Red-Robbo

Sadly, I think he's on the way out. In Latin America Pele has kept his legend alive by doing a substantial series of adverts for Viagra. Fair play to the fella, he did the ads, but released a statement - after pisstaking - pointing out "Pele endorses Viagra, but he doesn't have to use Viagra" ?

He could obviously plat professional-level football, but then - according to hearsay - developed some sort of mental issue that dropped him out of contention. The person I blame, was whoever did "due diligence" at bringing him here.

My approach is always to roll up slowly to two-lane lights. Even if you're doing under 5mph when they turn green, as long as you're in motion you'll still blow away the nippiest sports car that is stationary.

Happens to a lot of us, with age. If you don't mind me boldly hijacking your post. I was hirsute back then, but that season might be the only one in the last 50+ years I don't recall going to a single game in. I was in the Army then at Uni over t'other side of the country.

The only place I've ever experienced that was in Sheffield. A Yorkshire friend met me in a pub so rough, he ordered every drink so no one could hear my southern accent.

Lita for Congo. Oh no, that was just someone's board name here!

I'm 6' 3, my lad is 6' 5, so Robbo III may well be playing in goal.

My grandson 2034

No can't say I have. But I do know the Anglo-Welsh rugby rivalry is consistently more bitter than football. I think the only place you'll get potentially anti-English remarks in Anglophonic Wales is Cardiff. Been met with friendliness elsewhere. Try walking in Glasgow with an England shirt on to see just how "ace" your reception is. Numerous folk will testify to how it isn't a good idea. As for the Heddlu, they're a problem force, like West Midlands, the Met and other English cops I could mention.

I guess there's banter and banter. I have a short friend of Welsh heritage who I occasionally remark was bred that way so he never hit his head on the roof of the mine. In fact, he's as posh as you like and it's my ancestors who worked in coal mines (in Bristol) - not his. He lent his support to us on Friday night, but like many from the Principality, rugby's his main thing.

I know the Welsh select a number of English-born players, but let's not forget that only Qatar has a smaller population in this contest - and look how they did (even with lots of non-Qatari born recruits). Football isn't even the most popular sport in large swathes of Wales.

I guess that's what a lot of mayors do. Boris Johnson as Mayor of London spent £34m on consultations over his garden bridge proposal, before dropping it.

Champion shit ready.

Me too. I have Welsh relatives who have wished England well for the rest of the campaign. Most are switched on enough to realise that merely making the finals was their team's achievement. Maybe it's because I grew up well to the south of Bristol, but I don't share this loathing of all things Welsh that some Bristolians seem to have. There's a hell of a lot of Bristolians with Welsh surnames, suggesting quite a lot of south Walesians came over and were Anglicised in the past.

Not sure I agree with you there, LB. The territory where there had been the biggest controversy over blacking up was in the US, where, if you like, the original crime of mocking 'minstrel shows' and 'c**n songs' originated. Examining that sort of power structure and soft oppression began in a big way in US academia in the late 70s/early 80s when black rights got more sophisticated than the separatism/f- the police attitude of the late 60s/early 70s. In the much less conflicted UK, it wasn't unusual in the early 90s for people to black up for fancy dress parties, use the P- word when referring to South Asian run cornershops, call a Chinese takeaway a 'chinkie' or even tell racist jokes openly. When I worked for Virgin Megastores in the 80s, they even sold a couple of books called Racist Jokes and More Racist Jokes. Such attitudes gradually waned and otherwise OK people who were carrying the linguistic baggage of the racist 60s and 70s began to realise that normal people didn't say stuff like "Do you want me to get anything from the P- shop?" Now, only the elderly and fascistic openly use racist language and the connotations of blackface have become such that it's unthinkable now that a new comedy would be produced using it. I think if a white player had worn piled-up dreads in the way Jason Lee did, and white people do sometimes, he'd have been the subject of piss-taking. So, I don't think there was any intention to be racist, but how it looks in 2022 is an unfortunate legacy of a more naïve and clumsily offensive age.

You're thinking of Jamie Cureton. No, the husband of "Irene" alludes to taking a fatal dose of morphine (drowning himself in some versions) because she might leave him for another man.

Interestingly, lithium extraction from seawater is another cutting-edge technology being prototyped out there. Even without climate change, we will have to make the switch from powering the world via coal and oil, so money is becoming available for ways to transition.

Those 70 years of reserves are more than oil at expected rates on consumption increase, and lithium recycling technology has advanced significantly in the past decade. However, yeah, the focus is on powering EVs, renewable energy farms and phone batteries with less expensive materials than lithium. Watch the very interesting video about aluminium ion batteries, recently posted in the Green Energy section of the politics bit of the forum.

There are some pretty stunning Iranian women and I think one of the reasons they got picked out in the crowd so much was that most, though not all, were openly defying their country's theocratic government by having their hair uncovered.

I'm sure they are told to reflect the diversity of football crowds these days, so that includes women, kids (though few can afford to take their children to Qatar for this one) and ethnic minorities. Which is probably why during Canada's last game, the fan cam found a patriotically dressed (maple-leaf turbans) Sikh family group. It must be the short straw to draw if you like football, being on that duty. Your colleagues are watching the match, and you're there but having to scan the seats for interesting reactions.

TBF it's a "fan cam" and they are as likely to pick out a fat bloke banging a drum (it's always fat blokes for some reason!) or people dressed up in a weird version of 'national costume' as they are to focus on woman spectators.

Sorry. I have to correct you there. It's a dirge about a bloke who is going to kill himself because his girlfriend is a prostitute.

I suppose, being serious, the justification would be that is shows football isn't just a game for blokes, but a lot of female spectators watch the men's game.

Yeah, it was his last name, not his first one, that is hard to pronounce. The BBC continually calling him juju the other day is probably worse than "Dave" though...

I didn't mind it centrally, which is excellently served for public transport. Let's be honest, you really don't have to drive in central London unless you're delivering something heavy or working with heavy equipment there, or have a genuine disability. Ken Livingstone's western extension however targeted areas that may have had many miles between tube stations and the suspicion was he left east London alone because he got more votes there.