sheeponacid

My friend has not long left of his life, He has terminal cancer and has maybe only weeks to live.  He had his first season ticket when he came out of the army in the mid fifties, and has had it every season since, and then when he married in 1963 his wife had one too, they never missed a home match, but then covid came along and they have not been again. We have a mutual friend who lives in the USA he is in the UK this week end and is taking my friend to what is likely to be his last match ever. I'm just hoping if there are any protests it wont affect the match. So please spare a thought or a prayer if your so minded on Saturday. I wont say his name as he hated social media as much as he loved the Rams. So UP THE RAMS  P will be thinking of you.  

2022 Anzac Day jersey commemorating our service members. I like this years design.
 

That would be a disastrous move. Gates below 12k within weeks and lining the pockets of Stoke or Leicester by paying rent. NUTS

That none of you have yet mentioned a Derbyshire oatcake is frankly disgraceful. 
 

With the spiralling cost of fuel and other essential items, particularly the cost of heating your home, it has been been reported that a further million people will be plunged into poverty over the next month, with half of them children. Many families will be faced will the awful choice of eating or heating.
The UK average spend of food and drink is £40 a week. However many survive on a fraction of this. Therefore to shine a light on this, experience a little and raise some money, My lad and I will be living on £1 a day each on food and drink for a week, a total of £14 for the two of us.
We are going to start this on Easter Monday (a kind of belated lent) and hopefully manage the full 7 days. Obviously this won't be easy but I won't pretend this is anything like suffering many people will be going through around the country.
Almost 2 years ago, David and I launched a campaign on here to raise money for the Derby Mission Food Bank when many people were laid off due to Covid. I am looking to do the same again, with anyone who can afford it donating to the same cause. I am hoping we can raise £1000. I will be donating the difference in what I would normally spend on a supermarket shop for the two of us. 
I will set up a specific DCFC Fans donate account and provide a link in the next couple of days.
In the meantime, maybe posters could share experiences and ideas around this area. Many on here will be able to donate but many posters may also need help, so I hope we can come together and help each other.
I will do a diary entry on here on how we manage, how we shop, what we eat and how we feel.
  

This is mine...

Croissants, topped with smoked bacon, mushrooms and cheese and a generous dusting of nutmeg.
The mushrooms are fried in butter and Worcestershire Sauce with black pepper and a dash of dark soy sauce. The cheese is a little grated Emmental.
Butterfly the croissants and lightly toast the backs, cook everything, flip the croissants over, add a rasher of bacon to each, pile on the mushies, add the cheese, back under the grill for a minute, dust with nutmeg, serve.
Lovely. I won't be able to move until beer o'clock.

A flock of bramblings in the garden today. They were feeding up on sunflower seeds ready for their long journey back to Scandinavia. I thought they were chaffinches until I located the binoculars. It's the first time I've ever seen a brambling and it brings my 'species of birds seen  in 2022' total to 42. What a pretty bird.

I'm actually really pleased for Festy, this is a great move at a critical point in his career. He's come in and done everything he can for us, turned down a move in Jan to help our fight for survival and has bagged a moved abroad (or to Watford via abroad, so at least he'll get to stay in the Championship as things stand).
No way could we realistically expect him, or indeed anyone else out of contract, just to sit and wait to see how this chaos (and I'm being polite) pans out as the weeks and months roll by. They've got their careers and lives to think about.
So thanks Festy, you've come in and done a great job in stupid circumstances. Good luck to you and I'm glad to see a Derby product stepping up another level. Don't worry about us, we'll survive. Perhaps.

Weekend away at Palm Beach, photo looking over Burleigh Beach

 

Alas we helped to beat ourselves tonight with a grim second half performance
Bugger
 

I don't think many people understand the history of the police and the reason they came into existence.
The police were invented to protect the rich from the poor. Is that not a well known fact now?

