Mark Albrighton

IF they fail to beat Blackburn at the sty on Tuesday I might consider the possibility of them subsequently, briefly, dropping into the bottom three in the coming weeks as they then have 4 of the top 8 (Sunderland, Ipswich, Southampton and Hull). Although my spidey sense is telling me they’ll fluke a favourable result somehow among those and besides the others down there will no doubt fail to capitalise even if they do lose all of them.

I know that Taylor Swift exists and that she may or may not attend the Super Bowl on time.

There’s this trope that men on dating apps say they are 6ft + on their profile and when the woman meets them for a drink it transpires they are more like 5’9”. So there is the perception that men lie about their height. I’m sure that this does happen. Problem is, when I go on the apps (currently I am not) I have the worry that when I put my true height of 5’8”, potential suitors will think I’m lying about that. I have previously gone to the trouble of using up a text prompt to confirm readers that I am indeed that height and to offer some reassurance, remind them that no man ever has pretended to be 5’8”. This oh so self aware and self deprecating comment had some mild success. Fortunately, I have plenty of genuine character defects that will be unappealing in lieu of lying about my height.

Oh yeah, in fairness I don’t think it was a one size fits all approach to reviewing a “difficult second album” (Oasis’ second album received a muted response from them). But in Bloc Party’s case (and a few other bands of the time) I think they went fully on board with it to the extent that they wouldn’t give them a bad review for the follow up. I distinctly remember at the time thinking they will defacto receive a positive review, the darlings that they were for a couple of years. It was unthinkable to me that they wouldn’t.

I’m half tempted to revisit it today to see if you are being a little harsh too Like I say, my memory is the singles are catchy, the music elsewhere is reasonably strong (kinda ambient in places - mainly I remembering “On” and “Kreuzberg” in that regard), but the last hearing I came away thinking that the lyrics were a bit, well, rubbish.

I like some dogs. I dislike others. Although the dogs I dislike I often dislike their owners just as much.

It’s not that uncommon though is it? The NME or whomever rave incessantly about the debut album, saying that this is THE band for next 10 years and they follow up with a not so good second album and the NME can’t really slate it, cos then they’ll look like dicks for proclaiming how good they think the band are. So they have to sort of convince themselves that actually it is good. I used to read the music pages on Channel four teletext (Hi kids), and they were very muted on Silent Alarm, they were basically only musical criticism that weren’t in awe of that album. But they really liked AWITC

Just to piggy back on the on topic stuff in off topic…I didn’t watch it last night. To be honest I didn’t know it was on telly until about 30 minutes before, but still even knowing that, I just wasn’t interested in watching. Maybe I had a sense. Don’t know, in a bit of a weird place with it at the moment. I want them to do well obviously, but I’m feeling oddly detached. Recently I’ve been wondering if I’m a more active follower when things aren’t going well (in general). I’m finding the circular arguments more tiresome than I usually do. Probably one for the football fandom thread.

At the time I remember thinking A Weekend in the City was the equal of Silent Alarm. But years later I gave it another listen and…hmmm. It’s alright, quite like the music as a whole, some of the lyrics I find a bit clunky. The singles are catchy.

Weirdly, I’ve been listening to them quite a bit recently. Not sure what’s prompted it. I only own the first couple of albums and that ep (“the answer” is really good tune - the crescendo, love it). I just sort of stopped at the third one. Couldn’t tell you why, interest just petered out. I met Kele once at Telford train station of all places. Very unexpected.

Fwiw, for those who will think “Yeah, go on Rishi, say what I’m thinking” I think there will be an equal number of people who would come away thinking “well, I don’t quite get the whole trans thing, but it’s pretty poor for him to say that with a grieving parent in attendance”. They won’t suddenly be pro trans, but on a human level they’ll think he’s a dickhead. But then most people probably won’t see that exchange.

No Brighton v Palace Thread voided.

Mentioned it before in the film thread, but sod it, as it’s being discussed here - Jason and the Argonauts, love the film, it has real nostalgic value for me. It’s only relatively recently that I realised that the initial villain, the guy at the start who sends Jason off on his voyage…literally nothing happens to him. There’s no comeuppance or anything. The film just forgets him and replaces him with the guy who has the fleece. Maybe that’s actually better and it should be a little messy and unfinished. It kinda feels like if it was made now, they’d have to tie it back to the start of the film somehow.

