ThistleWhistle

Celtic (and Fenerbache Fans) responding to threats on Twitter over Europa games is a pisser: http://twitter.com/AwesomeZadeh/status/638244254326878208/photo/1 http://twitter.com/alistairjhogg/status/638163163423203328/photo/1 https://twitter.com/RJEARL1/status/637727184082333696/photo/1 http://twitter.com/DmcDT/status/638304997852233728/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Been watching a comedy on Sky Arts called DAG that's been good so far: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11w14z_dag-trailer-english_fun

My understanding is just basically the History Channel; World at War series; the Soviet equivalent; a few articles and wiki to tie up the time-line so if I'm havering shite someone can point out: At the Yalta Conference in February 1945 Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan within 3 months of German surrender. In March the US began carpet bombing Japan; Tokyo in one night caused 100,000 deaths which is a similar number to the total US deaths of the Pacific War. This continued for 9 months with total estimated civilian deaths ranging from 300,000 to 900,000. In April Soviets told Japan the Neutrality Pact would expire in 12 months. Via this route Japan hoped to negotiate with the Allies surrender other than 'unconditional' to protect the Emperor. In Mid-June LaMay authorised bombing of small/medium populated areas between 60,000 and 250,000 as anywhere bigger had already been levelled. However, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained pretty much untouched. The inference being these were already identified as targets for the atomic bombs. In June Japan offered land concessions to the Soviets for a negotiated surrender as believed they were still honouring the Neutrality pact. End of July Allies announced the Potsdam Declaration that demanded unconditional surrender. Japan waited for the Soviet's response on their behalf that obviously never came. Early August the US knew the Soviets were due to join the war on the 8th as per Yalta and had intelligence of the size of the force being amassed for the invasion. 8th first bomb was dropped. 9th Soviets invaded Manchuria, smashed what was regarded as an elite Japanese army, only stopping for lack of provision. A further force invaded Sakhalin with the end objective being to take the Northern Mainland within 10-14 days. Japan were unprepared for the Soviets due to believing their Pact was still in place and estimated invasion would take days compared to the US whose invasion they estimated in months. During a cabinet meeting to decide on course of action they were made aware the second bomb was dropped. The vote remained 3:3 on accepting unconditional surrender. They remained deadlocked even after intelligence from a captured US pilot falsely stated under interrogation that Tokyo and Kyoto were to have the bomb dropped on them within the week. Later on that day when the deadlock was taken to the Emperor he agreed to the surrender noting the inadequate defences to repel invasion first and the destruction of the bombs second. Emperor remained in power as essentially US didn't want it turning communist.

Did you watch Oliver Stone's series? According to him US knew that the Japanese were up for surrendering and dropping the bombs was more to do with sending the shiters up the Russians - I always foolishly thought the Russians started the Cold War. He said why would dropping one bomb from one plane make any difference than dropping thousands from hundreds - pretty much anywhere with a decent sized population had been firebombed to cinders apart from the two they were saving for the bomb. He argued the Japanese were up for surrendering because of the speed the Russians had taken Manchuria and South Sakhalin in under a fortnight - if they took the Japanese mainland then they were concerned the Russians would do away with the Emperor. Interesting thing on Truman was he was essentially an eejit (not much of an education/various failed businesses) and was about fifth choice to contest for the Vice President for a big hitting group in the Democrats who needed a puppet. Wallace, who'd been Roosevelt's Vice President since 1940, was to romp it but his socialist leanings had made him unpopular with the top dogs. By the time he came to get re-elected in 1944 Roosevelt didn't have the health to help his campaign and even though he was polling 60% compared to Truman <5% Truman won after some shenanigans with when the vote took place. In less than 100 days Truman was president and pretty much f**ked up relations with Russia from day one. Interesting to contemplate how the world would have turned out had Wallace been President at the same time Attlee was Prime Minister.

After the Italy game in 2005 I had to use a night coach to get to Stoke for my mates wedding on the Sunday – it took 13 hours but thought I could sleep. That was until the two folk sat in front of me met across the aisle, completely hit it off as both were half jaked then spent the night either havering pish or fiddling with each other. She was the size of a rugby player and her gyrating about the place kept knocking my fold up tables down so had no chance of sleeping.

