egg

Yep, ditto. I feel a best cake/naughty food thread coming on.

Ability

Yep, and the conveniently timed bets on the war starting, and ending. The Aussie take on it, with as clear an explanation as you'll see: 'You want to know why they started a war? Follow the money. Always follow the money. Monday morning. 6:50am New York time. Markets are dead quiet. Pre-market trading. Thin liquidity. The kind of hour where normal people are arguing with their alarm clock or trying to remember if they fed the dog. But somebody's awake. Somebody's VERY awake. Because at 6:50am, someone drops $1.5 BILLION into S&P 500 futures. Simultaneously shorts $192 million in oil. Orders 4 to 6 times larger than anything else trading at that hour. In a market so quiet you could hear a Bloomberg terminal fart. Fifteen minutes later, Trump posts on Truth Social that the US and Iran are having "productive conversations" and he's pausing strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. S&P rockets up 2.5%. Oil crashes 11%. Whoever made those trades just printed themselves a fortune in the time it takes to microwave a Hot Pocket. But I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure some guy in Connecticut just had a really, really good feeling about geopolitics at 6:50 in the morning. Woke up, did some yoga, had a green smoothie, thought "you know what, I reckon there's going to be a surprise peace announcement in 15 minutes in a war that's been escalating for 4 weeks" and casually threw one and a half billion dollars at it. Happens all the time. Totally normal. Nothing to see here. Now here's where it gets so corrupt it's almost beautiful. Over on Polymarket, 10 brand new accounts, all created at the same time, no trading history, dropped $160,000 betting on an Iran ceasefire by end of March. They stand to collect over a million dollars. And two of those wallets? They'd already successfully bet on the war STARTING. Read that again. Someone allegedly knew the war was coming. Bet on it. Won. Then knew the "peace talks" were coming. Bet on that too. Won again. Using fresh wallets with zero history. Created simultaneously. Like a litter of puppies, except instead of being cute they're committing federal crimes. But sure. Maybe it's the same guy from Connecticut. Maybe he's just really good at this. Maybe his horoscope said "Sagittarius, big week for geopolitical prediction markets, wear something blue." Now here's the part that turns this from corruption into actual comedy. Iran says none of it's real. Their Foreign Ministry says there are no negotiations. Their parliamentary speaker went on X and said, and I'm paraphrasing, "This is fake news designed to manipulate financial and oil markets." Even Iranian academics are laughing about it. One said Trump makes these announcements every week when markets open to drive oil prices down and his 5 day deadline conveniently expires on a Friday when markets close. So. The President of the United States allegedly MADE UP a diplomatic breakthrough. In the middle of a war he started. A war that's killed over 3,200 people. A war that's shut the Strait of Hormuz and sent fuel prices into orbit from Houston to Hobart. He fabricated peace talks so someone could make millions on futures contracts before breakfast. That's not corruption. That's a Netflix series. That's Ozark with nuclear weapons and a worse spray tan. And the beautiful thing? This isn't even the first time. This isn't even the first time THIS YEAR. April 2025. The tariffs. Trump tweets "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" on Truth Social at 9:37am. Four hours later he announces a 90 day tariff pause. Markets go vertical. S&P jumps 9.5%. His own media company stock rockets 22%. Senate Democrats demanded an SEC investigation. Warren called it corruption in plain sight. Schiff called for an urgent inquiry. You know what happened? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because the SEC chair is Trump's handpicked guy, Paul Atkins, confirmed by the Senate he controls, running an agency he's been systematically gutting since day one. The watchdog didn't just go to sleep. They took it out back, Old Yeller style. So here we are. March 2026. And the playbook hasn't changed. It's just graduated from tariffs to actual warfare. Let me walk you through how this works, because it's genuinely elegant in a "stealing candy from 330 million people" kind of way. Step 1. Start a war on a Friday night after markets close. Can't have people panic selling in real time, that would be inconvenient. Step 2. Let oil prices explode. Strait of Hormuz closes. Crude goes through the roof. Petrol stations start looking like crime scenes. Normal people suffer. Step 3. Monday morning, just before markets open, announce a dramatic peace breakthrough. Make sure your mates are positioned first. Step 4. Watch the S&P scream higher and oil crater. Collect profits. Step 5. Have Iran deny everything 27 minutes later. Markets give back half the gains. Reposition. Step 6. Repeat on Friday with a new threat. Repeat Monday with new hope. Rinse and repeat until everyone's retirement account has been shaken upside down like a tourist in a back alley. Step 7. When asked about it, have the SEC "decline to comment." Every major announcement timed to market hours. Every escalation on a Friday close. Every de-escalation on a Monday open. CNN called it a pattern. I'd call it a subscription service. For fifty bucks a month you too can find out what the President's going to post on Truth Social before he posts it. Allegedly. And who's going to stop them? The SEC they castrated? The Congress they own? The Justice Department that's been turned into a personal legal team? The media that gets a new five alarm fire every 6 hours and can't focus on one scandal long enough to finish a headline? 3,200 people are dead. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Fuel prices are wrecking families on every continent. Australia's sitting on less than 3 weeks of fuel reserves. Gold's crashed 20% in a month. People's retirement savings are being treated like a poker chip at a table where the dealer is also the house, the pit boss, and the guy who owns the casino. And somewhere, right now, someone is sitting in front of 6 monitors watching their brokerage account tick higher every time a 79 year old man in a bathrobe hits send on a social media post from his golf resort in Florida. This isn't an administration. It's a hedge fund with a flag. The grift isn't a side effect of the chaos. The chaos IS the grift. And they're not even being subtle about it anymore. Why would they be? Who's going to do anything? The referee works for them. The rule book's been shredded. And half the crowd is still cheering because their team is winning, even as their pockets are being picked in real time. But hey. I'm sure it's all a coincidence. Ten times in a row. Exposed by a whale tracking account on Twitter and a bunch of crypto nerds on Polymarket. Thank God we've got a free press and an independent judiciary to sort this out. Oh wait'.