I remember there being a spate of sensitive men singing and strumming songs in a Hey ladies, I’m a sensitive man type way back in the mid 00’s, listen to this radio friendly, bland ballad. Jack Johnson, Paulo Nutini, James Morrison, James Blunt, lest we forget... All of them were “Oh he did that song you heard when you went to visit your parents and they had Radio 2 on…”. I’m sure that sensitive man strumming bland sensitive song style t’was always ever thus, but I just remember it being a particularly prominent then for a year or two.

It would be nice if when people say “Of course we’d have him back” or similar, they’d give some indication as to how much they’d realistically want Villa to pay. Would I want us to buy him for £75m and make him our top earner by a clear distance. Nah. Would I want him back for £25m and on wages that are roughly in line with the current salaries. Yes. I know in reality it would be somewhere in between, but this notion of getting him back…the fee would be a rather important factor in making my mind up either way in this hypothetical situation. For what it’s worth, I think the club and Grealish have moved on. I don’t see him returning and that’s ok.

Yeah. While he was playing. It’s unlucky to crash into the post. But the odds of you doing so are more likely if you’re actually playing than they are if you’re sat on the bench. Like the vast majority of injuries. And you’re more likely to be on the pitch to sustain an injury if you’re an important player. Which is why it so often is one of our better/more important players, because they play more. It’s in answer to the OP about why it always seems to be our more important players. It’s irritating. It’s just not supernatural. Plus I’d say at least around 6 or 7 of the starting 11 would be deemed important. The higher number of important players we have, the higher the chance of injury.

At the risk of sounding rather simplistic, probably because they tend to play more. Therefore more chance of injury. Chambers isn’t likely going to get injured while not playing.

If he was back for Spurs, I’d be relatively content. Man Utd aside, Fulham, Forest and Luton wouldn’t be the three games I’d be most concerned about him missing.

As an aside, and this is down to everyone’s least favourite Antipodean tv artist, I can’t look at the island of Ireland without thinking “koala bear”.

I have (and watched) The Story of Ireland, a five part BBC four documentary by Fergal Keane giving an overview of the history. Despite having seen it, I still have the intention to watch it again just because of how intricate it is. I would read about it, but I find I struggle where I’m left thinking “Wait, who is this fella we’re talking about?” and I need a picture to remind me who they’re on about.

Yeah Man City cheating their 8th title (or whatever it is) is much the same as them winning their previous titles. It’s utterly meaningless and quite the non story. It’s rote. The Times New Roman of league winners.

I think the idea is that’s it somehow better to have the more difficult opposition a bit more spread out over the fixtures, as opposed to one after the other. Like somehow the weight of losing three difficult games that carries over and increases the chance of losing the fourth, less difficult game. <shrugs shoulders> I don’t know if there is any true merit in that thought. Fwiw if I was given the option of having Citeh, Arsenal and Liverpool all in a row or separated over a couple of months, I’d probably choose the latter. But it’s a gut feeling more than anything.

Fifteen games. Pessimistic mind, let’s say we don’t get anything from Citeh, Arsenal and Liverpool. Nothing. So that’s 24 points from 12 games to reach 70 (we might need more, I think we will need a couple more, but let’s look at 70). That’s 6 wins and 6 draws. Man Utd, Fulham, Forest, Luton, Spurs, West Ham, Wolves, Brentford, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Brighton and Palace. I look at those and I think we should be getting something from each. It’s just can we turn West Ham away into a win, can we beat Wolves at Villa Park?

If a game has ended 4-4 between anyone, that will probably be the first up. Then its between the Villa game and the Spurs game for second spot. Taking the Villa specs off, I’d be tempted to put Spurs on before as it’s a bit more dramatic and it features two high profile sides while the Villa game is a rout and has one bigger side and one side making a swift departure from the league. I’d go - 1 Saudi game 2 Spurs being spursy game 3 Villa not ruining my weekend game 4 The “explain why this is a rivalry again?” game 5 Burnley 2-2 Fulham game (a bit unfair that this is last, but not much I can do)