KentVillan

So that was in April. Since April, TSLA has moved from 381 USD per share to 179 USD per share now. So halve all the TSLA stuff. And the other shares he owns are also in the frothy VC-funded innovation space, so similar mark down on all of that. Then factor in that TWTR is a massive cash sink because of the inflated price he paid and the way it was financed (plus no doubt some massive lawsuits on the horizon, and no sign of him being able to generate profit in the near future). The "richest man in the world" will still be very rich indeed, but he's evaporated an enormous chunk of his wealth in the space of a few months, and much of it can't easily be converted to cash because it will risk accelerating TSLA's stock price collapse. It's a nasty spiral that could still get worse. Nobody's suggesting he ends up on the streets, but TWTR may well end up going bust to protect the rest of his empire from haemorrhaging money. That's when he goes out with his begging bowl to Saudi / China / etc I think. Just because he's rich doesn't mean he has any qualms about getting other people to bail him out. (Edit: and yes TSLA prices take into account the stock split, so the pre-split prices are adjusted to reflect current split)

Yeah and that created the space for Griezmann.

Dean Smith isn’t getting the England job I love him, but he’s struggled to win over most of the fans at Norwich. He would get annihilated by the press and England fans within weeks. (And yes, I agree, tactically he would be better than Southgate, but international football is a weird juggling act where you have to appease the tabloid press and keep all the football tourists happy.)

I've seen Liam and Noel live separately (Liam supporting the Stones, Noel at Glasto), but never had a chance to see Oasis. Probably wouldn't go out of my way to buy tickets for either of them, and never bothered with their solo albums. The thing about the old Oasis live videos on YouTube is how out of time it all sounds. Liam's always singing half a beat ahead. Massive mess, but still looks fun. There's a few old vids of Slide Away and Supersonic that look epic.

They massively ran out of ideas after the first 2 albums, got carried away with their own sense of self-importance (and probably tons of cocaine) and became a parody of themselves. But if you aren't too precious about musical innovation or lyrics that make sense, they had an amazing energy and a huge sound

I think this is the key point. It all makes a lot more strategic sense for Putin if you assume Ukraine will just roll over and NATO will be afraid to intervene (which it is btw, in terms of direct intervention). If Ukraine rolls over and becomes part of Russia, then the relatively paltry resources on offer are irrelevant, since Putin has gained a huge amount of territory and flexed his muscles vs NATO. What has ruined all his plans is none of this panning out as expected, and turning into a hugely costly mistake. Then he has to create new justifications and rationalisations, and goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.

Yep, not always London, but usually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_directions#Up_and_down

And Tesla stock is down 55% this year, with plenty more room to tumble. Very wealthy people can still end up taking on more debt than they can manage, and then have a moment of reckoning. Not saying he’s going to end up homeless on the streets, but think he could stand to lose most of his wealth over the next couple of years. He’s in a much more precarious position than someone like Warren Buffett.

This is mostly locked up in Tesla shares, which he can’t sell without tanking the price - plus the financing situation for the Twitter purchase will eat into this very quickly indeed. His situation is more precarious than it looks.

Probably not, but they could pump cash into Tesla or one of his other ventures to help keep him afloat.

Christ. Just thinking how thin that ice would have been, the weather’s been nowhere near cold enough for long enough to freeze up a lake properly. Hope the ones they’ve pulled out alive are ok.

Someone told me ages ago that “up to London” is the correct expression wherever you are in the country, but yeah I always say “up” for north, “down” for south, and “over” for anything else. Google suggests that in the early days of the railways, the UP line went to London and the DOWN line went from London to wherever. Something to do with it being the capital, and I guess the busiest lines tending to go into or out of London. People who self consciously say it like this so that they can smugly correct others are of course massive losers.

@sidcowwas right

Anyone else noticing replies are getting displayed in the wrong order now? Really looks like the predicted cascade of bugs is starting to kick in - I guess as traffic has surged around the World Cup, and no doubt will get heavier over Christmas as more and more people in the US and Northern Europe are stuck indoors. Should be entertaining. Elon Musk is a reprehensible man, isn’t he. Just a completely juvenile worldview. Would love it if he found himself in a devastating financial hole after this… although got a feeling he’ll get bailed out by Saudis / Chinese

Think it was just once in 2016? And was in the heat of the moment, quickly changed his mind. The other time I think you're talking about he basically took a couple of games off in 2018, and there was speculation that he might retire from international football. It's an odd thing to focus on.

I've enjoyed slamming Southgate on here for years, but I really don't think he was massively culpable for what happened vs. France. Things I think he got wrong: Too passive in the first half with our pressing and passing We had the deeper bench and fresher legs, and should have been running our players into the ground for 90 mins. Our players didn't look "spent" at the end of the game, which to me says they were playing within themselves. The Sterling for Saka sub was odd, but not a gigantic mistake. We should have thrown the kitchen sink at them a bit earlier. Things I think he got right: Starting XI and formation was basically spot on Mbappe had very little influence on the game His faith in Maguire was not an obviously smart move before the tournament, and took courage from him to stick with that choice We were clearly the better side over 90 mins The idea that he's as big a fraud as Sherwood is small time bitchy nonsense. Would Southgate be any good as a PL manager? Probably not, but international football is a different kettle of fish, and the fact all the players speak so highly of him suggests he's doing something right. I don't really see any benefit to binning him, because it's hard to imagine who would want to come in who'd be any good. Foreign managers always get done by the press, and there aren't any good English managers. He's mediocre, but so were Deschamps, Löw, Scolari, Jacquet, etc when they won the World Cup. If England had a manager like Lippi or Del Bosque sitting around waiting to complete their legacy, then fine, give them the job, but we don't. There are no obvious candidates. Just let Southgate crack on. It doesn't even matter that much. We'll be watching Villa again in a couple of weeks.

