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I'm well behind on this again but here is confirmation of the final scores for this round. 9 points (6 correct picks + 3 bonus points) - @Storts 7 points (5 correct picks + 2 bonus points) - @Michael, @Lucas, @Stan 5 points (4 correct picks + 1 bonus point) - @Tommy 2 points (2 correct picks) - @6666, @Pyfish 1 point (1 correct pick) - @nudge, @Viva la FCB, @CaaC (John), @Rucksackfranzose 0 points - @RandoEFC, @Bluewolf, @...Dan, @Dan, @Redcanuck, @Rick I will get the French round started for next weekend. There are only 4 sets of fixtures left. If we're being honest, there's a very good chance we'll all manage to be eliminated in that time but if not, we'll decide that round with tie breakers in the last weekend. I'll get that started tomorrow.

Oh that's a relief, next time I'll make sure to take the jacuzzi!

I was posting on a few forums back in the day and received a text from @Stanasking me to join what was TFF back then as he'd liked to content I'd been putting out and knew of the cult following that I had (the Cannabisettes as they were called at the time). I think it was around 2007 but I may be wrong. Instantly involved in an Internet bar fight with HalewoodToffee but famously won (he died around 2010 from AIDS brought on by dogging in an unclean taxi). Ended up on Love Island in 2011 and had a blast, that's where I met @nudge and @Tommy. The latter who denies being ever involved but I know the truth. Had a hiatus for a while as I was having to live in my hotel room 24/7, couldn't move without people wanting pictures and shouting "Are you that bloke Cannabis?" at me, not being able to go down the street really took it's toll. That's where I met @MUFCas he wanted a selfie with my feet. After 6 months and a reach around I accepted, pretty sure the image is still on the old server but could be wrong. That's also where I met @CaaC (John) as he was the photographer. Now I pop in and out of the place, @Rab and @DeadLinesman send me nudes to my WhatsApp so I only ever come on here now for football related talk. It's been a blast though, 10/10 would do again.

Tbf I don't think that's the spaghettis fault

Week 34 Results Melbourne Victory 2-1 Melbourne City Norwich 1-0 Ipswich Roma 1-0 Lazio Sporting Lisbon 2-1 Benfica Athletic Bilbao p1-1 Mallorca LAFC 2-1 LA Galaxy Rangers 3-3 Celtic Feyenoord 6-0 Ajax Club Brugge 3-1 Anderlecht Galatasaray 1-0 Fenerbahce Round-up Potentially one of the best rounds of fixtures we've ever had in terms of the teams involved - all but one of the matches are derbies or rivalries of some sort, and the one that isn't was a cup final, so equally as contested! In terms of the table it was very closely contested too - with the range of scores being 11-14. At the top end were @Viva la FCB and @CaaC (John) who cancelled each other out with 14 points. @Rucksackfranzose surpassed 400 points with 13 to add to his tally, while @Tommy is just one point away from reaching the same mark.

Egg Masala!

I've decided not to renew my season ticket, 16yrs of going the game coming to and end in a month or two. The love of football and Everton has evaporated to the point where clinging onto it is only affecting my mental well-being in a negative way. I just don't have the heart anymore to still hold on. I'll be putting my energy and new found spare time into my family. The Premier League, $ky, Moshiri, Kenwright and all the other absolute car crash bollocks has totally done me in, to the point where I'll be getting my football fix from my local Sunday League team (I have two clubs a 10 minute walk from me in the North West Counties League) and on the TV via FC Porto (the team of my wife's family). So sad that looking around for forum, so many are in the same boat. Football has been killed for the "historic" fan. Totally dead.

This looks like a proper Western. Written and direction by Vigo apparently says the trailer. Ill be seeing this one in theatres... @CaaC (John)@Bluewolf@nudge

@Rucksackfranzose @Stan @Michael @Viva la FCB @Coma @Bluewolf @nawoo @londonerlilie Your weekly reminder.

@Rucksackfranzose @Stan @Viva la FCB @6666 @Bluewolf @Coma @nawoo @Michael Your weekly reminder!

The use of shadow in that painting is absolutely amazing. I remember seeing it a while ago and thinking how real it looked.

Ref is a Luton fan.

