Rayvin

Aye, you're quite right.

Absolutely off his rocker. Thinks he's got the world all worked out, the experts aren't any smarter than he is, it's all just common sense after all.

Thinking about this, he might also mean in the sense of physical identifiers. He might have "FTM" tattooed across his forehead.

"Recognisable mackem" Is he one of the lasses from Sunderland til I die? Thanks to Howay and MF, they're about the most recognisable mackems I can think of. Unfortunately.

I agree with Renton on this, the last thing we need is another vehicle of internationalism smashed to bits. If we throw Russia out it would be the end of the UN unless we actually fully dissolved the security Council at the same time. Which I'm actually not opposed to. But yes, it is useless other than apparently working as a theatre in the same way parliament does for PMQs. If it breaks down though, we will end up with a new cold War for real, as the Western nations band together and everyone else cements alliances in separate blocs. Which would be fine (maybe) except we need collective strategy to succeed with things like climate change. We have to continue working within the framework we have even as Putin is executing civilians in the street. I'd sooner send troops in than kick Russia out of the SC, personally.

Updated my earlier attempt at this with actuals From the games we've played I thought we'd have 5 points, and instead we have 10 points. I still have us down, based on this, for another 10 by the end of the season.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2022/apr/04/six-months-in-newcastle-takeover-still-offers-little-cause-for-celebration?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other And so, Glendenning is finally permitted to have a go at us. His justification? It's been six months since the takeover and he has to earn his money somehow. Barry has taken aim, more or less, at us. Internet present Newcastle fans who, he argues, are useful idiots for the regime. We engage in whataboutery for all the other things Saudi invests in, and laments that football journalists have to explain all the other things they condemn first, before getting to Newcastle. I'll let you guys read it but he is sure as shit aiming that at forums and discussions like ours. No comments open naturally. Barry is earning money off this article, I am sure. So he has profited more from the Saudi takeover than any one of us so far. I am certain the money he has made will be donated to Yemen, as you would expect from any morally upstanding person who had gone to bat for these issues. He's a true believer, I'm sure. Not just an opportunistic hack making drama out of a story. I'm sure he was writing on the plight of Yemen for many months before this. I'm sure he's entirely consistent. And to accuse him of anything to the contrary...well.. that would be shameless whataboutery from a useful idiot.

Holy fuck..

The guy who wrote that is an academic in Russia, so it's not necessarily intended to be anything more than propaganda for domestic consumption; the Russian state itself cannot be that far gone, surely.

I don't think we should be worried. We're beating teams we should beat and losing to those who, honestly, we should also lose to. 5-1 is an unpleasant scoreline and we've clearly had a bad day, but in the overall scheme of things we're still sitting pretty IMO.

Aye but remember, the lower down the table the club is, the better they play against Sunderland. The curse of being everyone's cup final. If only Sunderland, its fans and the city itself were just less damn impressive, they wouldn't get all these try-hard smaller clubs coming up and ruining things. Victims of their own success if anything, marra.

Yeah the assumption is always that these people will somehow inevitably vote Labour. I think it's an extension of the US situation really but there are some key differences over there. People who live in poverty in the US are actively disenfranchised and prevented from voting, whereas in the UK I really think the issue is more apathy. If forced to vote they'd be easily led, informed by very simplistic takes, and then weaponised against the system. I would actually ban people from voting unless they passed a basic political awareness test. I think it would do more good. They could still vote for whatever nonsense they wanted, but they would at least have to demonstrate that they understood what the nonsense meant, and how it would impact them.

Maybe - that would make me feel more comfortable tbh. I would effectively trade my vote for someone voting LD/Green somewhere else. That way I'm still more or less in line with my principles.

Yeah it's quite possible, and if that's the case then I'd have to concede that I was wrong some months back, and that Starmer's approach has worked for Labour. I still don't agree with it, but at least it is succeeding on its own terms. It would be a depressing outlook for me personally though because I don't feel as though Labour should be rewarded for their cowardice over the Brexit outcome. But then the only option other than rewarding them is rewarding the cunts that literally made it happen. So in this, Starmer has taken the Remain vote for granted and seemingly won.

Is there any information about where the swing is coming from? i.e. which demographics are turning?

Ok yeah this does actually look helpful. I'm building a sheet at the moment that could benefit, I'll give it a shot and report back. Thanks!

Ok I'll bite. How are you using it and what is it doing to help you. I use excel a lot but haven't tried this.

I honestly believe he only does these other games so that he can start his match threads about us and have plausible deniability that it's not an obsession.

I'm not even that young anymore tbh, mid 30s. My whole life got flipped on its head by my split with my long term partner and am really only just bouncing back. Just renting for now, still don't have enough good years under my belt on consulting to get a decent mortgage. If I have another year as good as the last one, that'll do it. Until then aye, just need to find somewhere. I have a couple of longer term contracts and I have a decent rate so I'm hopefully ok. Looking to branch out a bit with some of it to fill up the 1.5 days a week I'm idle. Could do without costs being what they are across the board but don't have much choice but to soldier on really, same as everyone else. Thanks for the well wishing though

I appreciate this as a positive outlook but I'm not sure I quite believe it yet. Not totally convinced by the potential wisdom of the young either, I think millennials were doing ok but I'm a less sure about gen Z. Maybe but they seem resigned to life just being what it is. Not detecting a lot of determination to bring about change, no fury at their inherited lot in life. Just acceptance. Maybe they just don't know what they should have had.

Aye but in Newcastle atm flat hunting - I figure I've timed this just poorly enough that I'll get hit with the huge energy price hike before it has a chance to impact the rental market, and end up overpaying on both. Still though, I'm glad to be heading home.

I honestly think it's probably better in the cities, or perhaps if you go down to the stores themselves. Maybe online customers are back of the list in terms of availability. Whatever it is, it wasn't always like this. It's not causing huge problems I guess but it does also demonstrate how privileged we have been on this front for many years. Well, at my end anyway. Moving back to Newcastle soon, so maybe I'll see an improvement.

For me it's been a rolling thing - items I buy one week aren't available for the next two. It's extended right the way to fresh chicken tbh but has also included fruit juice, pizza, bread (of certain types), tomatoes, peppers, etc - it's almost like everything is on rotation. That said, I have been living quite remotely the past couple of years and I wonder if the limitations come from that to some extent. Although we do order for home delivery from Tesco... Not really keeping track of it hugely but since we're exploring it in detail, those items are all things that just show up as unavailable every other week.

I use 'was' more in the sense that we are no longer together. Possibly because of this April Fools

All the more reason we should attach ourselves to the EU which stands a far greater chance at a resurgence in a new mould than any of its component parts do individually. But yes, I think you might be right.