Went to see Ricky Gervais last night as he hit Dublin with his Armageddon tour.  Very funny.  His niche seems to be just how shocking and offensive he can be.  How many people can he upset. He keeps pushing the boundaries to see just how far he can push them.  Once crossed, he pushes again!

After a while you become a little immune to it all.  If you heard some of the things he said in isolation, it would be truly shocking, but when everything is shocking it washes over you to a degree.  Fun night!

Quote from: Nickslikk2112 on July 11, 2023, 04:58:13 PMCycle racing ought to be quite simple. Today was a Dude WTF day! I missed all the fun at the start as well. Would have been nice if they'd kept the Peloton split to force Bardet and Gaudu out of the top 10.
Hopefully the Yates brothers and Pidcock can reclaim the positions they lost.

And just what were WvA and MvdP up to?

Kept forgetting to mention last week about the Giro Donne going on, won by Annemiek van Vleuten, a young whippersnapper of 40!

Bardet and Gaudu are 2 fine cyclists.  Why did you want them to drop out of the top 10?

Pretty sure I know too

This is beginning to look like it could backfire badly on The Sun and Murdoch.

He was probably rubbing his hands with glee with a chance to embarrass The BBC.

I like it. I think Boehly will probably want out if that comes to pass as it will mean (in all probability) that Chelsea have had a terrible season

You have to admire Woods though. His attack was timed superbly.

I'm sure they'll all enjoy thd rest day

You have to wonder about Potter. Considering the disaster he made at Chelsea and the fact that Ze Derbi has made Brighton an even more impressive unit since he was appointed. Brighton's biggest difficulty under Potter was scoring goals. This continued for him when he took over at Chelsea. He may also have had difficulties with managing the egos that come with as big a club as Chelsea. I really think they let Tuchel go too soon. Be interesting to see what Pochettino makes of them. With all the transfer activity they are going to be a completely different team.

A real pity, really thought he was going to do it

Was a little nervous heading out this morning as 9am was slap bang in the middle of a yellow wind warning. I'm sure I've been out in worse without a Met Eireann warning. Nice spin although it was blustery, the sun came out for the second half and it got increasingly warm. Watch battery packed up after 37kms but I noticed within about 4km and switched to strava on the phone.

Not as many weekday spins this week so dropping off the pace a little compared to last month. Planning another 50k tomorrow so shouldn't be too far behind.

On paper Chelsea had one of the strongest squads in the league last year.  And yet they spent most of the season playing like a lower mid table team.  They were atrocious and plenty of the players involved were on as much, if not more, than Havertz.  Of course nothing is guaranteed but Arteta's judgement has proven to be pretty good recently and he has a lot of credit in the bank for last season's performance.  I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

This is a player, after all, who scored the winning goal in last but one Champions League final .  Bear in mind too that Chelsea seemed to insist on playing him as a centre forward which I don't think is his favoured position.

Quote from: David L on July 07, 2023, 10:15:36 AMThe Cabinet Office must hand over all of Boris Johnson's messages, notebooks and diaries to the Covid Inquiry after losing a legal challenge

Weird that Johnson was happy to release them, yet the cabinet office wanted to keep them secret, spending a lot of public money in the process.

Quote from: Matt2112 on July 06, 2023, 11:11:20 AMRice is clearly a good signing - the acquisition of of Havertz baffles me though, a real dud at Chelsea.  Ditto Mount for Salford Quays Utd.

Think of De Bruyne and Salah!

Everyone had a disaster of a season at Chelsea. I imagine both Mount snd Havertz will fare much better away from the toxic atmosphere there.

Rice and Havertz in - looks like Jurrien Timber from Ajax soon to follow and maybe a couple of others too.  Building on a strong squad.  Shaping up to be a good window, and a complete change in transfer strategy from the scrimping and saving (relatively speaking) from a few years ago.

Arsenal can't moan about other teams spending more.  Expectations will rise in accordance with those inflated fees!

Quote from: Matt2112 on July 05, 2023, 08:32:20 AM20 minutes of Radio 4's Today programme this morning giving a snapshot of some of the sh!tshows going on in this nation at the moment:

- an absolute clown of a BBC reporter describing republicans who will be protesting in Edinburgh today as "The King" is handed relics symbolising fabulous wealth and privilege as "nationalists"; WTF??! 

- "Thought For The Day": this almost always is three minutes of pious drivel from a professional believer in the supernatural, but this morning featured a particularly deluded lady who subscribes to Christianity and Buddhism concurrently; WTF??!

- the deeply unimpressive CEO of Ofwat basically simping for water companies but, most annoyingly of all, using a superfluous "So..." at the start of every single answer. AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!

Sounds like you could do with a break from BBC News!     Listen to some music instead!  Less stressful

Very true, The Spanish Basque country is much bigger than its French equivalent both in terms of geographical size and population.  Same is true with Catalonia