The Kraken

I don’t think the errors are worse with VAR. Some of the really heinous decisions, such as our disallowed offside in the cup final, have largely gone. But VAR still comes down to individual refereeing judgements, and as there are still errors, it shows that the likes of Jon Moss still cannot arrive at the correct decision even after replaying the incident for many minutes. VAR is there to help refs. But it seems some of them need a lot more help than that to get to the right decision. At least there is a decent system to overrule shoddy decisions, though it doesn’t fix the problem. As for VAR offsides. Being as they’re obviously here to stay, I’d much rather just have the feet as the measure, as it’s clearer than looking for the t-shirt mark or whatever the latest wheeze is. That’s just my personal preference though.

Lots of open tabs on that screen. Not sure what YouPorn and PornHub are, but they sound interesting.

St George is the shittest patron saint ever. Never set foot in England, and didn’t even kill a dragon. He was also one of those forrin types, Turkish and Syrian heritage.

The more I think about it, the more I think this is just a shot across the bows of UEFA who are about to announce their new Champions League format. This whole format really hasn’t got legs. German clubs aren’t going to get involved as the vast majority of them adhere to the 50%+1 ownership model. PSG won’t do it as they’re owned by Qatar, who will stay loyal to the establishment after being gifted the World Cup. This seems like a “look what we could do” threat rather than a plan IMO.

I can’t recall us having even a single shot in the first half. At all. For 5 or 10 minutes in the second half we finally got out of first gear, but aside from that it was a shockingly poor performance. No quality at all really.

He shouldn’t do, normally refs only get one FA Cup final in their career and he had it in 2008.

I’m reading that 40+ will be able to book from tomorrow. As such I just went on the nhs central booking site and was able to book my jab for Friday (I’m 46), friends same age have just done the same. Worth checking.

Can’t disagree that LGW was cheaper for flights, on average. But as someone who lives in Soton, price absolutely isn’t everything, and I’d gladly pay extra for the convenience of an airport within a few miles of the house. And as you say, most airlines charge extra for baggage and what not. Even BA do it now, so I see that factor as irrelevant.

Bournemouth is fine if you’re happy to leave your car in the car park. Yeah, public transport is awful, but the car park is massive, close to the terminal, and cheap. Unlike Soton airport car parks which are ridiculously priced (luckily I live close enough that a cab takes minutes or even a bus ride takes no longer than 20). They also do some very handy routes for summer sun and winter ski. Flying from Soton or Bournemouth is infinitely better than schlepping it to Gatwick.

A good proportion of FlyBE’s old routes have already been taken up, by BA, Eastern Airways and others. The international flights will largely focus around summer schedules. COVID aside, that was already a big part of FlyBE’s problem, in my experience (I fly to south of Spain a few times a year in normal times). Summer flights with FlyBE were usually chock full, but winter schedule flights were often at best half full, and those flights were being run 4 or 5 days out of 7. It looks like the new operators may take a more cautious approach and have a more limited schedule that they can fill all planes on.

Very well put.

Might have to get a mug, they look grand.

😂

Ere we go

I thought I read somewhere the other day that one or two of the labs are already working on a tablet form on the vaccine.

There’s some areas of under 50s that it would be nice to prioritise. Emergency services, all nhs, shop workers and such like. That bit seems like it could be manageable for a small number of select industries, if a bit of a work up. Extending it to all of the general population seems like a minefield, how do you categorise it? The company I work for is in manufacturing, it’s a 50 50 split between WFH and can’t wfh (with a few like me who mostly go in but do a day or two from home). We certainly don’t have any work ID that would identify the difference and it would be a massive work up getting thousands of companies around the country to fit in to what would have to be a complex priority system. The current system will let some slightly higher risk wait longer than low risk, but overall it enables efficiency to get hundreds of thousands of jabs in arms every day. I’m mid 40s and not jabbed yet but happy to just wait my turn, even though I’m slightly higher risk as I go in to work 3 or 4 days a week.

Plus Jaidi who had played well at PL level for a few years, and Danny Butterfield had played PL and Championship for years. Puncheon was there too. And it was three future England stars: lambert, Lallana and Oxlade. Chaplow had played higher level too.

Perhaps would have won the league had Nigel had a full season. We had lost three league games by the time we brought him in, then lost a fourth in his very first game after just 2 or 3 days with the team. The form towards the end of the season was amazing, 13 wins and 1 draw from the final 15. We lost the league by 3 points and had a better goal difference. Given Adkins had no pre season with the team, I thought he did very well. But, yeah, to be fair, that team was way above anything else at that level at the time.

Yep, agreed. Cup final day used to be special as there weren’t too many games shown live at other times throughout the season. I Always remember tuning in dead early for the cup final though, tv cameras on the team bus etc. Once Sky came in and there were multiple games on every week, the status of the FA cup was always going to dip. I still always tune in for the final these days though, sun shining on the Wembley pitch is a nostalgic sight. I do think semi finals at neutral grounds would be better, as getting to Wembley should be the preserve for just finalists. Not going to happen though.

For me, it kind of changes the dynamic of watching the game. Like you I’ll likely open a bottle of wine and watch at home. If the game had been Saturday afternoon, or even earlier on Sunday afternoon, I’d likely have watched it either in the garden at mine with friends, or at theirs. Last year when rule of six came in outdoors and Saints played Norwich in the resumption of football I had pals all round mine. It was a lovely day of weather and we watched the game outside. Was hoping for the same for the semi, but Sunday 630 is a bit late for that.

Sunday at 6.30? Damn, only just seen that. Disappointing. Was hoping for an afternoon game and a nice day of weather so I could put the tv outside and watch the game with some pals over a few beers. Prob take the Monday as a day off, just in case.

Saints sign deal with kit deal. Good. Me very happy.

I don’t think it’s on until late tonight, 10.45 I think. However, all three episodes are available to watch on iplayer. Programme 2 (tonight) is largely taken up by Saints and Higgins, and it culminates in programme 3 with the second trial. Pretty harrowing, but it’s a must see I think. Huge respect to the bravery of all the lads in there.

Just a concept. Not a fan of 2 and 3, but number 1 would be great.