Finnegan

I'm not gonna lie I half expected you to have posted it in the Iheanacho, Ndidi and January threads in Transfer Talk too.

There's always one

Don't be ridiculous Raj. One is a deeply complicated and serious political and cultural issue that tears families, communities and lives apart. The other is a little row in the middle east.

Caramel Wafers are an absolutely world class snack to be perfectly honest. I was going to say I'm amazed it's not 100% but then I looked at what sort of weird degenerate would vote for Tea Cakes, saw @Raj's name come up first and thought yeah that figures.

Hold on a minute....

There can only be one.

Ours have been ongoing for like seven months at this point. No fvcking clue when it'll finally be agreed but it's gonna come with some hefty lump sum.

I mean it's not like roaming cats are a new phenomena tbf

I read that paper earlier when I asked and unless I misunderstood the conclusion was "we have no idea what impact it's having, someone should check?" They just give some guesstimate numbers. Again, literally the RSPB don't even think it's a problem.

One of my favourite English folk songs. Love it. Probably my old man's favourite nall.

Daggers vs Finners, the culture war nobody asked for or wanted.

Honest question, is there actually evidence for this in the UK at all? I hear people bang on about it in Australia and the US where I do understand to an extent. But I'm genuinely unsure what endangered UK wildlife populations are earnestly under threat from domestic cats? Or, conversely, are a significant threat to domestic cats? From the Grauniad: Just sounds like the sort of thing the Jeremy Clarksons (who surprise, surprise, hates cats) of this world can moan about to blame someone other than the farmers. I find people that "hate" any animals to be weird af to be honest (like, weirder than @Daggers normally is), especially people that seem to have to passionately hate either cats or dogs arbitrarily like the two are at some sort of war. Btw I've just gone to tag @Daggers and realised @Daggers. exists. What is this shenanigans.

Also, the gall of Braverman for claiming to have begged the Prime Minister to "stem the rising tide of racism" is fvcking sensational.

This for me makes it all the more baffling that people take any pride in it whatsoever.

Not being "woke" isn't problematic. You don't need to "be woke." Like I said, personally, I don't think I am all that much particularly (although I suspect the anti woke folk would disagree.) I don't care if you don't care about trans rights, black lives, or any other attempted culture war. But being anti-woke, however, is something very different. Being anti-woke is a quite odious dog whistle and I have never, ever, ever heard a single person identify as anti-woke that wasn't dangerously far right. As for all of your "oh boo hoo they want to rename my cricket stadium" shit, fvck off. There doesn't need to be a government department set up to decide this shit, one way or another, it's the court of public opinion that are deciding. There's not some LiBeRaL wOkE aGeNdA at work attacking your sport for having a history of being objectively racist and pointing out that, hey, maybe major historic slave owning families don't need a stand named after them. It's just people. Normal people. Public opinion, the opinion of the majority, is just changing. That's what truly terrifies the far right wing, that's what truly terrifies the "anti woke", they like to paint themselves as the silent majority, they like to think they're "common sense", they like to pretend they're talking for all of the working class. Nope. They're an increasingly shrinking fringe and the "big conspiracy" that's out to get them is just Millennials and Gen Z getting older and gaining voting and purchasing power. Politicians and Capitalists alike now both have to pay attention to their opinions and they've grown up in a multicultural world where multiculturalism HASN'T failed. It's made consecutive generations of mostly progressive egalitarians who are more than happg to hold people accountable for terrible opinions and behaviour. ItS pC gONe MaD. Nope, it's just the consequences of your actions.

I thought this was a joke. I've actually had to go and look it up. She really is tasked with "leading the government's anti-woke agenda." I'm not being funny here but, this isn't America, I genuinely think being that brazen about an appointment that is literally about perpetuating hate and stirring up culture wars should be enough to force Sunak to resign. I'm not joking, I'm not exaggerating and I don't mean it in any sort of "PC gone mad", "cancel culture", "leftist snowflake!" sense. But being anti-woke literally means being pro-hatred. It's literally the political position (if you can call it that, I'd argue it's got nothing to do with actual politics) of demagogue bigots with no policy, just rabble rousing on hate. "Anti-woke" is literally, not figuratively-literally, literally-literally just a dog whistle for ACTUAL fascism. And I say this as someone that doesn't even consider themselves actively "woke." I absolutely get it, the white, middle class, bohemian liberal types acting like biological sex is an illusion and trying to cancel everyone that suggests maybe biologically male convicted predators of women who identify as trans shouldn't be locked in a prison with women? Those people are annoying, they're a tiny fringe minority, but they're annoying. Sure. They're also completely irrelevant. You don't need a Minister to "lead an agenda" against them. What does that even mean? And what exactly does the office consider woke? Because I strongly suspect it'll be more than just trans rights. It'll be climate change, it'll be race relations, it'll be immigration. They get rid of Suella Braverman for over (goose) stepping one too many times, they bring back David Cameron to make them look a bit more centrist and normal and then... they create a position to tackle wokeness!? WHAT THE FVCK IS THIS GOVERNMENT DOING??? "Common Sense Minister" - this is the pratt that said COVID lock downs were "communism." COMMON FVCKING SENSE???

