Inverted

Photo of me being academic af in my graduation gown on the hottest day ever recorded in Glasgow (32 celsius).

Haha I heard that. Tbh I liked that some of the most disturbing moments aren’t at all graphic. The mark of a a good horror, and also just a dramatically interestingly story. Toni Collette is also a fucking amazing actor.

Hereditary: 9/10 Need to rewatch but I think it could be one of my favourite horrors ever. Imo several ways the story developed were a bit unnescessary, but overall I think it was original and, really grotesquely, sickeningly disturbing. Not at all cheap in how it gets to you.

Fired through this on holiday with half the trip to spare. Pleasantly surprised by how many technical details were new to me, and very accessibly written.

Getting excited now about heading to Florida on Friday with the family. Only issue is that I'll get my final degree classification back on the same day at some point, and if I don't get the grades I need it's going to really hit the mood of the holiday.

Found this collection of some of Marx's writings, mostly from when he was working as a journalist in America. It's quite interesting to read his contemporary analysis of things like British expansion in India, or the American Civil War, where he's discussing concrete events and his views on their wider historical meaning, as opposed to just laying out theories. For example it's quite surprising to see how much he admired Abraham Lincoln, despite Lincoln's politics being quite different from his.

Can’t believe this lad is 200 years old today, congrats big man.

You got a fucking unbelievable, complete midfielder for like 2 million euros! If he left on a free I'd still say it was good business But I can understand that he's the type of character you'd want captaining your team for years. The thing is, if he was going to do that at any club he'd have stayed at FCK.

No offence to Werder, but I'd like to see Delaney surrounded by better players and see what he could do in Europe once again. If he does leave, to get a couple of seasons of him for such little cost and then sell him on is amazing business. And this new winger looked quite sharp against Dortmund, I hadn't watched Bremen since he had arrived.

Amber Rudd resigns as Home Secretary for lying to Parliament in order to cover-up her predecessor May's policy of deporting black citizens to "home" countries they couldn't even remember in pursuit of pre-planned targets. Yup, another day in Tory Britain. The only problem is that our Strong and Stable PM is running out of human shields.

Hibs apparently looking at Ali Crawford. Would be an unreal signing for them imo, could really help establish them as a top-3 force.

I'm such a pale Scottish bastard that I've actually got a tan just from sitting in the garden studying for about 90 minutes yesterday. Thankfully today it's went back to being miserable so I can't go out and get myself burnt.

Yeah I realised that the city flattens out a bit once I got nearer the centre but 90% of my time was down around the quayside. It went alright I feel, cheers for asking. I also got to hear what a posh Newcastle accent sounds like for the first time.

I'm in Newcastle for a job interview/assessment day, and I've got to say: This city makes no fucking sense. Who the fuck had the idea of building a city on two steep as fuck river banks. I went to go get some food and according to my phone I was right outside the place until I realised I needed to go downstairs to a street basically directly below the one I was on. Its like a less fantastical Gondor. Still nice, though.

I love exam season.

I actually don’t mind watching some boxing but the sport as a whole is 95% fucking nonsense. Blatantly biased coverage and commentary, star fighters evidently being built up as cash cows for broadcasters, cunts in bathrobes standing in the middle of some sparklers, a fucking 7-minute exposition of the national anthems of Oceania. Who can be arsed man.

"The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a bomb, is a good guy with a bomb." - The US Department of Defence

I think the more limited coaching time with intl football perhaps makes it more worthwhile to focus on a defensive system. I'm obviously not a coach but if I had to guess, training lots of attacking variations and positioning is probably a slower and more complicated process than training your defensive shape and marking scheme for whoever your next opponent is. So if you're trying to get the most out of a group of players with a limited familiarity in only a couple of weeks of training, you probably get more out of your time by focusing on defensive preparation, even if it means leaving your players largely to work it out themselves creatively. This is probably why it's also a big advantage to have players who are used to playing with each other, and to have a kind of philosophy instilled and maintained in the national team like with Germany, Spain and Chile in their tournament wins. With club football there's just so much more time that at a certain point continual defensive coaching is going to bring you more and more limited returns. You can only drill a team into its shape so well. At a certain point you have to move on to working on how your team attacks, and developing a deeper kind of understanding than just picking the players and sending them out, and hoping your training gets a clean sheet and the players get a goal.

Guardiola hit the nail on the head with Mourinho back in 2011: "Outside of the field, he has won the entire year, the entire season and in the future [it will be the same]. He can have his personal Champions League outside the field. Fine. Let him enjoy it, I'll give him that. In this room [the press room], he is the chief, the fucking man. In here he is the fucking man and I can't compete with him." Sadly he lacks the determination to do any work except in the press room these days and satisfies himself and his flock just by sitting on his arse talking endless screeds of shite.

Since I started working on my dissertation I've put on a little weight, I might need to start looking at getting back into a bit of proper exercise. Normally I get enough exercise just by walking, since my commute has a 20 minute walk either way, and I normally do a lot of walking during a day in uni. But since classes finished a few weeks ago I've been working from home mostly, eating a bit more, and only exercising with a bit of push-ups and that in the house. I fucking hate running and I have zero stamina, but I still prefer it to the gym.

Russia is annoying as fuck because in terms of their material significance they're scarcely above the Netherlands and Belgium. Their power being what it is is purely because their government is happy to spunk huge amounts of money on their armed forces and nuclear arsenal whilst their country lives in poverty. Say what you like about the Soviet Union but at least they didn't launch any chemical weapons attacks on NATO states. Russia's oligarchic, crony-capitalist religious-authoritarian government these days has far less respect for international law.

A beautiful soul and a beautiful player.