Yep, that's all it is. It took a whole 45 mins for Iran to say it's bollox and that there's been no direct or indirect communication with Trump.

Bidding

Yep, that was my take on it. It was a nothing storyline, and they could have done so much more with it - Flynn coming back and having another crack at Duke, or whatever. Duke himself was a poor character, and badly cast.

Wave

It's you that went off on a Wood and Romeu tangent. It was a strange point which completely overlooked that Baz has been crap throughout most of his time here. I commented on what you said, so I'm not sure why you're banging on to me about crisp packet wrists etc. The 2 years ago Vs Kelvin in 2012 comparison is desperate. He's shit. I don't understand the unwillingness to just accept that and move on, but each to their own.

Yep. What makes it even better is Charles waiting for the bobble to go out of the pass. He'd have hit it earlier if not. Phenomenal goal.

So Baz would have been brilliant if Wood and Romeu weren't in the team? Right you are. I know football fans will never agree on everything, but it should be universally acknowledged that Baz was a disaster and has finally been upgraded.

I love these Aussie takes. Always bang on: 'Thank You For Your Attention to This Matter: A Senile Man Declares Economic War on Planet Earth Let me get this straight because I'm about to book a trip to a different gene pool. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Oil is $108 a barrel. Gas in the US has jumped 93 cents a gallon in 3 weeks. The global economy is bleeding from every artery. And this senile fucking game show host just posted on Truth Social, at 7:44pm on a Saturday night from his golf resort, that he's going to blow up Iran's power plants. All of them. Starting with the biggest one first. "Thank you for your attention to this matter." Like it's a fucking strata notice about bins. Let's talk about what this drooling strategist apparently doesn't understand. Iran has roughly 400 power plants. You know what runs on power? Refineries. Pumping stations. Pipeline infrastructure. The entire oil and gas production chain that produces around 3 million barrels a day for the global market. You want the Strait open so oil flows again? Fantastic. So your plan is to destroy the infrastructure that PRODUCES the oil that flows through the Strait? That's like burning down the brewery because the pub's closed. Even if Iran surrenders tomorrow. Even if they open Hormuz by Monday morning and wave through every tanker with a little flag and a complimentary baklava. You've just told the world you're going to flatten the energy grid of OPEC's third largest producer. Rebuilding a power plant takes 3 to 5 years minimum. Refineries without power don't refine. Wells without power don't pump. You're not just talking about a temporary disruption. You're talking about removing millions of barrels of production capacity from the global market for the better part of a decade. Oil won't go back to $70. It won't go back to $90. You've just baked in $100+ oil for years. Maybe permanently. And that's before we talk about the retaliation Iran just promised. They've already said if their energy infrastructure gets hit, every US-linked energy asset, desalination plant and IT system in the Gulf gets targeted. Saudi Aramco. Qatari LNG terminals. UAE refineries. The entire energy architecture of the Middle East, up in smoke. This isn't a military strategy. This is a 79 year old man with a phone and a Diet Coke threatening to set the global economy on fire because nobody will do what he says. Winston Churchill studied maps. He agonised over Gallipoli for the rest of his life because he understood what it meant to get it wrong. Truman dropped the bomb and then couldn't sleep. MacArthur, for all his ego, understood supply lines, logistics, the difference between destroying an enemy and destroying yourself in the process. This bloke can't find Iran on a map. He thinks "strategic" is a brand of vodka. Friday he said the war was winding down. Friday night. "Getting very close to meeting our objectives." Twenty four hours later he's threatening to plunge 90 million civilians into darkness and crash the global energy market for a generation. And the sign off. The fucking sign off. "Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP." Mate. You're threatening to commit what most of the planet would consider a war crime against civilian infrastructure, and you've formatted it like a letter from your accountant. The man who said "we don't even use the Strait" is now threatening to blow up the entire energy grid of a sovereign nation because the Strait isn't open. The man who promised cheap gas is presiding over the fastest fuel price spike in American history. The man who said the war was won is now issuing 48 hour ultimatums from a beach club in Palm Beach. This isn't 4D chess. This isn't even checkers. This is a toddler flipping the board because he's losing and screaming that he won. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Australia has about 50 seconds of fuel reserves left. We refine almost nothing domestically. Our entire economy runs on imported diesel. And the bloke with his finger on the button just threatened to make the global oil crisis permanent. But sure. Thank you for your attention to this matter. We're all paying fucking attention now.'

I don't think it'll be that close, but the Charlton and West Brom draws will make a difference one way or another.

And Morgan and Meghoma in the under 20's.

It's not happening. The FA cup run, as great as it is, means we'll be playing catch up with game on top of game. I'd have laughed if someone told me 6th was a possibility when Tonda came in, and I'd be delighted with that.

We watched it this evening. Really underwhelmed - too many characters missing, and Duke wasn't strong enough for me. Decent soundtrack though.

Stand

Yep, 8 off with 21 to play off. We may regret a few lost leads come the end of the season.

I think Azaz will play inside left ish in possession, and hold the left side out of possession. A sort of 4132/442

Yep. Looks like an old skool big/small combination to me.

I've given myself 30 lashes mate.

Brilliant until series 4, but 5 was so so, and 6 really tailed off. I'm hoping the film will be good, but got breaking bad movie vibes.

Whilst the generals are undoubtedly bright people, they're only as good as their instructions. It seems as clear as day that Trump doesn't seem clear on his objectives, and you can't have a clear plan when you have vague objectives.

Empty

And before I go out to enjoy this beautiful day, a damning indictment from a 3 star French general. Worth a read. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ad4GJrWER/

