MonkeyTennis?

I really like Amble, and it has an absolutely excellent seafood restaurant. Good choice.

I'm not sure its widely known, but the family stand has been shrunk down - its only blocks P2 and P3 now. Technically, if anyone from the kop wants to relocate to P or P1, right next to the away supporters, they can.

The stop-start nature of Rugby and Cricket mean that use of video to assist and confrim decisions generally works, and enhances the game. However, the free flowing nature of football is different, and VAR introduces more problems than it solves - not just in terms of decisions, but also in terms of the pace and format of the game.

Can't say I agree that the club aren't interested in creating a better atmosphere. In the last two years they have made the clappers voluntary, created the singing section, got rid of the goal music, brought in WYS before kick off - all things we have wanted on here. There's more to do, definitely, but rearranging whole blocks in the stadium is a mammoth task and I can understand why the appetite might not be there ATM.

Whisper it, but the atmosphere in the family stand has been alright all season too - It's never going to be properly raucous, but it's vastly better than the West stand. The leaving early sometimes annoys me (partly because of where I sit) but I do get it when people have younger kids.

Well, if you can get it for 'free' via Gamepass, Lies of P gives a passable sense of what From Games are like, but if you were thinking of spending actual money, go for Elden Ring. Its just a much bigger, much richer and much more rewarding experience.

Lies of P is OK, but its a fairly basic imitation of the Souls games. Elden Ring is, by contrast, exactly the masterpiece everyone says it is. Go for it.

While I wouldn't vote for Sunak in a million years, and I think he is a complete lame duck, I can't deny that he does have a kind-of CBBC presenter type energy. This morning Starmer had lots of opportunities to give human answers, but he kept delivering these machine tooled, very obviously rehearsed lines. That's fine. I understand why, I want competence, I'm not interested in the cult of personality, I want leadership that can actually deliver, not this crazy 'Announce policies to appeal to the raging right, and then do nothing' approach which the Tories have cultivated over the last few years. I want to like Starmer, and I want other people to vote for him. I have no doubt he would be a vastly better leader than any of the shambles we have experienced since the Tories got in. But to win, leaders need to connect with people and describe the world in a way that makes sense to them - especially if they are in opposition, because its really hard to change people's voting habits. I'm in my forties and we have only had a change in the governing party twice in my lifetime. For me, Starmer still needs something more to put this in the bag.

Watching Keir Starmer on Breakfast: I'm a Labour voter, I'm going to vote for him, I think the Tories are an appalling shambles, but I can't deny that Starmer lacks something - charisma, a spark of character, something. It's infuriating.

One of the good things about being in the championship, beyond steamrollering over other clubs week-in week-out, is that Todd Boehly and all the other members of the nasty gang don't pay any real attention to this league, so even if Maresca maintains this trajectory, he will likely stay under the radar of the big clubs for a while at least. Personally, I think he would need to actually achieve something before there is a risk of losing him - something bigger than taking us up, because I think a lot of people out there assume its a given.

Now play him tonight and give him the captain's armband. That would be some zen-level trolling.

I would guess that Katherine Ryan's comments last year, promoted reporters to start looking in more detail into this, and building a story.

I always think it was interesting that, no matter how well he played for us, we never really had a song for Maddison. Not sure if it says something about us or him though.

Counterpoint: I hate working from home. I'm not sure whether I am more or less productive (not sure it matters) but I am definitely more tetchy and unhappy by the end of the day.

Got tickets for this on Saturday and Kylie etc at Victoria Park on the Sunday! It's going to be a big weekend.