THE BRITISH THREAD II

Welcome to Glasgow. The 'Gers fans are anti-catholic atheist orange "loyalists", mainly. Conflicted, and difficult to love.

I (we) suffer a lot because the British troops are leaving Germany: we lost our direct flight connection from the local airport to Manchester and London.
And what will we get instead: perhaps 6.000 British tanks and military vehicles

I heard Mitt Romney on the news tonight saying he was doing some canning.

What he meant was, he was doing some counting.

Why are Americans so silly?

Envy Mac. Pure envy.

I've just been watching the 10 'O Clock Show. Rick Santorum made one of his announcements from Stupidville Ohio. Who thought that one up?

What did he say?

Something like 'This is the first speech made from Stupidville Ohio.' Plus a load of the usual bollocks about freedom and the price of oil.

I can't find the details of the voting figures. Turnout and Dems voting are two matters that the News isn't reporting.

Just had a quick look, I can't either.

Do you think it's being kept a secret. If only 2 or 3 thousand voted and half of them were Dems it would make the cheap programming on CBS and Fox look a bit ridiculous.

I don't know, but the Republicans are looking silly enough as it is, so if there is a low turnout they'd probably want to keep it quiet.

Hey Walter, I see there is a chap called Huntelaar plays for Schalke 04!

Marvellous.

I've looked at him a couple of years ago, already. And especially like him since he'd played for Schalke
(His family name seems to be from the same Frisian/Saxon roots as ours.)

I've watched both Manchester teams, by the way, too: Europe league is only a second rated competition ...

ManU were made to look very second-rate.

Man City didn't start to play until the cause was lost.

The city is in mourning.

Bilbao were fantastic, by the way. Such skill, such energy. Far better than anything I've seen this year.

What happened to Ireland? You were there, McTaggle.

And well done, Wales!

Sometimes you get an indication of how stressful all this superfitness can be. I'm thinking of Fabrice Muamba, by all accounts a really nice guy and a hard worker. I hope he pulls through.

Ireland looked impressive in the warm-up, which took place at our end of the ground. 81,00 spectators btw, good atmosphere. Arguably the Irish played the better rugby in the first half, but were gradually worn down by the English forwards who dominated just about everything thereafter.
They were ground down into a fine green paste and extruded from the ground with some ignominy...including a penalty try awarded against them...a sorry, error-strewn performance in the second half which was unexpected and not easily explained. Maybe if St Pat's had been the day before? But it wasn't.

Road tolls. What a good idea. Why didn't they think of that before? Motorists have been getting away with murder simply by bullying. There's only airline passengers who are more ignorant and aggressive than motorists. There should be Zebra crossings on runways like farmers having to put up with footpaths.

Interesting point of view, and quite correct overall.

Do you know that, in the fair city of Manchester, as late as the 1970s there were no pedestrian crossings on the main road junctions leading from the railway stations?
People making their way on foot into the city centre had to hope there were no amber-gamblers in the intervals between the green phases. And these were busy roads. You had to be fit, and alert. The blind, the halt and the lame had no chance.
Why? To try to maximise traffic flows I suppose. But it's self-defeating. When you close roads and bridges, surrounding traffic flows drop.