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Dunno about proper golfer but I'm getting a bit more consistent, doubt i'll repeat that on the full course but gonna enjoy trying.


In other golf news and in quite a bit of a contrast to Verndog's trip I've talked six of the morning game boys into a long weekend in the North.

Off to Muir of Ord for there seniors open stableford on the Friday. 3 hour drive to get there but hey what a drive    https://muirofordgolfclub.co.uk/   

Staying outside Elgin in a big converted farm building looks lovely. Not been out for a drink in Elgin since I played in the under 18 rugby sevens looking forward to it

Saturday is at Buckpool for a gents open and were are on to strokeplay (think some harsh realities will appear when some can't get a gimme).
Buckpool recently listed as one of the top 100 courses in Scotland, really linksy https://buckpoolgolf.com/

Sunday- Hopeman, just a delightful course to play, click on the link and there will be lots of shots of the 12th their signature hole which is a short par 3 where the green is 100 feet below you. Now I've played this course twice and we've had at least one buggy so I've had a Taxi all the way back up, at least there will be a nice view when i'm gasping for breath.


All this great golf, they are all cracking courses played them all before, for the ridiculous price of £65.  (plus accomodation £200). Gonna set up a travel business   "By Eck Travels"  'copyright Red Dog'

nobody still wants VAR surely .  go back to the ref  making decisions  good or bad

at a push , i reckon a review system could work , 1 per team per match would not ruin flow of the game like now

As in so many areas of life, the idea is worthy but the execution is bad. Not just the specific decisions but also the way in which it has moved away from the concept of correcting ‘clear and obvious’ errors.
How can it ever take five minutes to correct a clear and obvious error?
Rugby Union has a far better system in place.

nobody still wants VAR surely .  go back to the ref  making decisions  good or bad

at a push , i reckon a review system could work , 1 per team per match would not ruin flow of the game like now

On the topic of blondes from back in the day, I had a lovely surprise over the weekend when I bumped into redsimon (Simon Lawler) during the APAT do at DTD.

I'd not seen Simon for 10 or 15 years. He used to run with "Old King Cole" (?) who I think has now sadly passed, & they were a fixture in Vegas every summer, especially at The Orleans. He had a smattering of cashes at the old-style Rooms - Binions, Nugget, etc & more lately I gather he's an APAT stalwart, with a dozen money finishes over the years.

It was no secret that Simon was unwell, right back to the Gala Notts days, with kidney issues. Well somehow, 20+ years on, he's still doing fine & does not look much different. He's on the transplant list, but it does not seem to be getting in the way of enjoying life, although it can't be much fun being a Forest fan.

It's so good to hear from, or bump into, poker pals from back in the day. I'm not sure why it's so pleasing, but it is. Similar with golf really, it's helped me to re-connect with the original poker crew from 20-25 years ago, including Tom, Ralph, The Moany Twins Jamie Moult & Trevor Pearson, Mr Giblin, Jac & many others.

Meanwhile, not long ago I was chirping about playing golf every single weekday. Guess I tempted fate there, the incessant rain means that I doubt I've played 3 rounds so far in 2026. Every day I wake up hoping, & every day the rain just keeps on coming. Meh.

  

great to see you looking so well on Saturday, you must be enjoying Brentford's current form, have you been to the new stadium much?

[Users Online: 12261Most Online: 18293 - January 02, 2025, 04:55:49 PM]

I was looking through the forum stats:

Total Members:   16784
Total Posts:   2263849
Total Topics:   66633
Total Categories:   3
Users Online:   12261
Most Online:   18293 - January 02, 2025, 04:55:49 PM
Online Today:   14563

Online today and most online must be wrong, surely? Or is there some way it matches IP address with registered user ?

[yet entirely inherently unintelligent]

 
Ahh bless, the old Cos still lurks just beneath the surface....


Then there were a few guys like Mantis. Still adamant that he was one of the most eloquent, yet entirely inherently unintelligent people on the forum. I should have just ignored him but quite enjoyed our back and forth at times - like i said, just because i had nothing better to do.



Can't really agree with that. I think most of it was tongue-in-cheek, mischievous stuff. Seemed to me to be a very bright chap, & - like you - writes & punctuates wonderfully.

I'd say you & he are bound to bang heads as you are both Alpha Males.

PS - post more, tell us about your Dog Project.

Beauty of the forum!

Anyway, I wish everyone well.

I even bumped into Mr Flushy a few times doing his thing with Triton. He was someone I looked up to a lot when this forum began. He seemed very happy in his role there.

