Al B

I'm almost the polar opposite of that. If I was that bothered about winning then I'd support a team that won things. I fully understand the whole "it's the result that matters" attitude, it's just not for me. If it's just the result that matters then I'll just check the result and spend my time and money doing other things. If you want me to actually come and watch, and pay a relatively high amount of money to do so, then you have to give me something to watch. For me, entertainment isn't tied to the level of football being played. I can walk round to my local public park and watch games that are very entertaining, but that doesn't mean they are EPL level. On a similar note, I got rid of Sky Sports a couple of years back because the majority of EPL games were eye-bleachingly boring and unentertaining. Again, not a comment on anyone being right or wrong, just an illustration of what different people are looking for from their matchday attendance. I fully agree that peoples jobs aren't linked to whether or not I'm enjoying myself or not though. And the exact reason for that is because of the above...there's not a concensus of opinion. For every person who is bored out of their mind watching the team at the moment, there's another one who is only interested in results and relative achievements, and no-one's getting the sack for only appealing to half the customers.

Unsurprisingly a lot of the criticism of the club not signing any players good enough to sell on, has now turned into criticism of the club for selling one.

There never was one, it's a wind up by a Celtic fan that he's done every window since DT signed for Celtic. Jut so happens this time someone bit.

Steven Davis played 41 games this season, including the Europa League final, The Scottish Cup Final which he won, and multiple Internationals where he's captain of his country, and the record cap holder with over 130 caps. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but it's no surprise that's it's been called out as a wild one... Also, just checked - not sure where you're getting this 4 months thing from, the only month he didn't play in was January when the league was shut.

One thing I hadn't realised until recently (I don't watch any football on TV), is that every single goal gets checked.

I have to take issue with all of this...he's been St Mirren manager for 6 games and lost 5 of them. Their only win was a scraped 1-0 against bottom of the league Dundee, and the St Mirren fans are hunting him already. St Mirren are absolutely shite and any side with anything about them should absolutely be expecting a win at home. I fully expect us to lose but that has nothing to do with Robinson being capable of grinding our results or having a relatively good squad. If we lose on Saturday it will be because we had absolutely nothing to offer, at home, against a dreadful side and were even worse.

RE ticket sales, we're sitting in the Main Stand as we couldn't get 2 seats together in the Cooper that weren't away out at the edges. Sales must be not too bad.

This is becoming a "thing" that isn't a thing. Slattery has been available for 29 games and has started 22 of them, and came on in another 2.

Well, firstly they have been reporting it like that since the very beginning, way before vaccinations were around. Secondly we're up there with the most vaccinated countries there is, and lastly if that is their intention with it, they have completely undermined it by forcing vaccinated people to isolate and introducing restrictions across the board regardless of vaccination status. Anyone that has chosen not to be vaccinated isn't going to be encouraged by that...they are going to be saying whats the point in getting vaccinated if I still have to stay in the house?

Seems that 60% is made up of 48% "definite" and 12% "probable", which means they are still combining admissions BECAUSE of Covid, and admissions for something else but also showing symptoms of covid. The 40% are people who are there for something completely unrelated and tested positive upon admission. I can't wrap my head around why they are being so cagey about telling us how many people are being hospitalised by Covid, who would otherwise be at home completely fine with nothing wrong with them if they didn't have it. (Which is of course the number that everything should be based on)

Well, no-one needs to now as they have removed the requirement and replaced it with the above for everyone. If that has always been the case for NHS staff (and not just changed in the last couple of days along with everyone else) then on the face of it that's sensible, but it really does highlight the ridiculousness of the rule in the first place. Essentially saying if your husband/wife is positive then even if you work in an office by yourself you can't go....but if you work in a hospital full of vulnerable people then you can! Bonkers. If so then good to hear that NHS staff were exempt from such a rule (I wasn't aware of that), but that doesn't take away from the ridiculousness of the rule itself.

At this point, I'm going to respectfully leave it here.

Well, that's what happens when you force completely healthy, double vaccinated and boostered NHS staff to sit in the house for a week even with a negative test, just because someone they know has tested positive. Again, it's ridiculous to expect an instruction to increase testing to not result in a proportionate increase in positivity. If those two stay relative...that's a good thing....that's what you want. It's only if they widen that it means anything bad is happening. It's equally ridiculous to widen the parameters of isolation requirements (esstentially causing healthy, negative testing people to isolate) and then report theres a crisis because more people aren't at work. What did they think would happen when they extended the isolation rules to include people who don't even have Covid? Their instruction is literally causing the staffing crises in the first place.

I do wear a mask in indoor public places where asked, but that's purely to avoid hassle when I'm either just trying to have a pint or get my shopping, but there's one very obvious thing that's right in front of peoples faces, that shows how ineffective masks (as they are worn by the general public) are pointless, and don't do very much. They steam your glasses up. Let's think that through....

And the same for each region in England. I honestly can't see their not being some sort of legal action taken by the hospitality and leisure sector, and if there is, the Government surely can;t have a leg to stand on. Even if they don't accept retrospectively that they were wildly wrong, the official figures are uncontestable proof that restrictions don't make any difference and need to be removed immediately. Thing is, if they do that, then they have to admit they were put in place wrongly in the first place, which then opens the legal Pandora's Box. They have utterly and absolutely fucked it, and are being found out. And I've got absolutely no clue who I'm gonna vote for now, and have to re-evaluate whether I even want indepencence when I was a nailed-on supporter before. I wouldn't even let Nicola Sturgeon and her team run a tote sheet let alone my country.

Here's the most up to date figures available for the home nations. (spoiler alert, it's not 1 in 5).

Oh, and 2-0 Motherwell, KVV and fancy Mugabe from a corner.

Add it to the ridiculous list. It's completely true. The numbers we should be looking at, dealing with, and reacting to, are hospitalisations caused by unpreventable* Covid, ICU admissions caused by unpreventable* Covid, and deaths caused by unpreventable* Covid. They are literally the only statistics that mean anything...and when you imagine how small those numbers are, then it makes a fair chunk of post-vaccine Britain scarier than any pandemic could be. *By preventable, I mean opted to not be vaccinated.

Let's not forget how much lower that number goes when you take into account unvaccinated patients, and therefore preventable cases.

And you are absolutely right to do so, if that is what you believe. And that is really the crux of my point in fairness, we are now at a point where the public should be trusted to assert their own attitude to risk, much like if an individual believes that the risk of a plane crash is too high for them, then they are fully within their rights to not go on one and that is absolutely fair enough. But you don't ban air travel because some planes crash. I don't think anyone is (rationally) saying that no action should be taken at all. The point is more that the action shouldn't just be arbitrary and should have some sort of basis behind it. A lot is being made of the whole "football fans shouldnt be so selfish" thing, but the fact that it's football is neither here nor there. On the one hand you have football being limited to 500 people in stadiums whilst schools stayed open. What you can essentially break that down into is a group of 98% vaccinated people outdoors, Vs a group of 100% unvaccinated people in an enclosed space. Which one is more of a threat? And yet which one was allowed to continue? The fact that it's football doesn't matter....it's the fact that it doesn't make sense and isn't dealing with the problem, is what's infuriating people. That's not even touching the fact that, yes limiting Fir Park to 500 fans spreads everyone out, but if you take a smaller club with one stand that normally has maybe 250 people in it, with 600-700 spread out around the rest of the stadium, then what the 500 limit is actually doing in real terms, is taking a stand that normally has 250 people in it, and putting 500 people in it. Again, the fact that it's football is neither here-nor-there, it's the fact that it's arbitrary, across the board, and makes no sense, that is causing the outrage. Or take the mandatory re-introduction of screens in pubs and shops, which were literally proven to reduce airflow and contain air particles into areas rather than allowing them to disperse. Again, no-ones saying there should be no action....but it should be proportionate and at the very VERY least, correct and helpful. It was reported by a journalist that I can't for the life of me find now (I will keep trying as I fully appreciate how unbelievable this is....which is basically my point), that he had the following exchange in a private media briefing with a government rep in advance of a public one: "Is it the case that if I am in a Church then I must wear a mask, unless I am singing in which case I can remove the mask? Yes. Does that mean that I can go into Tesco without a mask as long as I am singing? Well, techincally by the letter of the rules, yes." I mean.....let's just leave it there cos even though it's Friday I should at least do SOME work.

