AllyM

Only question I got wrong in my US drivers licence theory test many years ago (in Seattle, by co-incidence), was what to do approaching a "Yield" sign on a slip road onto a freeway. The answer is speed up, apparently. Cars already on the freeway in the inside lane will be expecting you to do this and let you in. Had no end of trouble with this when I came back to the UK.

It was a slightly unusual game, though. By no means a pumping but at half time it was 1-1 and most thought we were very lucky to be level. Straight after the restart we gave away another penalty and had Baird sent off, so game over and there is no way of knowing what might have been. For the first half, though, when it was 11 v 11, Morton were the better team by some distance.

Just the same point made twice. Perhaps for post-building purposes.

Not at all. In fact, I think this is the first time he hasn't been spot on. Even then it's only the timing that was a little out. I will continue to believe every bit of wondering from McG

Or, at best, a premature ejaculation

Even then, it can turn out to be a pile of pish (see Dumbarton match thread). Oracle my arse

WTF, JR. We beat Falkirk 3-1 several days ago and you STILL haven't updated that wall chart.

Before, surely, given your "location"?

Yup. We ended the January window with a better team and more money than at the start of the window. I can't see why fans of other teams would be upset by this.

You've got a fair point. These are indeed "crazy figures, just crazy figures". Sadly wrong figures. Three (3) divided by forty (40) times one hundred (100) equals seven point five percent (7.5%). Perhaps you didn't move from Greenock to Paisley until after primary seven (7)? Your general argument is completely sound though. Carry on.

Was half-following Jamie's doubles game in Vienna on Live Tennis Scores earlier, on the corner of my screen. They appear to play next point wins the game at 40-40 (so no advantages on deuce). Is this something new they've introduced at some doubles events, or has it been going for years and I've completely missed it?

Yep. The argument (for swimmers) is that they spend so many hours in a chloride-filled pool training that they all develop breathing problems. Swimmers are the extreme, but cycling isn't far behind. There is a plausible argument to be made that the exercise causes the problem and an inhaled short acting beta-agonist (such as salbutamol) redresses the balance. In my view, there is a much stronger argument that this is institutionalised cheating. One of the several drawbacks of linking lottery funding to past Olympics performance.

The vast majority (around 70%) of all elite swimmers in the UK used anti-asthmatic medication (inhalers) in 2014. The problem is that this form of asthma is usually defined as "exercise induced". So, is it something that should be redressed through medication or a "tough luck" consequence of doing the exercise in the first place?

Yup. Fair play to the umpire who showed a cooler head than Andy there. My instant reaction would probably have been to DQ him

Aha, glad I remembered it wrong. Not sure how Ruri is going to react to his name when older, but I'm fairly sure he'd have struggled with Nuala.

My youngest (10 months) is called Ruaraidh (Ruri, mostly, because we live in England) in no small part because of your son. I remember reading your story about choosing the name on the P and P thread, (was it a nurse or midwife that suggested it or something like that?) and the name stuck in my mind. We've gone for a slightly different spelling, but no-one down here ever forgets it once they've heard it and it seems very popular.

I'm not sure the thinking is that people, like you, suffering from depression are missing a chemical. Just that not enough of particular chemicals (neurotransmitters) are around for long enough in the right place to produce their action and therefore others which do other things may dominate in a way they wouldn't normally - hence there is said to be an imbalance. I'm not sure how strong the evidence is that that is in fact true. It does make some sense, though. The bigger problem, I think, is that current drugs are not selective enough. So, to stick with Prozac, it has actions on a large number of proteins in the brain and it is hard to know which are most important. A few years ago, my lab showed that Prozac is quite a potent blocker of a particular type of protein in the brain which will have all sorts of consequences for how nerve cells work. At the time I thought it was most likely what caused some of the side effects of Prozac, but more recently some clinicians and drug companies think it could underlie the therapeutic effects of the drug. I'm not sure that I do! Given how non selective Prozac and compounds like it are, it is amazing to me that they work at all in depression. And for many people, they do seem to. I hope you are one of them.

Well, the proposed mechanism of action of Prozac, for example, is to inhibit the re uptake of serotonin into nerve terminals following its release and action. This is thought to work in depression because there is not enough serotonin in the synaptic cleft for long enough following release. In other words, there's an imbalance between release and uptake. Blocking uptake seeks to restore the balance.

If you like. But it's black and white and has a passing resemblance to a panda The mascot things a bit of a laugh and I'm glad it's been found relatively unharmed, but the PA system is another matter all together - hope you can get that sorted cheaply and quickly.

I don't know if all do but it is pretty common (grunting, squealing etc) and nothing to worry about, even though it can sound quite disturbing at the time. Can be linked to digestion and reflux but needn't be. It'll disappear over the next few weeks and you'll forget it ever happened. Until the next one

It's pre-Renfrewshire Cup final nerves. Gets to us all. Either that, or one of our lot has hijacked his account. St Sid by the tenor of the posts.

Is it 5? Shit, we've been doing 3. No wonder it doesn't seem to last long Still, we do include a final "0 ducks going out" and all 3 wandering back over the hills - just to give it a happy ending