Stan

Nice to wake up and see India on top at the moment. Rahane ton and supported in some part by the rest of the top order.

Gabriel has COVID. Misses next 3.

Stayed up for first session and was much better than expected! Didn't expect to see so much turn. Bumrah is just class above any other fast bowler we have. If we had Kumar and Sharma/Shami playing we'd be such a force. Not that keen on Yadav but it is what it is. Hope there's no collapse again. This is a great chance to build up a good solid lead.

We had floods in Bedford last night. Thankfully not affected where I am but River in town and surrounding areas were heavily affected. People went to local golf courses and took sand from bunkers if possible. Know quite a few people around the town who had to evacuate yesterday. As if 2020 couldn't get any shitter for some.

But hey it's okay he got the deal done in time what an absolute legend.

UK has cut off a huge part of it's nose to spite it's own face. Yeah we got a deal but at what cost? Only time will tell. Apparently, UK 'chose not to be' in the Erasmus programme which is definitely one of the shittest outcomes of this deal.

Agree. He'll lap up all the praise for it no doubt but as Rando said, time will tell just how good it is when it comes to details etc.

Hope this includes the £350m/week for NHS...

Will come on and get the winner on Saturday.

The cynic in me says it's all a bit timely these new strains come in ready for a lockdown in Jan, ready made excuses for further restrictions as well from Boxing Day

It looks UKIP have gained a lot of areas, labour taking back Midlands and Northern areas. Tory blue nowhere to be seen which is great

Is this surprising? We've heard over past few weeks especially that viruses mutate 100s and 1000s of times and this was almost to be expected. I guess it's good they've quarantined 2 cases and contacts so far and we just have to hope there's no further cases found. I am surprised more areas aren't in Tier 4 though. Still remains in London, South East and now covers more surrounding areas i.e. Sussex, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk. Thought it'd go further west and towards the Midlands too.

Sturgeon's treatment in the media for a very brief blip of taking mask off at a funeral compared to how other rule-breaking MPs in England were treated tells you everything you need to know about the media in this country. In the absolute gutter.

@Devil-Dick Willie @Toinho @McAzeem do you guys watch Big Bash? I had no idea before tournament started that there's no DRS involved. There's been two shockers of decisions by umpires. One yesterday where Tye should have had a wicket, batsman clearly edged it about 2 foot off the ground and umpire said 'not out, think the bat hit the ground'. Now today, Cooper for Brisbane Heat is given out despite clearly (and I mean clearly) hitting the ball before it hit his pads and he was given out LBW. Two of the worst decisions I've ever seen by an umpire to be honest.

I hate our government.

This probably won't mean much to anyone else on here but @Dan, but we just unveiled our new training ground complex today and it looks fucking sensational if I may say so myself. Considering 10 years ago we'd only just come out of League One, nearly another 10 years before that we'd nearly gone in to administration, and just within the last 5 years we got promoted to PL for first time since 2004, won it, played in Europe twice. Our club has been elevated an absolutely huge amount and of course a massive part of that has been down to our owners. It's hard to put in to words just how much our club has grown in stature in the last decade, or even less.

CEO of BionTech is confident the vaccine covers the new mutant strain/variant of COVID. Good news and encouraging but also means we perhaps need to step up efforts in vaccinating as many people as possible and work through the priority categories. Think it's 500,000 so far in UK vaccinated but there are still some regions (Bedfordshire for one) who have been told they won't be getting the vaccines until 4th Jan in their area. The 'promise' by Johnson was to have 'millions vaccinated by Christmas'... That's not so good news! Wonder if Xmas period and having people in Tier 4 effectively stay at home for 2 weeks will mean it slows down the spread a bit... Can see Tier 4 being spread pretty much UK-wide in first few weeks of January. A step shy of being in a full lockdown like April...

Reckon that's a sign Thiago can't be relied on long-term (injuries etc) for how Klopp likes his squad to play? It's not a bad signing if it's to improve squad depth but underwhelming if the plan is to play him regularly.

Boris to make announcement at 5pm...

Saw a tweet yesterday evening saying Keir Starmer should be named 'Captain Foresight' not Captain Hindsight as I think Johnson called him once in Parliament. It's funny because Johnson regularly criticises Starmer for not working with the government yet when Starmer suggests something decent, he's laughed out of the Commons, when it would be a great opportunity for Johnson to swallow some pride and take on board something the opposition suggests. But then this Tory party are all about status and saving face, not willing to humbly accept they can and do make errors and just generally have too much ego to accept anything but their own thoughts.

There was a virologist on BBC or ITV news yesterday, can't remember which. Saying it's more transmissible and spreads through younger population quicker, but risk of mortality or hospital admission is not any more worse than 'normal' covid.

It will probably be the catalyst but like you say, can't blame them when restrictions announced like they have been today come in to force so quickly. People want to get home to their families and this is the only way they can perhaps do it without possibly facing punishment tomorrow onwards.