On the footballers Come Dine With Me Frank Worthington/Carlton Palmer came over as just loving the booze, Ruddock struggling to come to terms with his career being over but Fashanu seemed completely unhinged mentally. Winterburn's Crazy Gang membership surely got revoked when Di Canio made him sh!t his pants after pushing the ref.

Got to be honest I took it all with a huge pinch of salt but seeing Trump leading the Republican nomination is a frightening concept.

When Stoke were in this a few years ago they played 10 games before Champions League teams then two more. Played the likes of Dynamo Kiev, Besiktas and Valencia yet if they had made the final and lost they’d have made less money than had they finished 12th rather than 13th. It’ll be even more mental now the bonkers tv deal is in place.

We were speaking about earliest memories and one I could remember was getting chucked out the bathroom then said at the time thought it might be a dead animal but now pressumed it was a sex toy. My mouth had started operating before I'd thought the conversation through so was slightly uncomfortable. Mum straight off the bat said 'Dildo - It was Massive' with a glint in her eye I didn't care for which made it worse.

When we moved to Stoke I was only 6 at the time but had a memory of my mum pretty much chucking me out of the bathroom when she was unpacking boxes and screaming for my dad. Found out recently it was a sex toy - something unnerving when your mum uses the word 'massive' describing such an implement and her face shows more curiousity than disgust. The interesting bit though was the couple they bought the place from got left her mum's house in the will and it was only 6 doors up the road!! Their faces must have been a pisser when they realised.

Early 20’s, hugely naïve, I sat next to a lass at work who was a right pain in the @rse and kept banging on for me to go out on a date with her mate. In a moment of weakness I finally capitulated, and although the sales pitch had put the mystery woman somewhere between Cleopatra and Helen of Troy on the all-time stunner roster, I was less than surprised to discover she was in fact fat. I’m a massive fan of woman in general, with no real specific type I looked for, but the meat to bone ratio here was beyond me. Looking for a silver lining I thought at least she’s bound to be jolly so this’ll be a laugh but within a couple of minutes found out this wasn’t the case at all. The only similarity with Helen I could think of was her face looked like it literally could have launched a 1000 ships but they’d have been filled to the gunnels with Jammy Dodgers and resentment rather than soldiers. As we walked towards the moderately expensive Italian I’d decided on I got the distinct impression the two waiters having a fag outside the Chinese with an ‘All you can Eat’ buffet on breathed a huge sigh of relief as we passed. Attempting small talk at the table got me nowhere and instead was reduced to nodding and smiling through a lecture on her two cats and how much she hated her work colleagues. Regardless I carried on trying to give the pretence it was an enjoyable evening on the basis I may get a good report going back to her mate, this would then be disseminated to the other female members in the team and may boost my appeal in hope I would never find myself in this god awful position ever again. Even when she ordered the dearest dish on the menu then shouted over a couple of tables to get the waiter back I kept trying to be pleasant. My only regret of the night was I felt acutely embarrassed at this point but not at her sheer rudeness; I was embarrassed that the complaint was he had brought normal Coke and not Diet like ordered. He looked at me to see if this was a p!ss take but I was too busy admiring the wallpaper to take him on. At the end of the meal where there was minimal resistance to me settling the bill I had hoped we would forgo the cinema but she was determined that we were going. We sat to watch some god awful chick flick and I thought my misery could not be further compounded until she got to the bottom of her vat of Diet Coke and subsequently started chewing the ice cubes! Not only was I out with a vapid, sponging misery, after about 15 minutes of her chewing her ice and then moving on to mine, I now got the distinct impression that half the cinema wanted to smack me. The credits rolled, we got up, made our way to the exit and I was busy thinking of the best way to let the lass down gently. However, I needn’t have worried because her arse was barely out of the Odeon when she said ‘I don’t think we should go out again as I’m not attracted to you but we can still be friends’. I was absolutely gutted because if she didn't want to shag me who would! My mojo was shot to pieces, remaining so for months, but managed to restore a sliver of pride by rejecting the offer of friendship outright because that was evidently a load of old bollocks. Unfortunately this backfired as her mate took umbrage to this and told anyone in possession of a vulva at our work that I was a tw@t and as this was the main part of my social circle having just moved to the area I got the impression that my wankathon looked like never ending. Fifteen years on and out with my wife for the first time since our nipper was born seven months ago when, as we waited at our table, she enquired if I minded that she hadn’t managed to shift all the weight since pregnancy. ‘No worries - So long as you order something from the two for £20 menu and we can watch Jurassic Park after this then you’re a keeper.’ I love how her arse jiggles now - Awkward conversation when she tried on jeggings last weekend though. 'Yes - massive' was the correct answer but won no prizes.

Got to write a best man speech in French and despite revising my GCSE text book I am unable to succinctly detail the occasion my brother, aged 5, sh!t in a wardrobe at MFI whilst our folks were looking for bedroom furniture. My brother was given an absolute roasting by my dad and told in no uncertain terms he should only do this on the toilet. About a month later our folks were brave enough to return to MFI and again my brother disappeared. This time he was found in the bathroom department sat, trousers around his ankles, upon one of the display models and looked super proud when he saw mum. Anyone on here got this level of French please and willing to translate a couple of stories for my slides please?

I’m going to garden on Saturday in stonewash jeans, the ones that properly hug my backside to make it look 5 years perkier, and a white t-shirt. Drives her to levels of moderate arousal unheard of since our second wedding anniversary. During this I’m going to make small talk with the heaving breasted neighbour but one down. Then I’m going to come in and casually apologise whilst peeling off my sweat sodden t-shirt . When this invariably doesn’t work it’ll likely descend into snivelling and grovelling rather than anything manly so will have no need to be disclosed on this thread.

I told my hugely hormonal wife, compounded by having just weaned the little one on to bottle, to take a breath and stop havering absolute p!sh during Real Juve. In for a penny, in for a pound proceeded to tell her there was no longer need to eat like a locust swarm now baby was feeding off bottles, plus with brother’s wedding two months away, might be the time to shed a couple pounds else we may need to hire a helicopter for group shots. Sleeping on the couch with no blanket and no idea next time I’m going to get relations – manly as f**k. Options on here to release pent up frustration seem to be: painting kids toys; climbing moderately sloped hills hungover or play World or Warcraft to the point of insomnia so may just apologise if she doesn’t cool down between now and me finishing the Godfather trilogy.

I’d love to saddle up Jim Murphy and ride him around every village or town he spouted shite in throughout the last eighteen months. I’d take his crate, and if he refused, would skelp his @rse with a ginger bottle until he mounted his customary platform. From there I would have him either proffer apologies for being the Uncle Bulgaria of Cock Wombles in scaring pensioners or shout useful public service messages such as ‘Fast n Furious 7 next showing at Vue in half an hour/ the 73 to Arbroath is delayed ten minutes/ Sandra’s just taken a batch of Steak Bakes out the oven at Greggs two doors down/etc’. Once I’d broke him in I’d hand him over to Alex so he could triumphantly gallop him into the chambers of the Commons, much like Mongo riding the bull in on Blazing Saddles, but with a ‘No Thanks’ sign protruding from his rectum acting as a tail and the options branded on his arse being Mibbies Aye Mibbies Naw. Dismounting, Salmond could chuck his comedy large pink sombrero for one of the other Sexy 56 to catch whilst simultaneously kicking a ball of Murphy’s freshly curled sh!t in to the front row of Labour MP’s whose careers, and generally sole motivation, now resemble the bleak grey Northern English industrial conurbations they’ve failed for decades. From there he could look Cameron square in the eye with an expression of ‘Miss me bitch - I know that you know that I know that you know that I know that you know that I’m going to bring up the noncing enquiry when you least need it’ before he leads the Sexy 56 chorus line spontaneously in to song: ‘P.A.E.D.O; P it was Parliamentary; A it was Archbishops; E it was Entertainers; Dukes and Royals; Oh oh oh P you’re preventing; A you’re avoiding; E you’re evading; D you’re in denial; Oh oh oh P.A.E.D.O.’ I realise it’s a pipedream but so was winning East Renfrewshire.

I was going to vote SNP but after my wife’s performance last night I’ve switched to UKIP. What is it with these immigrants coming to my living room, eating all my packets of Wheat Crunchies and havering p!sh for the duration of the Champions League Semi Final?

