StirlingEgg

Finland a bit Legz Akimbo from League of Gentleman there 😄

You say that like it's a bad thing 😋

Fair enough. Is it possible to be gradually antagonistic? 😊 (Just in mind of those British Nationalist types rising up, poking the bear so to speak!)

DLT introduction?

It's just that the game is rigged in their favour so we can get away with far less, or so it seems. Perhaps the SNP or whoever could just take their lines and use them back at them; eg. yes it is time for a change, constitutional change.

I like the idea of this but fear it would backfire. It would need a lot of reliance on context being reported which is often what's missing. They could be dismissed as immature or even not worthy of government - they are already treated as some wayward nationalist fringe. Ironic given the pettiness of Labour and the Tories just getting their turn back and forth but not liking any spanners in the works.

😊It's a very warm and soothing show! Even when Paul Whitehouse gets crabbit if Bob starts to reel in the fish against his instructions. I've only seen the odd Would I Lie To You but when he's on it you can tell the other guests love listening to his nonsense.

It's baffling that anyone can watch or listen to him and think "he represents me" 😳 There is a lot of assumptions I think still about the parties and what they stand for based on historical perception/policies. Particularly the older generation, thinking that the Tories are about working hard and getting somewhere off your own back. Not sure if they ever were and all the corruption and eagerness to cut corners while avoiding responsibility is just more blatant now. Labour saying they'll scrap Rwanda and divert money to a smuggling squad still doesn't address the root cause of it all. I know this is all a bit off topic but if these issues feed into folk's voting intentions then it is all relevant to independence.

Might do then thanks, I've heard the Bob Mortimer ones are good and I like him anyway so could look for those episodes.

Hopefully that'll put off those in Scotland considering Labour.

Just been once to see the show and some poor guy from the audience was near molested by Herr Lipp 😊 I've not really got into Taskmaster though not seen many episodes to give it a chance tbf.

🤣 and don't forget Hoyle's defibrillator

Thought the ending wasn't as good as the buildup but all the characters were good current stereotypes! I love their stuff, League of Gentlemen and Psychoville etc.

Enjoyed the latest Inside Number 9 tonight. As others have mentioned, back watching The Wire again (an ongoing habit of rewatching the favourites). A few episodes into second season now. Find it more affecting with repeat viewings - not sure if it's because you know what's coming or you feel a bit more attached to the characters somehow...Was even a bit tearful at the Kima then Wallace episodes near end of S1.

I know the deceased tributes usually appear on the news thread so hope it's okay to leave this one here - from Seamonsters, thanks to Steve Albini.