The latest Aussie take: 'THE DUMBEST EMPIRE IN HISTORY How a man with no plan, no clue, and no conscience broke the global economy and then posted "winding down" That's the phrase. "Winding down." Posted on Truth Social at 2 in the fucking afternoon like a bloke who just Googled "how to end a war" and picked the first result that wasn't Wikipedia. Three weeks ago this spray-tanned fuckwit launched the largest military operation since Iraq. No congressional vote. No coalition. No fucking plan. Just vibes, a Fox News green light, and the emotional regulation of a toddler who's just been told the Maccas ice cream machine is broken. He told us Iran's nuclear program was "obliterated" back in June. His words. Then eight months later he starts a full-scale war to destroy the thing he already destroyed. Which one is it, Donald? Did you lie then or are you lying now? Actually don't bother. The answer is both. It's always both. And now, three weeks into a war that's closed the Strait of Hormuz, sent oil to $112 a barrel, pushed gas up a dollar a gallon in 30 days, and triggered the biggest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, this weapons-grade fucking moron posts that he's "winding down." While putting 5,000 more Marines on a boat from San Diego. That's like dousing your house in petrol, chucking a match through the window, and telling the neighbours you're thinking about updating the curtains. But first. Stop scrolling. This part matters. 168 little girls. Aged 7 to 12. Sitting in class in Minab. First morning of the war. Parents got panicked calls to come get their kids. Some were already there. Others were still driving. They didn't make it. A Tomahawk cruise missile hit the building. The roof collapsed on the children. Then they hit it again. And again. Triple tapped. A girls' primary school. 168 girls and 14 teachers dead while parents clawed through concrete with their bare hands. And this mass-murdering sack of shit stood in front of cameras and blamed Iran. His own Pentagon found the US was responsible. They used targeting data that hadn't been updated since 2016. Any analyst with Google Earth could have checked. But Hegseth had already set the tone: "No stupid rules of engagement." "Death and destruction from the sky all day long." "We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly how it should be." UNICEF confirmed 180 children killed. Human Rights Watch called it a war crime. Amnesty called it a war crime. And now he's just gonna wind it down. Post on social media and stroll away. Those 168 tiny coffins don't even register. Now. The plan. The strategy. The endgame. There isn't one. Senator Chris Murphy walked out of a classified briefing and said: "The war will end when Donald Trump wakes up and thinks he's tired of talking about the war." And when Trump was asked when it'd be over? "When I feel it. Feel it in my bones." His bones. His fucking bones. The exit strategy for a war that killed 168 schoolgirls is the skeletal system of a 79-year-old man who lives on Big Macs, Diet Coke, and his own bullshit. And Speaker Mike Johnson defended this with, and I swear this is real: "His bones are informed by the intelligence." That is an actual quote from an actual elected official in 2026. We are being governed by a ouija board in a suit. Dumbledore's Army with nuclear codes and a body count of children. Sources from classified briefings told The Intercept: "The administration doesn't have a clue. They do not have an actual, real rationale, endgame, or plan for the aftermath of this." The Pentagon "significantly underestimated" Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz. The most predictable military response in 40 years of strategic analysis. That's like invading Russia in winter and going "fuck me, it's cold." The German Chancellor flew to Washington, asked Trump what the plan was, flew home and told reporters there is "clearly no joint plan." Translated into Australian: "This cunt has no idea what he's doing and we're all fucked." Now here's the part they don't want you to understand. This isn't going to be over when the bombs stop. You can't rebuild refineries overnight. Qatar says 5 years to repair its LNG export capacity. Goldman Sachs says oil above $100 through 2027. Trump's own Energy Department says gas won't drop below $3 a gallon until end of 2027 at the earliest. The IEA says months or years to restore flows. Years. Not weeks. Years. Gas was $2.93 a month ago. It's $3.91 today. And it is not coming back. Steel and concrete do not give a fuck about your Truth Social post, Donald. Refineries don't watch Fox News. The laws of physics don't bend because a 79-year-old narcissist needs a win before the midterms. Every dollar above what you were paying last month. That's Trump's war. Every grocery bill. Every diesel fill. Every family at the kitchen table working out what to cut. That is directly, specifically, undeniably the fault of Donald J. Fucking Trump and the 77 million oxygen thieves who voted for him. Three times. His net approval on the economy is minus 29. The lowest in the history of this polling series. Lower than COVID. Only 27 percent approve of his handling of gas prices. That's not a poll. That's a fucking obituary. He is a complete and unmitigated level 10 grand master fucking moron who has blundered arse-first into the largest energy crisis in a generation, killed hundreds of children, and is now posting "winding down" like a kid who's knocked over the Christmas tree and is slowly backing out of the room hoping nobody noticed. We noticed, Donald. The whole fucking world noticed. And 168 families in Minab who will set an empty place at the table every night for the rest of their lives fucking noticed. Welcome to the consequences of being the dumbest empire in history, brought to you by the most dangerous man who ever held public office. You earned this. Every last fucking cent of it. Every last tiny coffin'