leicsmac

Well done from Humphries. You'd think that won't be the only final Littler will compete in.

Could be an epic, this.

Could it be that in the near future it's actually possible for a single person making 25k a year and with a decent sized deposit to actually get on the housing ladder in the general Leicester area without shared ownership or having to redecorate the whole place before moving in? Glory be.

The Wire stands above them all IMO.

My own personal preference is for Horizon to be at least on a par with Elden Ring, GOW/Ragnarok etc, but I can at least understand the powers that be thinking the latter were at least marginally better. Zero Dawn losing to BOTW though? Fvcking scandal. But then I think that's because most Zelda games (and a lot of Mario/other leading Nintendo games in general come to that) tend to be pretty generic fantasy romps for "all the family" and the Japanese market and so lacking something compared to games like Horizon and GOW anyway and I'm not sure why some folks rate them as truly great games as opposed to merely very good, despite their depth. Perhaps it's Nintendo simply opting not to go in for any kind of graphical realism and rather keeping it "cartoony" that puts me off (though that didn't stop Final Fantasy IX from being a very mature adventure). NB. As someone who regularly disparages those who disparage anime as "just for kids" (because that's simply fvcking wrong), I know the above is hypocrisy of the highest order btw.

...and India lose six wickets inside of two overs for no runs to go from 153-4 to 153 all out. Lead of 98. The ICC might want to have a look at this pitch, just saying.

The Saffers doing their best to get themselves back in it, India 110/4, 55 runs ahead. You'd think a 100-150 run first innings lead would be enough for India, though.

Had a rematch against this guy immediately after this game finished, this time playing White. This time, I did draw! If anyone wants me to put the game on here I will, but only on request because I don't want to clog the thread.

True enough. I just find the juxtaposition between such areas interesting.

For someone who appears to (rightly) demand equity and equality of opportunity in practically every other area of life, that's an interesting thing to hear from you, Oz. Not in any way a criticism or judgement, just interesting to hear.

Absolutely it is. But you'd be amazed how people's view on one and the other - along other things - can enmesh depending on their worldviews. But anyway, I think there's broad(ish) agreement here that VAR in its current form doesn't work and needs to go back to the drawing board. It's what happens then that appears to be the matter for debate.

...'cos apparently that isn't as important to the matchday experience, if current discussion topics are any judge. But point taken.

Certainly possible in theory and application would only be a matter of time and resources IMO. Do agree there's a large distance between here and there. Also think the journey should be made and is worth the trip, as is the case with the vast majority of other tech progressions in other areas of sport and wider society. I know that perhaps I'm approaching this from a too "general" outlook (not just football), but for me sometimes (bolded for emphasis) it appears to me that some folks want to rail against progress in a lot of fields - this just being one of them - in the name of tomorrow being just like today; or better, like some imagined idea of yesterday, which I strongly dislike for a lot of reasons. (This in no way should detract from the very specific, legit and salient complaints about VAR discussed above, however.)

Perhaps. Which is why the problem of speed in order to restore that spontaneity needs to be overcome before VAR is implemented much further, or even as much as it is now.

That may be why some, or even a lot of football fans love the game - and it is important. It isn't why all of them do.

Nah, I don't think that's Luddite at all - unless someone believes that even when tech is able to make such decisions instantly and so there's no hesitation in "celebration" that it still shouldn't be implemented. That would be, and tbh I have seen some comments certainly implying that and sometimes outright stating it, which I really don't have much time for. The twin problems are speed and subjectivity - I think you'd share that sentiment given your remarks here. With rugby given there are more natural stoppages and so personally I don't see speed as that much of an issue, whereas it is in football, and yet you still have the subjectivity (to a degree). With goal-line tech, DRS and Hawkeye in tennis, subjectivity is (pretty much) accounted for and speed falls within the natural speed of the sport, so they're rather easier adoptees (though India took some convincing about DRS up until Harbhajan middled an LBW decision against Broad on the second of his hat-trick deliveries in 2011). But for football, those two issues are still a massive problem and so I get people's arguments and do actually agree that in its current form VAR does more harm than good and shouldn't be used right now - or at least until at least one of the two above issues is cracked (preferably speed, because that's the one people appear to have the most beef with). What I don't agree with, and never will, is that idea that VAR never will work and should be abandoned entirely - because IMO it's blatantly illogical.

I've suggested that people who would reject it out of hand as irredeemable as that, yeah (and unless I've failed to read the room, there's been a fair bit of that about.) And I stand by that, because the idea it can't be improved in the same way any tech solution can is Luddite and not based on much rationality. But I'll happily admit VAR as it is is not only far from perfect and never will be perfect, it also has so many flaws right now it needs to be withdrawn (except for offsides where a possible solution exists already) until it is improved in a way that is definitely better than what it replaced.

And that is a fallacy in of itself - a strawman. Or at least I sincerely hope that it is; no one should be presenting VAR as a perfect solution in the same way no one should be presenting self driving cars as likewise, rather a solution better than what exists now or before. Of course, neither of those two applications as they are now can be definitively said to be better than what they've replaced.

The hypocrisy of a lot of supporters on the matter can get in the bin, yeah. Either you accept the faults of refs, or you do the same with VAR. Griping about both is just Perfect Solution Fallacy entitlement. And there's similar hypocrisy in other areas too- as you said, there are folks that will accept utter incompetence from Johnson while skewering Starmer to the wall for the slightest misstep, and vice versa.

Littler has the mentality of a player with decades more experience. Tremendous, really.

"Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees." - Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

It's possible but that's a rather dangerous game to play.

Satisfaction through vengeance. That's about it, really - it has no strategic benefit.

On the general topic, 22 is no age at all and it's such a tragedy that cancer continues to take lives so young. So much sympathy for those he has left behind who grieve. On the topic of what this...person has said on social media, it's a tricky topic because it's pretty much unsolvable to everyone's satisfaction, but AFAIC people like that sometimes require a lesson: they are free to be a trolling tw@t, but that freedom comes hand in hand with the most fundamental freedom of all - the freedom to take the consequences of one's actions.

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet." - Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms