RicoS321

It's a bit HR-y for me like. I think it ignores an important point. I work for quite a few companies who've all done their restructuring. The common theme is not that the employees don't like the new strategy, it's that there is no strategy. Management is so far removed from the work being done that the only strategy is: "lose headcount" and "pay less". That gets passed down to a middle management, who've been promoted to their role to prevent them doing damage in a role that required them to actual work. They simply don't have the ability to suggest meaningful change, so there's usually a powerpoint re-org and then a heap of work thrown onto those who keep the place running. I'm constantly surprised how companies are strategically inept, and make no attempt to go through a process of constant change. Departments are allowed to grow exponentially with massively decreasing returns and increasing inefficiency. Empires are built and processes consistently over-complicated. More and more layers appear between CEO and product. It's exactly the opposite of how a company should be run, but it's rewarded internally and at investor level. It's weird phenomenon where growing your cost base is seen as successful. My non-oil industry experience is quite limited, but I don't believe it is just an oil industry thing (it definitely is an oil industry thing though).

Ach, that's a shame, always liked Pawlett. I can't help but think that with a little bit better management could have seen a lot more out of him. Although it's perhaps unfair to expect too much time and effort devoted to one player. MK Dons will be signing a player who - judging by his appearances for us - is physically unable to complete 90 minutes. I'll take an interest in his career, and wish him all the best.

We'll just believe you... the whole objections thing is a farce on these types of development anyway. An objection should only be allowed to be registered once, with duplicates of the same objection just up-voted or similar. Number of up-votes should have little to no relevance. Something is either a valid objection or not, regardless of how many agree. Anyway, you've been pretty quiet on the loanee updates since McKenna got sent off for a murderous challenge on McGinn against hibees last week. That was an amazing challenge.

Tree-fucking. One of nature's most beautiful sights.

Don't shop in supermarkets then. I don't, and get great tasting food. Nae hun flag mind you.

What's it called when someone has both a cock and a fud? That's what that tree is. That's what true photography is about.

I'm assuming that the Tims will be gloating like fuck over the fact that one of their players was reported to be soliciting offers at £10M greater than the value of the huns. I'd have thought that Murray park and Iprix would be worth a decent wedge like. And with Barrie Mackay worth at least £15M, I'd have thought £30M wouldn't be far off.

I'm going to give a reason... I think that Pawlett has benefited from our reduced squad size. He was only really getting a 10-15 minute spell here and there earlier in the season, with chances having to be shared out between him and Burns (Monakana etc in previous years). Given Pawlett's game is as much about movement as it is impact runs on the ball, he really needs at least 20 minutes or more to actually make an impact. He needs a lot of time to get even a few touches of the ball. That results in him charging about like a headless chicken if he's only getting 10-15 minutes here and there. I think also that anytime he starts a game, he knows that he's not going to finish it. He looked perfectly fit yesterday and was still causing problems for Thistle yet you always knew he was going to be the first one subbed. It's like there's an issue with his fitness or something. Either way, I think that must surely play on his mind during games, as it's like he tries to hard at times, tearing about off the ball instead of making measured runs. Perhaps his contract running out has focused his mind a little, and I don't have a problem with that. I think folk expect footballers to be different to the rest of us in some way, but that's probably unrealistic. Folk get a bit stale in a job quite often and take things for granted but would never get accused of laziness or just being after the money. Hopefully he's found himself again as it were. I think he offers something different to our other players in that role so long may it continue. Edit: just realised ED post much the same, nevermind. Interesting to note that Pawlett hasn't played 90 minutes in 2 seasons now. Even 3 seasons ago he only completed 6 games. That's nuts. It surely must play on his mind.

