Vacamion

Today I learned that presta bike valves exist. When i was growing up tyre valves were all the same valves as cars. Went to pump a tyre and it wasn't working, despite me pumping furiously and getting a sweat on. I had to watch a You Tube video on how to use them

Showing all the league's games in a gameweek is a start, I suppose, but generally, what they offer is still nowhere near enough for what you pay and doesn't reflect viewing habits in 2025 - ie. people generally have a favourite team they want to see every game. As such, their offering is still going to drive punters into the arms of the streamers. And that's before you get into the biased, braindead pundits who haven't done their homework, the shouty screamy commentators, the fetishisation of the big 6 in the Premier and the collective amnesia regarding the oil-money and dictator-money.

I'm very puzzled at an umpire review for fair catch just now that showed it clearly going into the West Indies Keeper's gloves, but the 3rd Umpire gave it not out.

The US President saying during his announcement to the nation he wants to thank God for the attack, because "We love you God" (bit weird), provokes the same feelings as a Mullah on Iranian TV raving about eternal punishment for The Infidels. They are not good feelings.

Palace's first home game of the season sees them welcoming Notts F*rest. That ought to be quite amicable, eh?

I suspect China suffers less with NIMBYs because people don't want to be sent for re-education, and that means they don't have to bury loads of their railway at massive extra cost and delay, to keep the NIMBYs quiet, and of course they have all of that sweet sweet cheap labour. If it were up to me, I'd have compulsorily purchased the land for buttons, imprisoned any protestors, knobbled the Judges and chopped the goolies off any contractor found with their hands in the till, and then High Speed Rail would have been built mostly above ground up to Inverness, across to Holyhead and down to Penzance within 7 years. But I guess people don't want to live in a country like that (ruled by a fatherly dictatorship of the one - me )

You could have told him to check out Belfast or Larkhall the first 2 weeks of July. More "flegs" than you can shake a stick at

Maybe Brezhnev? Can't find a ref, though. The Russians, Chinese and Americans have satellites which focus on detecting the take off plumes of the other powers' ICBMs and sub-based missiles. A good description of the hair-trigger nature of these systems is in Annie Jacobsen's "Nuclear War - a Scenario" which I read earlier this year (it's been that kind of year ) Once these early warning systems detect an attack, or what it thinks is an attack, the leader of, say The USA has about 6 minutes to decide what to do. So glad the Tech Bros were asked to put AI all over the place to save money, and that Big King Don has the nuclear codes and the power to use them.

Yeah, a rambling 79 year old POTUS with online anger issues, supported by a cabal of Christofascists and Billionaires who either want the rapture to happen or are rich enough to have well-prepped bunkers. It all bodes incredibly well. I'm currently reading "6 Minutes to Winter, Nuclear War And How To Avoid It" by Mark Lynas, and (so far) it argues that it's fairly pointless the big nuclear powers having nukes set to launch on a hair trigger, because the resulting Nuclear Winter would last over a decade and kill almost everyone and everything on the planet. It goes into great and indeed terrifying detail about the amount of soot in the atmosphere above cloud level, the resultant decrease in temps and massive extinction of life. Lovely pleasant thought for a Tuesday evening.

Maybe it's the sound balance on the broadcast, but the atmosphere reminds me of when we watched games in the Covid era with the added crowd noise which was like ambient noise in the background. Eerie.

Currently at Scotland v Netherlands, in Glasgow. T20. Scotland set Ned 160. More importantly, we are actually getting some play under very heavy skies. A very pleasant watch.

Pollard missed a fairly regulation kick at goal again...what might have been. I wouldn't blame Cole, who I thought was really unlucky

Giving it away with 50 seconds left appears less than optimal. Still. Heads held high and all that.

What's he supposed to do mid air?

Feels like Bath are trundling towards victory, despite them keeping on dropping the ball. Not brilliantly impressed with the reffing of the breakdown and the scrum.

Pack power

I thought it was just me, tutting and muttering under my breath, like the old man I am.

No. No, I won't be calling it that

Until he makes "United Passions II - This Time It's got Oil Money ", no.

Is that a Glasgow Rangers crest on the Union Jack flag behind the goal with "Leeds Loyal" on it? Very England, that

One of my wife's friends spoke about falling out with someone and then "falling back in" with them, months later. It's a useful turn of phrase I'd never heard before, and I like it.

We're also on at 09:15 tomorrow, 2nd leg playoff away v Watford, May 2013. Yeah, that one.

Makes it much easier to continue hating Spurs.

Good win for Labour in the by-election. People will see Reform coming 3rd and think Scotland has the same Reform issues as England, now. I disagree. It needs to be said that the constituency in question includes some of Scotland's staunchest brit nationalist areas - places where they paint the kerbstones red white and blue and smash the green bits of traffic lights, and are unusually fond of flute playing and marching, so probably the best hunting ground for Reform in the whole of Scotland. It's not a normal constituency. The reaction to Farage from the majority up here remains revulsion.

The running fox and the fox and crop have their place and should feature on our kits, if they decide to put any thought into such things, but the current foxface/cinqfoil badge is bloody brilliant. Hope that they have no plans to change it.