Mr Scruff

Thanks for this and all the efforts you and the others put into this. I held off joining TJF for personal reasons but hoped you would succeed in your endeavours in the professional manner you were obviously demonstrating. Reading through your document, section 9.4 (fundraising) was really telling for me. This smells of control being the most important thing to the current incumbents. Having had a season ticket for the majority of the last 30 years, got my kids into following the club, sponsored the club and taken hospitality over many years I find myself wishing I'd never renewed this year or spent the 50 odd quid on Saturday for various bits and pieces around the stadium. I will join the 'not a penny more' group despite the pain it causes me - 100% because of the contempt dripping from the current members. Thistle, as a club, used to feel special. Open and welcoming with so many of those involved wanting to go the extra mile for fans, and look for their active involvement. I don't know these people, but the clearly don't care.

Honestly, that wasn't my experience at all. And for a period I found the services improve under deregulation. Getting the balance right is the issue since Local Authorities with a monopoly can be more concerned with maintaining the systems than innovating and putting the customer first. And obviously, private companies with only profit as the criteria (if that's how the services are licensed) will not be interested in non-profitable areas or services. 100% agree. Depressingly there's nobody, it seems to me, who is working to fix this. I see it working somewhat in places like Edinburgh and London, but we seem incapable or unwilling to do that here, never mind taking a national approach.

They specifically said it wasn't a prediction (and they were right to say that). It was an arithmetical, not a statistical 'analysis'. On that basis they could have said "We'll be facing 120 Million cases a day by Christmas in the UK" or "A Billion cases a week by New Year". Both of which would be equally true, but patently absurd. I wondered why they'd done that, until I saw the immediate headlines "Britain facing 50000 cases a day in October". That was clearly the purpose of the slide. But it wasn't a prediction, and it wasn't grounded in science.

This whole episode has highlighted yet again that the entire football setup here needs root and branch refrom. It has also thrown into sharp relief how incapable it is of that. I am scunnered at the number of times we've (not uniquely) been at the wrong end of injustice and had to 'take our own medicine'. For a brief period in March I believed the message that we're all in this together might actually hold true and that hard work woud be put in to make sure that no harm was done to any club. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that, yet again, the football system in this country was incapable of even that modest goal. And again we're in a position of sucking it up. After 40 years of supporting football in this country, club and country, I'm just about done. When the feeling of integrity and trust has gone, how can you even celebrate winning in that competition. It's in that context I support this legal action. I don't care if it's 'borderline vexatious'. The entire structure has shown itself to be that, and it seems to be the only approach that cuts through. In my professional life I've witnessed civil actions that I've thought highly unlikely to succeed, only for them to prove successful. It doesn' happen often, but it does happen. I really hope this shot to nothing succeeds, and I don't care any more what gets broken along the way.

Utter. Nonsense. And, even if you're a just a troll, you betray your motivation very nicely. You do realise that there were globes before 1958. Maybe you don't. You do realise that the circumference of the earth was measured in ancient times in a geometrical way that absolutely precludes a flat surface with a close sun? How did NASA influence Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, John Harrison etc? In your world, the answer is presumably the New World Order and the Illuminati? How big is this conspiracy? Everybody in Australia is clearly in on it according to your map. For this to work there must be far fewer people not part of this than are part of it. And you blandly make assertive statements that you can't prove the curvature or gravity. When demonstrated that you can, you just ignore and handwave about NASA and 'truth'. Classic troll behaviour. You're clearly not prepared to defend your statements. But can you answer one question - do you truthfully believe this crap?

I've heard these views stated (ie you can't prove the earth is round, or that gravity exists), but they're just plain wrong. There are several geometric exercises which can be used to demonstrate this, some of which were carried out in ancient times The geometrical results fundamentally differ between a flat surface and a curved geometry, even on the simplest experiment. After Newton's theory of gravitation, there were experiments carried out (one famously on a Scottish mountain called Schiehallion, because of its regular shape) to determine the density of the earth and the gravitational constant. These and subsequent 18thC experiments demonstrated the general law that masses attract proportional to the product of their masses and inverse to the square of their distance. And this is before you get to the modern age and the extremely sensitive experiments and observations we can make now (as well as just looking from a high enough distance). We've even recently detected gravitional waves, which I find just astonishing since this is an observation that not too long ago seemed beyond the capacity of measurement to detect. One of the great things about science is the sense of wonder it creates. Flat Earth theories and their ilk destroy that.

