Michael

Well Selby has finally won the match, defeating Allen 17-15. A Selby v Brecel final it is then.

It's 15-16 now, very tight finish here.

Allen's done very well to pull the frame score back to 14-16, but it's still advantage Selby.

Well, like I said to you yesterday, Brecel could very well turn this around and he indeed did in the end. Selby will likely play Brecel in the final and what a final that will be.

Why is it odd? Because Brecel won the last 7 frames against Ronnie, to knock him out? It's not really that strange because these things happen in Snooker. Brecel has done a similar thing in his semi-final match, where he won the last 5 frames in a row against Si Jiahui. These things happen in snooker, where players are on a roll and are playing really well.

Well Brecel won the last 5 frames against Si Jiahui. Jiahui only leads now by 4 frames as the score is currently 14-10 as we speak. Brecel could turn this around. The match will continue tomorrow.

Out of the DFB Cup, out of the Champions League and they face a big possibility of not winning the Bundesliga this season. This could be one of the worst seasons in years for Bayern Munich. It's actually quite ridiculous, because they have some excellent players in their squad. But they've unfortunately not been playing close to their potential for far too many matches this season.

Tank should beat Garcia in my opinion. Luke Campbell managed to drop Garcia when they fought, even though Campbell lost the fight to the American. Tank is clearly a better boxer than Campbell and he has a much greater knockout power. I think he will catch and KO Garcia. But Garcia should have several spells in this fight where he is on top, as his hand speed should see to that. But ultimately, I think that Garcia gets KO'D by Tank. I think there is also a question mark about Garcia's mental health and his susceptibility to getting panic attacks. Who knows how he deals with the pressure of facing his biggest boxing challenge yet. Tank is by far the toughest boxer that Garcia has ever faced. How Garcia deals with this challenge, will be very interesting to watch.

Joe Joyce loses to Zhilei Zhang in the 6th round in a shock result. The fight was ultimately stopped because Joyce's right eye was too damaged for the fight to continue. But it is nonetheless a tough loss for Joyce to take as he was a clear favourite to win this fight. This is also Joyce's first loss of his professional career. Zhang is a highly rated heavyweight himself, but he wasn't regarded to be on the same elite level as Joyce is. But it has to be said that Zhang had the better of most of the 6 rounds. Joyce is usually a slow starter in fights and usually ends fights well, but the fact is this fight was stopped in the 6th round due to Joyce's eye being in a terrible state. It will be a tough defeat for Joyce to swallow and accept, but his aura of invincibility has now no doubt taken a hit, regardless of how this fight finished.

The Russian authorities have been threatening the use of nuclear weapons for more than a year now. They've threatened it over many different instances that have happened throughout this war and yet they still haven't used it. Putin and his government/allies know that starting a nuclear war would be suicide. They may be evil, but the majority of them are not mad. I am not saying that Russia won't start a nuclear war, I am just saying that it is extremely unlikely. Besides, the Ukrainian government and the majority of the Ukrainian people have made it clear, that this war will not end until Russia withdraws from every inch of Ukrainian sovereign territory. That of course includes the Donbass and Crimea. The Ukrainians have clearly not been unsettled by the threat of Russia using it's nuclear weapons, that's for sure.

I am looking forward to the Lomachenko v Haney fight. Loads of people have Haney as winning as he is much younger and much bigger. But I reckon that Lomachenko's skill and movement could have him win this fight. It would be a huge statement if Lomachenko won and it would have all the top fighters in his weight division, talking about him once again.

I agree to be honest. He was defeated and outclassed by the best pound for pound heavyweight boxer in the world. There was no shame losing to Usyk, even Fury has clearly ducked a fight with the Ukrainian. Franklin was no pushover and like you rightly pointed out, many people thought Franklin was a deserved winner in his fight against Dillian Whyte. While Joshua easily beat Franklin on points last week. Losing twice to Usyk has not done him the best of favours psychologically, but in terms of ability, Joshua is still there amongst the best. In my opinion, only Usyk and Fury are better than him in the heavyweight division right now. I would potentially also say Joyce, but Joyce hasn't fought as many big names as Joshua has, so it's not clear if he would win if he faced Joshua. Joshua should look to fight British heavyweights Joyce, Dubois or even another fight with Whyte. Wilder would also be an interesting fight for Joshua, as Wilder has more power than Joshua in my opinion, but I think that Joshua is probably the better overall boxer. Beating an American like Wilder would catapult his status once again as a top heavyweight. I think a fight between Joshua and Wilder would be 50/50, but it would be a very dangerous fight all the same for Joshua. From what I understand, Hearn has Whyte lined up as Joshua's next opponent. I am sure that Joshua would win once again against Whyte, if this rematch is eventually confirmed.

