bovril

Yes definitely. Spoleto is also a beautiful small city pretty close in the train

yeah it's great I've found someone as autistic as me

not trying to be pissy but maybe put a warning on stuff like that?

This looks awful. Potentially very large numbers of casualties.

Very sorry to hear that. I wish your Mum and your family the very best.

This is my ideal wedding and thankfully my girlfriend feels the same way. The thought of family members watching you get married is horrifying to me.

Though the amount of people who care is probably a lot less than it seems on social media. Politicians getting involved is depressing but I think a lot of it is just a reflection of the powerlessness they feel at not being able to solve the deep problems our country faces and also the amount of air time now devoted to politics. So this kind of nonsense dominates in a way it never did before. I also think performative outrage and counter-outrage is quite an integral part of Anglo-Prot culture.

Agreed.

On the subject of flags this is quite interesting. Clearly Euro-96 related but also I think reflects a broader decline of Britishness in the last few decades.

Haven't got Norovirus but for the last couple of weeks I've been incredibly congested and had a terrible cough. Not sure if it's a virus going round or something else. I thought it might be connected acid reflux as it's worse just after I eat and pasta and dairy seems to be worse than others. At the same time my girlfriend caught the same cough so who knows.

Going out in Paris made me realize how bad we've got it in big British cities. In one of the most expensive cities in the world, you still have big groups of young people / students drinking and socialising in the centre until the early hours. London is a wasteland in this sense. It's probably better in provincial British towns.

I struggle to believe it was just a "playful update". This stuff gets discussed and analysed in minute detail I'm sure, and probably they thought the backlash would be good for publicity and for Nike to be seen winding up traditionalists. Fair point on the 2012 GB kits. But people were less sensitive then probably because in the last couple of years there have been more attempts to challenge anything seen as 'toxic nationalism' in England, especially in the football team. I'm not outraged about it but obviously my flag is not simply a logo to me and I would like to see it faithfully represented on the national team shirt.

I don't think the club comparison really works because it's a national flag. If Scotland changed the colour of the saltire on their national shirt it would obviously be a bit ludicrous. It is clearly deliberate and probably done to create a backlash / publicity. If people like that then fine, but to dismiss it as just a design thing is naive imo.

The history of the world for better or worse is the history of different groups of people united by language, culture and symbols. That will never change.

Lots of examples from history also of people keeping alive national symbols and culture in the struggle against historical oppressors.

Thankfully I think there's just enough legroom between 'I expect my flag to be faithfully represented on the shirt of my national team' and 'genocide'.

This is quite naive. National symbols like flags are important to people. I assume you've travelled to other countries and observed this.

"It upsets all the right people" etc etc

Really enjoyed Paris. Was nice after London to be in a large capital city that still has lots of independent shops and traditional restaurants and cafes. And contrary to expectations I liked the people - friendlier and more cheerful than London.

Agree with all of this, especially the social media. It's like politics and culture in general, more people than ever talk about football and share football content, but most of that content is so trivial and vapid

We're more like a moth - disintegrate to dust

Said last year what Robins has done since 2017 is one of the best jobs I've ever seen in football

Kudos. Got to love the Cup really

I really like Robins as much as I want to hate Cov

I think on par for 20/21 is a bit harsh. 5th + trophy with some of the injuries we had was a good achievement.