Fair enough, I disagree that the win wasn’t there for us. To me it looked well within our grasp, and it just wasn’t our night. Problem with international football is you just don’t get many chances at the big prizes. It’s less meritocratic than club football, where you can win 10 trophies in 3 years. A lot of it is just luck. I was all out to get Southgate in 2018 and 2020 (21) but this time I have a lot more sympathy for him, as I think he has improved a fair bit and is much less to blame this time round

Look, I could quibble with some of the subs, but nothing Southgate did tonight was inexplicable. Mount only wins that penalty by making a great run into the box… yes of course it’s a stupid foul, but still. You’re making out we lost that game because of huge mistakes by Southgate. I can see areas of improvement, but nothing particularly dramatic. And I say this as someone who thought Southgate was absolute toilet. But this tournament he’s been fine. Be amazed if the FA find anyone better. International football is a **** mess and no world class manager in his prime wants to manage a national team. So be careful what you wish for.

Mount who won the penalty? I don’t think we were playing for set pieces anyway, it’s literally just a normal feature of football that you try to win fouls etc. People have lost the plot.

We lost because a bit of luck didn’t go our way and we didn’t execute in key moments. I think France’s first goal should have been saved. And it was an obvious foul on Saka in the build up. Clear pen on Kane not given (assuming it was in the box?) Agree bringing Sterling on was odd, especially as Saka was causing them huge problems. I think we were too passive and cautious, but ultimately just one of those days. Could easily have gone our way and everyone is lauding Southgate as a genius for neutralising Mbappe. Whatever. Hope France get beat by Morocco and we get some good footage of Mbappe crying

Strongly disagree with this analysis. For once it’s hard to really see much wrong with Southgate’s decision making, besides probably telling the players to be too passive with their pressing and passing in the first half. It’s delusional to think Maddison or Grealish would have made the difference here.

I’ve never been a Southgate fan, but that was his best tournament as manager. We were unlucky tonight and although there were clear areas of criticism for Southgate (lack of pressing in first half, unadventurous passing) he also largely neutralised Mbappe, who pregame was seen as the main threat. He’s developed a slightly braver streak now with the formation, if not with the passing style… but maybe that will come. Hard to see who would actually do a better job than him because the FA and the tabloid press and weirdo England “fans” are such an unholy alliance, who will try to ruin any manager in record time. Southgate’s ability to avoid that is his main strength. Tactically he’s mediocre yea; but maybe international football *is* tactically mediocre.

The thing with Emi is I’m not convinced he’s actually *that* good a keeper for a league campaign… certainly not up there with Ederson, Alisson, Courtois, etc. Arguably even Ramsdale has been better than him this season. But put him in a tournament scenario and he just has something special about him. Brilliant in a penalty shoot out, and brilliant in high pressure situations. Doesn’t shy away, and his teammates know they can trust him.

And FWIW, after signing multiple players from Belgium in recent years, I think the lesson we learnt was that you need to be absolutely dominating that league to have a chance of stepping up to the Premier League. Benteke was a 1 in 2 striker in Belgium, and his scoring rate was accelerating just before he joined Villa. And he was dominant in the air. Wesley’s return of about 1 in 3 goals, combined with his lack of aerial ability, in hindsight made him a pretty bizarre signing. A big man who isn’t good in the air simply isn’t a sensible signing, unless he’s very quick and absolutely banging in the goals. Maybe we were seduced by his young age, and the fact there was chatter around Europe about him as a hot prospect, and someone got suckered by a clever agent or something. The interesting thing is how many journos compared him with players like Benteke as an aerially dominant player, based purely on assumption. People look at him and assume he will be an absolute beast in the air, but just watch him for 10 mins and you’ll see very quickly that he isn’t. A real lack of homework on that deal, and it nearly cost Dean Smith his job, as we were looking for a replacement for Tammy Abraham as lone striker in a 4-3-3. (Tammy is a much better player, with good all round attributes to lead the line, as you can see from his subsequent career). I’m still mystified by it and would love to find out the back story. I really wanted him to succeed and feel he could have been an *okay* player hovering around lower PL / upper Championship level, but he wasn’t at all the right fit for our team, and we had our pants pulled down on the price.

Christ, just found this. Horrible flashbacks to a few things I thought I’d managed to forget. His weird running style, his constantly angry body language, and his mistimed headers. I’m not sure how much of this you can blame on the injury tbh. I think there is a team somewhere with a style and a manager who suit him, who can get him playing a bit more in line with the Belgium days. He’s obviously good enough to play professional football. But it may be at quite a low level now. Such a weird player. You do see little flashes in the clip of what he can do receiving the ball under pressure and playing a neat pass, but he doesn’t even seem to be doing that more than 50% of the time. I’d still fancy him to tuck away a chance in the box, but yes very glad he doesn’t play for us anymore.