Aberdeen v Hibernian

Premier League, Pittodrie.

This could be tricky. Hibs are unbeaten (in the league) since getting mangled in their opening game. They’ve been a bit up and downy lately, throwing away a two-goal lead at home against Inverness and twice coming back from behind against Celtic in Glasgow, but it’s still fairly impressive how they’ve managed to get over the trauma of being eviscerated in the Scottish Cup Final.

There are a lot of reasons the fair-minded neutral may view Hibs with a certain distaste, however - Irvine Welsh, The Proclaimers, the CCS, the death-trap bridge that away fans have to cross when visiting Easter Road, the moral disintegration of Rod Petrie and last year’s semi-final against Aberdeen, to name just a few – and it would be nice to have Craig Brown come out and specifically mention these things in the build up to the game.

Today’s match – with Hibs giving it large and causing some early problems before being put firmly in their place – will probably go a bit like this:

[video=youtube;SCkp8CWboNE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCkp8CWboNE&NR[/video]

Bolstered by an incredible comeback against Motherwell last week and an emphatic League Cup win over Dunfermline a few days later, everything is set fair for the working of miracles. Come the close of play, we should be sitting somewhere just south of heaven.

Prediction: Aberdeen 4 Hibs 1 (the day everything finally goes right)

Attendance prediction: 10013

 

Here is the (Aberdeen home game) Attendance Prediction League as it currently stands, with the number after each name representing the closest each person has come to predicting an attendance:

1) Johnny Rep...............277
2) Surreal Dance...........383
3) Pud…………………………….505
4) MD 20/20..................571
5) Psychosomatic...........783
6) Bhoy From Brum………..800
7) MalteseMick...............854
8) UserName................2815

Please feel free to take make a prediction, whether you’ve done so already this season or not. Prizes. Fame. All predictions to be in by five minutes before kick-off, by the way. (NB: Today’s match starts at 12:00, apparently. Disgraceful.)

Admin: Our Leader, Johnny Rep, is away, but he made his attendance prediction earlier in the week: 9100

I actually dread to think how much sex he’s had on the back of his success here.

 

My prediction is 8,900

 

Hello Sunlini.

I would love to make guesses as low as that but I can’t seem to make myself do so. I’m even struggling to make myself predict anything less than 10,000. It’s the same kind of disease that has seen me confidently predict Aberdeen winning all of their games this (league) season. I’ve been right once.

Your prediction is duly noted, though, thanks.


Edit: Hang on. A newbie who makes their first (and presently only) comment on the Aberdeen board? It’s unheard of. Practically nobody visits here. People will think I made you up so that I might have someone play my prediction game, Sunlini – which is actually a very good idea and may well be worth looking into.

Sorry for being suspicious, of course, but this place is full of very strange people.

 

7-7 draw.

attendance 32001.

 

Attendance 9721


Could be a good game, 2-2

 

9, 288

1-1




ps I'm guessing on behalf of Surreal Dance.

 

That was my original prediction, Pud, 2-2. One rush of blood to the head later.....

It could still be a brilliant game, though. I know this because, once again, my wife is dragging me to the beach. I’m sure this is a form of extraordinary rendition. If I were at home following the game – 0-0.

Stereo, hello, no worries, just so long as you feel you can control Surreal Dance sufficiently to make sure he doesn’t come along and make a prediction as well. I know how hard it can be.

ER - what a lovely guess. Well done. You'll be amongst the prizes, for sure.

 

The games got goals in it (nil nil draw coming up).

Two weeks in a row and being dragged to the beach... this must be some beach!!

 

Att: 8,282

1500 out!!!

 

Ach, I don’t really mind, Administrator, going to the beach is grand and – at the risk of being serious for a moment - I would never, under any circumstances, put football (or anything much at all, come to think of it) before my wife. I’m achingly modern in outlook, for definite. Plus, I cleanse, tone and moisturise. Aveda. (Don’t tell Tina.)

Your wife watches sleb stuff on TV? That’s got to hurt. Have you tried telling her not to? You should get her hooked on Australian Masterchef, buddypalmate, best show out there. It’s the only thing my wife is allowed to watch on TV – just so long as she doesn’t look at or comment upon any men, obviously, and on the understanding that she listens to a three hour recording of a female Welsh choir immediately after the show has finished so that the memory of how other men may sound is lost to her.

I’ve been with her since way before I left school, so she clearly loves it. If you need any help, let me know. (NB: it’s vital that you drive a terminal wedge between your wife and her family early doors. Isolation is key.)

My dog would certainly agree! Firm evidence of agreement:

please log in to view this image

You continue to massively disappoint in your predictions, to be fair. You’ve maybe stepped up a level too far and too soon and find yourself uncomfortably out of your depth? I don’t know. But look, there’s quite a long gap until the next Aberdeen home game, Pud, so I advise you to spend this time wisely, working on your technique, reaching deep and finding the strength within. Top tip: if you’re ever out driving, say, you can start guessing how many white cars you might see in the next ten minutes. Or Green cars. Or red cars. Or blue cars. Or silver cars. Or black cars. Or yellow cars. Practice makes perfect, in any event. (If nothing else, it’s a terrific game, fun fun fun, and, even though she always loses – she must wear a blindfold in the car - my wife finds the challenge life-affirming. Good times.)


The Prediction Table as it currently stands:

1) Johnny Rep.................277
2) Surreal Dance.............383
3) Pud………………………………505
4) MD 20/20...................571
5) Sunlini………………………….618
6) Psychosomatic............783
7) Bhoy From Brum………..800
8) MalteseMick................854
9) UserName.................2815
10) ER..........................23719

No change at the top, unfortunately, but a power-play from ER sees the new arrival take comprehensive ownership of bottom place. And fellow newcomer, Sunlini (which is an anagram of “Insulin”, lending further layers of agonising mystery), slots credibly enough into 5th place with a well thought out stab in the dark.