Our wee lass is coming up to 5 months old and it is absolutely magical. I never thought I’d be as happy as the time I double nutmegged my brother at fives with him ending up on his arse but the moment she was born totally smashes it out of the park. Some great advice on here and some things from our experience so far: Main one from me would be don’t worry if the bond isn’t instant – it freaked me out because in hospital I just really wasn’t feeling it. We didn’t get out of hospital properly for 10 days due to jaundice and the first time I changed her at home on the nursery changing unit she smiled at me whilst pulling the cutest face I’ve ever seen where upon my heart just melted. At this point high pressure excrement shot out of her @rse all down my front and dripping on to the cream carpet I’d argued blue in the face with a 7 month pregnant woman not to buy for this very scenario. Instead of being elated I could now score a point v the wife I shouted her upstairs proud to show off how far our bundle of joy could fire her jobby. Set your boundaries from day one with extended family. My old man would spoil ours rotten given half a chance; my old dear wants her to be a girly girl but both have been telt. Take photos on your phone once a week. Great to flick through seeing how much they change so quickly. It’s bittersweet when they no longer fit their first outfits. Home Visitors are just social services. Don’t break out the good biscuits for these b@stards. If it is c-section your wife can get sudden spasms of pain after 6 weeks. My lady had no issue until this point but it’s around this time the deep muscle tissue knits together. Also, tell her to go to the nurse regularly if possible because difficult to keep the wound clean as it gets sweaty. Take everyone’s advice, including Midwives, at face value and make your own mind up. On one hand your own parents’ experience is essential but on the other they’ll have taken chunks of it from their parents who raised their kids in the 60’s/70’s so stuff has moved on. Our main sources of influence is two sets of friends who’ve raised great toddlers and an acquaintance who hasn’t. Google/ Mumsnet are amazing resources but purely for reference. It is unlikely the symptoms are actually Congolese Swine Fever and better to trust a GP for a definitive answer if Calpol doesn’t work. It’ll be extremely difficult but if your lady is breast feeding under no circumstance honk her tits. Milk will soak her clothes and you’ll get a punch in the face because of how tender they are. Do not capitulate to your wife’s inevitable push for you to taste breast milk. It is the third most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted. If your wife has a malevolent streak make your own coffee – breast milk café latte is the second worst thing I have ever tasted. Treat your newly fed baby like an unexploded bomb. I held ours above my head once and breast milk sick is by far the worst thing I ever tasted. You get what you pay for with nappies. Aldi’s might save you 5p on each but will cost you 20 minutes in extra baths each major movement. Hide her creams because stretch marks are sexy. Give the wife a good few months before thinking ‘Match of the Day is on to the crap games – it’s business time!’ If you move from breast to bottle give the little one 30 mls of cooled boiled water once a day as it can constipate them until their digestive system adjusts. Four days after the switch ours passed a solid lump and was in absolute agony doing it. Your wife will speak absolute horseshit when you come in from work, and likely repeat it twice more when you go to bed; it is your job to listen to it with every sinew of patience that can be mustered. You will speak absolute horseshit at work because baby becomes your world. I pressed the ‘go’ button on the copier this morning and out of nowhere said quite loudly ‘Green Circle’ in the manner of one of her various toys. Some toys are possessed. Ours has a teddy bear that has an option to play lullabies for ten minutes before automatically switching off. Half an hour after it had finished, and as I’m half asleep, across the baby monitor it announced proudly ‘my favourite food is……..MANGO!’. Creepy on various levels as that it should have been sleeping, the programmed optional responses are totally different in tone to the regular voice and mango’s make my face itch so I had specifically selected Bananas. Depending on circumstances take some nightshifts to give her a break – I did weekends and bizarrely changing a nappy at 4am is better than it sounds. Ours only needed wakened for feeds for a few weeks and has only had one sleepless night so far so do it from the off or you might miss it. You get what you put in. I keep showing our little one a picture of her uncle whilst repeating ‘Megs; megs; megs; megs; megs’ in the hope this is her first word to him. All the best fella and best wishes

'Warning - 5 Liberal Democrats' presuming Kennedy is passed out in the boot. or Willie 'Driver - take us to Nairn' Driver 'I'm a tory; you'll go where I take you' Danny 'Without Lib Dem intervention we could have ended up in Nairn so another example of the coalition working positively together in partnership'

Anyone offering odds on ginger?

