GarethRDR

I have no stake in this as I don't care for either act, but the absolute chutzpah of that.

Dennis Lyxzén in hospital after a heart attack.

I would like to announce the establishment of new party running on a singular-issue manifesto; the immediate criminalisation of any/all discourse pertaining to "goalkeepers shouldn't be beaten at the near post":

No, we're the Villatalk Political Party. The Political Party of VillaTalk are over there [gestures broadly at on-topic].

Eh, I'm less precious about the Alien universe given it's already hit it's nadir (possibly twice over). Might as well take a punt on turning out something better at this point, and it's not like there wasn't already a wealth of (good) material to pull from the likes of the Dark Horse comics; Labyrinth in particular, or the Machiko Noguchi run which is the route the AvP "films" (loosest possible use of that word) could have gone down. Could ultimately be redemption for sacrificing a potentially intriguing Blomkamp effort at the altar of Prometheus, it certainly couldn't be worse than Covenant.

Seven pages is absolute madness. Should never be more than 2, I always thought. Cover at least the last 5 years, include any other experience/skills/qualifications relevant to the role you're applying for, 3 references tops (or "references available on request"), a short personal statement. Can always put "full employment history available on request" if needs be, but only what's germane to the job should really be in there. 7 pages is a portfolio, not a CV, and I'd absolutely be using that as a filter. I did get (and take) the job, though to be fair as it was my previous boss asking me to apply to join their new team in the first instance, it was a largely safe bet from the get-go (as long as I didn't drop my pants in the interview or something akin). It's a sideways move but it does put me into a team that's ring-fenced away from a looming restructure, so it's probably the smart choice (and they are going to try and pop me up to the highest pay step for my particular role, though that's going to ultimately be at the whim of which HR goon is doing the onboarding that day).

Same angle/technique was used for the Alien POV shots in the third act of Alien 3. I am letting myself get dangerously hyped for it, the franchise has been begging for a standalone, stripped-back genre piece and I am mostly confident the director can deliver on that remit. As little mythos/overblown Ridley bollocks as possible would be great.

This is the bit that really pisses me off. I loved the round badge, but I understand why people might want something different; what should have happened, then, given the clear and present remit from the fanbase, is the exploration of a gas-lamp shaped badge (all of which options were presented as part of the fan consultation were vastly superior to what we've wound up with). Essentially the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, Heck (or whomever was ultimately responsible for the current abhorration) then took a shit in said bathtub and said we have to smell it and like it. It's an insulting disregard of the fanbase, and sees us going into what will be our most important/highest profile campaign in decades with a cheap excuse for a badge, one of the most important symbols of this club.

Context, innit. I said at the start of this debacle that a drop-shadow in and of itself is not inherently a good or bad thing, it's simply a design element. It's the execution of it that's key. To take the Chelsea example, they don't have the base issue of a light-coloured element washing out on a light-coloured background; the blue of their lion is already well-defined against the white background of the badge, and though their drop shadow still muddies the outline somewhat, that colour contrast is stark enough that very little definition is lost. Theirs is also helped by additional detailing inside the lion itself, something that our lion is in dire need of (just look at how much better the detailed-lion version of our new badge looked against the version that's being used). Compare that to our badge, we've got a solid block, light yellow lion with no definition on a light blue background, so you are already starting from a lack of contrast; slapping a light grey drop-shadow on that is the graphic design equivalent of using water to put out a chip-pan fire. The lettering alignment thing is a non-starter really, that was always going to need to be a compromise unless we really dug into the minutiae of the kerning and tailoring the font itself to fit, so I don't think anything else is to be done there (I would have preferred the club name at the top, but that's purely personal preference, either is a valid choice). It's been useful to determine who I would and wouldn't trust with crayons and a colouring book.

Bold assumption that there was any.

Whole process has been penny-pinched wherever possible. It's not a rebrand, it's a de-brand.

Friday News Dump.

Any of the other variations in the video would have been fine. We're heading into the CL with a blurry badge on what will inevitably be an utterly mid Adidas template. Wonderful.

It's the one thing the entire transfer system has been missing; formalising dibs.

Stevie G sent a similar message and got "New phone who dis?"