I watched a youtube video about this (after my son sent me the link), and I just thought it was all a pretty poor spoof. And then, of course, it turns out that some people believe this stuff which is just really disturbing. Typical 'NASA tells you the earth is a spinning ball' guff as if NASA are the only holders of scientific endeavour for the last 3000 years... File with "The moon landing was hoaxed" nonsense. I thought it might be worth something for illustrating the power of critical thinking and the scientific method over blind belief, but it's s far off to be 'not even wrong'..

I was there as a guest. Actually a very decent night, and the various auctions and raffles will have raised a fair amount of money. Different to most other Thistle events I've been to. An upbeat atmosphere, but there was a string theme of having to do more with less next season...

An interesting political debate, but I'd feel more comfortable having it in the General Forum rather than the football forum (despite my new MP's support for Thistle). But a couple of things. Who is the 'working class' now, and are such concepts still helpful do you think (I know you're old school in this respect). And are the SNP not more pragmatic than dogmatic, (which is why I've voted for them several times in the past despite being a 'no' voter in the referendum)? And in the breathless enthusiasm for our 20 year old local becoming an MP, I'm struggling to see how this is a breath of fresh air. Coming straight out of uni doing politics into parliament seems to me to be the definition of a career politician. Having said that , she is committed and I do wish her well, but still...

He talks some sense to me. This is a problem with the national game and I don't really know if there's any easy solution. There's more exposure now and arguably more competition, but crowds are still evaporating. I was in the pub at 3 on Saturday (for the first time in years- normally I'd be at the football), and most places were very busy and many of them showing live Premier League games. Perhaps live football at Scottish level isn't attractive any more to people who can 'consume' it other ways.. On the subject of artificial pitches, it is completely understandable why these are being installed more and more. A grass pitch is a huge maintenance burden and is only used for about 30 hours a year. Synthetic pitches let you make use of the pitch (which is a huge piece of property) throughout the year. The specification of these is only getting better, and the Junior game is rapidly switching for obvious reasons. Watching the Man City game at the weekend where it was played on a pitch that looked like it never had a game played on it this season it was so lush, I realised that we just can't compete any more with those standards. For our own development we might need to go through this as a game...

Union Berlin would be memorable choice (Bundesliga II). A great club and a great city. They played Dundee Utd and Celtic in pre-season friendlies last year or the year before, so not outrageous as a suggestion. And relatively cheap for a European destination. It's a bucket list thing to see the Jags play in a European away fixture...

Finally... Voted no this morning (first time I've ever voted early...). Brisk voting in cloudy Kilbarchan. Felt the significance of the moment of putting the cross on the ballot. Two sons voting for this first time (one in his school uniform who met other pals voting). My overwhelming feeling at the moment is of treasuring democracy and being prepared to stand by the result whatever it is.

I considered upgrading to 4K a couple of months ago while looking for a bigger TV for the living room. Did a lot of research into the options. However I decided it's just not worth it yet. There are some good looking deals for cheaper sets, but these don't have anything like the quality required, for which you really need to pay a premium (£2K+). Added to that, the only content available when I was looking was Netflix's House of Cards, it's easy to conclude that it's not worth the premium at the moment.

I agree. Or at least an over-simplistic view of the relationship between a document issued, and the qualifying grounds of being issued it (rather than the other way around).

I've maybe missed soemthing. Are you saying that if we secede from the UK then those with a passport will still be EU/ UK citizens because of the expiry date of that document? And similarly if the UK leaves the EU, UK citizens with a passport will still be in the EU?

All these 'English' refernces in this and your other posts I don't understand. Equally I don't understand those wanting 'independence' under union of currency. Logic (and history) suggests that currency union without fiscal union is a poor setup, and those would need political union to be effective. What the SNP propose is the worst of both worlds. And you already blame the future UK (your English) government for rejecting that if 'independence' happens. Incredible stuff. I'd have more respect for Salmond if he made a case for independence rather than 'independence'.

No. I wouldn't draw the conclusion that being a member of the EU had structurally created this situation (unless we were in the monetary union, but that's another debate). My use of this example was only to illustrate the point that it's a structural issue. If you're contention is that this government has increased inequality then that's a policy issue rather than a structural one. Scottish Independence is a structural debate.

Non sequitor, though. You could equally make the argument that it's membership of the EU or some other structural issue that causes this. If it's the flavour of the government in Westminster in essence that's not a structural issue.