Stoke North, Central and South are all Labour strong holds with between 5,000 and 3,000 majorities last time. Listening to mates down there though wouldn’t be surprised if UKIP got a decent chunk of the vote resulting in the Tories getting one of the seats as immigration is high on their agenda down there. In my opinion a lot of it stems from ignorance and extraordinarily thinly vailed racism so Nige is bound to hoover up a few votes in there. One of my mates summed up his choices as ‘Tory, Tory Extra, Tory Bitches, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Tory or Green’ so there is definitely apathy that could lead to them getting votes too. Tories also seem to be playing a blinder regards the SNP as they’ll win votes from Labour out of that going from my Facebook. Better Together/ Love Bomb my shiny ring piece from some of the stuff I see posted.

Yeah. Doesn't seem much point in watching the fourth series as it seems that the fight is between a fire witch about to sacrifice a , an army of the undead, a lass with dragons holding a 20 year grudge despite her dad being a total walloper by the sound of it and the Tories in Kings Landing.

I’ve just finished the third series on catch up – do the good guys ever win in this f*****g programme?

When Stoke were p!sh in the third tier we had a ragtag bunch of varying degrees of awful players applying varying degrees of effort. Andy Cooke is the worst player I have ever seen, and I’ve seen Dave Rowson, but played pretty much every week simply because he could run about a bit up top. His favourite move was to run three yards beyond the near post, let the ball hit the corner of his square head, miss the target by the same three yards then hold his square face in various contortions of frustration like it was close – every game without fail. There was a centre midfielder who covered every blade of grass apart from those in centre midfield and his partner was too fat to compensate. We had a winger who could cross but not run and a winger who could run but not cross; a keeper who obviously liked pies; a centre back who could have made it but rarely showed it; a centre back who shouldn’t have made it and always showed it and; a couple of full backs who seemed to have ended up at us a last resort. In to this we somehow signed left winger Peter Hoekstra with his career path being PSV, Ajax (to replace Overmars!), 5 caps for Holland (inc Euro 96) and then Stoke. He had glass ankles, and if he hadn’t we’d have never got him, but the games he managed to play for us were simply magnificent – if the paper announced he was playing there’d be 3000 extra on the gate. He managed less than half the league games in his first season but had the second highest assists in the league as he somehow managed to drag the puddings around him up to a level of mediocrity they could previously only dream of. I was at Chesterfield away when Stoke should have won by 12 goals but all the chances he created kept being missed in ever increasing comedic fashion. It got to the point he decided he would just score himself instead, bagged a brace and, to get back at one of their players for continually kicking him ever higher in the air, then decided to keep possession on his own for a minute where almost their whole team tried and failed to tackle him. He went off to a standing ovation from all sides of the ground. He was beyond the comprehension of most Stoke fans to begin with as he was initially deemed sh!t because he couldn’t trap a ball with his forehead. This all changed a few weeks in when he chased a long ball punted over the top. Every player in that league would have let it run to the by-line and try for a corner. He took it out of the sky with the first touch; before it hit the ground had nipped it over the head of the plodder chasing him with his second; looked up (an unheard of skill in this league!); seeing nobody in the box nipped it back through the plodders legs and slowed it up a second (again tantamount to witchcraft). In that time plodder got some reluctant backup but Hoekstra did what can only be described as jazz feet where he kept his knees together and pretended to hit it with each foot. Out of nowhere it hits from his right to his left and pops up between the three of them. It was like bullet time in the Matrix; as Hoekstra pivots to cross it on the volley plodder flies in again to block it and again has it nipped over his head. Hoekstra shaped again to cross it and plodder, gamely but ultimately futile, staggers like a drunk to block it again with his team mate also flying in. Hoekstra catches it on his foot and stands for a second with it balanced there as the two of them end in a heap on the ground. He rolls it between them and saunters to the ball like he’s about to cross it again. Seeing Andy Cooke making his trade mark run he decides to beat another defender instead. Seeing Iwelumo standing unmarked and frantically waving in the middle he decides to float it way over his head to avoid embarrassment and instead deems it more likely to be successful picking out the couple of goals in 200 career appearance right back arriving late at the back post to score a simple tap in. He managed just about but I’ll always remember the look of fear on his face as he saw the ball coming his way after what had gone before. There’s a Youtube video of his goal of the season v Watford and a video of his Hat-trick v Reading, that also has goal of the season in it, that shows just how far ahead he was of anyone on the pitch. Bojan now is by far Stoke’s best player but the gulf between him and the rest is nowhere near as pronounced as it was with Hoekstra.