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So, where we are at the moment in Scotland? For customers in hospitality, limiting themselves to groups made up of no more than 3 households is now advisory - guidance - i.e. optional, but for businesses, as from midnight on Friday 17th Dec, it will be mandatory to enforce the new restrictions (physical distancing, maximum group sizes, maximum households per group) and yet, as of this moment, we don’t have a clue what we have to enforce - physical distancing between groups - is it 2m or 1m+ - it’s been both in the past, so what is it now? No-one knows. Maximum group size is yet to be specified. Is it groups of 8 or 6? It’s been both in the past, so what is is now? No-one knows. Has the Scottish government thought this through? If physical distancing and maximum group sizes / household limits per group returns, then nightclubs won’t be able to operate, unless they repurpose themselves (again) as socially distanced bars. That’s that sector shuttered again. Live gigs can’t take place, (other than socially distanced gigs, and everyone knows that’s a non-starter), and upcoming gigs currently booked in Scotland will have to be cancelled / rescheduled, while the English dates of U.K. tours carry on as normal. Is this what the Scottish government wants? And assuming it is, how is it going to underwrite the losses, not just of the hospitality industry (with huge stock and food orders already purchased for a Christmas season that now won’t happen) but how on earth will it cover the losses of nightclubs, the live music, events and tourism sectors too? Countless events across numerous sectors cancelled that have already been advertised, with the majority of costs already incurred, with tickets and deposits to be fully refunded. 100 million pounds? SERIOUSLY? Do the Scottish government think that will even touch the sides of the problem? Scottish hospitality, live music, events, nightclubs, hotels, and tourism businesses, already pushed to the brink of extinction due to prolonged closure, acute staffing shortages (due to the ‘pingdemic’, hugely exacerbated by Brexit, and the labour-intensive vaccine passport scheme that now seems to have been rendered near useless for allowing us to trade normally again), and ongoing supply issues (and bear in mind, 20,000 Scottish businesses and counting didn’t make it through the first year of the pandemic) now have to absorb cataclysmic losses at the one time of the year they might have expected to recoup some of the losses accumulated over the last 21 months) That won’t even cover what’s been lost to date, ever since Public Health Scotland advised everyone to cancel their Christmas nights out, let alone what is to come, as we go back into another long dark tunnel of heavily restricted trading, without the safety net of furlough or meaningful government support, and no end date in sight (I’m assuming we go back to the 4-weekly review system, but as with everything at the moment, no-one knows anything, let alone the government). How much does the Scottish government think hospitality and the other associated sectors can take? All the while, the threat from Sturgeon of tighter restrictions and looming complete closure (‘if only the Scottish government had the funds to do it‘) constantly dangled over our heads like the Sword of Damocles? The staggering incompetence of the Scottish government is something I’ve become accustomed to over the last couple of years, and that didn’t come as a surprise given the ‘talent’ pool at Holyrood, but the absolute contempt with which the Scottish government treats the Scottish hospitality industry (and associated sectors) has been a real eye-opener. I can’t believe for one second that my views are unique in the Scottish business sector, and perhaps more people will stick their head above the parapet and attack Sturgeon and her minions over the coming weeks and months as Scottish businesses continue to pick up the tab for Sturgeon’s constant parochial politicking, obsessively differentiating ourselves from England and the ‘reckless Tories’ at every opportunity, by doubling down, restricting Scottish businesses at every turn, without the financial wherewithal to compensate them adequately. Independence might eventually be won, but at what cost? An eviscerated economy and an utterly alienated, demoralised and diminished business community - those few of us that are left standing, and actually want to stay in this country to help rebuild it.

Johnny can go and find another forum to play on. Unacceptable.

Haha isn't that just mental. We're nearly two years into a pandemic and we're talking about queuing outside shops. This is despite most folk being double or triple jabbed. Sheer lunacy. Meanwhile our illustrious leaders are trying to destroy businesses in particular the hospitality sector by stealth. All routine appointments getting binned again at practices. Is it any wonder the excess deaths are so high. Doesn't matter though as its not covid, that's all they care about. Ludicrous rules on isolation which are confusing and change readily to suit the message that day. And alas what stays open, why its the schools of course. Is that because the core voters of her party, the Facebook maws have a revolt if they have to look after Jayden and Kayden instead of watching This Morning. The media remain a disgrace projecting the message of fear and despair. I cannot believe I was ever a member of the SNP. Never again. The gormless c**t in Westminster continues to hide behind the virus to escape his own exit. We are being governed by morons Using the old science trick when it suits. Following modellers who have been wrong time and time again. Save and protect the NHS is the cry, is this the NHS that has struggled for two decades and has people in corridors every winter, bed blockers galore. Why is that now an issue and not over last two decades. Why not resolved previously. What a dreadful time this really is being led by a shower of incompetents. They're an absolute disgrace.