Week 36 Results Kaiserslautern 1-1 Wehen Aberdeen 3-3p Celtic Leicester 2-1 West Brom Man City 1-0 Chelsea Lyon Women 3-2 PSG Women Perth Glory 3-4 Western United Houston Dynamo 0-1 Austin FC Coventry 3-3p Man Utd Union S-G 1-2 Club Brugge Real Madrid 3-2 Barcelona Round-up A total of 39 goals across 10 fixtures - goalfests despite two matches only having 1 goal in them. Two others were cup semi-finals that ended in penalty shootouts after 3-3 draws after extra-time, and in Australia there was a 7-goal thriller. The weekend rounded off with a 3-2 win in El Clasico - only @CaaC (John) got this as a perfect score, helping to solidify 2nd place. @Rucksackfranzose did well to get 13 points and that meant he overtook @Bluebird Hewitt and is now level with @Viva la FCB. @Tommy is just behind them and one good week could propel him up further...

Results - Chinese Grand Prix This week it was @The Palace Fan's turn to go AWOL so no points for him. I know I'm not helping by posting predictions on Wednesday or Thursday, especially with so many of the races so far being overnight for those of us in Europe. I'll endeavour to get back to posting predictions on the Monday of race week. Onto those that did predict, everyone once again went for a Max Verstappen pole position and bagged 5 points. I think I've seen enough now to change this prediction to a Pole Position without Verstappen. Even if there's chances for other people to beat him on a Saturday, those chances are so slim that there isn't an incentive to take a risk, so for the foreseeable future, we will change the pole position prediction to one excluding him. Also resolved on Saturday was the bonus question. @Stan and @Tommy both backed Haas to get a car into Q3 and Nico Hulkenberg duly delivered on this again. Kudos to @Whiskey who backed a Q3 appearance for Sauber even before seeing their form in the Sprint Shootout and Sprint Race. Bottas bags him 5 points as well. Onto the Podium Minus Max, this week's result was Norris, Perez, Leclerc. Hilariously, everyone who predicted this week went for a combination of Perez and the two Ferraris here, so nobody gets any points for Sainz. @Stan and @nudge made the best fist of this, with Perez and Leclerc in the exact correct positions bagging them 10 points. @Coma, @DeadLinesman and @OrangeKhrush take 7 points each for their PER-SAI-LEC combination, while @RandoEFC, @MUFC and @Tommy have to settle for 4 points each. Finally, Yuki Tsunoda's retirement made it impossible to give any points for this week's random driver prediction. If anyone had put 19th, I'd have given points for that as he was the second car to retire from the race but I'm not giving consolation points for a driver who retired apart from that scenario. Here's what it does for the table: @The Palace Fan shows the cost of a missed week as he drops from 1st to 8th, but in terms of the points differential, still has 19 races left to recover a 12-point deficit to the top spot. @Stan is this week's "Driver of the Day" with an impressive score of 20 that also takes him to the top of the standings with a decent 5-point lead. Single figure returns for @RandoEFC see him lose ground in the standings and @MUFC remains behind his team-mate despite completing one race more - ouch! In the Constructors' standings, @Whiskey's return to the fray saw Ferrari bag this biggest team points haul we've seen so far this season, and they can begin to eye Mercedes up in the battle to get off the bottom. McLaren's lowest score of the season sees their narrow lead in the standings disappear, while Red Bull leapfrog both them and Aston Martin with a very strong score of 29 points this weekend.

I don't know what age group you're in but most posters here are around the early 30s sort of mark so most of us went to school with a number of Man Utd fans during Ferguson's era who had it way too good for way too long and had to put up with no end of gloating from them when they won everything and beat our teams because it was all they'd known and they thought it would last forever, so it will never not be funny when they get a(nother) comeuppance. And it is embarrassing I'm afraid mate. Man Utd could probably field almost a full eleven of players who individually cost more than Coventry's entire squad, bench and annual wage bill put together and they were a marginal offside decision away from blowing a 3-0 lead on 70 minutes against them in a cup semi final. You'd be loving it too if it was Man City or Liverpool.

@Rick lol don't tell Gasperini the only person who linked him to the job was me

Week 35 Results Sydney FC 2-1 Western Sydney Atletico Madrid 3-1 Girona Birmingham 3-0 Coventry Motherwell 1-1 Hibernian Torino 0-0 Juventus DC United 2-3 Orlando City Braunschweig 0-0 Hannover Tottenham Women 2-1 Leicester Women Clermont 1-1 Montpellier Vasco De Gama 2-1 Gremio Round-up @CaaC (John) now occupies 2nd spot and overtakes @Viva la FCB in the process, whilst @Tommy top-scored with 15 points and 2 perfect scores. @Rucksackfranzose also got 2 perfect scores, with one of them being the 0-0 draw in the Turin derby.

