Le Tout P'ti FC

Stick with Bruichladdich distillery and try one of these. It's awfae nice!

Happy anniversary! Maybe a serendipitous purchase would be a Kilchoman 10yo which are new to the market, 2006 being the year they started production. So their oldest whisky is roughly of ages with your marriage. But they're quite rare alas! A nice 10yo in a tin would most definitely be a Laddie!

Sorry to say I gave it away for nothing to a Hibee pal. He was grateful!

I found a pristine programme for this cup final for a mere £1 at a recent QP game. One of the things I enjoy doing at QP games in the quieter moments is looking around the stadium and thinking that was where Zidane scored, or that was where I stood at my first Scotland game (East Germany 0-0, a surefire classic), or that was where McFadden danced around Macedonia from the half way line etc. And last time I was there I was looking over to where Gray ran into the fans after scoring and got a wee grin. Because everybody loves seeing Rangers get beat in the last minute, no matter which team we support! Brilliant day, I was glad for the Hibs fans.

Besides their insistence on offering Forthbank as a possible answer, this is good. (22 out of 23!) http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/hibernian/quiz-name-the-scottish-football-grounds-1-4446188

This was a good read about being a Dad: 'I've been good and bad, caring but useless': Tim Dowling on two decades of fatherhood https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/13/tim-dowling-sons-growing-up-parenting-lessons-learned-teenagers?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

New ground for me today: the delightful wee town of Cannich to see Strathglass. I couldn't have placed Cannich on a map until today. Brilliant trip. I'd feared Ballachulish would take a bit of a pasting but they made a real game of it, hitting the bar and keeping Strathglass out until 40 mins. They lost a second quickly which kind of killed the game. Anyway Strathglass looked decent up front, great park there, very decent pie shop. Friendly locals apart from the maniac on the single track road who didn't quite get the concept of a passing place. Strathglass go on to play Kilmory at home in the last 16, so both teams must fancy their chances of a cup run. Another grand day out!

Great share. I've never seen that clip before.

So we're all agreed are we that to get to Spartans next season we go down to the Botanics, pick up the Water of Leith to the Shore, head along to Ocean Terminal, then join the cycle path by the Dreadnought? That's the quickest route by far, am I right?

My way was taking into account the needs of an infrequent visitor to our fine city. Ease of navigation. Scenery and landmarks via an avenue of parks and trees. Proximity to drinking establishments. The tour bus route but pretty direct with it. "Custom designed for their needs" - as Mikey Forrester may say. But aye crack on down some back roads past a couple of mini cab offices, a Hoover repair shop and a dodgy night club, remembering to avoid the bird poop under the railway arches if you want to save five minutes. Say hi to the Queen as you pass her back gate. Bloody men and discussions about directions, honestly, what are we like.

Leave Waverley by the Big Steps up to Princes St. Head east onto Waterloo Pl ie straight ahead past big station hotel heading away from centre. Waterloo Pl turns into London Rd eventually, lots of pubs here. Stadium wee bit further in past retail park. Maybe 25-30 mins walk in total. Quite scenic looking over to Arthur's Seat and Holyrood. Lots of buses too. 44 or 26 quite frequent from Princes St. Few others besides. A bus with Tranent or Musselburgh on the board will be a good bet. Enjoy your visit!

Congratulations to Edinburgh City! I had my doubts at times but to come up and stay up is some achievement, and I'll be looking forward to visiting their new home next season. Please bring along your gravy laden pies to Spartans with you (and lots of napkins).

Kilchoman FC, playing just outside Port Charlotte on Islay. That is a Neolithic burial cairn in the foreground and the Paps of Jura in the background. West St Mungos on tap in the clubhouse. Pretty idyllic. Bear sized midge play home games here all summer.

Don't tell Oban Celtic but we snuck a football onto their pitch today.

They can potentially use the general Wembley events licence for any overspill. Provided Wembley has space for that event within its own limit. All games should then be played with the 90k capacity. Some councillors had pushed for the capacity to be restricted to the 61k capacity of the new White Hart Lane to ease the impact on local residents. Seems to be going down badly in the local community. In the event that they cannot get a licence for a 90k game there is unlimited number of events which can use the 50k lowrer tier licence.

There is a couple of shinty pitches with football connections. Oban Saints FC play some home games at Mossfield including their summer tournament. And the Bught is back to back with the junior pitch as mentioned above. Plenty of shinty pitches have football goals at the side for school games etc. Like Taynuilt. But no proper ground shares as such.

Well, 250-odd runners and Vogrie seems to be off to a great start. This guy seems to have loved his morning: https://parkruntourofscotland2017.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/9-vogrie/ I was on childcare duties this morning, so no run, but I'll get Vogrie all to myself at first light tomorrow.

New Parkrun starting this weekend at Vogrie Country Park, just south of Dalkeith. Excellent place to go for a run generally, one of my favourite places in Midlothian. The course they have chosen avoids the more hilly side of the park on the other side of the river. It sticks to the loop round towards the Dewarton entrance, which is quite a fun bit to run through albeit very very busy with bloody dog walkers near the car park. Bring your old shoes, parts of this route will be mucky! http://www.parkrun.org.uk/vogrie/

corner flags. some have seen better days.

Happy New Season! Up the A82 in my semi-submersible to Spean Bridge, chiefly to observe the new season tradition and answer the big question - what hair do does the Innes McD sport this year? (Not the fully fledged jaggy bush of years gone by.) Half time here and it's 2-0 to Kyles. They took the lead from a retaken penalty, the Lochaber keeper having escaped lightly with a yellow card and 120 hours community service for bayoneting Roddy McD. No sausage rolls. Lochaber started well but Kyles are pulling clear now. Decent game considering the awful weather.

Courtesy of @6yrdbox on Twitter here is a photo of Edinburgh Emmet FC. Their ground was roughly at the end of Waverley station car park / East Market St, where the bus garage was until recently. I think that's a big gap site again today, let's shove a football ground back in!

Bump. I've been reading this series of articles in the Guardian today and the fear has set in. Talks of a generation who can't afford to retire, and a return to mass pensioner poverty. The drop in home ownership exacerbating matters because of permanent rental commitments, where previously mortgages would have been cleared. Most alarming to me was this - the IRRI state that people should put 15% of their lifetime earnings into their pot to avoid pensioner poverty. But 42% have no private pension, and the average fund size is only £47k. This would buy you an income of 47% of those in 30s/40s are not saving adequately, or at all. Over 45s private savings will generate an income of £4k on average. More. 63% of those retiring today do not receive a full state pension. Hints to expand state retirement age to 75 or even 81. My retirement age has already climbed from 65 to 68, so roughly 1 year added for every 5 years I have worked so far. It is quite the most depressing and terrifying list of woe I have read in some time. I'm 38. I saved a little bit privately from graduation at 22 until I was 28, my previous employer did not offer a scheme. It was a modest amount in retrospect. From 28 onwards I've been saving 10% into my work scheme, and my increasing private contributions into my own scheme take me up to maybe 18% in total. So I've put a decent sum aside. But yet every time I read something like this and do a pensions calculator it shows that I'm not doing enough. The whole thing alarms me, and I am a financial professional. Anyway, if you want to share a dose of the fear, read this... 'There's a danger of a generation who can't afford to retire' https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2017/jan/23/saving-retirement-pension-generation-old-age?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Messages

I taught my wee one to say the "everybody be cool this is a robbery" bit from pulp fiction. Carefully inserting "mother frogger" etc. Maybe inappropriate for a 3yo in retrospect.

Meant to add - the poster for the Hydro show is excellent. I'll be hoping to get one of those to add to the collection.