RandoEFC

Baffling categorisation of who's a primary or secondary or tertiary character there. Would certainly call Robb Stark the primary character of those three. How on earth can Rodrik Cassel be deemed a bigger character? Or is that just your top three matches in order? P.s. I got Maester Aemon, Jeor Mormont, Maester Luwin.

Not sure he made it as far as Horn Hill in the books. I think he only just arrived in Oldtown. Can't remember to be honest.

Yeah I expected that to take more than two scenes to be resolved. A lot of this endgame stuff they've rushed to focus on the main story. I hope GRRM does manage to get the books out as I'm much more interested in how he deals with these last few twists and turns. On a wider note, go back to seasons 6 and 7 and look at how rushed the Greyjoy stuff has been. The Kingsmoot and Euron Greyjoy's backstory are so much better in the books where they've been padded out. Hate to be that book wanker but it's true. The showrunners have said they'd happily have carried Game of Thrones on for longer but the company were keen for them to get it wrapped up in 8 seasons so a noticeable amount of plotlines (Stannis, Greyjoys, Dorne etc) have been rushed to a conclusion and lost the emotional resonance they might have had.

Word is that this season has been more of a cohesive team effort than the 2017 win which was more about having a selection of individuals who were above the level of the rest of the league (Davies, Calvert-Lewin, Lookman, Kenny, Dowell). The centre backs Morgan Feeney and Lewis Gibson along with the younger Anthony Gordon seem to be the individuals getting the most attention from this current crop.

Twice in three years, nice.

The first episode is always going to be mainly set up. The rest will be worth getting up for I'm sure. I have watched now but will wait for others to catch up before I start discussing.

Yeah I think we all need to practice using our spoiler tags because generally most of us probably won't watch each episode at the US premiere time. It's 2am in the UK.

The fact that this stuff is getting routinely reported at last is a long overdue step in the right direction, but it will take years and years to rinse a significant proportion of the filth out of football culture. You'll never get rid of it entirely, of course.

Can't tell if the link is actually an error that's meant to link to a cricket highlight, or you getting a 404 error on a webpage was the best bit of action you experienced while watching a cricket match. Both are equally possible.

It depends what you want out of life and what you want for your kids. There's one private school on the Isle of Man and I was sent to do the scholarship exam there because my Dad went to it and my Grandma on his side pushed for him to get me to go as well. I was offered a 40% scholarship but I never wanted to go there, and ended up going to the 'state' school instead with all of my friends. I've never regretted it, I got good results at GCSE and A Level and have gone on to do a job I love doing, even if I didn't always know that's where I was going to end up. Had I gone down the private route I may have become a doctor, or even a private school teacher instead, you never know whether you'd be happier in that parallel universe but I do know that my schooling experience would have been very different from the one I had which I really enjoyed. For me life is more than going where the money is, as long as I make enough to give my family a decent life when I have one. Doing fantastically well in life for me doesn't need to be moving into a mansion or seeing my two kids grow up to be surgeons. As long as I retire knowing that I've done my best as a teacher to educate the students that have sat in front of me and helped them grow, and as long as my kids fly the nest with the opportunity to pursue the life they want, that's doing fantastically well as far as I'm concerned, as cheesy as it sounds. I have no issue at all with the students you mention working hard for scholarships at a school like Eton to give themselves better life opportunities. That's the type of thing we need to see more of from our younger generation. All I'm saying is that if I was filthy, stinking rich, getting my kids into Eton wouldn't be my priority unless they particularly knew they wanted to be a leading doctor or the prime minister. I don't think it's very healthy for young people who come from that sort of 'sheltered' upbringing to go to an elite private school where they won't gain that insight into how things are in the real world outside the bubble of wealth.

Seeing some of the people that have come out of Eton I think that's one of the last places on the planet I'd send my children to school even if I won the lottery 37 times in a row. Hard work in a normal school will get you a good education, academically and vitally, socially as well. Learning about the world and the people around you is more important for a child's education than GCSE results or whatever pompous and elitist alternative they may or may not provide at Eton, and that's coming from a secondary school teacher. I'd much rather have a dumb kid with values than a snob for a child with all of the pathways open to them to become the fattest cat in all the land. The thought of having offspring turn out like Rees-Mogg actually makes me sick, as I'm sure everyone can see by me making the same point four times in different ways about not wanting to send my kids to Eton.