Dinna have time to respond to everything on yer previous points, so will just give ye a quick reply. I'm saying my personal impression of Ian Wood was he was a nice chap the times I met him. The points I made about him the public being railroaded and repulsive monetary intimidation were aimed at the press rather than Ian Wood. I'm suggesting that the press put the £50M front and centre and the press that presented the bias view. I have no evidence to back up the notion that Ian Wood himself applied pressure, so no reason to accuse him of that. The bit yer missing though is that the public did vote for the Wood project to go ahead. There was a referendum in the city, which returned in favour of it. Once that had been decided, they had a further consultation to choose the design - run by ACSEF (I think that was their name) - where the public chose the wrong design which was ignored. The project was still destined to go ahead until the Labour (current) administration got majority elected in the following local election and they put in a caveat about cost over-runs and initial funding. I suspect that a re-elected majority SNP local government would attempt to re-instate the project. Anyway, I'd thank the Labour majority if it wasn't for yer point above. I assumed that the rejection of the UTG project was because they cared about the city. The muse development you mention above shows that the UTG rejection was nothing but a shameful political act to win power. I have it on reasonable authority that a few departments in Marischal College have been approached about relocating to the cunt-box across the road to cover up the fact that we're due to take on the rent for lack of occupancy. Like DD, I haven't met a single person who thinks it was an acceptable piece of building.

I have no problem with Ian Wood at all, and I think the statement about jealousy is pretty lazy and typical of the type of accusation made when discussing his propositions - basically shutting down rational debate (I'm not accusing you of this on this occasion). I've met him and he seems like a nice chap, I have met a couple of his sons and they also seem like nice guys. The council could have taken his £50M - and indeed would have if he could have provided further guarantees - but it would have involved building his vision for UTG and spending a further £90M of public funds and passing a common good into private ownership (no problem with this per se). Indeed from what I remember the council agreed to go ahead if a further £20M of funds could be secured and that cost over-runs would not be covered by public funds. Donsdaft uses the term rail-roaded, and I agree to an extent. As soon as the £50M was put on the table, the onus was on the council to make the additional funds available. The local press dived on it with it's usual biased hysteria. The £50M was dangled above the masses who in turn became unable to see beyond it. The question was never about £50M, it was entirely irrelevant to anything. The only question that the public had to answer was "do you want to spend £90M (plus overruns) on the granite web development in UTG". Instead, the £50M was placed front and centre, with hysterical promises to send the money to Africa (that still hasn't happened) in less it's taken up immediately. That type of monetary intimidation I find repulsive. However, not as repulsive as I found the classless, uninspiring, unnatural and destructive design that was proposed (indeed, it didn't even win the public vote, which was ignored because the public picked the most sympathetic option as opposed to the one with maist shops). The questions that should have been asked, such as: what is the £90M+ of public spending going to be diverted from; what sort of chaos will be caused by transporting such huge volumes of concrete into the city centre; how likely are cost overruns; does the city centre need more vehicles coming into it (there was a car park in the design); does the city have capacity for more shops; what will be the effects on existing shopping centres; could we develop the whole of union st, st nicholas house area and beyond with the money; how much would a sympathetic enhancement of UTG cost and what would that look like. I could go on for days with unasked - thus unanswered - questions. It was boiled down to "£50M min, progress min" and that's where the debate didn't begin and then ended. I don't have an issue with Ian Wood's offer, indeed I can only take it at face value as a genuinely nice gesture as I have no evidence to the contrary. As I said in my post - and where it compares to Richard Branson to a tee - is that a person's monetary status has been thrust into a debate where it wasn't required and given undeserved weight over the idea itself. The classic "well he didnae become a billionaire by being stupid, so he must be right" that is pervasive in UK society. He was putting in £50M because he happens to have £50M, thus excluding others (not necessarily deliberately mind) from the opportunity to have their say. I don't like Ian Wood's taste in garden design might be a simpler way to put it. That often resulted in accusations of jealousy, or being backward looking, but it never resulted in someone telling me why building shops was forward looking or progressive (because it fuckin isn't). That our local tabloids can't do nuance, and are beholden to money (especially when said money is heavily relied on through advertising revenue - see Trump golf course) is of far greater concern then anything Ian Wood could ever do. They deliberately misled the public into believing it was Wood's design or nothing, which was never the case. Again, that isn't Ian Wood's fault, just us putting too much faith in money.

