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I don't know which of you needs to hear this, but - whoever you are - you are great and I want you to have an amazing day/night/evening/whatever.

My Dad finally passed yesterday morning. We'd collectively decided to take a break from the hospice for a few hours - I got a phone call at 1:05am saying his breathing had changed and I might want to come in, I got there at 1:15am and he was gone. On balance it's maybe for the best. Mum's last sight of dad shouldn't have been of him breathing his last when he was too out of it on morphine to know we were even there. We all went back to mum's afterwards to celebrate him with a couple of his favourite whiskies and reminisce.

First moved to Germany at the end of 1990, job I had in Scotland was OK, but couldn’t see any major career progression taking place in the upcoming 5-10 years. Spotted a job advert from a German company in a trade magazine. Applied, invited over for an interview and duly offered a contract. My German language skills at that time were non-existent, so a bit of a jump in the dark. Company paid for an Inlingua intensive 1 on 1 language course for the 1st 3 months; thereafter they insisted that all communication was in German. The next 7 or so months were hard going, with quite often all you would understand was “Guten Morgen” on arrival and “Tschuß, bis Morgen” when going home. On the TV, sports programmes were the only option for watching. After ca. 7 months or so things started to click, and the ability to hold conversations, follow what the news on the radio & tv was saying, read a comic newspaper like “the Bild” resulted in a quick improvement in the quality of life. Left that company after 2 years and moved to the company I’m with (2 stints) just now, SE of Hanover. Was with them for 5 years then got headhunted and offered a job in Melbourne. Getting the employment visa was the only time in all my travels that lack of a degree etc. was a hindrance. Loved the lifestyle in Melbourne, apartment in St. Kilda, so 3-5 minute walk to Acland Street / waterfront or a 15 minute tram ride to the city-centre. The company I was working for was a fucking joke (Swiss headquartered company that had grown rapidly in Australia due to numerous takeovers, so lots of duplicate departments in various locations with everybody fighting their own wee corner to avoid being punted). The company SE of Hannover got wind of my dissatisfaction at work, and made me an offer to come back, with the future job being highly focused on Asia. Spent half of the next 5 years sitting on a plane, and then was posted to India for 2½ years. Based in Gujarat, lived in Ankleshwar during the week and Baroda at the weekends. Ankleshwar was / is one of the most polluted places in the world (is basically a chemical industrial estate with over a 1.000 companies on it). Company owned a large guesthouse that was “home” for the whole time. Power-cuts left, right and centre, a cocktail of chemical smells in the air depending on what way the wind was blowing. Add in the fact that there is prohibition in Gujarat, so “normal” night-life didn’t exist. The complete reversal of the time in Melbourne, enjoyable job but a dead as a dodo lonely life outside of work. Finished in India, and then did the sitting on a plane half the time thing for another couple of years before being posted to China for 2 years. Was based on the outskirts of NE Hangzhou. Hangzhou itself is a beautiful place to live but the town where I was based was basically a couple of hotels, restauarants, shops, residential complexes attached to the local industrial companies. Made a couple of half-arsed attempts at trying to pick up some Chinese, but just couldn’t get my head round it a thing which made life very frustrating at times due to the inability to communicate with staff in restaurants, shops etc. Been based back in Germany since end 2014. Due to Brexit made the decision to apply for German citizenship. Got my application in before the “original” Brexit date, which meant that I was applying as an EU citizen, meaning I would be able to hold dual citizenship. Citizenship application was approved end of 2019. ID Card & passport duly received. As regards Scotland, prior to Corona would fly back maybe 4 times a year. Christmas & New Year as a given plus trips for Scotland games. Haven’t been back since beginning of January 2020, thing I miss the most (apart from T) is not having ever seen my niece who was born last February (and the rest of my direct family as well). Would I do it all again? Definitely. Advice to anybody thinking about it! Go for it, if it goes wrong it goes wrong. Back home and restart.

Me when someone gives me a red dot

I go on and pretend to be a unionist. Had great fun half an hour ago winding some guy up about the list system.

Mutch Miller Hall Dixon McCann Hetherington Telfer Morrison Nesbitt McGuffie Keena Is how I’d imagine we line up tomorrow.

This has made my day. Some wee guy in Japan has been looking at Kyogo Furuhashi and seen the SPFL team of the week. He's then looked up Steven Boyd who was in that TOTW and sponsored his shirt.

This would be excellent. The country sports lobby are still whining like wee bitches about the post-Thomas Hamilton legislation on handguns. Having to pay the full costs of their gun licenses will about cause them to have aneurysms. Get it done.

Remember that time we went to Pittodrie with a squad decimated by injuries? We’re winning 1-0 on Sunday I reckon.

A bit touchy on this subject lads. You're right though, those trophies won against opposition you could buy and sell three times over aren't hollow and meaningless at all.