Tacos in a holder & rice and beans in a burrito = bullshit Mexican food

@Tommy, @Viva la FCB, @6666, @Michael, @Bluewolf, @Coma, @nawoo Your weekly reminder!

A single player, open-world pirate RPG game where choices matter. A truly open-world, free-roam Star Wars game where you can travel around a fully-explorable vast universe (generated like in Space Engine) doing whatever the fuck you want. An open-world hard sci-fi game with heavy focus on diplomacy, politics, trade, colonization, science & technology, terraforming of planets, etc. Preferably based on The Expanse, or just something similar. A historically accurate game about preparing for and embarking on expeditions. Polar expeditions, Africa, Asia, etc. A mix of survival + sailing/traveling + making discoveries. A single-player game set in pre-Colombian Americas, with historically accurate representation of nations/tribes. Heavy focus on politics, trade, culture. A racing driver simulator where you start from grassroots motorsports as a kid, and move up the career ladder through various racing series. Similar to above, an immersive first-person football player simulator game where you start in youth academy as a kid and try to make it to the top, and including detailed events both on and off the pitch. Something similar to the concept in I am Playr, which was a brilliant idea. A proper game based on LOST TV series. So many possibilities there. More couch co-op narrative-driven adventure games with a well-written story.

Very good matchday for us as a group for a change! Matchday 29 1) 6666 15 points 2) Bluewolf 13 points 3) Coma 9 points 3) Michael 9 points 5) Rucksackfranzose 8 points 5) Tommy 8 points 5) Viva la FCB 8 points 8- CaaC(John) 7 points 8- Stan 7 points Three more players passed the 200 points mark. Table after 29 matchdays 1) @Tommy 209 points 2) @Stan 206 points 3) @Viva la FCB 202 points 4) @6666 201 points 5) @Michael 199 points 6) @Bluewolf 196 points 7) @Coma 182 points 8- Rucksackfranzose 164 points 9) @CaaC (John) 155 points 10) @nawoo 149 points

Bluewolf's perfect Kiel 4-0 Osnabrück score is prediction of the matchday. Also remarkable Stan's the first player this season to score 8 points on a matchday without a single perfect score in this league. Matchday 29 1) Bluewolf 10 points 2) Stan 8 points 2) Tommy 8 points 4) Coma 7 points 5) CaaC(John) 6 points 6) Michael 5 points 6) Rucksackfranzose 5 points 8- Viva la FCB 4 points The 2 leaders now are feeling the hot breath of the midtable players in their necks. Table after 29 matchdays 1) @Michael 180 points 2) @Viva la FCB 177 points 3) @Bluewolf 174 points 4) @Coma 172 points 4) @Tommy 172 points 6) @Stan 171 points 7) @CaaC (John) 170 points 8- Rucksackfranzose 147 points 9) @londonerlilie 122 points 9) @nawoo 122 points

Muad’Dib is about to emerge from the desert with his third eye awakened and find the golden path to the unification of the holy lands. It’s as simple as that you fucken dunces

I have a friend that conditionally supports Hamas as he states they are the only means that the Palestinian people have for self-determination whether just or not, and I tell him I have no support for Hamas as I don’t believe a boot of any colour on someone’s neck is positive, nor do I buy into the cope of ‘he is a monster, but he is our monster’. I have no support from Israel either, as they cultivated this situation into a war and admittedly so, they are the power brokers in this war all terms and conditions are determined through them. I support both the people of Israel and Palestine not having to suffer through a war that ultimately serves no purpose but to strengthen the imperial goals of the power holders in Israel and abroad, they don’t suffer from their ivory towers.

Love Thai curry with beef and rice. i sometimes might as well just chuck it straight in the toilet and save some time sitting on the pot and getting the ring of fire but it's still one of my favourite 4 sure

@Stan @Coma @nudge @MUFC @MF Motorsport Don't forget.

@Stan @Viva la FCB @6666 @Bluewolf @Coma @nawoo @Michael Consider yourself reminded.

