Aberdeen v Inverness CT

Haha ,would"nt like to hurt your feelings Psycho i am in Scotland, at work just now ------has the dons had any real chances or are they their usual drab self.

 

You're in Scotland? Good for you. Whereabouts? (The net closes....)

I grew up Edinburgh and then went to University in Glasgow and then somehow landed up here. (All my family are originally from up north, however - Aberdeen and surrounding areas - and my mum still lives up that way.) Not that you asked, of course, but I just thought I'd thrill you with some random information.

Well, I'm "watching" the game on the BBC live text service, Rep, so it's mighty hard to judge. There are certainly a few shots flying in at the moment, but I'm betting they'll lose and I'm betting they've been their "usual drab self".

You should be concentrating on your work. What's the world coming to?

 

Whereaboots?

 

And here is the link I'm following. If you have a look, it'll be like we're at the match together.

Exactly like that.

 

Merchiston Crescent and then Merchiston Avenue. (I remember that you're in a nice area, but the name temporarily eludes me. I'm sure you can get the number 10 bus there, though - or did I make that up? Or maybe it's the 9 or the 27? Ach.)

Quit stalking me, ST, I'm trying to stalk Rep.

 

Full-time. Boos ringing out round the stadium.....

 

Awell another exciting day in the granite city

 

It's depressing, isn't it? Not a bad attendance, considering - 9000 people or so - and they are served up total garbage. Again.

And it was going so well..........

 

Corstorphine.

It's alright, ST, I remembered. (I think.)

 

As so often happens with Aberdeen, so unpredictable!!!! 9000 quite a good crowd for the position they are in [8th] i think.

 

Been different talking to you Psycho,have a nice weekend.

STAND FREE.

 

Too true, I thought that was a pretty impressive attendance. Imagine if they were playing half-way good football?

Were you on the BBC's 606 thing? Someone there was called "Johnny Rep", I seem to remember.

And whereabouts in Scotland are you? This is the second time I've had to ask.

 

Aha, you're off. No worries. See you again....

 

That's right. Not too far from the zoo. Close enough to be woken early most mornings by the sounds of excited sealions being fed.

Merchiston eh? It's become something of the celebrity hotspot of late what with the likes of Dylan Moran and Ian Rankin living there. I'm guessing you played in the Meadows a lot as a child?

Don't know about the buses. I'm sure you're right though. The good thing about Edinburgh is if you get a bus into the town centre, most of the city (the places you want to get to anyway) are within walking distance.

Now, where about in Ireland do you live and do you have a garden with suitably sized bushes for spying?

 

Goodness me, Merchiston Avenue and celebrities? Times have changed, Stereo. In the olden days, it was always merely a solidly respectable, silent, wealth behind the curtains, middle to upper-middle class haven, nothing flash. This news would have Mummy spinning in my bed, if I went upstairs and told her.

I absolutely love Edinburgh, though – I can still walk all the streets in my head – and it’s the only city in Scotland (in the world, in fact) I would ever consider moving to these days. (Not a big fan of people, I prefer silence, space and calm.) You’re extraordinarily lucky to be there, mister. (Did you do your schooling there?)

Yes, I sometimes went to the Meadows, although I tended only to get as far as the Bruntsfield Links - mini-golf, yaldy – or the George Watson’s playing fields (cricket, hide and seek).

You’re that close to the zoo? Jeezo. I can't determine whether being woken by the sounds of sealions being fed is a good thing or a bad thing. Could go either way. I was there (at Edinburgh zoo) with my wife a few years ago (we had a couple of hours to spare before getting married) and almost immediately felt guilty for visiting. As a child, it was magic. As an adult, it felt rather hopeless and bleak (and cruel).

In Ireland (have you been?), I'm about halfway between Clonakilty and Skibbereen, up in the hills in the middle of precisely nowhere. The nearest recognisable place name is probably "Glandore". Just under two acres of garden, Stereo, and more than enough shrubbery for you to lurk and murk in. Get your binoculars and get to it.

Good luck with Rangers today....


PS. "The good thing about Edinburgh is if you get a bus into the town centre, most of the city (the places you want to get to anyway) are within walking distance." True. And the other good thing, if memory serves, is that undesirables - the working class, say - are priced out of vast swathes of the city and must remain a bus journey away in their schemes. Not that I'm a vindictive snob or anything. No.