They are still dead.

Awaiting Tx’s analysis of the ramifications of Stanton signing on Dave Mackay’s future prospects as a false 9.

Sturgeon yesterday desperate to get funding so she could furlough the country. They have completely lost the plot and are basically unchallenged by the press. Get Surgeon and Swinney in front of an public audience (P&B Stow-lards) and televise it and let's see how they answer tough questions/hold an adult conversation. Ask them why they are so against hospitality and travel and see what mewling they come away with. If we have to start queuing outside shops after being jabbed then they have to be held to account. Justify why they have not funded the NHS properly, justify that after years of bed blocking when the crisis started they managed to empty these people into care homes with catastrophic effects. Justify why football was closed down but churches remained open. Justify why people were restricted at the deaths/funerals of loved ones when arseholes like Harvie and Co were openly meeting and drinking in pubs. Justify why a 2 week circuit breaker developed into months of restrictions. Justify why those double and treble jabbed are being restricted - do they believe in the jabs or not? Is it about keeping people safe or is it about power and do as I say? And to think that people actually believe that these incompetent, self serving F***wits can lead us to independence. I still think that there is a need for indi but not led by that mob.

Yeah it's a really good interview. Couple of points that stood out. - Smith knows he needs help. He doesn't have the experience nor the time to run this club properly and has held his hands up and sought out someone to support him. Props to him for that. - Mathie oozes enthusiasm for the role and that is something that I don't think I've seen since McCalls interviews in the summer of 2018 when we were returning to the Championship. He wants to try and build something sustainable here and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. He's also very confident when talking and dealing with questions and is the "footballing character" we've been crying out for, for ages. - Mathie was trying to keep his cards close to his chest with regards to Duffy and only really spoke about him when he was outright asked about him. Strikes me as "I'll work with him in the meantime but I'm going to be ready to look for his replacement at any moment". - Mathie mentioning that at some point down the line he wants to get the club into a position where we can actually sell players for a profit. Obviously Mathie did pretty well in tying down assets like Porteous, Nisbet and Doig at Hibs and they'll probably end up being sold on. The prime frustration of many fans over the last few years has been losing Shankland, Forrest, Crawford, Rose, Devlin, Smith and McCowan for a collective fee of zilch. We need to do better in that regard but we also have to accept that the club needs to be on a solid footing before it can offer better players 2-3 year contracts. - He also seems eager to get stuck in and identify what we want to achieve this season. Obviously the goal is to stay up but he also mentions the January window as being key so we can definitely expect some movement there. This appointment also allows him to start planning for next season and identify who we want to keep at the club and what areas we need to improve on. All in all it's an exciting appointment and one that hopefully pays off.

Well that's another cup compeition been and gone and the biggest winner is us the players with the return of everyone's favourite granda. Without further delay here are the scores on the doors. The winning team with 168 points scoring 42 in the final round is team De Niro @Arch Stanton @peasy23 @Ross. @Arabdownunder @mathematics @The_Kincardine@101 @Snobot In second place - well who cares, but with 165 points (last round 46) is team Eastwood @Moomintroll @Ronaldo Jeremy @Geaky @Culter Away @SlipperyP @gkneil @ArmadaleKillie @Meldrew @kingjoey 3rd place on 163 was Team Hanks (42 points last round) @WhiteRoseKillie @Duszek @scottsdad @The Captain @Kima Greggs @NJ2 @LincolnHearts @Blootoon87 And we have a tie for last place. Firstly on 162 points its team Arnie (41 last round) @Helpma @Small Bovine Maisonette @Eednud @Sylvester Sneekly @alang1993 @BigBo10 @Spring Onion @JamesP_81 Also on 162 points with 46 last round was team Pacino @Rugster @Salvo Montalbano @The Hologram @Leeds Saint @JustOneCornetto @pleslie99 @The DA @German Jag In the end it was all quite tight. Good stuff. Now there was trophies for the top three indiviudal scores. Take a bow the following. On 33 points Arch Stanton, 32 points Just one cornetto and Edmund - Congrats Now onto the Lager Shield White Rose Killie failed to turn up, Rugster got a seven but wining the trophy with nine was @Eednud Well done. Now its the Wine Vase This one was tight, Sylvester Sneakly got 7, Kincardine an eight but winning the Vase with 9 was @JustOneCornetto Okleydookly @SlipperyP please update the cabinet with the following roll of honour Just one cornetto - Two cups Arch Stanton - Two cups Eednud - Two Cups Peasy 23 - One Cup Ross. - One Cup Arabdownunder - One Cup Mathematics - One Cup Kincardine - One Cup 101 - One Cup Snobot - One Cup Thanks to everyone for taking part, and welcome back to Granda. Have a great Christmas and I may do this again at some point. But for now its time to say goodbye.