One day I swear we'll be able to go a whole season without having to be reminded of Roy fvcking Essandoh.

@Zear0 your point about BG3 being a genre game is probably why I can't appreciate Spider Man, I just don't give a fvck at all about either Spider Man the character or any of the Spider Man games, just not for me in the absolute slightest. I'm going to trust it's a great game because every Spider Man fan (that isn't a raging incel) has gone crazy for it. I'd give it bonus marks for actually annoying said incels, too (ShE LoOkS LiKe a MaN - what fvcking men do you know!?) For me it's just BG3 vs TOTK both in terms of which games I'd personally give it to AND which games I think it will rightly come down to being against. I share your thoughts on which should win in that TOTK is ultimately a lot more of the same, its not really new now, I'd consider it almost a travesty if it won because whilst I don't like the "70 dollar DLC" moans (because I think it's big enough to warrant recognition as a game in its own right) it is kinda BOTW 1.5 isn't it really? Seems cheeky letting Nintendo win two Best Game Awards for basically the same game. But as a massive CRPG fan (its literally my number 1 genre, I grew up in the 90s as a massive Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, Fallout, et all fan) I cannot stress enough how All-Time-Great BG3 is. What it's accomplished in terms of gameplay, story telling, characterisation, everything, is just unbelievably good. Its near enough impossible to make a game that perfect. I appreciate CRPGs aren't for everyone - in fact I'd say they're pretty niche - but the fact BG3 has had such broad appeal despite that is an immense credit. Its gotta be BG3 man.

Got given a free copy of Alan Wake 2 with my new laptop, skim read a few reviews and the premise and thought it sounded pretty good. Wish I'd paid attention to the fact it's fvcking Remedy. This might be an unpopular opinion and I might be on my own here but fvck me I can't be doing with Remedy Entertainment. Holy pretentiousness batman. Sam Lake has so many good ideas but the man thinks he's a genius which has two really ugly side effects. The first is that his work ends up being overly masturbatory and self indulgent. I could forgive this to a point, I mean I'm occasionally a little bit pretentious myself (chortle) and I don't really mind things that are a bit up their own arse in small doses. But the other side effect of thinking you're a genius is seeing the rest of the world as idiots. This can manifest itself in a few different ways but with Remedy games it means hideously over explaining everything. I appreciate I've only sat and played the first couple of hours and it's obviously going to start off a bit tutorial-y but christ alive does this game think everyone playing it is thick. It has no respect for your intelligence as the player, it has to over explain and point out every single clue with huge being neon signs and a constant running commentary from the players just in case you might blink and miss any of their amazingly clever content. This makes for a hideously boring detective game. I mean what detecting to I need to do? What problem solving is there when the game just states the obvious solidly. And it's got the same problem Control does. We came up with this great story with loads of depth and we're really proud of ourselves but we spent the whole time writing the narrative and forgot we were supposed to make a playable game as well. It's so dull. Like every time I find something I've got to go back to my MiNd PlAcE to put it on the board and then talk about it and read about it "I found some chewing gum, the killer must like chewing gum, who chews gum I wonder? I should look out for people chewing gum. Here's a list of people that chew gum I should stick all their photos on the wall" holy fvcking shit does its own gameplay ruin its own pacing. Why is this a game of the year nominee on everyone's list? Do people really like it or are they just pretending to because as with Control it sets itself up to look clever so people are just too embarrassed to admit they didn't like it lest someone calls them thick and accuses them of not getting it?

I want it to be extremely clear that this is a condemnation of Boris and not a defence of Cameron but BJ is an objectively worse human being in terms of his character. That might be like picking between venereal diseases but still.

I would never say that Davie.

Well the former two political editors of the BBC have been Tories with very right wing politics, LK herself allegedly extremely so. In fairness to Chris Mason, his cards are so close to chest politically speaking that some of his oldest friends have no idea how he votes. So maybe that's a positive step. But given he was rubber stamped by Hardcore Johnsonite ex banker Richard Sharp (not to be confused with heroic officer of the people Richard Sharpe) to take the top job out of almost nowhere and the BBC's handling of some significant recent events has been, erm, well awkward to say the least I'm not sure he's doing a lot for complete impartiality.

You joke but like...

The BBC's write up of Braverman reads like a fvcking tribute and the Tories still want to convince people it's a left wing news organisation? Christ alive. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67137926 Oh she was head girl and so impressive! She's a fvcking fascist, get out of her arse.