Remember folks, it's "We'll fight till the end", not "We'll fight till things look somewhat difficult".
Let's hope the players are a little stronger willed than some on here!  Now is not the time to be giving up!
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Genuinely saddened tonight. Feels like we've finally run out of steam, though I still can't give up just yet. I guess it's not in my nature. Sad to see some fans turning on the players and coaches too. Completely understand that folk are frustrated as for half an hour we looked like we might just defy logic yet again, but I hope when we all reflect on this with calmer heads, we'll remember where the blame for our situation really lies. I don't read too much into folk venting a little in all honesty and for the little it's worth, I don't think others should either. It would sadden me far more if small cracks in the unity we've shown in recent months were to widen into fissures. I think we're better than that. I really do. We might be an occasionally dysfunctional family, but a family is exactly what we are and I hope that never changes.
I also think that obvious frustrations aside, we've shown to all and sundry that we're a seriously staunch lot. This season serves as ample proof of that fact and countless neutrals have acknowledged as much. God knows we've been put though the wringer these last 2 to 3 years and by and large, we've still managed to find some humour in the grimmest of grim situations that following a team can throw up. I'm proud of that. The relentless support from the stands, I think it's fair to say, has been the envy of the League. In so much, along with the battered and bruised squad and the beleaguered coaching team, we've earned the right to hold our heads up high no matter what the outcome. Compare and contrast Rams fans with their Blackburn counterparts and I challenge anyone to tell you otherwise. We might be L1 or worse next season as a team, but as a fanbase, we're strictly Premier League and no ducker's ever going to take that away from us. 
COYR
 

Sorry mate, the founder league status, trophies and memories go with the title Derby County for me.  AFC makes the difference.  Others have a different opinion.  No doubt my nephew etc will go along still as he's 14 but footballs dead to me when or if this team disappears.

If its not Derby County, it's not for me.  I'll leave football behind entirely

The team are playing under incredibly difficult circumstances. Absolutely no criticism from me. UTR

Alas we helped to beat ourselves tonight with a grim second half performance
Bugger
 

The difficulty is finding an exit strategy from this nightmare. 
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely, although not impossible, that Putin will be toppled from within Russia, however harsh the sanctions may be.  It's also completely implausible, that Putin will admit that he was wrong all along or that he misjudged Ukraine's response and call the whole invasion off.
No, it seems to me for this war to end, there must be an exit strategy that Putin is able to sell, via his state propaganda, as a heroic and necessary Russian victory, however twisted and delusional that may sound.  So the question is what concessions are Ukraine willing to make that will allow Putin to successfully spin this into a victory for himself and his army?
An agreement that Ukraine does not join NATO and remain militarily neutral between the West and Russia?  I think Zelensky and the Ukrainians would sign up to that tomorrow.  And NATO would be delighted to remain uncommitted to defending Ukraine's borders in the future.  To be honest, this should probably have been the strategy all along.
An agreement that Ukraine acknowledges that Crimea is part of Russia?  This would be a bitter pill for the Ukrainians to swallow, but the reality is that the whole world is carrying on like Crimea is part of Russia already.  It was a Russian province, stupidly given as a gift to Ukraine by Khruschev in the 1950s. It's a region full of people who not only speak Russian, but identify as Russian as well as some Ukrainians and Tartars.  So could Crimea become part of a settlement?
What about the Donbas region?  It seems unlikely that Ukraine would be willing to hand that over to Russia...or that many of the people living there would be happy with that arrangement.  But how about if that area was given a large degree of autonomy, with people there allowed to get whatever passport they choose and determine their own nationality (like N.Ireland). I don't know if Ukraine would agree or whether Russia will stop at anything short of completely annexing eastern parts of Ukraine...but maybe it's preferable to continuing the war for both sides.
Putin clearly wanted far more than just these concessions when the war started...but he likely was very unpleasantly surprised by the Ukrainian resistance and the international condemnation. In order to minimize the hardship for Russia (or more likely in order to protect his own position as president/dictator) he might wish to end the war early if they was an agreeable solution. He could say the protected the Russian regions in Eastern Ukraine, gained Ukrainian and international acknowledgement for Crimea and demilitarized Ukraine by preventing it from joining NATO. Is there any chance that agreements such as these would allow him enough cover to claim a victory in the Russian media and call off the war?
The alternative is becoming unthinkable.  
 