It's been an action packed opening 22 minutes in the Frankfurt v Bochum match. Frankfurt pinned Bochum back in the opening quarter of an hour. Borre had 2 dangerous chances saved by Reimann, while Jakic also had a shot saved. But Bochum took the lead against the run of plat, as Asano slotted home the rebound, after Trapp saved a shot. But nine minutes later, Muani was blatantly brought down in the Bochum penalty box and he duly stepped up to take the penalty himself and smacked it into the back of the net to equalise for Frankfurt. Great game so far!

They've had so much success with him as their manager, it would in many ways be a shame to see him leave. But I do respect him as a manager. Although his teams don't play the most attractive football, they play very effective football. I think that Simeone would do very well as manager of most teams to be honest.

The trains are an absolute disgrace in this country. The tickets cost a bomb and the trains are always being cancelled. This is something that should be completely unacceptable in an advanced country like the UK.

In countries where being a bigot is socially unacceptable? Being a bigot and a racist should be unacceptable in all countries. If it's generally acceptable to be a bigot and a racist in a certain country, then that country must be a very racist country. If the survey you've given is around 100 people sampled per country, I don't think that is near enough to be honest. The survey I linked, although it didn't survey every country in the world, it at least had almost half the countries around the world. They surveyed around what averaged out to be 1,090 people per country. Which I think can give you a much more accurate and representative result, than in a survey that has asked questions to a mere 100 people or less.

This survey isn't asking how they became racist, it's merely trying to establish if they are racist and if racism is widespread in their respective countries. If a lot of Yemenis are racist, then they are racist. There is never any real justification to be a racist. Just because Germany caused destruction and havoc during WW2, doesn't mean that it is ok to be xenophobic towards Germans. Because anyone with half a brain, knows that there are good and bad people in all societies. Nor should the Japanese be racist towards the Americans, despite the fact that the US dropped two nukes on their country. They have every right to hate the American government of the time, but not the average well meaning American.

Well yeah, a survey of this scale is going to have its limitations. Yes, they've selected 78 countries, and I believe that we can make a general judgement of the results from these 78 countries. 85,000 people from these 78 countries, that's like 1,090 people surveyed per country. I believe it's enough to get a gist of what the general attitudes of people are in these countries. I think with the first survey, people saying that they wouldn't like people of other races as their neighbours, is showing a clear racial bias. I mean if a person isn't a racist or a bigot, why would they care what race their neighbour is? As for the second survey, it's an indicator as to the prevalence of racism in their own respective countries. Of course it doesn't mean that they themselves are racist. I think it's just a measure of the racism levels in their own countries. The more racist incidents in life that a person encounters or witnesses, surely shows to some extent how racist his environment is. Also, to be honest, the fact that we can see a trend of developed countries completely dominating the top 10 places in such surveys, this surely has to tell us something. We don't see any Western countries down as being some of the most racist in the world, nowhere near. It's the developing and third world countries that dominate the positions of being the most racist in these surveys.

I am sure that they would have surveyed countries from every region in the world. That would include Western European countries, otherwise it would be an absolutely misleading survey, which I doubt that it is. It can be difficult to cover, but not wanting to live next to a person of a different culture, ethnicity or race, I think was the actual question. I think they shortened it to not wanting to live next to a foreigner. However, either way, whether they didn't want to live next to a foreigner or a person because of their culture, ethnicity or race, it's all discriminatory at the very least. The percentage results here are also very high in some of these countries. Yes, some people do not admit they are racist. But with those who do have the confidence to admit that they are racist, it probably shows that they have a high degree of racism. I've just quickly googled another link about a survey done regarding the least racist countries. Most of the countries in the top 10 are Western European and the other two are Canada and New Zealand. Least Racist Countries 2023 (worldpopulationreview.com)