Well, it's not really. No-ones trying to stop the spread of Covid, you can't stop it in the same way you can't stop the spread of any of the other countless airborne respiratory infections. The end game is to minimise it's impact on health, and the evidence overwhelmingly shows that the vaccines have achieved that. Omicron scared everyone into assuming that an increase in cases would have a proportionate increase in serious illness and death and so they panicked, and then it turned out that.....wow, the vaccines actually did their job and their reaction was hugely inappropriate and uneccessary. The announcement of the withdrawal of PCR testing for asymptomatic positive LFT's shows that they are finally admitting that (whilst not actually admitting it). If there isn't an unusual amount of serious illness or death from it, then it literally doesn't matter how many people have Covid. In fact the evidence that Omicron (a mild varient almost 100% dealt with by the vaccine), has all but killed out the Delta variant (that was more serious and did actually kill people), shows that the wide spread of Omicron is actually benificial in the overall big picture and is helping in the fight to suppress the pandemic completely. In fact, you actually emphasise the point I'm making in the post above yours. If we take your 1 in 5 information and plug it in to my example, then we're looking at going from reporting 0 Covid deaths on 4th January, to reporting 1000 Covid deaths in March, even although there isn't. There's just a load more tests being done, and the criteria for a what is a Covid death is ridiculous.

Surely this shows that the restrictions aren't doing anything then, and are only causing further damage to the economy and businesses? If they don't slow the rate of hospital admissions then what are they for? The general party line in response to that would be "the restrictions are preventing them being even worse", but the figures in England are proving that to not be the case as their ratio is better than ours and they had no restrictions. However, that aside, to take your point in isolation it's because they continue to record the figures in the way they do. Think about it this way; Lets say for a second that they were to test every single person in Scotland during February. Given that they are reporting that 1 in 10 people in Scotland will have Covid by then, that means that because every death from any cause within 28 days of a positive test is counted as a Covid death, then if everyone in the country was tested in February then by default the stats will show that 10% of every single person who dies in Scotland in March is a Covid death. At an average of 5000 deaths per month that would be reported as going from ZERO deaths on 4th Jan to FIVE HUNDRED Covid deaths in March......thats devastating!! Except it's not, there's no change whatsoever other than the amount of tests being done. That's ridiculous, and all down to the insane way they are reporting the figures. And yet they are actually AIMING for as many asymptomatic tests as possible! Then dramatising any increase in figures. I mean....anyone with a basic grasp of ratios understands why the figures fluctuate proportionately with testing. As a government they are supposed to implement a response to a crisis which stems the cause of the crisis, but to flip that round and actually manipulate the impact of the cause in order to justify their response is disgusting. Getting that the wrong way round is borderline criminal, and as I say the worm is turning as we speak...I believe they will be held to account in the coming years.

