bovril

6 hours ago, purpleronnie said:

but thats the same for every world cup no?

Was very different pre wall to wall media coverage. You weren't as tired of non stop football as you are now and a World Cup was a chance to see players you could rarely see. It was like watching a total different sport from English football in the early 90s. 

5 hours ago, Wymsey said:

can't believe how badly we have ****ed it all up. Perhaps worse than anyone ever. 

Connections

Puzzle #1085

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https://www.independent.co.uk/us/money/world-cup-mandatory-tips-restaurants-b2985432.html

Death to America 

Connections

Puzzle #1084

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The aptest of apt scores

6 hours ago, purpleronnie said:

7pm turkish times seems pretty reasonable.

6 hours ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

 

It's being played in Budapest  

It's being played in 1541

17 hours ago, MPH said:

 

ugghh. We don’t need a Beckham replacement family or another Fury family..  just go and enjoy your money, both of you!

those legal expenses don't pay for themselves

1 hour ago, Spudulike said:

Only been two occasions when I struggled to watch our penalties. One was Ulloa vs West Ham, the other was Parker at Wembley. Two pivotal moments.

And two absolutely belting penalties 

Some irony in Brexiter's frustration at people blaming everything especially immigration on Brexiting when they spent years blaming everything especially immigration on not Brexiting.

Anybody recognise themselves?

Nothing much to add, other than good to see some love for Lennon in the thread.Even if I were a foaming at the mouth unionist I still couldn't hate him just because he was so good for us. Was a brilliant day, and is as fond a memory as our trophy wins of recent years. Maybe even more so, just because of how different the club, football and football fandom was then. 

15 minutes ago, kenny said:

The point about Brexit was that the high immigration was a political choice, one that resulted in the government being voted out for the least popular government on record.

 

You may argue that Boris choose to increase immigration to reduce the economic impact of Brexit, but that was his choice not a necessity.

 

To blame Brexit for high immigration is lazy and uneducated IMO. Mahmood is proving that political will was all that was needed to reduce it significantly. Incidentally, many of the policies introduced by Sunak had a significant impact on immigration, but there is no doubt Mahmood deserves a lot of credit.

 

As for the Mail, it does what it does, I don't pay any attention. But no amount of Mail clickbait makes the Boriswave anything to do with the UK's status in/out of the EU.

It wasn't an inevitable result of leaving the EU but that doesn't change the fact that prominent leavers suggested on a few occasions that restrictions on non EU migrants, especially from the Commonwealth, should be relaxed, and obviously those places have larger, younger and poorer populations than Europe. In fact if I may go a bit tin foil hat here, I don't think it's a terrible stretch to conclude that a lot of brexit's financial backers were partially motivated by a desire to replace Europeans with rights under EU law with non Europeans who could be exploited more.

So no, it's not strictly cause-effect, more a not very surprising side effect.

4 minutes ago, kenny said:

Perhaps or perhaps not.

 

Perhaps a different PM wouldn't have opened the doors and Brexit had nothing to do with it.

May probably wouldn't have done. The hostile environment architect no? 

But hard brexiters got rid of her for Boris 😂 

Patel and Badenoch iirc also advocated for relaxing on immigration restrictions from India and Nigeria. 

2 minutes ago, kenny said:

I thought it was called the 'Boriswave' not the 'Brexitwave'?

Do you remember "save our curry houses" in 2016?

Lol 

4 minutes ago, Stevosevic said:

EU or Non EU - the amount of youth unemployment we have, the vast amount of jobs going to people from other countries doesn’t need to happen. 

 

The numbers are staggering and needless regardless of stance on EU/Non EU. 
 

And let’s not pretend every foreign worker is highly skilled and filling a gap we couldn’t fill ourselves. 

Those "staggering numbers" of potential migrants from the EU vs from outside the EU is obviously massively different so perhaps having "a stance on EU/non EU" would've been a good idea?

UK's neet rate is now worse than than any European country bar Romania, pre Brexit it was around the EU average.

I suppose that's one way to rid yourself of Eastern Europeans.

Connections

Puzzle #1082

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22 minutes ago, Stevosevic said:

Are we saying that’s it’s fine that it’s happening in Western Europe then? 

To be fair British right wingers spent years writing off east euros as knuckle dragging racists so it's quite funny they now point to them as a model to follow

Just now, Stevosevic said:

You’re right - Eastern European countries are not allowing it to happen.

 

But Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden etc… are seeing exactly the same issues. Trends like the below in Vienna are common. 
 

https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/05/muslims-now-make-up-almost-half-of-all-pupils-in-viennas-public-schools/

 

 

So Western Europe then. 

2 hours ago, Stevosevic said:

Of course if it’s a good thing but any country losing its own culture because the natives are a minority cannot be seen as a positive.  
 

People will think that’s extreme but the trends are scary. All across Europe. 
 

 

It's not the same "all across Europe"

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Puzzle #1080

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It's the buildings not the humidity. I've lived in a few towns in Italy that were hotter and way more humid and the flats were never that hot. I actually quite liked the humidity, slept much better. Woke up with that slightly cool, damp feel on your skin like you're in a Conrad novel or something. 

East Anglia is extremely dry and today my bedroom has been like a ****ing greenhouse and I can't cool it down. And it's so dry and stuffy. 

12 hours ago, rugbyblue said:

With the game changing almost beyond recognition since i was a kid, i find it kind of comforting that life of Riley is still the goal of the month/season music 😂 .

Just me?

They changed it late 90s to some kind of electro swing dance type thing which was quite good. Then a dad rock number early 2000s whose name escapes me. Then brought life of riley back in the late 2000s for nostalgia reasons I guess.