Responding to the first point: from my perspective there's an optimum size for various activities, and there is question over whether the UK is that or independent Scotland is that for some things smaller countries are more vulnerable; for others the larger organisation is and your statement holds true. But I do have to disagree with the highlighted statement. There's a number of struggling smaller economies (Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Eastern European countries), , Some of them would be in even more dire circumstances if it wasn't for the EU. Some arguably might have fared better if they hadn't been part of the EU (cf Greece and Iceland). What does that tell us - probably nothing other than you can't illustrate future performance from one country by casual comparison with others.

I have to say that I agree with pretty much everything you say here. I do believe that either a yes or a no vote (considering the power transfer that happens in either case), combined with the 'London Effect' has a good chance of pushing the UK towards a Federal structure. But that's obviously just a guess. Actually this whole thing is really just a leap of faith anyway. I was expecting more detail to be given in the lead up to the vote, but this hasn't happened. My instincts are that unions, fairly established and represented, provide more security, stability and opportunity. But there is no doubt that this is also balanced by the opportunity that comes from being smaller, leaner and more focused. I would feel more inclined to vote for that if it was braver and had a more compelling vision. And had been more honest and realistic

Or other nationalities from fans supporting other teams. One of my pet dislikes, particularly the holier than thou attitude that accompanies it.... Still we should't need to stoop to their level and, speaking a s a Scotland fan, I found that image a bit embarrassing to be honest. I'd hoped we were mature enough not to define part of 'what we are' through that kind of wind up. But each to their own..

So, in summary, Scotland has clearly done well from, and contributes positively to, our union with the rest of the UK. The future, though, is not so clear.

Completely agree with this. My preference is for a federal structure for the UK, which actually might have some chance of coming in if we vote 'no' funnily enough. But I stand by my position that it could easily take a generation to achieve the political maturity required under 'independence' to make it work. Again I agree with this. But it's not really what I mean by political maturity ie it's not just the experience of those voted in, but what platforms are adopted, and the ability of democracy to ultimately balance these. On a simplistic level, we need to develop beyond the simple narrative that anything bad that we experience is because of England, and anything good is because of Scotland. We have had a significant impact on UK economic policy, and the role of the Central Bank over the years, especially relatively recently. This will go, and it is this to which I am referring. If we do have a a currency union, then that without fiscal union, and that without political union doesn't at all work for me - I think this has been amply demonstrated over the last few years. Central Bank's powers are limited or extended by political process. We would have no part of that. I understand the difficulties with young, newly independent, currencies, and that they are often pegged for value and borrowing to other ones. But that would at least have been independence rather than 'independence'. In the UK there definitely is an emerging London problem as far as growth and value go (not just housing). This will impact even on an 'independent' Scotland. I've been interested in debates recently about potential solutions to that. We would have no stake in this, but be highly affected by it if we are 'independent'. I do appreciate that there's pros and cons to considering this one, and that it might be better to try and insulate ourselves. But currency union without fiscal/ political union seems one of the worst solutions.

I agree completely with this. But I don't see the natural logic in the underlined bit. It might be, but it might not.. We will need to develop a mature political/ economic environment, and that could easily take a generation if it is to happen (eg our most capable politicians head to Westminster generally, and there isn't the balance of political viewpoints at the moment that comes naturally from actually governing). Obviously your own view of the upside/ downside balance of that risk is what will define your view on the choice of independence/ union. This is why some of us wanted more clarity from those actually proposing independence. As an example, I was listening to the radio this morning and they were debating the mansion house speech last night and Mark Carney's suggestion that the lending landscape will have to change to prevent overheating in the housing market. The UK government has to take into account there is more than London in this market. Scotland has anything but a buoyant housing market. If we retain fiscal union without political union we will have no influence on those policies; we do now. I would have much preferred (in fact for me it would be a virtual necessity) an honest appraisal of this by those proposing it, and a rational consideration of the alternative ie an independent currency. It's not enough to say "close your eyes, vote 'independence' and it'll all be fine on the day". But that's really the choice we have.

It might be, it might not. My point was that it's an issue which would have helped sway me. There are monarchists in favour of independence too (as well as republicans against...) I take the point about larger representation, but my argument wasn't directly related to that. It was responding to the point made about EU membership being decided largely by the population of England. I was making the simple point essentially about that being a democratic feature of a Union.(EU or UK). And I understand the argument that says it's better therefore not being part of a Union (EU or UK)