Charles Bannerman

I had forgotten the balcony was so steeply ramped!

Betty is driving the bus.

Not before time!! They are an eyesore but ironically it's the manky brown one on the left, which was put up years after the other ones which are early 60s, that is the worst of the lot. I think it was Hut 38 where I did Higher and Sixth Year Studies Physics and Andrew Halkett then Jim Wilson would both go and hide in their walk-in cupboards if they spotted Maude coming across the playground in their direction.

Three points last night have now been reinforced by three of the other five results going ICT's way... and the three most important ones in that they saw the rest of the bottom four lose.

Spelling and split infinitives as well! OK then IHE.... you said before the Hearts game that fewer than 3 points from the next three games would mean definite relegation. That's now four points from the first two of them, so does the converse apply? Does this now mean equally definite safety? Does the nature of this victory remind anyone of the legendary John Rankin "squiggler" which snatched victory against the same opponents (Kingsmills may disagree!!) in an evening match in December 2006?

I was wondering the same thing. Hearts have never been liquidated. They have only been in administration and their SPL presence was only interrupted by a relegation which came in the standard way - as a result of them finishing bottom, albeit expedited by the penalty points imposed as a result of that administration. But, having had the privilege of witnessing the entire odyssey even since before the first of these games, it's "Number 1000" that I would prefer to concentrate on. Tomorrow night, if I could ask for the clock to be turned back to any of its predecessors, it would be John Rankin's legendary 2006 Yuletide squiggler!

Is this also a 3.5 inch floppy?

That was (unfortunately still is) ICBM. Is IBM's photo of a floppy disc or a much smaller minidisc? I haven't seen floppy discs in use for a few years but, until a few months ago and probably long after everybody else, I did use minidiscs for audio recording.

Bughtmaster... there are times when the best strategy is simply to stop digging!

Irrespective of what Hughes may actually have wanted, it involved money which wasn't there and it simply isn't realistic to suggest that it should have been forthcoming.

The delusion that the Board has some obligation to conjure up money from where it doesn't exist is becoming quite tiresome. What perhaps also needs looked at is Hughes' ability (or lack of it) to produce credible teams on an obviously limited budget. I have already said in another post that a certain amount of what he did was on Butcher's signings while his own signings may struggle to survive a critical look. Hughes' second year at Raith could be interesting.

Huge turn round from the 5-1 on the last visit there.... probably to be regarded as a "bonus" in relation to what might have been expected.... other results went Caley Thistle's way so a point closer to potential safety. Between one thing and another, this has to be regarded as the best ICT match day for some time. But the absolute priority is to sustain any progress... two swallows... summers... etc etc.

Alan.... for several years now, ICT has had two basic sources of income and relies on them BOTH to maintain its ongoing business (ie keep its head above water) - 1) regular earnings like league gate receipts, TV money and SPFL dividends and 2) Windfalls. These include the likes of transfer fees, cup runs (not, as Don says, Europe though), an exceptionally high league placing, one-off investments and even on one occasion selling the club's last significant tangible asset, the Social Club. Unfortunately there has been this misapprehension that any time one of these windfalls comes along, the purse strings can suddenly be loosened and the club can start splashing out on extra players. It doesn't work that way. All the things I mentioned in category 2 are part and parcel of basic operations and if there's a period when they DON'T happen then I would imagine that a bit of financial concern materialises. For instance I have always understood the sale of the Social Club to have been made to fill such a gap. As a result, it's a non-starter to suggest "pushing the boat out". There is no boat there! What you said about ambition was "if the board had matched (Yogi's) ambition.... I believe we'd have been pushing for Europe". That cannot be construed as anything other than an implication that the Board's ambition is inadequate or lacking. It also, however, implies that Yogi's expectation of how much money should be available was the realistic one and the Board were in some respect falling short in some way. It could instead be argued that Yogi did fine with Butcher's team but when it came to having to sign his own players, he was unable to do this in as financially efficient a manner as his predecessors.

For a start, it's nonsensical to suggest that the Board lacks ambition. Cash maybe... well definitely... but certainly not ambition. Where are you actually suggesting the Board would have got the cash to "push the boat out" as described?