Firstly I want to say that all this "Wee Nippy" and "Wee Kranky" and "ahhh want ti go ti the fitbaw!!!" shitely-made points that just sound like "old-man shouts at cloud" is possibly the most counter-productive thing I've heard in a long time. My post below will leave no doubt as to where I stand on this issue, but it's this embarrassing narrative that I believe is hugely impacting the rational view. The "Wee Nippy/Kranky" brigade are as useless to the debate as the "Thank you for everything First Minister" brigade. Anyway..... Infection rate in Scotland in the week leading up to 31st Dec - 1,900 cases per 100,000. Infection rate in England in the week leading up to 31st Dec - 1,600 cases per 100,000. Scotlands infection rate was even higher than London which is the epicentre of the Omicron outbreak. Now that the vaccine is in place, the re-introduced restrictions implemented by the Scottish Government are doing absolutely nothing other than further ruining the economy and Scottish businesses (and yes that involves football clubs). They were also outright asked about the figures they publish being "with Covid", as opposed to being "as a result of Covid". The first reply was that they didn't have those figures, and when pressed on the fact that if they are claiming their actions are driven by data then surely they must have them, they respond by saying well, we do have them but we can't tell you due to data protection. *Read - we won't tell you because the figures that are actually as a RESULT of Covid and BECAUSE of Covid, are low enough that they don't justify the governmental response. If a person dies for any reason at all, spread under the wheels of a bus, for example....and they are found to have had 100% completely asymptomatic Covid in their system...they are included in the Covid death figures. If you die OF ANY REASON WHATSOEVER within 28 days of having taken a positive test, you are included in the Covid death figures. That in itself is an absolute nonsense, and wildly skews the figures to an unimaginable degree. If you remove from the figures all of the people who happened to have Covid-19 in their system and were not affected by it in the slightest yet died by Heart Attack, Stroke, Cancer, Traffic Accident, Suicide etc etc etc, and either did not even know it was in their system or within 28 days of having had a positive test, then the numbers left make the response utterly and embarrassingly disproportionate and damaging. Imagine for a second that death from any cause within 28 days of being on a flight, was recorded as an aviation disaster, and you see how ridiculous it is. Two leading professors revealed earlier this week that if the exact same figures for hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths were occurring in 2018, no-one would even know anything was wrong. They are so low that no-one would even notice and we'd never have heard a thing about it. Two things are happening in my opinion, 1 - the Government are feeling the hit of a woefully under-funded NHS, and passing the responsibility for it onto the people, and 2 - Nicola Sturgeon took this latest action as part of her future drive for Independence as it was assumed one of 2 things would happen; either Westminster would introduce restrictions later on and the SG could re-use their quote of "I will never apologise for caring more for the people of Scotland than Westminster do", or the UK Government wouldn't introduce restrictions at all and their infection rate would dwarf that of Scotland and she could say the same: "Look how much better it was when we decided for ourselves". Except that didn't happen, it wasn't, and we are now in the "oh shit" phase of Scottish Government. It's apparent now that her nightmare scenario has happened where Westminster did nothing and still has a better infection rate, so all she's done is ruined the country for absolutely no benefit at all. They are realising that, hence the thickly-veiled climbdown that's starting to happen now. Which in itself introduces things that make absolutely zero sense because the drop in self-isolation from 10 to 7 days apparently doesn't work retrospectively, so someone thats on day 5 of self-isolation today has to continue for 10 even if they now test negative, but someone who tested positive yesterday only has to for 7. In fact, it's actually stupider than that....someone who tested positive on Wednesday will still be stuck in their house after someone who tested positive yesterday is out and about. Swinney has already been called out for using incorrect figures to back up the restrictions, and the worm is 100% definitely turning. I'm actually extremely surprised to see that the concensus of opinion on Stellmen Online is the polar opposite of the general view I'm seeing elsewhere and in general life. People in high positions are starting to call out bullshit, and even the media are (finally) starting to ask questions when things don't make sense. The legal wagons are circling already and there will be court-cases for YEARS to come when this starts to die down. Perhaps even criminal cases when it's taken into account that they knowingly sent people to their deaths by discharging elderly Covid patients back into care-homes so they could use the hospital beds for other people (mainly caused by years of under-funding). This, for me, is the main reason they HAVE to continue with the charade of restrictions because if they admit they made a mistake, then by association they are accountable for every business that went under as a direct result of uneccessary restrictions, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses can just sit back and reap the rewards of the legal teams that the previous CEO's of Debenhams, Arcadia Group, Frasers Group can afford. If you think Covid has fucked the world, just wait til you see what the next 10 years holds when people are held to account. Caveat to this is, I'm a previous SNP supporter who was a huge fan in general of Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government, but they have absolutely without doubt lost my future vote along with many many others that I either know personally or have heard of anecdotally. If there was even a shred of a credible opponent up here at all, I truly believe they would be out on their ear come the first sniff of an election. Except there isn't, so they will be re-elected with an albeit much smaller majority, and it will be completely pointless because we'll now either never have another referendum in anyone alive's lifetime, or if there is it will be overwhelmingly no, because we had the chance to show we could be better on our own and they made a monumental c*nt of it. Looking back now, the memory of us all standing in the street whacking pots with spoons and clapping is absolutely cringe-inducing to the point where I wish I could convince myself I hadn't joined in.

Whatever we charge for the South, we have to charge the same for the Cooper.

No-one's disputing your point that he didn't contribute. People are just pointing out that isn't what wage thief means. If someone at your work is genuinely, physically and medically unable to do their job...they still get paid while they are off recovering, and rightly so. If someone at your work is completely fine and capable, comes to work and doesn't do anything, sits on the internet all day, terrible timekeeping and doesn't care that everyone else is having to pick up his work...and yet is happy to keep picking up his full pay, that's a wage thief.