Hotel? - Trivago

Week 33 Results Torino 1-0 Monza Aberdeen 2-1 Ross County Metz 2-5 Monaco Hertha Berlin 3-3 Nurnberg Austin FC 2-1 FC Dallas Melbourne Victory 2-1 Perth Glory Arsenal Women 1-0 Chelsea Women Girona 3-2 Real Betis Sturm Graz 0-1 RB Salzburg Marseille 0-2 PSG Round-up A strong showing from all that predicted, as everyone scored about 13 and the average for the week was just above 16 points. Highest of the week came from the player at the bottom, as @Pyfish scored 21 points. @Viva la FCB is the new occupant of 2nd place as he scored 17 points; he and myself both got 3 perfect scores. @Tommy moves up 1 spot taking 6th back.

Sheep - Season 11 - Final Scores Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5 PD Totals Lucas 40 38 33 55 30 -25 196 Bluewolf 42 29 36 49 24 -25 180 Caac John 41 29 25 52 30 -22 177 Deadlinesman 41 33 34 35 26 -9 169 Nudge 25 33 30 54 23 -31 165 Tommy 19 34 30 47 30 -17 160 Dr Gonzo 41 32 34 52 0 -52 159 Spike 35 25 25 38 18 -20 141 Stan 33 32 32 43 0 -43 140 Beelzebub 36 23 14 37 19 -18 129 Pyfish 41 30 41 0 0 0 112 Some of you called this before we even begun but it seems like @Lucas is the top Sheep once again. Congrats to the winner and in tow we have @Bluewolf in second and @CaaC (John) in third (who wasn't very far from a second spot himself). Thank you everyone for playing and can we get a round of applause for the returning champion of this game, I am thinking no one can really dethrone him as he cements himself in Sheep lore as the best Sheep of the bunch. Thank you to all who participated this season and if we ever do this again I have some thoughts on how to keep it moving a bit more regularly. Till the next time, thank you once again.

Results - Australian Grand Prix A broad mixture of scores this week, starting off with a 0 for @Whiskey who didn't make any predictions. Qualifying was more or less business as usual, with @MUFC the only person to gamble on someone other than Max Verstappen for pole position. Leclerc sadly blew his last qualifying effort leaving him empty-handed, with everyone else bagging 5 points for the usual VER pole. Also resolved on Saturday was this week's bonus question. Not helped by Ricciardo's deleted lap-time seeing him knocked out in Q1, nobody predicted a gap between him and Piastri of anything like the 1.5 seconds that Piastri had out-stripped his compatriot by come the end of Q3, so 2 consolation points go to @OrangeKhrush who predicted the largest margin of anyone. Onto the race, and wouldn't you know that it took until just the second race after we started predicting "top three without Verstappen" that this ends up being the actual top three in the race. The change in this prediction achieved what we wanted anyway, with a variety of Perez, Norris, Ferrari and Mercedes picks yielding a nice mixture of scores. Nobody predicted Sainz in 1st place, but 2 points each go to @RandoEFC, @Tommy, @Coma and @DeadLinesman for putting him elsewhere in their top three. Everyone predicted a top three finish for Charles Leclerc, with @RandoEFC, @Stan, @Tommy, @nudge, @The Palace Fan and @DeadLinesman all bagging 5 points for putting him in P2, everyone else picking up 2 - the only points of the weekend in @MUFC's case. @Stan, @nudge and @OrangeKhrush all distinguished themselves by rounding off their podium predictions with Lando Norris in 3rd, collecting them another 5 points each. The presence of Perez in everyone's top three prevented anyone from bagging the 20 points for a perfect podium. Finally, this week's random driver was Oscar Piastri at his home race. Nobody was bold enough to predict a finish as high as 4th for him, but @RandoEFC was closest with 6th place here so picks up an extra 2 points. Here's what it does for the standings: Three races in, defending champion @RandoEFC sneaks to the top of the standings with a 1 point lead ahead of previous leader @Tommy. @MUFC's poor weekend and @Whiskey's no-show this weekend see them propping up the standings. In the Constructors', a mediocre week for Mercedes sees them drop from 1st to 4th. Red Bull raked in the highest points tally this week but it's McLaren who sneak into the top spot in a close battle between them, Red Bull and Aston Martin. I'm going away tomorrow so I'll be posting the predictions for next weekend's Japanese Grand Prix this afternoon.

Light and shadows were definitely things that made Vermeer stand out.

Well, our daughter has stuck to her guns and adopted another cat, a female, 8 months old, so that will even it up, 4 cats, 2 male and 2 female, her mate had to get a place for her cats as she was moving to a place with no animals allowed.

I trust Michael Edwards.