 

I would just like to point out that, despite having recently been diagnosed with diabetes, I am not, I repeat NOT, Sunlini which, being an anagram of insulin as Psycho points out, is merely a coincidence.

Desperate though I am to get my hands on the first prize of a £10 book token (TBC) I aim to beat Johnny Rep's inspired gissing before the end of the calendar year and have one hand on the prize long before the season is up. Yes, despite playing the national lottery for some three years and not winning so much as a tenner, I'm that confident!

 

Bad luck about the diabetes. My knowledge is non-descript, but I feel that this means you will have to cut out sweet things and that you may either go blind or lose your legs if you don’t (in the event that you progress from Type 2 diabetes – which I’m guessing is the kind you’ve been diagnosed with – to Type 1). A lot to look forward to there, you jammy wee munchkin. (I also thought that you had to be a bit of a bloater to get diabetes and – for unknown reasons – I’ve always had you down as having a lovely, taut, glistening body.)

Outing yourself as Sunlini may be the first step towards healing, Stereo. The evidence is staring us all in the face. Go for it.

Did I only offer a £10 prize or are you merely dissing my generosity? I’ll need to go back and check. God, I’m tight. I felt sure I’d offered either £50 or £100. For the sake of the competition, though, let’s just say £75 for 1st place, £35 for 2nd and £20 for third. These prizes ought to have the punters gasping with a greedy anticipation. (Prizes to be awarded as either cash in an envelope – which means the recipient would need to give me their address, something they may not be comfortable with, understandably – or in the form of Amazon vouchers, which means the recipient can simply open up a new email account and have the redeemable voucher number sent there. Easy.)

I like your strong-boy fighting talk, by the way. I reckon you’ll be in amongst the prizes with an attitude like that. And it’s good to see that you’ve been putting in the hours on the lottery. You can’t really buy that sort of experience in the guesswork game, to be honest, and it may just be enough to carry you through at the death. (Pud could learn a thing or two from your dedication.) I’ll mark you down as someone to watch out for, a dangerous competitor worthy of respect.

 

I've peaked too early... 1st spot on prediction then I got cocky! Shameful and I take on board your critiscm and pointers for improving!

 

Take that back, dog-hater.

But okay, that’s actually fair enough, I have some sympathy, I suppose, in as much as I’ll be thinking Jesus, how disastrously dreary when someone foists a picture of their tiny human animal upon me – and that seems to happen a lot, with parents apparently taking it as a given that the rest of us will somehow magically give a ****. It’s a cruel, indifferent world out there and our souls suffer and blacken as a result.

Your dog-loving friend sounds terrific, though. I’m betting he’s heartbreakingly good-looking, musically adept, keenly intellectual with a finely honed appreciation of the surreal, morally upright, happily married and heading for retirement at 40. I love him a little bit already.

Good lad, you’ll go far with an attitude like that, well done. You can make it at this level, Pud, you just have to follow your dream and believe. I expect to see you report back here for the Dundee game leaner, fitter, more hungry, more focused, more skilled.

 

Oh no. You mean to say I fell for the old I’ll slyly mock his dog for no other reason than to see if he responds a wee bit like my friend once did when someone took a swipe at his dog and thus provoked further tensions in the age-old dog versus kid debate routine? It’s a classic trap. I should have seen it coming. <passive-aggressive smiley>

I don't like the idea of someone having a Facebook page for their dog. Then again, I don't like the idea of someone having a Facebook page. I feel you're right, however, to view this dog Facebook page as being particularly unpalatable - if this is what you're saying? It's all a bit cringey and ghastly (and I say this as a confirmed dog-bore).

Random prejudice: I instinctively like people better if they either presently have dogs or have grown up around them. I think it makes them better people. (I know, I know - but this is a random prejudice, after all, and I don't seek to defend it.) Get another dog, Administrator. If not for you, for your kids. (Excellent primer for death, if nothing else.)

There’s nothing that articulates the sentiment “I don’t care” quite like divorce papers, Mick, if you’re looking for a way to get through to her? Failing that, you may find some inspirational ideas in the Koran (4:34).

Slight tangent (sorry): I find that it’s often very difficult to articulate “I really don’t care” without sounding like (a) a ****er (b) someone who is trying far too hard to seem aloof and somehow superior (c) a teenager or (d) someone on an internet forum effortlessly combining a, b and c. (It’s a close travelling companion to “I’m bored with you now” or “you’re too stupid for me” or a string of transparently joyless laughing emoticons which seek to show how much fun – oh, the mirth - a person is having whilst being fully in control of proceedings and toying with his prey. This is a forcible self-projection, perhaps the clumsiest way imaginable of trying to make other people see you as you’re trying to see yourself. And it never works.) I digress within a digression. Bad form.

But a satisfactory rendering of “I don’t care” is tricky, isn’t it? In your case with X-Factor and in mine with, let’s say, Hotel Inspector. There is no polite and readily available way to express the huge emptiness that may hollow us out whilst being asked to contemplate these things. The level of disinterest is so profound, so emphatically complete, that we may find our ability to respond flat-lining, leaving a huge vacuum where once there was hope as we are momentarily sucked into a destabilising vortex of blanket incomprehension and despair. To express such things is to invite trouble and/or needlessly hurt someone’s feelings. (It’s never nice, after all, to scornfully dismiss the interests or enthusiasms of others.) But this only leaves staring blankly, quite broken, as a viable option - which is hardly the look of champions. I find this happens to me a lot.

You did well to manage a grunt.

(Back to everything else soon enough, Miguel, but I need to respond to Edge first (hopefully this weekend) and possibly Rebelbhoy and then see what else I've been missing.)