bovril

Praet pissing me off

Saints losing

ffs not a difficult pass to make

Good save

I'm assuming it's to the tune of Voulez Vous? If so it annoys me more than it should that some of the notes are totally wrong.

I think American footballers generally deserve every penny considering how lucrative the league is and how many of them will probably struggle to remember their kids' names by the age of 50.

On the one hand I find it absurd how much focus is on the QB when there are squads of like 50+. On the other hand it makes sense when I watch because it seems to combine physical ability with creativity and awareness at a much higher level than any other position. But as I said I haven't played the sport beyond a shambolic amateur level.

That route takes like 3 hours, and has something like a ten minute connection at Reading. So I was even thinking about the 9.15 and missing the last 15 mins. But will probably just give it a miss all together. As the poster above says, totally shit putting it midweek.

The BBC doc on the Columbia disaster is excellent. A very interesting exploration not only into the risks associated with space flight but also organizational dysfunction. I remember coming back from a Leicester match - Crystal Palace I think - and seeing the report on a TV in the pub.

I hear a lot about how much skill and intelligence is needed to play up front in an American football team but it seems quite unlikely to me. I find it an interesting sport because of how highly planned and carefully executed it is but for me that diminishes the role of the individual. Having said that I have never played it beyond a few games for a crap Italian team so would interested to hear from people who've played it at a relatively high level. No doubt you have to have incredible strength and be very well prepared.

On social issues the US left seems far further left than the European equivalent. Or thinking about it maybe just more individualist. Or maybe because they don't really have much economic leftism they pour their efforts into things like individual rights and social justice.

Going to Chesterfield is no excuse to leave early!

The classic 22:06 to St Pancras. Everytime I take it it seems to be late and merges into the next one so nobody knows which train they have tickets for.

Awful people. In my job (Leicester fan) I meet a lot of them unfortunately.

It's an Anglo-Saxon country at the end of the day so they need to constantly rank things in a quite autistic way.

Yes but with association football when Marcin Wasilewski crunches into some poor winger just out of the youth team we don't sit around stroking our chins and saying what great "football IQ" he's got

I know the Americans like to intellectualise their sport but I am sorry, you don't need an incredible amount of intelligence to play defensive tackle.

In football, any code of football, I would say skill entails doing something with the ball. I believe kicking a field goal takes greater skill than blocking, though that's totally subjective and we're getting into semantics. But as you said, there are "skill positions" in gridiron football which are not the lineman. Agree to be honest that NFL kicking isn't that hard either considering it's always from the same place and usually not that far out.

True, forgot about that in my tiredness this morning. Still, game could've panned out differently from there.

My tongue is not in my cheek. I don't doubt that the lineman put everything physically and emotionally into a game, and I accept they are maybe the most important position after the QB, but there's no real skill involved.

Kickers were great. 3 50+ yarders including a record. Some good punts too. I know it's not quite as hard as rugby kicking but still think they deserve more credit considering they are (I think?) the highest scorers on the team and are obviously more skilled than some huge guy that's good at falling on people.

I quite enjoy it at times, but it is absurd how little actual play you get. I think something like 10 minutes in about 3-4 hours all in all.

In Ya Ropa

Me usually: The US is far from perfect but I'd much rather have it as the global hegemon than any of its rivals, and I appreciate the security that being part of NATO brings us. Me when I go on a UK newspaper's website and read "Taylor Swift introduces Jason Kelce to Ice Spice after jetting in from Tokyo":

Pretty common I imagine. I remember reading that when they were searching for remains of the shuttle that burned up over Texas in 2003, they solved two unsolved murders cases.