I’ll never understand people slagging fans for celebrating late goals. 97th minute winner in a big game when down to 10 men and you want them to just sit down and give a wee clap?

I can offer Chris Whitty a cast iron assurance that short of Police intervention at my address, my Christmas Day plans will not deviate one iota.

Mate we've got a fucking big wheel

I genuinely feel that there are people who look on the March-July 2020 lockdown in the same way that UKIP types look back on the Blitz. These folk think of the lockdown as rainbows in windows, 8pm clapping for carers, social media "message to myself in 6 months", everyone pulling together and doing their bit. The ukippers think of the Blitz as everyone sitting in the London Underground having a jolly old time of it. Through the misty eyes of such selective hindsight they forget the job losses, the financial hardships. the social isolation, people dying alone in hospitals, the mental health damage, domestic violence rising, alcohol use rising, and people unable to see, touch and hug loved ones. I suspect that when people come on the radio asking for restrictions back, they really want to relive a time that never actually happened the way they remember it.

The one thing I took away from Sturgeon’s speech today was her specific comment she wasn’t making a political point but she wanted UK Government to support her preferred options with additional finance etc. At that point it was 100% an entirely political point and has been the focus of discussion in the media since. I watched The Nine on BBC Scotland and that was first question to Swinney. It basically sums all this up since winter this year; all political driven, with marginal science or medical basis and sadly on our doorstep, we have two of the biggest manipulators of this virus for their own gain, Sturgeon and Boris down the road.

The UK has also had a Delta wave since June until now. It makes up the majority of the cases that Chris Whitty showed on his graphs. It has been endemic in the country for fucking months. For Whitty to come out and claim that the UK is somehow more susceptible because our last wave was way back in January is nothing less than a pack of lies. They are quite simply saying anything that they think will scare people now.

We've had flare kicking wastermen and audi driving bevvy merchants so far so I think life threatening injuries administered by blunt force trauma should be a piece of cake...

Yeah he was 98, hit by a bus, then dragged away by an escaped lion before a couple of vultures pecked his remains. The PM showed though that he had Covid despite 3 jabs. We just don't know. Let's lockdown to keep everyone safe.

Imagine either pretending to watch, or actually watching, every single Norwich City game purely so you could post “Billy Gilmour is shite” afterwards on a football forum. What an existence.

Maybe she now has an idea how all those businesses she's shafted feel.

Dreadful post.

Why must every Hearts fan be so fucking cringeworthy?

I see no Kelpies though

Lille are the current French champions [emoji3]

I hate folk changing their user names as it gets me all confused, so I'll stick with what I am, thanks all the same.

On the one hand, Sturgeon's briefing yesterday was a total fudge and, with out access to Furlough, the time you are likely to buy in terms of slowing the virus down is going to be a day or two at most while at the same time imposing a lot of strain on certain sectors like hospitality. On the other hand, as others have noted this isn't just a case of politicians posturing for optics. The Rt/immune escape for Omicron clearly has a number of Public Health professionals spooked - and not just ours, as it looks like other nations are tightening up on restrictions at the moment. So the data they have, that they interpret for the politicians suggest this has the potential to be an issue. The information coming out from from SA is still evolving, with some more positive data at least about Pfizer protection than was originally thought. Meanwhile the latest information suggests a virus that is 30% less severe but that wouldn't balance outagainst the predicted Rt. The hope is that Omicron is generally a lot less severe. As much as 'we just don't know' has become a punchline on this thread, the data is still incomplete on what we can expect - hospitalisation and death data from SA is still lagging, yet the Rt looks to be confirmed. Meanwhile, in London which is described as the epicentre for Omicron in England is showing a fair old growth in cases now - up to 12,000 yesterday. The good news is that Scotland and the UK generally were already well into a booster programme. Alongside the observed benefits of mixing and matching vaccine types for boosters and the increased pace of boosters is the best we can do to see this strain off. The die is largely cast for this, however. Only fairly severe restrictions had an impact on previous strains and up against the alleged higher Rt here, only extremely early and severe restrictions would likely have provided a brake against this. Either the booster impact prevents major hospitalisations or the strain on the NHS is going to show. What is required as we pass to an endemic phase of this virus is a far more global attitude to vaccinating the population. Omicron apparently developed because it had access to a highly immune compromised population. Clearly, their welfare is our welfare.

