Holmes_and_Watson

Fernandes gets the ball pinched from him, and concedes a goal. He goes on a hissy fit about it, according to the readio. Sounds familiar from somewhere...

Imagine everyone on X and all the others, with a direct line to a police force, who have commited to look into every one of their complaints, about topics and people they don't like. Introduce this legislation in the heart of a country run by incompetent/crooked troughers determined to push an agenda held by a few at the centre, and their political partners, who prop up the party in power with their minority vote. Don't forget to remove one side of one of the key arguments from protected status while protecting the other. Don't forget to renege on promises from the first minister to engage with one side, while stacking advisory groups entirely with those on the opposing side. Those enforcing it have seen a PowerPoint presentation, and about the only chance of the data not being held and used against citizens later on, is if the police servers melt under the volume of malicious complaints. The Police Scotland video talks about a focus on "night time economy." But it says online abuse counts, and it can actually be anywhere. Ibrox and Parkhead will resound with shouts of abuse, followed by the tapping of furious hate crime reporting. Post counts of online groups will fluctuate from highs of horror, outrage and abuse to lows when all sides are having to help the poor husks that remain policing the country with their enquiries. But this is about more than that. It's even beyond the front lines of sex and gender. It's about free speech across a number of areas, and the consequences of expressing it.

I can read it on this device. Not that you're missing much, by not seeing the rest. The Scottish Express pretty much likes to get its focused hatred of the SNP out in the first couple of paragraphs. Not that it's inaccurate, just a little pathological about it. Here's the Beeb's take on it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68570614 Just after the odd opening paragraph about the cartoon character fronting the campaign (Not Yousaf. A different cartoon character). In passing, the Beeb have changed the pic on the article since yesterday. It originally showed some rather angry trans activists. Now it's a default rainbow themed pic. No doubt complaints were received there, resulting in the change.

From April 1st, people expressing any number of views on this in Scotland will have opponents waiting to file hate crime reports. Investigations are not going to be back dated to the date of it passing, only from the date of enforcement. Police have said they will investigate every one of them, even as they are unable to investigate other crimes as it is. https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/police-scotland-say-trans-activists-32355651 Fortunately, we live in a reasonable world where common sense prevails. Oh....

Ned

Oh, my God! They sacked Kenny!", "You bastards!

A squad with Baz and Smallbone! I appreciate they don't get as much time with the players, but the foundation of International MartinBall is right there. 🙂

Meltdown in The Pink 🙂

Rio

I wasn't paying attention to everything from the club before preseason, but I got the early impression that the club were already prepared to spend more than a season in the Championship. For much of the reasons above. The way it ended, the new manager and style, the need to ship out lots of players, yet rebuild. I heard things like project, and later promotion, but not with an expected timescale of this season. We started decently, I thought. A fair bit of settling into the system, but with a decent quality gap over our opposition. JWP working well with Smallbone, and Tella offering a direct alternative to the other flank. I didn't realise how much the balance was thrown out by their departure until that run in September. I was a little surprised at Leeds coming back from losing so many of their squad. It was only later I saw how many Leicester had lost.

Girls

"It said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted" wound on 9 March and police were investigating." The coroner seems sure it was self inflicted, saving police time in that investigation from having to look for time consuming things, such as other parties being involved. Case closed. 🙂

And their manager doesn't follow the Nathan school of management, where that would be tougher. Always nice to see Munich not win it, just for a change.

Crop

Uh oh... I can't be the only one forced to eat soup by 1930's styled nationalists. I still shudder at their stony, uncaring expressions as I cried "But, it's not even hot!"

Just what went through my mind, when I read it. A concerted effort to centralise power. In Sturgeon's case, that was a gradual process, with a lot of those involved stilly giddy at the thought of a shared cause. Many still don't see how badly that was hijacked by a core of a few controlling finances, trying to rig elections, and making catestrophic decisions. Eventually, as Labour will discover, you end up isolating your core support, stifle useful debate and concentrate power in the hands of an inner group, who simply aren't up to the job. They might be able to purge those with dissenting views. But, as Sturgeon found, there's plenty within her own party waiting for it to fall apart, as they've not been included in the decision making.

Cue an inspirational video from Nigel, where it's not about firsts and seconds, but seeing each new day as a chance to be a better you. Dusting yourself down when there are challenges, not being discouraged and working towards a better future. Happy Birthday Nigel!

We should thank the royals, for Photoshopping away their true, reptilian forms, and not putting us off our cornflakes. - Mr D. Icke, Bunkersville

I'd seen him a fair amount for Rangers. Whatever happened when he joined here, he regressed quite a bit. Martin and the staff have managed to help him turn that round, and he's actually looking better than I remember him. We've had a few players who have struggled a lot with form for whatever reason, such as Stu. Martin's environment seems to have a positive effect. I can't imagine everyone in any dressing room is happy all the time. But he's made sure that players have ben brought in gradually with minutes and developed. There have been odd exceptions. Rothwell, goals aside which is no minor thing, probably suffers from being thrown in a bit. But generally, he seems to have kept a fair number of players on board. Quite a far cry from seperate dressing rooms and the cliques of last season.

Breaking news... Jack Stephens in injury scare after freak car park incident. "I was just going to my car after training," said the undroppable defender, when a combination of me running out to the command of a whistle, and some random guy in a Landrover, left me like this." Concerns may prove unfounded, as the vocal skipper said "With me being shoe-horned into various shapes, another dent shouldn't make a difference. Wish I knew who was driving that Land Rover though." 🙂

Fair point. I was thinking of SR setting it up under Wilcox, without connecting it to someone who might already be using it. I've not seen much of Burnley this season. Are they really trying to play MartinBall?

"I can see why playing AA in goal this week might have looked odd. But the most deserving players in training apart from him were all defenders. So they all started, and someone had to replace Baz."

I guess the SR thinking is that to avoid that sort of outcome, that we have to do something a bit different. Despite some lovely stuff under Ralph, they will look at the last days of that. So the Man City controlled approach. Mileage on SR's left field thinking may differ per poster 🙂

In his head, Martin is probably thinking that 1) he's not far off having to bring on some extra energy so 2) Anticipate that Sunderland are going to have to push up to get back into it, so having our fastest player to get behind them, and worry them when they get forward is a plus as 3) After 55, Sunderland were pressing us back centrally, and our clearances were getting a bit rushed, making 4) Aribo coming on to win and hold the ball and be a target for Baz would be a plus. Didn't quite work like that, but self inflicted, against some of the composed passing we've seen earlier in the season. I can see why he made the changes. Don't know if the shift in defence yesterday added to those issues. When our passing out breaks down, and Has only has a second to act on his "wrong side" is when you have moments of worry. He's had to do it so often, and I imagine opponents know and try to force it onto that side, that I expect him to deal with them. The others weren't as sharp picking up passing angles I thought yesterday. That one I do think had to do with the shuffle.

Cry