Inverted

The Ishiguro book was good. Now onto this

Disgraceful, but sadly typical of this country. We'll brag about wars we fought a 100 years ago, but crimes that occurred within living memory will get thrown down the memory hole.

Saving to buy. I moved back in with my parents after graduating, thinking I'd soon be moving to Edinburgh for work when I began my 2 year training contract in September 2020. Then, lockdown and WFH happened, so Im still here. I pay "rent" to my parents but it's half what I'd be paying in actual rent. They kinda need the help to keep up with bills etc but they also are obsessed with me owning my own place so they refuse to take more. Otherwise I am also spending a fraction of what I would in normal life, so I have managed to build up a pretty good lump of savings. I have more than enough to probably put down a 10% deposit on a decent one bedroom flat. My salary however is terrible and I have no job security past September 2022, so I will not be able to buy until after then. I am desperate to get my own place again, but it would feel like a waste to rent now when I just need to put up with living here for one more year.

Trying some fiction again.

In effect it is Israel which uses the population of Gaza as a human shield. By blockading Gaza, they essentially force any resistance into a position where if they want to resist, they must do so within the confines of one of the most densely-populated places on earth. Even if they wanted to, there is no possibility to move and fight from somewhere which is a safe distance from civilians. This is a win-win for Israel since the outcome is either 1 - Nobody in Gaza wants to fight, out of fear of drawing Israeli attacks on a civilian area; or 2 - Strikes come from Gaza, and Israel can automatically absolve itself morally because the enemy are using "human shields" by the mere fact of existing in Gaza.

Entirely believable. The main achievement of the last 5 years for Labour was managing to excite and motivate a large proportion of normally de-politicised people - young job market entrants, precarious workers, renters and the like - and get them voting and even campaigning. The party has thrown all of that work out the window in a vain attempt to undo a battle that was already lost, with a dying electorate.

When Zaha scored yesterday I had the feeling that the end-of-season slip might be coming, but winning it dramatically like that will surely have the players confident that they can go all the way and stay up there.

Some banging music from the Sahara.

I’m 24 so I’ll be near the end of the UKs schedule. I believe we are aiming for everyone 18+ to have at least their first dose by the end of July. So assuming it all goes to plan I should be sometime in early-mid July.

Can't blame him. Have you seen the price of a fish supper these days?

I imagine this could be the costliest slip-up ever committed at work.

It's amazing the things you miss in lockdown. Early morning showers. Commuting. Doing all your grocery shopping at the weekend. Getting shot in the head by a virgin with an AR-15. Buying an overpriced sandwich and a coffee for lunch. You know, the little things.

Over the last few weeks I have been pretty disengaged from political developments. You read about young people being disenchanted and I think I am starting to feel what they're talking about. The political condition of the country just seems hopeless, never mind with all the antifa scaremongering, anti-"cultural-marxism", flag-waving Americanised shite. This used to be looked at as extreme right-wing talking points, now it’s the mainstream ideology of the government. The younger generations desperately want action on things like living costs, job creation, regional development, housing security, and climate change - serious, material issues. Things which you can make verifiably true and untrue statements about. But, most of the country is absolutely fixated on nonsense and illusions - paranoia and artificial nostalgia whipped-up by the partisan right-wing media, and then amplified and legitimised by "impartial" or "liberal" outlets. Mostly, this is aimed at people who are either retired, or settled in their path in life - many of whom can't conceive of any need to worry about how the next generation will fare. A concern with future-oriented national policy has been replaced with making sure you are able to leave a nicely over-valued house to your own children to help them along. Politics has almost ceased to exist in the country. It is impossible to talk meaningfully about actual policy issues. The only movement that has attempted to do so in the last decade was Corbyn's Labour party, and look what happened. Actually wanting material, progressive policy in this country will get you branded as a cultist and a racist. It will get you beaten in the street and blacklisted from public life.

Just finished that, and into this:

I think the incidence for this particular form of thrombosis is about 5 in a million, so I don't know if the incidence amongst all vaccinated people in Europe is dramatically higher? And, even if we accepted that the vaccine definitely caused this clotting in these cases, I find it very hard to accept that preventing these few cases of clotting is worth dramatically increasing the chance of a third wave in many countries.

In hindsight, I don’t understand why the EU threw such a fit about AstraZeneca not delivering quickly enough, when very few Member States seem to be in a particular rush to vaccinate their populations, and half of them don’t even seem to want the AstraZeneca vaccine. It’s unbelievably callous, when so many countries across the world are desperate to get vaccines and get them in peoples’ arms. And not only are they hoarding doses needlessly, they’re bolstering anti-vac ideology across the world. When you allow figures like Macron to come out saying the AstraZeneca vaccine is ineffective, when the German business media make blatantly incorrect reports, and multiple countries make unfounded inferences about its side-effects, you sabotage efforts across the world, potentially costing hundreds of thousands of excess deaths.

I got you, I was agreeing with you. I was just seconding the point of how bad it looks.

Police officer murders woman days after his behaviour being reported to his colleagues. Women hold vigil in her memory. Police turn up at sundown, manhandling said women and trampling flowers placed in tribute to the murdered woman. The message could not be clearer - especially when you can see that the police are often happy to take a hands-off approach in other cases.

Expected Goals is an interesting stat and the primary issue people have with it is the name. It’s literally just a more useful version of the shots taken stat, and it’s more useful because it reflects how people already think about the game - everyone uses and understands the phrase “he should score from there”. But people get pissed off by it, because it makes it sound like you’re saying a team deserved a different result. If it was called something less loaded like “shot power” or “shot weight” it would probably be much more easily accepted.

So he's been arrested for covertly using club funds to overpay a PR organisation to slander the club's own players? Not sure if I have understood the whole thing. But if so, Jesus...

New King Gizz is pretty good.

I also think the idea of Klopp’s style being demanding is slightly overstated. A few years ago I would say it was, but Liverpool of the last couple of seasons are a much more controlled team - they don’t press as high, and they don’t attack as quickly. Its not like his peak Dortmund, or Liverpool a few seasons ago, where the style was basically “press intensely all across the pitch, and go for the jugular every time you win the ball”. I don’t think Liverpool play a much more intense style than Bayern Munich, or Atlético Madrid, for example. It’s a just a matter of rotating and having the depth a top side should have. Which Liverpool didn’t have up until this season, tried to fix in the summer, and then injuries took everything back to square one.

Even without ditching the back 4 there's a lot you can do. You've played a flat 4-4-2, or a diamond, or a 4-2-3-1 at various points this season and it's brought some fresh performances. I think Klopp doesn't quite know how to coach a 3 at the back, or he doesn't believe in it - either way the result is, its off the table. He's been a manager for like 20 years and you can probably count the number of times he's played a back 5 or 3 on your fingers.

United have been very strong results-wise but are fundamentally not brilliant, and teams which are punching beyond their performances often find the results turn slightly. Leicester have looked probably the 2nd best team so far this season but they could easily have another Rodgers-style implosion. West Ham are doing great but I don't think they can maintain this form all season. Chelsea are looking resurgent atm but they will presumably slow down a bit once they hit a run of tough games. I really don't think anyone is comfortably in the top 4 except City. It is wide open for the rest of the top 6-8 teams.