Yeah, imagine if the UK had a massive racist and his German wife as head of state.

Finally confirmation that Crunchie will get the recognition that he deserves. Absolutely well done to the Crunchie Initiative and everyone involved with the fundraising and everything involved . Well overdue.

Had my 4 monthly check up today. Cancer still sleeping. My bloods are looking as good as ever. My next check up will be in December! It will be my 3 year diagnosis anniversary in 8 weeks. Can't believe the difference in me from then till now.

Been a long term lurker on this thread but happy to announce that my son was born on the 3rd of August. Has been the most mental but great 10 days since he arrived. Who needs a full night sleep anyway?

I'm no longer an immigrant, as I came back to Scotland in 2017 after more than 20 years in Korea and China. I left in my mid twenties after spending several years either unemployed or in low paid, short-term work, so the decision wasn't difficult for me at all. I'd been backpacking in Asia and I'd always been interested in Japan/Korea/China more than SE Asia, and figured it would be more interesting to struggle out there than struggle in Scotland. I was incredibly lucky to land a well paid cushy job teaching at a college in Korea straight off the bat, and I worked with some really good people there. A lot of foreigners seemed to have a hard time adapting to Korea, especially outside of Seoul, at that time, but for me it was such a great experience that I found the downside pretty trivial. I moved on to China probably a bit earlier than I should have, but I was still thinking I was only going to spend a few years overseas at that point and I wanted to experience one or two other countries. I decided to again go to a provincial city, but in China in the late 1990s life wasn't generally that comfortable outside of Beijing, Shanghai and a couple of other places. I was earning much less than I had in Korea and had a lot less support from my employer, and it was a pretty rough first year. I stuck it out, though, and landed a much better paid job, learned to speak enough Chinese to get around easily and enjoy the food, and gradually got to know a wide group of people from all over China and various other countries. I then went through a pretty random few years in which I briefly worked for a failed Chinese internet start up that burned its way through millions of dollars of funding, then spent a year working in North Korea, ended up back at one of my old employers, got married, bought an apartment and a car, got involved in various mad projects, and started doing very well paid freelance work for a foreign company in Beijing, which involved travelling all over China. Life in China got way more comfortable over the years but it ended up where I was basically earning a lot but spending lots of time commuting and travelling, and much of the interest and sense of adventure had gone. We ended up deciding to move (back, for me, but not my wife) to Scotland. I'm generally enjoying being back. It's great to feel close to nature again, and I really appreciate all the old buildings and culture in Edinburgh. I'm not bothered at all by things like the weather. The cost of living is a bit high, especially fixed costs that you can't really opt out of, but life is overall pretty decent. I had nothing to lose, and it worked out really well for me. I'm not sure I'd have done it if I had been in a proper job here back in the 1990s, but everyone has their own calculation to make about what they value. If I'd ended up somewhere in Europe or in the US/Australia, I doubt I'd have come back, but I never lost that feeling of Scotland being the only place that truly felt like home, so it's good to be here, though it might not be forever!

I quite like being able go book my haircut instead of the walking in and having to wait 20-30 minutes. I also like getting table service - it's much more civilised and continental - genuinely hate the rammy at the bar and waiting whilst umpteen others who came after you get served instead. Also like that lots of pubs have been really creative in getting outdoor spaces - definitely hope they keep them.

I suspect they'll just revert to near the norm - some people might be still be hesitant about bigger gatherings of people, but lower league open grounds are hardly the same as a sweaty packed nightclub full of tanshop tragics on Justice Mill Lane. Most clubs in the bottom two leagues have already largely been reliant on the 'hardcore' few hundred or so for an age now: they are either already back, or will be in the next couple of weeks now the taps are off. A season of bloody Pixelot means most of us won't take open spectator sport for granted again, that's for sure....

So, I'm sure this will have been asked before, and perhaps on this thread, but is there any justification for the royal family to exist? The usual claims are: Tourism - this is a classic conflation of tourists coming to visit and tourists coming to visit the Queen. Take Buckingham Palace, the vast majority of people when asked "would you still come here if the Queen wasn't there" said yes. The home of the House of Windsor, Windsor Castle, has less visitors than Chester Zoo. The idea that the royals are integral to tourists coming here is just wrong, plain wrong. The make us money - how? Just how? Through tourism? Well that's easily debunked. By adding to the public coffers? Don't be daft, she and her family earn money from land that they claimed through violence. If I decide to kick down your door, kill your family then claim your garden would I get to keep it then ask you for taxes, after which I demand you pay for the upkeep? Of course not. The simple fact is the royal family is a drain on the public purse, not a revenue income. Charity - Often trotted out by those wrapped in a "Diana People's Princess" flag. Are we seriously claiming the only people who can fluff up a WI meeting is someone who costs a fucking fortune to ship around the country. Yeah. this is grasping at straws. There is absolutely no justification for the royal family to exist, they are an anachronism, an insult to the ideals of equity, and a drain on the public purse. Get the fuckers in the sea, reclaim the stolen land and remove any ideas of the monarchy being patronised in an independent Scotland.

