wee-toon-red

Since losing to Celtic on Nov 9th, Aberdeen have dropped 4pts so your stats are out a bit. Not suggesting the Dons will win the league but there isn't much between the two sides' form over the last 2/3 months to suggest that Celtic will pull clear so comfortably.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obfuscation If "the authorities" want to stamp out sectarianism then it's dead easy. Announce a crackdown on that very problem and get on with identifying culprits and if clubs don't co-operate then punish them instead. Once that's solved we can move on to sorting out the next biggest problem, whatever it may be. Where would we be regarding racism if we hadn't decided it was unacceptable without cracking down on all other offensive behaviour going on at that time too?

Not much wrong with Rooney's "goal" and thought Ciftci looked offside for the winner. Having said that, from 1-1 utd looked the better team. Dow always looks like a player, surprised he didn't start.

I don't think I could stomach the SNP going into coalition with Labour, regardless of public perception of the move. The red tories are such a shambles in Scotland that it's best not to be associated with their lies and underhand tactics. "Scottish" Labour's entire purpose since 2007 has been to undermine, smear and blatantly lie about the SNP so I can't understand why getting into bed with them could ever be a good move.

It's funny how nothing anyone says can actually prepare you for that. We had our first in October and, despite receiving similar advice from loads of people, I just wasn't ready for the lack of sleep etc. Worth it though. In view of the above-mentioned arrival, 2014 goes down as a great year personally but unfortunately it'll always have the shadow of September 18/19 hanging over it - unless that proves to be a point on the journey and the destination is genuinely in sight. In that case, 2014 will be seen as a monumentally significant year for us all.

It's also worth noting that in South Kintyre, the Tory vote in the 2012 election was likely to have been so high because the guy standing for them has been a councillor for years and is pretty popular locally. He got in at first by standing as an "independent" (like a lot of Argyll & Bute councillors who suddenly became "independent" in 1997 for some reason, can't think why) and then switched back to being a Tory in 2007 and has carried the support with him. It's unlikely that any other Tory candidate would do as well as he does in a council election in South Kintyre. In fact, they couldn't even get a properly local candidate to stand for them yesterday as the candidate chosen lives in Lochgilphead, 55 miles away. Hopefully last night's result is a good indicator for May but I wouldn't be putting the mortgage on an SNP win in Argyll on the back of it. I'm sure John would've walked the by-election anyway and will be a good representative for the area, just in case the above sounds overly negative. Just trying to be realistic.

Rooney to score anytime and Utd to win, 6/1. Ta very much.

We're definitely playing for first now. Remember the others have played Gibraltar and we haven't. If you take them as a guaranteed six points (surely even we can't screw that up) then it's us and Poland out front and we've still got the Poles to play at home. No reason we can't win the group.

I get a recurring dream where I've got the ball teed up fine but then the problems start. Either I've got no room to take a stance or there's something behind interfering with the backswing. Very frustrating as the dream has usually involved watching people tee off before me with no problems at all.

Harper just scored. Looked like it could've been an OG but seems to have been given to him

It's 6am and haven't slept much since Friday. But the two day old bundle of joy that's been keeping me up is worth it

Poland and Ireland have both played Gibraltar, whereas we've had two out of our three rivals away from home. I think we're doing just fine.

I'm curious as to why people think playing at Parkhead gives Ireland an advantage?

Interesting. At the game I couldn't decide if it was Naismith or Fletcher who had a poor game but from the highlights it looks like it was definitely Naismith. I thought their link-up play wasn't as sharp as it could've been and they both made similar runs at times but maybe a run of games together would sort that out.

I find that really hard to believe. I haven't seen the wonderful Mr Reid doing anything other than toeing the (Tory) party line since the coalition started. If a numptie like him can survive the general election while the Lib Dem vote collapses elsewhere, then it doesn't say much for either their other MPs or the A&B electorate. There's definitely a strong Tory presence here but it isn't very vocal. Post 1997 all the Tory local councillors had to pretend they were independents in order to get elected and a couple of the Lib Dems cllrs did the same last time round too. I fear the No result will give the Tories a renewed confidence and that's what we'll end up with here.

Argyll and Bute Council are the biggest shower of jokers you could imagine.

When he was making his speech this morning, he informed us that whatever irrelevant piece of paper was going before the commons on Monday was signed by the leaders off all three westminster parties. He then assured us that he had also signed it, so we could be sure that it would be implemented. What the actual hell? So, in Scottish Westminster terms, Brown seems to be next important after Cameron, Miliband and Clegg. The 's a backbench MP who doesn't spend any time in parliament and travels the world getting paid by big business. They really couldn't treat the Scottish people with more contempt if they tried

Springbank Distillery

A wee question about postal votes. If someone from my work was going away on holiday and wanted a colleague to deliver their postal vote to a polling station because they don't trust the post, would it be accepted at the polling station?