The Poles fought for 123 years to regain free nationhood – but they won it in 1918 only because three partitioning empires had folded almost simultaneously. The same was true for other post-Versailles states. Some, such as Czechoslovakia, were almost spooked to find that the Habsburg empire had abandoned them. Ireland became free through miserable bloodshed and then civil war, while civil war and revolution devastated the new-born sovereignties of Finland and Hungary. The dissolution of the British empire is now craftily presented as Westminster’s far-sighted mission, a plan to lead all those underdeveloped natives to civilised parliamentary democracy. The truth is that it was furious protest in most of those “possessions”, sometimes leading to years of brutal repression, that persuaded an unwilling, cash-strapped and increasingly weakened Britain to back out of empire. The decencies were preserved, of course. There would be an independence day with happy crowds, fireworks, a plumed governor or perhaps a royal, and the union jack wobbling slowly down the mast at midnight … I am holding in my hand a postcard, almost 30 years old. It shows the Scotsman’s front page on “Independence Day”. An outburst of fireworks over Edinburgh; an expectant floodlight trained on the flagpole on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle. The card proclaims: “Now’s the hour: As 300 years of the Union ends, ‘a nation again takes its place in the world’”. But it’s just a publicity item, designed for STV to go with a 1996 “independence” documentary by George Rosie and Les Wilson, which was followed by a televised debate. Since then, devolution, the return of a Scottish parliament and the 2014 independence referendum have laid out a new constitutional landscape. The “No” side narrowly won the 2014 referendum. But the “Yes” campaign, though it lost, turned out to have blown a transforming wind through Scotland’s grassroots; excited thousands gathered to hope, argue and demand (“Scotland Yes! But what sort of Scotland?”). One outcome was to lift independence from dream status to a practical, serious option for Scotland’s future. Another, following the “Yes” defeat, was an unexpected stampede to join the SNP. By 2019, the party had 125,000 members. Today, the leaves are falling; that total is about 70,000. Some have just given up on “politicians” and the SNP’s “failure to deliver”. Many others are shifting to Scottish Labour – but often carrying their faith in independence with them. They form a growing, unreliable crowd of nationalist squatters inside a leaky unionist building. It’s very possible that the next Holyrood election (due in 2026, if not earlier) will end the SNP’s 17-year hegemony. The Scottish parliament could have a narrow unionist majority. Even if Humza Yousaf’s successor survived in government, his or her prospects would be bleak. The SNP leaders still believe that the Scottish public wants them to play by the rules. So they will keep on demanding London’s permission for another referendum, while any foreseeable British government will keep on refusing that permission. So stalemate … unless a far more impatient and radical nationalist formation emerges, pushing the SNP aside as Sinn Féin pushed the old Irish Home Rulers aside in 1918. There’s no sign of that yet. Nevertheless, if a hard-line SNP leadership with a strong majority did emerge in the future, there are several ways in which it might provoke a head-on collision with London, a showdown that could rally public sympathy. Let’s call these strategies “As if” and (in parliamo Glesca) “Gonny no dae that!”. “As if” means acting as if Scotland were already independent. It means marching ahead with legislation officially reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Acts and daring the UK government to intervene. The second strategy – Glaswegian defiance – would mean simply refusing to execute UK laws or orders that Holyrood thought morally or practically wrong for Scotland. Examples: refusing police protection for Home Office snatch vans driving from England to seize asylum seekers for deportation (see previous crowd actions in Glasgow and Edinburgh to block the vans and free their prisoners). Another: to refuse to apply anti-trade union measures from the UK government, such as the strike-breaking Minimum Service Levels Act. Both these are already popular causes. Flat-out and sustained confrontation with the UK government over such laws could end in sanctions against Holyrood or even the suspension of the Scottish parliament; a provoked crisis, but one that could shift Scottish opinion irrevocably towards ending the union. However, there’s not the slightest sign in the SNP of the fearlessness such “illegal’’ behaviour would require. So the wish for independence will survive, even though the vehicle to carry it sits on the hard shoulder with flat tyres. Why wish for it, anyway? There’s an enduring pull and an enduring push. The pull is that only with full powers to make law, negotiate and borrow can Scotland do the heavy lifting needed to tackle the legacies of intractable ill-health and a century of staggering underinvestment in all kinds of infrastructure. Independence within the EU could nerve a Scottish state to block the haemorrhage of economic control to London or to US hedge funds. That government might even dare to dismantle the toppling stacks of flabby, often pointless quangos and “authorities” which now suffocate effective decision-making in Scotland. And the push? It’s the steady veering away of the UK – Tory or Labour – from standards valued in Scotland. Above all, it’s the integrity of the public sector, whether that is health, care, water or transport, which matters to this “statist” nation. It’s the gathering damage of Brexit, punishing a country that voted against it and which desperately needs European immigration to help its labour shortage and ageing demography. There’s a democratic problem, too. Ironically, by introducing democracy into the antique 1707 union, devolution showed why it no longer works. “Partnership” in a democratised union where 85% of the citizens belong to one member, England, can only be a fiction. Then there’s the matter of England. London media imagine Scotnats hugging their hatred of the English. The truth is more wounding. The preoccupied Scots seldom think about the English at all. But they should. Whatever happens when independence floats back to the agenda, Scotland’s leaders must accept one basic fact: the relationship with England has and always will have a special and supreme intimacy. It will overshadow Scottish choices even if Scotland becomes a free republic inside the EU with a seat at the UN. It’s true that England has its own identity crisis, now a spreading infection of authoritarian nativism and performative xenophobia. But English politics could be steadied by the shock and example of Scotland’s withdrawal from the union. It’s a narrow path. But a more genuine partnership waits at the end of it. Thanks, that was a good read and a fair assessment. Still sharp at 91! Got one of his books kicking about here, Death of the Fronsac though not read it...

I didn't see it from the very start so didn’t realise Airdrie were much better initially. Might be Friday night's watch then!

Cracking goal from Partick Thistle there, good match too.

😂😂

Ahhhh I see, sorry, I get wrongendofthestick-itis quite a bit these days! 😋 Yes same here re Tunnocks, enjoy a bit of petty boycotting 🙃 Been buying Taylors Pickled Onion lately, they took over Mackies but not sure if they're on the dark side too 👀 Apologies for going off-piste...

Quite like the snide Lurpak from both Aldi & Lidl. There's some things I feel you can scrimp on but others not... - Cheap kitchen roll yes, toilet roll no - Fake caramel wafers yes - Cheese yes but just those plastic slices for burgers - Coffee/tea, generally no Isn't Barrs cola ok? 😋 I don't drink much fizzy juice either but like it sometimes if needing a wee boost...

The hot sauces are Mr Egg's - he often adds them to my cooking so a bit of a sore point 🤔😄 Just had a Chinese takeaway but no leftovers...