KingRocketman II

. More likely contributed to by his incessant theatrical pratfalls. If he just stayed on his feet with every imagined or innocuous of touches, he would be sparing his joints from further unnecessary impact.

Douglas Alexander, Labour grandee's reaction to his "shock" loss:

oooft. He is gonna be reeling from that.

"playing rounds" or as normal people term it - simply buying someone back a drink who bought you one. Some folks devote real time and energy to avoid having to buy anyone a drink or making a tenner stretch (and not through lack of funds) - whether it is opportune disappearances or avoiding eye contact,, making sure never up at the bar first in entering the pub, nursing drinks, boring or stalking partial strangers to see if can illicit drinks etc etc. Must be exhausting and pretty miserable.

On a work course and we were each given a £30 voucher to use in the adjacent restaurant to cover dinner. I wasn't too keen on the food and only ordered some sides and a drink. A colleague at our round table (though not sat within direct talking distance), was clearly seeking maximum return on his voucher. We went up to pay/hand in our voucher at the till at the end and he had slightly miscalculated and his came to £30.72. After clarifying some final individual costs with the woman on the till, he turned to me behind him and (oddly) aware of what I had ordered, asked if I could extend some of my remaining voucher balance towards his additional costs ie 72p. I laughed and said why don't you just pay the pound and he said "it hopefully will not have to come to that" - suggesting that he had a few more options to apply if I refused or the woman said that what he was proposing was not possible.

howdy.

you know you have come in at the sharp end of the thread when "mate" is getting thrown about so freely......

This is the type of comment that a stranger beside me in a busy pub makes in my direction, where I invariably nod in agreement and say "aye" but have no idea what they mean or what they are saying.

....or a trivial or minor alteration to something as a "disaster waiting to happen".

yeh that was it exactly - though think it was Brown who actually said that, pretty much verbatim. And when Brown said that about Gough, who was with Rangers at the time, a few red-tops were coincidentally looking into stories about unsavoury and potentially inappropriate behaviour of a Scottish Prem player. This leaked - though the stories didn't get published until a few years later - and everyone assumed the player in question was Gough on account of what Brown said. However the player in question was actually Justin Fashanu who was with Hearts or Hamilton I think at the time..... Brown didn't divulge what his Gough front page story was though.....

Probably regarded that as one of his best punchlines. A Krusty equivalent of pulling out the big guns if losing/lost the crowd.....

The mid-morning magazine style show that MacAuley hosted on Radio Scotland for years was unbelievably turgid and painfully bland. I used to have it on when working from home and I don't think Macauley ever said something that could be considered mildly amusing never mind outright funny. I still listened to Radio Scotland every morning, mind you - contributing to his listener numbers and perhaps maintaining his slot. When I was told a few years later that he was a comedian "by trade" and did stand-up I genuinely thought I was getting the pish ripped out me. Still don't believe it.

I believe I recall exactly how the Richard Gough rumour started. It was actually Craig Brown who offered clarification and refuted it. Still don't know why Brown never picked up for Scotland though I think that harbours back to Gough's dressing room attitude and behaviour when Roxburgh was the manager and Brown was no2.

referenced in Voyager Season 3. And incidentally what a wasted opportunity not to have Moriarty as the main enemy throughout Picard Season 3!

I am a 42 year old project manager with a degree in history/politics. I have always dreamt of being an astronaut (or cosmonaut/taikonaut/spationaut) and spending a year on the ISS. How do you suggest I make this happen?

as it doesn't fit your narrative, sure.

this has been debunked.

So you don't like/understand, set pieces, tactics or the use of bold

I was highlighting your assessment that MacPhee was an "imposter" - in what way? To add, that at the end of last year, and including Euro 2024 qualifiers, Scotland had scored 12 goals (from something like 18 games) from set pieces. This was directly attributed to MacPhee and what he brought to the team. He was also kept on at Villa for his set piece work and his wider work with the first team.

you don't like to bother yerself too much with boring stuff like tactics or set-pieces, I guess.

So you now agree there were some pretty wild takes. Got there in the end.

this took a 2 min skim and just a flavour I Imagine. If you think these are all reasonable reactions after a disappointing friendly performance/result that follows one of our best qualifying campaigns in decades, then fair do's.

It is not nice to lose, particularly to pretty poor teams like Northern Ireland who just set out to defend. I guess that is the point of friendlies to test ourselves against such opponents and it is clear we still struggle against doggedly defensive teams and to a certain extent teams who initiate a high press. However the difference now compared to 2 years or so ago when we would more regularly turn in a performance like last night, is that we have the evidence in terms of numerous performances/results that can be achieved when team selection and tactics click. We didn't have that evidence before - therefore am pretty relaxed about Clarke and remain optimistic about our Euro performances and chances. Plenty of lessons to be taken from and built on from last night. As most know, the path to improvement and making gains is rarely a straight line (:). As for reactions to these friendly results, there have been some wildly spectacular takes on here. Too numerous to post or reference. I guess that is social media permeating its way to behaviours and attitudes - its is either fantastic or shite; black or white; massive win or a massive fail etc. Context and nuance as well as wider/mitigating factors are inconveniences as they take a view into an area that requires more thinking beyond immediate reactions.....