Now there was a place! A kids' Mecca in the 60s... an era when, pre-November 5th, a 10 year old could go into Toyland with half a crown and emerge with all manner of highly dangerous pyrotechnics in a brown paper bag!

A different Betty Munro maybe? There were possibly several.

I'm actually wondering if the lady on the right in the Drummond St pic is a Betty Munro my mother used to know?!

Had that comment been made rather more appropriately in the Serious Topics section, I would POSSIBLY have been tempted to point out the multiple historical fatuities of its final sentence.

A great deal of construction seems to have gone on in Inverness during the last two decades of the 19th century. If you look up in Tomnahurich/Young St you will actually see dates on buildings from the 1880s and 1890s. Similarly, much of the Crown is of that era. I think there's an 1880s date on a building at the Kingsmills shops and the Crown Church was 1893 whereas phase 1 of the "Old Academy" was 1895. Much of Kenneth St and lower Fairfield Rd have the same feel about them and it's interesting that Second Row has now added in Douglas Row which I hadn't thought about. The Greig St Bridge is, I THINK 1881 and the Town Hall is 1878. And is it 1893 for the Camerons' Memorial in Station Square? I wonder what it would have been like to have left Inverness in, say, 1875 and returned in maybe 1900?

IHE... of these five listed factors, only the first two are direct determinants of ongoing performance and none of them provides an argument to support your initial, very specific cause and effect statement which was "Unless we pick up at least three points from the next three games we are going down." That says that unless that intermediate outcome is achieved, there will be a definite consequence, which simply isn't the case. The only point at which any outcome like finishing bottom becomes inevitable is when the points arithmetic says so. Until then, you have to deal with probabilities - for instance if a team is not doing well, relegation becomes increasingly probable but isn't confirmed until the point of numerical certainty. To quote a precedent, there were those who said that unless Caley Thistle beat Dundee at Dens in March 2010, they were not going to win the First Division. They were pegged back to a draw at Dens, but we know what happened thereafter. I am not being "happy clappy" about the current situation but merely reluctant to use certainties when probabilities are more appropriate. I would therefore suggest that relegation looks likely unless, across the rest of the season, there's an improvement of 40%+ on the current rate of scoring points. I would also have to add that three games ago, before the Partick encounter, that targeted improvement was just 30%+ but has risen because the two points from these three games were below target. Points from Hearts and the Old Firm are (in theory at least) less likely than from other clubs so it's quite possible that your suggested 3 points won't materialise. However that wouldn't guarantee relegation - it would simply toughen the target even further to maybe 50%+. That isn't guaranteed relegation by any means but as time goes by, the arithmetic tips more and more against unless a revival starts - with confidence and morale, I agree, increasing issues.

I don't quite buy into that. What would become 21 points from 27 games doesn't tell much more of the story than the current 18 from 24. The "going down" criterion is more likely to be getting around 33 points from the full 38 games which are the final arbiter of this. 33 points is round about what should avoid bottom place (not guaranteed), with a bit more to avoid the play offs. To reach 33 from 38 would require 15 from the last 14 games or an average of about 1.07 per game. ICT is currently on 0.75 per game so an average improvement of over 40% is needed FOR THE REST OF THE PROGRAMME. On the other hand, playing Hearts and the OF would normally produce less than the going rate of that target which is around the three IHE suggests. Either way, I don't think making predictions from the next three games is going to reveal too much - UNLESS their outcomes reflect a decline - or improvement - in morale. Otherwise, getting fewer than 3 points from the next three games simply increased the target from the 11after that.

Pretty effusive tribute to Les from Archie MacP, given what ultimately transpired!

Roshie!!!! And then there was Murd's legendary "shoulder charge" on... was it Danny McGrain?? I'm sure you will also remember Roshie's last game in charge right at the end of 1985 - a 2-all draw in a friendly at Kingsmills against a good Celtic side managed by a VERY sore Davie Hay!

That was before my time Second Row but under Boosey's room in my day you had the boys' toilets and prefects' room. On the other hand by then the Depute (aka Second Master and by then David Thom) had a room in the new extension which wasn't there in your time. I am therefore following that the Depute's room was previously round about the boys' cloakroons.

F**k off!.... Sh**e!!!.... Bo***cks!!!!