I've heard a lot of people correctly point out recently that the problem isn't racism in football specifically but racism in society that then happens at football matches where it's become somehow in vogue. It's reflective of society, not football fans though, that much rings true for me. It's disgusting but not exactly surprising given that society seems to be relapsing to a world of separatist and extremist politics and attitudes, from Islam extremists committing acts of terrorism to Trump's xenophobic election campaign to the Brexit vote and even the follow up negotiations where huge 'us and them' divides have surfaces between different layers of 'Leavers' and 'Remainers' to racial abuse routinely occurring at football matches. It is truly astounding the extent to which humanity hates itself. Yet people who compare the language which routinely gets pedalled by major public figures like Trump to the sort of language that Adolf Hitler used before he went full Holocaust still get laughed at because they're apparently exaggerating. And actually, credit has to go to the professional footballers who generally get such a bad wrap for being "thick as two short planks" or "having more money than they'll ever know what to do with" or "not knowing what it's like to spend a month's wages on their season ticket so they should just be able to ignore whatever's shouted from the stands". Raheem Sterling and co are the only ones speaking out and trying to lead us to a resolution in this problem while the FA and UEFA give it lip service and print a few hundred Kick It Out t-shirts a season. Let's not get started on how ill-equipped the government itself, who should be intervening in an issue this serious, are to confront it.

With four out of five rounds completed, here are the latest standings. The season title is Viva's to lose now: 1. @Viva la FCB - 28 points 2. @Lucas - 21 points 3. @The Palace Fan - 18 points 4. @RandoEFC - 17 points 5. @José / @Panna King / @...Dan - 13 points 6. @Bluewolf - 12 points 7. @Eco / @binder - 11 points 8. @Rucksackfranzose - 9 points 9. @nudge / @Storts - 8 points 10. @Batard / @Stan - 7 points 11. @Tommy / @StefBWFC - 5 points 12. @Cicero / @Dan / @Cannabis / @DNA / @Harry / @Dr. Gonzo / @DeadLinesman - 4 points 13. @SchalkeUK / @Spike - 3 points 14. @BounceAroundTheGround / @Azeem / @CaaC - John - 2 points 15. @Bluebird Hewitt / @JOSHBRFC / @robosys / @Mel81x - 1 point 16. @Rick / @shut up / @bozziovai / @LFCMike / @YNWA / AMG - 0 points

Heard about this on one of the podcasts I listen to. Strange comparison to say the least.

Christ this is a mess. Even as a remainer I think a second vote is morally wrong even if I think a U-turn on Brexit is the best for us in the long term. I still don't think it's guaranteed that Remain would win this time around, and if it does, you'll see serious riots and violence up and down the country I'd imagine.

They say that about Silverstone all the time. There's no way they'll lose the British Grand Prix, especially not while Hamilton is still at large. Bahrain is a brave shout with all those civil wars.

Which years? I was there in 2010 and 2011. Need to go again but will probably try and get to Spa rather than Silverstone. Imagine what a detestable team Red Bull will become when he is Verstappen's team mate.

Only Kepa, Allison and Ederson have more clean sheets than Pickford this season. Fair enough that's a reflection on the team as much as the goalkeeper, if not more. He also has the joint record for the most penalty saves in a season by an Everton goalkeeper at 4. Unfortunately he's also near the top for mistakes leading to goals among goalkeepers this season, but we didn't have that last season so I'll put it down to a blip. Room for improvement but still a significant asset. Between Howard's downfall in his last 18 months and tolerating the failed replacements in Robles and Stekelenburg (apart from that time he saved two penalties at City which was funny), Everton fans know a thing or two about having a shit keeper who's always got a mistake in him and Pickford doesn't fall into that category at all. Can't see why we'd be unhappy. Just because he's England's goalkeeper doesn't mean he has to be the Buffon of his generation. It's not like we'd rather have any of the other goalkeepers from the teams near us in the table.

Yeah I think it's likely they'll go a similar route this time. I was more confused about the last scene with Alpha and Beta after the storm and the arm whipping.

I would assume so yeah. Depends how they alter things. You've got Maggie off with that other woman in the background as well but probably what you said.

People are idiots aren't they. Fair play to him if that's the actual story. Even though he's laughed off the initial abuse, he still shouldn't have to along with other professional footballers who have to put up with the same thing all the time just "because you're a professional footballer and you just have to accept that it comes with the territory". Bottom line is that you've got to be a proper saddo/bunch of saddos if you're willing to go to those lengths just so you can go into work/to collect your dole pay on Monday and tell the exciting story of how you wound up someone vaguely famous by giving his fiance a load of unnecessary abuse.

Tends to be fairly reliable. That amount of money would be a game changer on the wage bill. Can we guess the 12 players? Probably most of the ones out on loan. Williams, Martina, Besic, Schneiderlin(?), McCarthy, Dowell(?), Bolasie, Mirallas, Lookman(?), Niasse, Tosun(?), Sandro. Probably not both Lookman and Tosun as surely that would bring more than £40m in fees.

He's definitely got an "eccentric" streak and I'm pretty sure his friendship group are a bit of a bunch of lads. Strikes me as the kind of lad who would be binge drinking often and getting into the odd scrap on a night out if he wasn't a professional footballer.