Right enough, the pandemic has really improved lives for these groups.

Most of the P&B das are proof you can be both ugly and weird and still get your hole

How we must long for the days of state education when it completely ignored children's emotional and mental well-being.

I've only ever met 3 people who transitioned or wanted to. 1 guy at work had been married and had a teenage kid then decided he wanted to be known as Erin instead of Eric. The work were supportive and also warned anyone that had an issue with it that they would be the ones getting a disciplinary for any jokes/bullying. He went down to the London office as she which I would guess helped with the transition. I met at a funeral one woman who used to be a man. He was a large guy who made a very unconvincing woman but if she's happy now then fair enough. It was difficult ot keep a straight face with that one though because she looked ridiculous. And I am aware that means I am infantile. While we were on holiday my daughter was talking to a lassie who was 15 who was fairly obviously a boy in the wrong body. She had all the mannerisms and looks of a teenage boy. She had understanding parents who were obviously very supportive of her and as soon as it was legal she was going to become a he. I'm not sure that the other 2 people had understanding parents since it took them a lot longer to decide to transition. I can't say I'll ever understand it but I don't get the rabid rants from both sides of the argument. Like I say, it's an incredibly small minority of the population. Just let them get on with it. Live their life as they want.

More on this please?

It's Friday......the hamster isn't dead.

Ciftci could come back, be utterly shite, bite one of his team mates, pick up the ball and walk off the park and I would still love the beautiful mad b*****d. Get him back. Don't care if he doesn't fit in the team, we could use him as a hype man before games.

Harsh. It’s hard for them when they spend half their time bouncing around the lower leagues.

Sometimes you've just got to just sit back and respect the symmetry

Got offered a new job today, with what can only be described as a massive pay rise. Happy days.

I get the side of your support that don't want to bandwagon early I really do but the early signs aren't great. He's just relegated Alloa last season. Tonight though that team selection is astounding, especially for someone like Grant who really views his footballing knowledge and pedigree as quite something.

Arsenal no longer among in the five best teams in London.

Doidgeball

Still a bit tired 2 days post Moderna shot II. Yesterday was horrible. I also had 6 pints on Wednesday night but it was definitely the vaccine's fault. #NewNormal

Still testing 0.5% of the entire population each day is ridiculous. Either we trust the vaccines to reduce the impact on the health service, in which case we should be moving away from mass testing and worrying about people who aren't actually ill (focusing instead on treating those seriously ill and improving infection control in our hospitals), or we don't and should stop pushing the vaccines as being the reason we are able to "move beyond level zero" This somewhere in between state is really no good for anything.

Erm no. It's not childish to question whether or not winning a 1 horse race (which the Prem was until a couple of seasons ago) is an "achievement" or not. Responding by basically going "waaaaah you're all JEALOUS" is definitely childish however. I am somewhat surprised by your over-defensiveness here though. Last season you were very reasonable and balanced in your views over Celtic and the Prem in general, but then of course Celtic were absolute gubbins and were meekly surrendering to Rangers. Now you've had a few wins and Rangers look like they might be a rabble again the true OF fan emerges and you're acting like Billy Big Baws to a bunch of QoS, Dundee and Falkirk fans

I'm waiting on "we fill your grounds" for a full house.

C Williamson did look decent out of position on Wednesday but it was against a team who haven’t won in their four league games in the lowland league. His time will come though. You wouldn’t want to be relying on him there all season but for me Miller should play at right back tomorrow.

I don't agree with vaccine passports but if she's an anti-vax twat then I won't lose much sleep over this mewling.

It was great to be back, the Merkland looked hilarious from the South Stand and I'm happy to admit to being totally wrong about Scott Brown. I feared he'd be up here to lounge around and do a Macnamara. But the boy just loves playing football and noising folk up. He single handedly got one of theirs booked after dishing out and riding a couple of meaty challenges in the first half and I was more than a little aroused to see the Aberdeen captain needing to be restrained after the final whistle. Great stuff. Love it.

Get him out Sharon, it’s either fuckin him or me.

It’s so much easier when the heads gone happens in the heads gone thread so you don’t need to go searching. Cheers Santan!

Hahahaha. No way. Not looking to get in to the traditional forum war with Hibs until Christmas time at the earliest.

The Finn Brothers - Six Months In A Leaky Boat

Sex Pistols-Liar

I would, at this point, like to get a background check on big Sofiane's agent.

Getting a wee bit ahead of ourselves here, good start but very early days.

10 for Thursday, knew 9 and guessed the "Party Rock Anthem" band.