 
 

This exactly.
We raised over £100m in a few days for Ukraine with the Government matched charity. Lots of other charities have raised millions, probably hundreds.
The majority of British people are compassionate and understanding and want to help.
I’m hoping the news over the weekend makes the process of us offering our services slightly easier.
We have a 2 year and a 7 year. A mum with a child in that 5-7 would be great and BBC we want to help. Security, safety, love, compassion and it would work. Everyone who wants to help will have different scenarios. A spare house may be suitable for a family/older generation and so on.
Its heartless if we don’t help when we can!

I'd say if you speak English, you might want to go to an English speaking country rather than look to live in a country where you don't speak the native language. I know there's plenty of people who speak Russian in Ukraine and some friendly neighbouring countries have a significant number of people who also speak Russian - but I believe more and more of the younger generation don't learn Russian like the older generation, and may have grown up with English as their second language.

My wife and I have seriously discussed the possibility of offering our spare bedroom to a refugee. (Mum and a Child). I actually believe hundreds of thousands of people in this country will do the same. 
Are there others on here who are considering doing the same?

A nation that drops atomic bombs, Napalm strikes and kills thousands of civilians in war crimes committed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan including detaining and torturing people without reasonable cause gets to play world police. 
The country that's sent billions of dollars in aid to Israel. 
This nation has been in almost 400 military conflicts, has spent more than 90% of its existence involved in a conflict, has 750 military bases in 80 countries. 
It picks and chooses who and where deserves it humanitarian aid (fact). 
It is consistently involved in Proxy wars. Including the support of rebellions in Afghanistan (including via Pakistan) supplying military equipment from late 1970's. Interestingly supporting Islamist group who shared good relations with Osama Bin Laden. 
This among other proxy wars and destabilisation.
This is a nation I "factually" can't blame for starting fights? 
To me it sounds like I actually can. Because the issues are far too complex for you to just shut down an opinion. And it's an opinion shared by many in the evil East and a few within American politics. 
I'm happy to disagree. But what you call facts, I don't. There's many way to initiate conflicts without firing the first bullet. 

To mark the Day, Derby County has released an awareness video against violence on women.
I have posted it here as it will get more views than if I put it in the Jim Smith Room.
As it is International Women's Day I would like to add something positive and give a big shout out to all my female Derby County mates - whether virtual or matchday mates. Really appreciate you all. 

Interesting read. Do you have a link to the Minsk agreement? I can’t see any mention of Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO and certainly not the EU. I also can’t find anything about the whole of the Ukraine being deemed a demilitarised area as part of the agreement.
I can understand Russia’s concerns about Ukraine joining NATO but on what possible grounds would they have for preventing a sovereign nation from joining another trade group?
I’m glad to hear your mother in law has made sensible financial precautions but once again you are making claims about “most Russians”. You really know that to be true of a population of 144 million? I also find it quite hard to believe that Putin would have risked humiliation by just sending in the TA.
No offence intended, and I know we’re in the same boat but from the opposing view, but I can’t help but think you’re one of the many victims of biased reporting and propaganda. As I say, I know we’re the same over here. As someone else very wisely said earlier in this thread, the first casualty of war is the truth.

Not what he said or meant and you know that. You've created an argument from his point that he never made. 
Civilian casualties are part of a war, no? That includes Russian and American wars. There were over 2,000 drone strikes in Trump's first 2 years in the Whitehouse and 1000+ under Obama. 
Let's not pretend killing innocent people is just a Putin thing. 
13 000 died to Coalition forces in the Iraq war. 
Thousands died to US and Allies forces in the liberation of Afghanistan
I don't think @BaaLocksever suggested Putin was a nice chap or supported his invasion. He simply offered another perspective and said he believes Russians are showing restraint in this war. 
As did US/UK in their wars. (Not sarcasm). That doesn't mean they should be thanked for it. But it's still true