Most Racist Countries 2023 (worldpopulationreview.com)

Yes, but it will cost you. )

Hmm, interesting. I think that you are probably right when you say that most Twitter users are probably from the first world. But as a person who has always enjoyed travelling, my experience tends to somewhat support Spike's position on this. No doubt there is racism in the West, but there definitely seems to be a lot more racism in the developing world. I think that generally speaking, the more a populace is educated and the more interaction they have had with people of other cultures, the less likely they are to be racist. Of course there are racists here in the West, both educated and uneducated, but I believe that racism is much more prevalent in the developing world. Part of this could be due to the fact that I don't think that punishment for racist behaviour is as harsh as it is in the West. Comprehensive surveys have been undertaken about the issue of racism around the world. Peoples opinions and experiences were noted. Here are a couple of examples. The first question posed in this survey was would you be comfortable living next to a neighbour of a different culture, ethnicity or race. The following countries had the most people(of those surveyed) who were least comfortable living with such foreign neighbours and who would prefer not to have them as neighbours: 1- Libya 54% 2- Palestine 44% 3- India 43.6% 4- Thailand 39.8% 5- Lebanon 36.3% 6- Ecuador 34.5% 7- Yemen 34% 8- Turkey 33.8% 9- Malaysia 31.3% 10- Bahrain 31.1% 11- Philippines 30.6% 12- South Korea 29.6% The next question was, were they either discriminated against or had they witnessed racial discrimination happen in their home country. The following are the are the results: 1- Bahrain 85.7% 2- Lebanon 64.4% 3- India 64.3% 4- South Africa 61.8% 5- Philippines 49.1% 6- Pakistan 48.8% 7- Nigeria 42.5% 8- Algeria 41% 9- Hong Kong 40.4% 10- Egypt 39.7% 11- Russia 38.5% 12- Iraq 37.8% There's not a Western European or North American country in sight in these rankings. Racism and discrimination obviously exist everywhere, but I do believe that it's more widespread in the developing world.

Keanu Reeves is like 26 right?

Putin is becoming more and more unpopular as more Russians are being mobilized and as loads of Russian soldiers are being killed. But there are still a significant number of Russians that buy into Putin's propaganda. However, there does clearly appear to be several internal conflicts going on within Putin's ranks. Putin has hinted that he would consider some kind of a peace deal, something which would have been very unlikely during the initial months of this invasion. But the Ukrainian government are not interested in any potential peace deal, as they know that Russia will be unreasonable as regards to the terms of any deal. Moreover, they do not trust Russia, as the Russian regime has constantly lied throughout this invasion over the past year. So this war will continue, until one side overwhelmingly destroys the other. As this is the situation, I am glad that the West are finally giving Ukraine the tanks that they need. Heck, there's even a chance that Ukraine could be given fighter jets as well in the not too distant future. If this were to happen, it would be a huge boost to Ukraine and their chances of kicking the Russians out of Ukraine. However, it will take several months of training to get the Ukrainians to fly any potential foreign fighter jets that are given to Ukraine. I just hope that Ukraine finds a way to come out victorious in this war and I wish it happens sooner rather than later.

Yes this is very true. History does shape such rulings. But it always seemed illogical to me that people who had British grandparents(4 such grandparents in most cases) and who were of English stock, were not eligible for British citizenship, if their parents were not British. I have Australian 2nd cousins who found themselves in exactly this situation. But I believe that the law was recently changed for the better here in the UK. Germany like you suggested, has had these laws for good reason. But it's not only Germany, many other countries in Europe have similar laws. Poland for one, also recognises people of Polish ancestry, probably for similar reasons as you gave for Germany. As Poland also gave up some of it's historical lands after the 2nd World War. But many European nations also apply such laws. For Germany though, this law has meant that hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans whose families have lived in other countries for decades, sometimes for over a century, are eligible for German citizenship. Even as far afield as countries like Kazakhstan, where many of the ethnic Germans there can no longer speak German. However, I think that it is apt that this law is maintained, in acknowledgement of their German heritage.