... for my second "7" read "6"!

Strangely enough I did 7 years there and never got off the ground floor. P1 and 2 (Miss MacKenzie) R3. P3 (Miss Cameron) and P4 (Miss Fraser) R7. P5 (Mrs Anderson) R11. P6 and 7 (Mrs Ballantyne) R10. Also met Grassa making his way in when I was on my way out. Another Dalneigh boy.

That wouldn't do him a lot of good since the planning authority is Aberdeenshire Council and not City of Aberdeen.

SP... it was possible to do 7 Highers in Fifth Year in the IRA up until 1969 but for 1970, which was our year, they stopped that and reduced it to 7 so I dropped Latin, keeping up Chemistry, Physics, Maths, English, History and French. I didn't do any more in Sixth Year since I had my unconditional and fancied a year's "holiday", spending much of 1970-71 in my mate's Hillman Imp on jaunts to Nairn, Beauly etc. Were yours all in one year or across 5 and 6, D?