He's a contrarian racist who does not understand how racism works. Why are some of you (very decent people) bothering? He's a troll, and a poor one at that

Aye, good luck with that..

Calling blacks and Asians "clowns" and "retards" is racist. There is no ambiguity there.

I know other teams and sports do stuff like this but it’s always a thing of beauty:

We're clearly a team of arseholes. Slattery's booting lumps out the whole league but folds like a deckchair as soon as there's contact. It's class.

I entered a super market behind an old couple. When at the first shelve oldies stopped . I walked past them on the right and the auld guy says, see some folk won't follow the rules. I said to him do you expect me to follow behind you while you get a trolley full and I'm in for a carton of milk. YES was the answer. He really took offence at me bursting out laughing.

When a political cartoon requires you to read 50 words of text to get to its point then it’s failed If you’re still left wondering what the point is then it’s shit

It's a continuation of anti-Highland sentiment that started with the Clearances and continues to this day with an orchestrated refereeing campaign designed to keep the Premiership a teuchter free zone.

I don't really mind waiting tbh. Gives me something to look forward to. I'll probably buy a new outfit and take a picnic, make a day of it.

Tom Petty dislikes this.

They've lied all the way through according to the agenda. The dreadful tier system they ignored when it suited. The science they ignored when it suited. The hospital numbers they ignored when it suited. Etc etc etc etc.

You just can’t help yourself Mr Negative can you ? Whatever your doing for a living drop it immediately, there is a post waiting for you in London working with the other two modellers (worst case scenarios only) at Sage . I gleaned plenty of information from that article , he mentioned that the academy was important but hinted it should be providing more players and hinted that it was odd that it wasn’t in-house ! He mentioned that other clubs of our size were doing fine (St Johnstone) and there was no reason we couldn’t do like wise . He mentioned getting the town behind the team , this can only be done with a huge improvement on the field . On that he noted that it was clear we needed “budget parity” . Again paying the rate can only be seen as good news . On Smith and the funding of the Mathie appointment , in a five year plan, it’s called start up costs . Maybe brought forward a bit due to the Hopkin fiasco and the blow back from that . All in all this is a spectacular appointment for “poor wee Ayr” . It’s a clue to the direction of travel , Mathie ain’t coming here to bury a very decent CV in mediocrity . He plans to win . Smith plans to win . Music to the ears for most ! Mathie also mentioned his immediate priority is “the fast approaching transfer window” , I’m fairly sure he knows what he’s doing in this regard ! Looks like Duffy will have all the support he needs to plug those gaps in the team . So Henry get your big boy boots on and join in for what should prove to be an exciting five months as the old ways of poor wee Ayr get laid to rest , ... then the fun really begins ...

Well, here's hoping he's not physically feeble.

I’m agreeing with a Green. Strange times right enough. Shame her baldy counterpart up here did a full 180 when he got a whiff of power for the first time in his life.

Opening hours on Google must be a load of pish. This is a lovely festive surprise!

Not quite, my jakeball friend. No one is asking for you to be banned, mainly because you are a continual source of point-and-laugh merriment. It's literally your only remaining function in this part of the forum. This "new", tedious c**t is just a spamming bore, absolutely desperate for attention. Don't worry Kincs, I'm sure you'll be around to amuse us all for some time to come.

That should take all of about 2 minutes

From 1833, the earliest known set of written football rules, drawn up by the Foot-Ball Club of Edinburgh. The easier to read version below:- 1. Single-soled shoes, no iron 2. No tripping 3. Ball to pass imaginary line 4. A free kick if ball out of bounds 5. Pushing is allowed. Holding not illegal 6. Allow the ball to be lifted between fields Aff[irmative] Fun, air, exercise Neg[ative] — No tripping —

Jethro Tull : Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square

Seeing as it's looking less and less likely that we'll be visiting the in-laws over Xmas, here's a picture of the boys from last time we were over

Irish Cup Final - 2078