MakemineVanilla

But surely, by othering the unwoke you are denying their humanity, which makes you unwoke?

That's all very well but try saying that to a disappointed fan in a piss-corner at Villa Park.

I was pleased with his performance against Wolves, which showed he is learning to adapt his game to the ways and means of Emery. After watching Villa in the Premier League, the Championship now seems rather gungho by comparison. He'll have to learn new habits and he's showing progress already.

The title of the thread seems to invite confessions of existential angst and regret, but isn't life always about moving on, as Shakespeare famously put it? We all know that football is total bollocks but hey, seeing Brentford equalise when Man U think "it's all over", does provide the odd consolation.

Moreno is having a miserable time and it seems that teams are closing him down quicker, which means he's getting less space to operate in. No doubt the gaffer will tell him that, if the cross isn't on be sure not to lose possession. Emery's gestures suggested he thinks he's being too predictable.

If you had filmed it you could have called it, Missionary Impossible! There's bound to be a sequal.

I make no moral judgement about people's personal choices; working your nuts off to buy an asset you will have to maintain and which someone else will get to realise, should not be considered more virtuous than buying a Ford Capri, or otherwise enjoying yourself. Chomsky is of the opinion that house purchase was encouraged by the state because people with mortgages tend not to go on strike; an opinion I have heard echoed by several of my bosses. Thatcher's expressed dream of a property-owning democracy was code for the exact same thing. Selling off council houses was probably meant to achieve the same outcome - creating a docile insecure workforce with fewer political choices. I would also suggest that the diminishing shelf-life of relationships these days, makes renting a more sensible option.

What I was getting at, was whether Gen Z-ers who are trying to get on the housing ladder have greater sense of entitlement, when it comes to leisure and consumption, than previous generations. For me personally, I had to work through my phase of fancy holidays and buying crap, before I could accumulate enough for a deposit on something absolutely minimal. All my furniture was from junk shops and my vehicle was based on the logic of bangernomics.

Back in the day, I knew a young couple with two kids, who were buying an ordinary semi in Great Barr: he worked two jobs and she worked nights in a factory. Would that be considered beyond the pale these days?

40% of UK pensioners are living in poverty. Tory MP David Willets wrote a book called The Pinch, which was an attempt to make a case to shaft the boomer generation. He basically framed boomers as a kulak class, his party could target for benefit cuts. Definitely an instance of the politics of envy, his party claimed to despise. I think the problem is that the media tend to frame boomers as all having moved into the property-owning middle-class, and forget that the vast majority did unskilled jobs, which paid very little money, and didn't provide the luxury of a final-salary pension. These are the people who would have been made unemployed during Thatcher's jobs cull.

I think this offers a fair summation of the death of the post-war consensus:

Superb tonight - a perfect lesson in how to play it simple.

Don't worry, if Labour get in, Assisted Dying will become available. Starmer is a big fan apparently - it's the first time he can say he has a cure for poverty and mean it.

England played some quality football but never seem to run out of donkeys at the back and lack quality in front of goal. Toney took his penalty superbly but he missed enough chances to remind us that England without Kane are very much a blunt instrument. Chilwell was very poor.

40% of people over 65 have a limiting long-term illness or disability (4.5 million), which is expected to rise to 6 million by 2030. Most of the people I know who carry on working, mostly in retail, after they qualify for a pension, only do it because the combination of both a wage and a state pension add up to the best income they've ever had. Make "double-dipping" illegal and the incentive is removed; experienced workers are lost. As the man said, if you want your kids to visit you when you are old, make sure they know you have a few bob salted away!

You might be right:

I think the main problem for the younger generation will be the lowering of their standard of living due to the sacrifices resulting from the move to a Carbon Neutral economy. The boomers tried a bit of minimalism voluntarily when they went through their hippie phase but had the luxury of changing their minds. Whether Gen Z will have the same luxury, remains to be seen. Every generation has a problem they have to solve or deal with, whether it is actual Nazis, the imminent threat of nuclear annihilation, or environmental catastrophe.

Litotes, old chap, litotes!

It sounds like Wales is getting special treatment, as they are also repairing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. The engineer claimed that the joints are sealed with "welsh flannel", which I can quite believe.

I am reading a Kissinger biography and it really is very chastening. While we are arguing about who is the nicest person, the confabulating geriatric or Orange man, the big wheels are probably discussing which cities they would willingly sacrifice (30m people), in a "limited" nuclear exchange with the Ruskis. I think I'll stick with the trivia.

Yesterday's team-selection looked like your typical occasion when the England committee decide to hand out a load of token caps. This is politically astute because if they lose the manager can claim to have tried other players, which justifies his actual preferred selection. There were just too many new caps in the team for players who might have convinced the media of their worthiness but have failed to convince the fans. New caps deserve to be introduced in a stronger team than last night. The Brazilians and the referee just wanted it more. Even so, it will be interesting to see if Kane and Saka are fit enough to turn out for their clubs. PS Watkins didn't get any decent service and Konsa did brilliantly against Vinícius.

I don't think the England team created a single chance, or I can't recall it.

The leadership are a bunch of grifters, who seem to be using the Meloni tactic of coming on strong to get noticed and will gradually move towards the centre, depending on the polling.

Anyone who got a touch of the ring-twitters when Watkins went off against Ajax, will have realised why Rogers was signed. He was affordable and creates competition between himself and Duran, and obviously the other way round. Like most forwards, he doesn't know how to tackle. He's not ready yet but neither was David Platt in his first season. If Emery and his coaches can improve Bailey they can certainly improve Rogers.