While I was posting yesterday, I thought of so many posters that added to the forum and its community in one way or another. I think the internet has become a worse place now in this sense. There's no sense of community anywhere. There's just garbage everywhere. Have to be very careful with my kids as to what they can or can't be exposed to. Little things like youtube 'shorts' designed exactly for them are so bad for them. Teaches them to not focus on anything for more than 3 seconds.

What is Tighty upto now? Are there still forum mods?

Have there ever been efforts or strategies over the years since blonde quitened down to either get it busier again or move it on commercially in any way?

Imagine the scenes if another team were to win the title by a goal-difference of 1 

 

This is a long read but it’s perfect! It comes from the Guardian’s daily football Perhaps the only thing everyone can agree on is that, according to our old friend The Letter of the Law, the “goal” Rayan Cherki scored from inside his own half in the dying moments of added time of Manchester City’s wild win at Liverpool was correctly ruled out. It took a while but, between them, referee Craig Pawson and his coterie of curtain-twitching buzz-killing fun sponges in the Stockley Park VAR bunker got there in the end. Football Daily shudders to think about how much tedious debate Cherki could have put a stop to by simply putting his boot through the ball a bit harder. But we’re guessing he spent much of his weekend watching curling at the Winter Olympics and was trying to channel his inner Jen Dodds by sending the ball trundling on its merry way with just enough force to cross the goal line but not so much that it might do anything so vulgar as ripple the net. Like the match officials, it got there in the end but only after Dominik Szoboszlai and Erling Haaland had engaged in some tit-for-tat fouling that led to the goal being correctly disallowed, the Hungarian correctly sent off and an entertaining debate between those who would prefer matches to be ultimately governed by “vibes” over VAR.

Cards on the table: Football Daily makes no apologies for declaring it is – and always has been – a resident of Camp Vibes, insofar as we never wanted VAR to be introduced in the first place because it ought to have been obvious to anyone who gave the matter even the slightest bit of consideration that it would end up being an absolute circus. A firm believer that you’re offside if the lino’s flag goes up and you’re onside if it doesn’t, the sight of video assistant referees using multicoloured lines, set squares and repeated slow motion rock’n’roll replays to figure out if some striker’s kneecap has strayed offside in the buildup to a goal makes us want to set something on fire.

More cards on the table: Football Daily (or today’s edition, at least) doesn’t care that allowing Cherki’s effort could have a significant bearing on the title or Bigger Cup qualification places, doesn’t care whether Liverpool’s best player this season is allowed to play against the team we support on Wednesday night, and doesn’t care that ultimately at Anfield on Sunday the correct decision was reached. As our pal, the actor, comedian and broadcaster Charlie Baker recently opined in an impassioned soliloquy on the wireless: “VAR is a thief of love and joy because beauty is in the mistake. The gold is in the cracks and that is why we like football because it is full of mistakes.”

In the past 24 hours we have seen, heard and read assorted pundits, journalists and fans drone on about how VAR ultimately led to this correct decision being made, while failing to point out how often it gets other decisions wrong. They are the same people who were falling over each other a few years ago in the stampede to tell everyone how great VAR would be and are now too entrenched in their view to admit they were wrong and acknowledge it is a complete shambles that is ruining everyone’s enjoyment of the game except theirs. In the absence of VAR, Cherki’s goal would have been allowed to stand, Szoboszlai wouldn’t have been sent off and pretty much nobody would have cared. In the presence of this all-seeing aid that was supposed to put an end to controversy, the debate rumbles on and a quite wonderful goal has disappeared. And while this may have been the correct decision, it was not necessarily the right one, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a jobsworth who is in thrall to rules, regulations, procedure and the small print of T&Cs. Ultimately, we suppose all this palaver boils down to results and how much they matter to any given fan over the actual match experience. Other opinions are available, but give us the spectacle over the spreadsheet any day

[yet entirely inherently unintelligent]

 


 
Ahh bless, the old Cos still lurks just beneath the surface....


Then there were a few guys like Mantis. Still adamant that he was one of the most eloquent, yet entirely inherently unintelligent people on the forum. I should have just ignored him but quite enjoyed our back and forth at times - like i said, just because i had nothing better to do.



Can't really agree with that. I think most of it was tongue-in-cheek, mischievous stuff. Seemed to me to be a very bright chap, & - like you - writes & punctuates wonderfully.

I'd say you & he are bound to bang heads as you are both Alpha Males.

PS - post more, tell us about your Dog Project.