So Martinez got a second yellow during the shootout but apparently there's a special rule where it doesn't count as a second yellow in a penalty shootout. What a random and bullshit rule!

It's almost as if fixture congestion isn't actually their concern whatsoever and that what they really want is to clear out low-paying domestic games from their calendar to make room for even more money-spinning UEFA fixtures...

Not pulling for Bayern, have to say comparing them to City is very disrespectful, though. Just a reminder City are state-owned, and oil-money doped, still got the glorious total of 1 European cup, as many as German 2nd tier club HSV, while Bayern are member-owned and have 6 CL titles to their name. Or to do compare Tranmere Rovers to Real Madrid, as well?

@Michael, @Viva la FCB, @Bluewolf, @Coma, @Tommy, @londonerlilie, @nawoo Your weekly reminder!

Just googled it: according to "Open Doors" there're a bit less than half a million Christians in Iran a county of 88M inhabitants. Not even 1%, millions my arse.

9 goals across these two games, and both first goals in the first half. Game 121's was very early, in the 4th minute - only @Bluebird Hewitt getting close enough to get 2 points. Game 122's was towards half-time, in the 37th minute. But no winners here. Table after Game 122: Those two points propel @Bluebird Hewitt all the way up from 12th to 6th, level on points with myself.

That's probably because curry is not really a thing in Chinese cuisine outside of British takeaways

How's he a sell out? He's taking western aid but doesn't really have one iota of concern about doing things the west isn't in favour of. He's had to marginally pull back because of the outcry of the use of the IDF to murder western aid workers - which was beyond the pale and unjustifiable regardless of whether Hamas is stealing aid or not (perhaps the strikes on WKC workers should have been directed at Hamas militants that were stealing the aid rather than trying to send a message to aid workers in Gaza). With his popularity at an all time low, all he's really got to cling onto power is to pander to the Ben-Gvir's of his party - and that means fighting a war in a way that the world will find detestable. And that's basically exactly what Hamas is banking on as long as they can stay alive for long enough to wait out the world opinion turning. If public opinion turns too much, that likely means Israel faces aid being cut or having conditions placed on it before receiving aid. Can Israel survive without support from the West when Russia has sided with Israel's enemies in Hamas, Houthis, and Iran? I think it's in Israel's best interests to get Netanyahu out of power ASAP and to start fighting the war in a way that's not going to make Israel and the IDF look like they couldn't give a fuck if every Palestinian dropped dead.

Another round of fixtures comes as quickly as it goes... Nine points still separate @Rajabhat Rovers & @6666 as they both score 12. Top scores came from myself & @Bluewolf as we added 19 points to our tallies, and it also meant we both went up 1 place in the rankings. @Storts was the only one to get more than 1 perfect score; @Rucksackfranzose & @CaaC (John) both got the same score and surpassed the 400-point mark in doing so.

A wide range of scores for Week 31, as the highest score came from @6666, with 23 points. That means @Rajabhat Rovers's lead is cut down to 9 points as we head into the final weeks of the season. Or is it too late for the leader to lose out...? Next best is @Bluewolf who managed 17 points - this allowed him to go up to 8th, and got Prediction of the Week in the process as he was the only one to get Newcastle 1-1 Everton exact. @Rucksackfranzose is now level with @CaaC (John) and I am now level with @Storts.

Frankly what the Premier League have done, hand in hand with Sky, to English football with their capitalism on steroids makes it absolutely hilarious for them to be going around using the phrase "too much money" in any context whatsoever. This is a nation where the disparity between the top two leagues is so monstrous that anyone who gets relegated receives hundreds of millions in "parachute payments" just to stop them from going completely bust, a league where the only sustained "upward mobility" that any club has really achieved in the last 35 years has had to come from billionaire investment from overseas. The Premier League created the wild west and now wants the residents to live off rations. I have no sympathy whatsoever. I hope the entire organisation collapses because it's almost comical how not fit for purpose it is. There's been a lot in the news lately about clubs being criticised for voting against a deal with the EFL which would allow more money to trickle down the pyramid. Those clubs should be criticised but why the fuck are they allowed to vote on this stuff in the first place? This independent regulator can't come soon enough but it really does need to take radical action from day one.

https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1775137325636317569?s=20 This is genuinely shameless & deserves a real response from the international community. The support of the west and having the right to defend themselves as a country doesn’t give them the right to murder aid workers to discourage other NGOs from providing aid.

Tandoori chicken and leek pie. First time ever making a pie!