I believe the remainder is being spent on parking wardens. You make some good points Jagerdeen, I'm pretty much in agreement. They could at least have created an "Energy" centre, rather than O&G specific. I'm still struggling to see how we reconcile the giant elephant in the room that is screaming "due to thon deal you signed in Paris, you can only burn 80% of the reserves you currently have" with the continued push for exploration. It's the topic that can't be discussed it seems. That's not the environmentalist in me talking, just logic. I'm surprised that a guy with strong links to an oil service company would promote the idea of a technology centre funded by the public purse that said service company will ultimately profit from in the future. When are we going to stop the British tradition of fawning over cunts with lots of money before showering them with more of it for no logical reason? Ian Wood is just a North East Richard Branson, isn't he?

Interesting. What would you have spent it on and why do you think that this particular idea was undeserving? Genuinely, I'm not being critical.

I'll be there. 11112

There has been a lot of concern surrounding Deek's hunnery. It's nae quite religious balls, but it's nae exactly rational either.

Fit's a CPD? Crap Pitch Distributor. Cunt of a Pitch, Derek. etc

It's a fucking awful pitch. It was re-laid in 2013 with "Tiger-turf" (assume it's made of actual tigers). They made an announcement around a year or two ago saying that they were going to update it (I think after a couple of injuries), but they've never followed up on it. Killie's pitch runs far truer and the ball doesn't bounce about like a nutter on it. I don't know if it's the pitch type or just their particular one but it is particularly bad. I'm a fan of artificial pitches too, I think they definitely have a place in our game. A glance at our pitch against County shows the difficulty in maintaining pitches in Scotland during winter. We've had some truly awful games over the last few years because of really bad pitches, and this tends to get ignored when discussing them. I think there needs to be a better system of selling these pitches though so that they can be updated regularly as technology improves. Perhaps a system whereby teams like Hamilton effectively rent the surface and have it replaced every couple of years. The old pitch being sold on for uses where it doesn't need to be perfect (five a side etc). In short, their pitch is shite, and I hope they get relegated.

I got home late so didnae have time before the fitba. Will give them a try at the weekend.

I thought McLean was our best player. Only one looking for the ball, and had some great runs. I don't imagine Christie will get much more of a run out on that form. Anyway, we rode our luck a bit recently and were bound to lose soon. Straight back on it on Sunday I reckon.

Yass min. I have all those things. I might whap a few of them up the nicht.

Aye, but, the recipe?

Rather than ask who the fuck this cunt is, I decided a quick look on the internet wid tell me. Where does it tell ye who the ref is going to be? I can't find it on any of the usual websites (SPFL, AFC, AFC Heritage, BBC or BT sport). Is it McLean?

Thon looks good. Have you a recipe for such things? I'm shite at cake-baking (I do good baguettes, naan, wraps etc).

Me too, we could move the stadium there.

McGhee sacked?

Aye, I'd very much go with this. Khan's comments didn't apply to me, despite being an independence supporter, because I'm not a nationalist. Nationalism to me is about fitba, rugby and a couple of other sports - otherwise it's an arbitrary line drawn by angry cunts a few hunner years ago. The SNP are right on the border of being nationalists for the sake of nationalism and have got worse since the independence vote and Brexit. It remains to be seen whether or not that is a good tactic that will assist in winning a referendum - my opinion is that it could backfire. Independence, to me, was about understanding that Westminster is not fit for purpose, that it never will be and that people in England - and very much including London - will never break the two party suffocation of democracy. The difference between London and Scotland is that London hugely benefits from Westminster and the fact that it resides in the city, so they can (and have) never looked at it objectively. As for Sadiq Khan's comments, who gives a fuck? The notion that in the 21st century, cities need a mayor or any other single figurehead is fucking ridiculous. He's just a mannie. He's not going to make London better or worse or make Britain a better place. The sooner we realise that we don't need these people the better. It starts by not hanging on their every word. Just ignore the cunt.