Meenzer

As always with England, if they win I'll be happy because people I like will be happy, and if they lose I'll be happy because people I hate will be unhappy.

Yet.

He makes me think of Löw in a way, someone who isn't obviously suited to club management but might be the right character to quietly and effectively guide a bunch of disparate players at national level. Or he might just have got incredibly lucky. Also like Löw.

Couple of good WC pieces on the Blizzard that I'd missed, this on West Germany and that match in 1982, and this on the 1994 tournament (which is still one of my absolute favourites, but I suppose anything that happens in your younger years tends to be).

I was going to argue the toss but then I realised he's seven years younger than Sergei Ignashevich, so..

To paraphrase a Facebook comment just now, it seems we're aiming for the Brazilian model - political system, economy and identity in crisis, but it's all OK because we're good at football and it's sunny out.

Just the tip.

I'm starting to see why CT voted Labour.

Careful what you wish for, she'll probably appoint Nadine Dorries or someone as his successor

Maybe they've drugged him so they can get him out of the cave without him panicking.

Fair

Blatant attempt to cosy up to the Germans.

I hope Davis has left the Brexit paperwork and impact studies in good order for his successor, it'd be a shame for all that hard work to go to waste.

Chiselled it into a commemorative pallet chair.

That'th a thignificant part of it too.

One of my best mates is a trans man who's into men and I don't feel like my identity as a gay man is remotely threatened by that or that his existence is any way a coercion into having sex with him. I mean, I wouldn't say no, because he's built as fuck, but that's beside the point. Obviously I get why it's different for lesbians because women are coming from a position of freeing themselves from male domination etc. in the first place, and I have no doubt there's the occasional militant trans activist saying all kinds of dumb things, but that's no different to any movement and it's not like a few bad eggs invalidate the wider cause in any way. Basically I have next to no sympathy for TERFs and I certainly have fuck-all sympathy for anyone who protests the T of LGBT at the front line of an LGBT event, even if they might also be right in saying that's the best time and place to get attention for their cause. It's upsetting to trans people and especially young trans people attending their first Pride - what kind of message does it send out when even "your" community doesn't support you, and at this of all events? Glinner can fuck off and all, that man is remarkable in his ability to speak for groups of people he has nowt to do with.

I'm, erm, doing a 10k when the first half is on. No big screens in the publicly funded Olympic Park afaik. England!

The Swedish anthem ends "I want to live, I want to die in the north". Great bunch of lads.

Neymar

Now that's a song.

Forever magnificent.

CT's kind of corner sofa

I like how that meme's been tweaked since it first did the rounds to say Man City win their league rather than the league. Their league in '66 being the Second Division. Although by that token, it also needs to say "Liverpool lose a European final", since it was the Cup Winners' Cup in '66. If you're going to torture the English language into submission, might as well go the whole hog.