I have just had the unparalleled joy of watching The Terminator with my daughter (who had never seen it) and seeing her face do the whole….wait, but if Sarah Connor and Kyle Reiss…. OH MY GOD, KYLE REISS IS JOHN CONNOR’S DAD!…moment. That movie is 42 years old and it’s still blowing minds.

A nasty ear infection left me mostly deaf this week, but this morning a nice man took a miniature vacuum cleaner to me and hauled out a lump of compacted wax the size of a pork scratching. Be grateful that I’m not sharing the picture. Back in the Twitter days, I’d have ruined your brunch by now.

[James Stewart as Odysseus] now listen here, Agamemnon, I'm going home, y'see. You keep your fancy armour, I'm getting off this crummy ol' beach. [Spotting the Cyclops] now here's a curious fella, he's only got one peeper

Southend gifted a 3-1 win at Altrincham, the hosts generously serving up two goalkeeping howlers and a needless red card for our delectation. An encouraging start for Kieron Dyer, though I suspect that tougher challenges await…

DAZN commentators perpetuating the myth that blatting the ball out of play from the kick off is a modern development. “BUT GRAHAM TAYLOR WAS DOING THAT WITH ENGLAND IN THE EARLY 90s!” I shout to my teenage daughter who it now transpires left the room shortly after kick off.

My daughter, having seen the enormous scale of the World Cup this summer, is now aghast at Altrincham vs Southend on DAZN. “This is niche, Dad. This is niche.”

2017. Jazz FM. Wet Tuesday in London. <door buzzes> Me: Hello? Voice: LET ME IN! Me: I can’t. I need to know who you are first. Voice: IT’S WILLIAM FUCKING ORBIT AND I AM FUCKING SOAKING! LET ME IN! <buzzes door> <enter Orbit, like drowned rat> He was lovely though. I made him a cup of tea.

I initially thought that was some sort of long con "propose something hated that I always intended to row back on so that when I suggest the slightly less barmy thing that I actually wanted all along it'll look more reasonable by comparison" thing, but nope, he's just shat in his own nest

Mad that Infantino probably had another 8-12 years of guaranteed VIP life, private jets and proximity-to-power from a role that asked nothing from him save the occasional, ‘let’s have 73 team World Cups/It’s handball if it touches your nose’ pronouncements. And he’s lost it all on this. <beams>

UEFA spokesperson Dietmar Fumm said to reporters "This decision effectively signals that Gianni Infantino is an enemy of world football". tl;dr: FIFA "foe" - Fumm

“Football's future cannot be dictated by the expectations of those whose first duty is to maximise financial return,” really is a hell of a line from the people who brought you The Neverending Group Stage but can we all just let that slide for now?

Tim Crutchley@slownews.bsky.social · 2w ago

it's very ... but wait, you are the Champions Leagues guys tho right?

I honestly never thought they’d have the balls to do this. I’m really quite impressed.

Nathan Kalman-Lamb@nkalamb.bsky.social · 2w ago

The full statement from UEFA is remarkable. Members vow not to participate in FIFA competitions unless the entire proposal is scrapped and assurances are made it is gone for good.

If you are playing Crazy Golf with small children you are honour-bound to allow other, more capable groups to ‘play through’ and to not do so is the action of a monster.

Zach Weinersmith@zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?

The worst thing about this latest FIFA wretchedness is that no-one will actually do anything. They never do. But at some point in the future the younger audience, a smart and cynical generation swamped in entertainment options will drift from this hopelessly bloated, compromised and broken sport

Obviously, I disagree with the findings (I really, really didn’t enjoy this bloated, grasping and ghastly World Cup) but this is a good read. 1998, 1986 and 2014 are probably the top three of my lifetime.

James Tyler@jamestylerespn.bsky.social · 2w ago

In 2022, @espnbillc.bsky.social ranked every World Cup and published our highly scientific rankings. Today, we’re running it back: credit to Bill for the reworked analytics and the 2026 write up, and for my money one of our World Cup MVPs this summer www.espn.com/soccer/story...

This is great and rightly recognises the brilliance of Trouble In The Message Centre which always felt like it belonged on a different album.

The Quietus@thequietus.com · 2w ago

Ian Wade, Charlie Frame, Mic Wright, Jeremy Allen, Wyndham Wallace, Scott McKeating, Ben Myers, Stevie Chick, Jamie Bowman, Tim Burrows and Luke Turner select their finest b-sides, rarities and album tracks #Blur: Beyond The Hits - #ThePortal - Your Weekly Quietus Archive Dive buff.ly/k7LWizI

Watching a 1979-80 'Big Match Revisited' and there has never been a better football than this. Please do not respond with other footballs as I am simply not interested.

there was a time on twitter when you could get a nice transfer rumour going, sit back and watch it travel around the world. i linked a big club with a modest scandinavian striker, hundreds of retweets, someone disputed it, i bit back asking how he knew, he said "i'm his dad!" and uploaded a photo.

Iain Macintosh@iainmacintosh.bsky.social · 2w ago

Follow Fridays and the feeling that Twitter was a collaborative and sort of meritocratic place where everyone wanted to recommend interesting new stuff. The 2010 World Cup was the zenith of this. And I think it was the year that Henry Winter replied…

Follow Fridays and the feeling that Twitter was a collaborative and sort of meritocratic place where everyone wanted to recommend interesting new stuff. The 2010 World Cup was the zenith of this. And I think it was the year that Henry Winter replied…

Philip@blumphy.bsky.social · 3w ago

What do you miss about Twitter apart from the absolute laugh it was from the early days and 2015? Me? I miss the football season,seeing proper adult behaviour when any team wins or loses after a contentious decision! Adults falling out AOTS and arguments lasting days, weeks and sometimes months

BREAKING audiobook news...

A bit about Kevin Keegan, who died today. I was there at his Anfield debut and remember it clearly. A personal piece that asks why he isn’t thought about more highly by Liverpool fans tonyevans92a.substack.com/p/keegan-nev...

Keegan Never Shone Brighter Than During His Six Golden Seasons At Liverpool

Last week, a poll on the club website put King Kev at No 14 on Anfield's best-ever list, one place above Luis Suarez. That's insane. From the early moments of his debut, Keegan's greatness was obvious

tonyevans92a.substack.com

I absolutely loved Keegan the manager, but do yourself a favour and watch some YouTube footage of him as a player, particularly at Liverpool. They try to kick lumps off him, they knock him to the floor, he just keeps on bouncing back up again. He was irrepressible.

Thank god for that.

Disallow that, you pricks.

What sort of a thing is this? What is going on? They have VAR. Why aren’t they using it?

Ok, cancel football. It’s over. They’ve broken it. It cannot be fixed.

This is the worst thing I have ever seen and I’m from Essex. I’ve seen things. Things you wouldn’t believe. I used to go to Zeus.

Fucking hell, have we got 30 minutes of this?

Dang they really got a category for everything

I really need this awful tournament to end so that we can all move on. It’s impossible to say ‘ghastly’ without sounding like Margo…<taps heart, points at sky>…but it’s…it’s been ghastly.

Philippe Auclair@philippeauclair.bsky.social · 4w ago

"A strictly limited edition of just 2,026 individually numbered pieces,Of these, 30 will be presented to the victorious team, while 1,996 will be made available to fans worldwide as an Official Licensed Product, allowing supporters to own a unique piece of FIFA World Cup 2026 history".