Yngwie

It's important that the club maintains an elfy balance sheet.

I see we'll be up against one time Scotland hero Craig Beattie - but blimey, those horizontal stripes are not flattering. WTF!

Aye that was a cracking away day which included a delightful goal from Dargo that even some of the opposition fans were applauding.

Actor Channing Tatum and Josh Meekings?

Note that there is to be a pitch inspection on Sunday morning (according to BBC)

Getting back to the "Performance of SNP MPs in Westminster", I note that the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman didn't attend today's debate on the case for UK military action in Syria because he was instead occupied with important constituency business attending the unveiling of a portrait of himself. You couldn't make it up!

Who'd have thought it possible that, first of all, Scotland could unveil a bright pink away strip, and second, that it would actually be preferable to the new home strip? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34896013

Defunding (noun) - the process by which a team whose manager is seeking a larger budget slides down the league table.

We didn't terminate Hart's contract at all! He was still playing for us more than 6 months after his cocaine conviction in November 2007 and only left when his contract expired at the end of the season. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7079735.stm

It would be ridiculous and unfair to terminate a player's contract for a first offence of this nature. The fact that he's a fringe player should make no difference at all to the process or the punishment (if guilty). If it was our star player, say Billy Mckay in his prime, would fans be saying he should never play for the club again? No of course not, we would all be saying he deserves a second chance.

It takes something like this for us to get the back page headline?!

On the Development Squad thread you'll see a suggestion/allegation of spitting at an opponent.

But the Scottish Government could have broken down the steel requirement into a greater number of smaller contracts to enable Scottish firms to compete. But they chose not to. And then, in the next breath, they criticise the UK government for not having done enough to protect our steel industry. Yet another example of staggering hypocrisy from the SNP. Meanwhile, their blind followers swallow it all unquestioningly and continue to believe that everything is Westminster's fault.

Fair enough but the point others are making is that despite all the commercial successes that have a Scottish connection, gaming contributes diddly squat to our economy. Last time I looked this sector only employed 1,000 people in Scotland and contributed a mere £100m to our GDP - a small fraction of what Faslane puts in, for example. Sneckboy is probably about right about gaming putting £30m into the public purse here, but it also benefits hugely from grants, with the result that some people say it actually contributes nothing overall. The $2bn gross is irrelevant as all that money goes elsewhere. In the case of GTA, it doesn't help us that the publishing rights and profits from the game are held by Rockstar North's parent company in the USA. Incidentally I once came very close to taking a job with David Jones, the game's creator, on a new venture. A narrow escape, as that project went tits up a year or two later. In actual fact many of the 200 or so people who lost their jobs were just contracted in from the USA or Far East specifically to work on the new game and just went home when they were made redundant.

Hopefully it's not his last cap, for many reasons not least because it doesn't seem right that he has a stat of conceding a goal every 16 minutes, which is more typical of various small islands in the Pacific!

Still looking for that source. If you actually believe that GTA brings more income to Scotland than oil, you shouldn't be allowed to vote. Sheesh!

So who would you put in ICT's starting XI, sorry VI? I actually reckon Lopez would be really good at this.

It's on my Santa list already!

I'd be interested to see the source of that.

£712k transfer budget?

Updates on this today on BBC Gossip: Youth director Stevie Campbell last night quit Dundee United just days before a club hearing over allegations of bullying and racism. (Daily Record) And Campbell, who was suspended from his duties earlier this season, intends to take the Tannadice club to an employment tribunal. (Daily Mail)

What Sneckboy says. You don't count goals that are cancelled because of an infringement, therefore you don't count misses that are cancelled because of an infringement.

As a rather belated footnote to this, it has just struck me that it must be very unusual that we have been knocked out of two tournaments by the end of October. The last time it happened was 13 years ago when we were beaten 1-0 at Berwick in the Challenge Cup and put up a good fight losing 4-2 at Celtic Park in the League Cup.

That was only a practice shot.

On the penalty retake, one of the match reports says "Tansey displayed intestinal fortitude to accept the responsibility a second time". Would he even have had a choice? I always assumed that the original taker had to do the retake as well, but perhaps not.