Lots To Talk About Today

First of all, well done to Rangers for not getting humped last night as pretty much everyone had predicted.

It was a gutsy performance and to me, was the first time Alec McLeish has made late substitutions in a European match that had a significant impact. Our goal was well crafted and well taken with two young Scots involved.

Surely Eck will start both Ross McCormack and Chris Burke on Sunday against Hibs in another must win game.

Despite doing fairly well in Europe this season, Rangers could still fall 11 points behind Hibs (and the last European spot) with a defeat in the next game, which would make the managers position untenable. A truly odd season so far for Bears fans.

I also noticed fire-raising pyro-peer “Lord” Watson in the Record this morning, talking about life in the stony lonesome.

He’s phoned up the record to tell Scotland that “I'm quietly doing the time for my crime”. No shit; that’s the headline. Fuck knows what paper he’d have phoned up if he’d wanted to do his time less than quietly.

He comments on the “great team spirit” among fellow lags and has apparently landed the “plum” job of dishing out slops in the kitchen. He never said whether or not he’s been bum raped yet.

Anyway, here’s one for the “You know what really grinds my gears?” section.

The NHS are starting to refuse hip and knee replacement operations to the obese, which accounts for over ¼ of the population. The reason – “they brought their health problems on themselves”.

And so sounds the death knell for universal health care.

It’s not even a logical argument.

I’m playing football tonight so if I break my leg shoud I be denied treatment on the grounds that “I brought it on myself”? What about some fanny who gets stabbed after starting a fight while pished? Where has this ridiculous criteria suddenly emerged from?

The arrogance of this rationing criteria is simply staggering and seems to me to have been dreamed up by blithering incompetents in a bid to hide the fact that the Government and NHS administrators are unable to efficiently conduct NHS affairs.

What are we paying these people for? Why bother paying taxes and national insurance for a health service that is looking for excuses to tell you to fuck off and a pensions system that is about to tell you to work an extra five years in order to qualify for a breadline pittance should you survive that long?

It’s bad enough that this truly terrible Government and almost every NHS Trust in the country are making us pay for the fact that they just can’t cut it.

But I find the condescending, sneering arrogance of these people and the arbitrary, illogical manner in which they treat the people who pay for their swanky lifestyles truly sickening.

And that’s what really grinds my gears today. Here’s Tom with the weather.