 

Yes, they were wise to build the likes of Wester Hailes and Craigmiller on the outskirts of the city, far away from the tourists and Ye Olde Scottish shops.

I'm from Ayrshire originally, moved to Edinburgh as a late teenager, went back to Ayrshire for a few years, then finally made the move to Edinburgh. I'd quite happily live here for the rest of my life.

I have been to Ireland but I'm afraid I can't say I enjoyed it too much. Spent a few days in Belfast and found it slightly depressing. Reminded me of Glasgow. Dublin was okay but overpriced. Had a couple of days exploring the rural areas both sides but don't ask me where (the girlfriend organised it all - I merely followed).

If you do feel like coming back to Edinburgh I would suggest leaving it a few years until the tram works are complete. 2018 would probably be fine. Maybe.

 

The tram works will still be done long before our bypass and I'm not talking this decade.

Roll on the semi final!

 

Well, without wishing to appear needlessly obnoxious, your switch from west coast to east coast was the smartest move you'll ever likely make. Fact. I can't bear it that I wasted so many years in a place like Glasgow. It kills me. A little bit like Liverpudlians, Glaswegians sometimes appear to believe that their accent alone is enough to make them funny. And there is a brashness that makes me recoil. I'm being unfair, of course, but I feel like being unfair today. And the middle classes in Glasgow are so uneasy and unsure of themselves, desperate to appear to be reading/saying/doing the "right" things, anxious to unsubtly talk about money. It's ****ing exhausting. (Okay, now I really am being unfair. I'll stop. And there are lots of good things about Glasgow.)

Unlike you, I quite liked Belfast, although I needed to blank out the accent - one of my least favourite in the world. I'm always made to think of glass-eyed certainty and an implacable unreasonableness when I hear that particular accent. The kind of voice that believes "not backing down" is a mark of (intellectual) strength under all circumstances, as opposed to often being directly the opposite. Maybe you'll know what I mean. To my horror and dismay, however, the people were lovely. (I blame the news for warping my perceptions.)

Dublin - charmless. I was once told by a woman in Cork, when telling her of my plans to visit Dublin, that "you don't want to be going to no Dublin". Turns out she was right.

There are too many good things I could say about the rest of Ireland to try to convince you, ST, but I'll concentrate on some of the (very few) bad things, instead. I'm allowed to do this, I feel, after seven and more years:

The newspapers, uniformly abysmal and inward-looking to a degree I didn't think was possible (astonishing for a country with such high levels of emigration - but maybe the good ones got away?); the shockingly low calibre of the politicians and public/intellectual discourse; a maddening inarticulacy that sees public figures umming and awwing and failing to speak smoothly and failing to get to the point; an intellectual and emotional retardation (as I see it - merely personal perspective, obviously), even from those people from whom one might expect to hear better, when it comes to such things as homosexuality, foreigners and rape, say. I lose track of the times I've suddenly felt very far from "home" when listening to Irish people talk of such things; a seemingly limitless incapacity to find fault with themselves or face up to their failings (past or present) and a queasy habit of buying into their own forcibly projected self-image; and finally, of course, the greed. This maybe surprised me the most, never having once been here before moving from Scotland. And with this greed comes a classless vulgarity that sees (what feels like a very high number of) Irishers wreck their own countryside with modern monstrosities and slabber over the bigger, the brighter, the new. It hurts the soul. Although mostly, I feel, it hurts Ireland, as the country is surely now finding out to its cost.

You've been a great audience, goodnight and good luck with the trams. x

Hello ER, it's nice to see you here, I usually only ever see you on General Chat. Why have you got your location as The Big Smoke (Arbroath?) when I had you down in my mind as being in Peterculter?

Is Peterculter the one with the Rob Roy statue, by the way? If so, I used to gawp at that a lot as a child. Loved it. Also, it means that you are/were perilously close to the heart of my family (Milltimber, just down the road from you). Leave them alone, okay?

Can't wait for the semi final. This is our year, ER, no two ways about it.

 

Aye I'm in town now but lived in Culter for 9 years. Great place with the local Star Wars Bar "Blacks".

I hope myou're right about the semi final but have seen it too many times recently.

 

Especially if my friends in the anti bypass movement have anything to do with it