Miguel Sanchez

An unfortunately named equipment brand here

The freer the market, the freer the people.

Staying with SSE as far as I'm aware. OVO is just the parent company and has been for some time Hmm. I got an email a while ago saying I was being switched to OVO and my direct debits were being combined into one. They only got around to actually doing that this week.

Are you being switched from SSE to OVO as well? I got that email from SSE but it's not very clear how the account switch is affecting things.

Craig Forsyth over Andy Robertson because he was tall

It's good to know you're still alive.

Shinzo Abe: A divided Japan bids farewell to its slain ex-PM - BBC News The BBC's article about the state funeral of the recently assassinated former Prime Minister of Japan contains an interesting few lines: Those wacky Japanese, paying a lot of money to have a state funeral for someone while large swathes of the country are suffering so much. You'd never catch us doing that.

Remember, you don't get any points if you kill them yourself.

The chain seems a bit like overkill.

A football commentator who has to think about what he says before he says it. What an outrage.

Week 39 update One death this week, the actor Louise Fletcher: Louise Fletcher: Oscar-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest star dies | Film | The Guardian I think I've seen the film once. I'll need to look it out some time. Fletcher died at 88 so she's worth 37 Base Points for @Arch Stanton with a Solo Shot taking that to 87 points. As a result, the standings look like this: 1. Bishop Briggs 691 2. Indale Winton 635 3. chompmyroot 551 4. Ned Nederlander 496 5. JustOneCornetto 452 6. Arch Stanton, sparky88 445 8. Moomintroll 416 9. Billy Jean King 411 10. gkneil 382 11. weirdcal 372 12. psv_killie 353 13. Sweaty Morph 342 14. Savage Henry 338 15. mathematics, The DA 321 17. peasy23 318 18. The Master 273 19. The_Craig 266 20. scottsdad 262 21. Arbroathlegend36-0 255 22. pub car king 239 23. lichtgilphead 237 24. Arabdownunder 230 25. microdave 228 26. buddiepaul, thistledo 226 28. senorsoupe 219 29. Raidernation 218 30. Desp 217 31. pawpar 216 32. Melanius Mullarkey 207 33. Aim Here 205 34. Florentine_Pogen 202 35. Fuctifano, jimbaxters 196 37. blootoon87 180 38. tamthebam 168 39. thisal 160 40. cdhafc1874 159 41. Mark Connolly 153 42. gingette 150 43. ayrunitedfw 140 44. Lofarl 127 45. HI HAT 122 46. sleazy 121 47. willie adie 115 48. Scorge 114 49. nessies long lost ghost, The Naitch 113 51. Hamish's Passenger, speckled tangerine 112 53. Les Cabbage 111 54. Miguel Sanchez 105 55. Bully Wee Villa 104 56. djchapsticks, Enigma 81 58. cambozpar 74 59. The Hologram 73 60. ThomCat 69 61. paulathame 63 62. D.V.T., Karpaty Lviv, qos_75 59 65. Aladdin, BillyAnchor, doulikefish, ICTJohnboy, invergowrie arab, mizfit, Oystercatcher, smpar, Soapy FFC 58 74. Cardinal Richelieu, get_the_subbies_on, Lex, RossBFaeDundee 52 78. Ray Patterson 47 79. Amarillo Bairn 44 80. Bert Raccoon, statts1976uk 39 82. 10menwent2mow 34 83. Bold Rover, dagane, Duszek, Hedgecutter, HTG, LoonsYouthTeam 29 89. Everyone else 0 The spreadsheet has also been updated with these scores: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mup1IJllKHs0a47J8G6IXUkvShJrV28Iuc-Kkn7RKuo/edit?usp=sharing

Beck For a man whose most esteemed work was made adjacent to grunge, britpop and landfill indie, he sounds timeless in comparison. Sadly he's still shite.

Leap Year (2010) I watched this based on Kermode's review It's infinitely worse than I could have imagined. I don't understand how something like this can exist. I don't know why Amy Adams read the script and thought yes, I should be in this film. Nothing about it makes any sense.

Telling Lies (PS4, 2019) In the Annapurna Interactive Deluxe Limited Edition, Telling Lies is introduced with a word from its creator: Telling Lies is a FMV game which tells the story of David, an FBI agent who goes undercover to infiltrate an environmental activist group who are planning to disrupt the construction of a gas pipeline. Rather than a linear, choice-driven narrative however you instead piece together the story by watching video clips of video calls and recordings, allowing the story to build up gradually. I've played one FMV in my life. Erica, earlier this year. It was nonsense from a creative perspective, and while it looked nice it was a bit shallow. In Telling Lies the format is used in an almost meta fashion, where you control someone searching through an archive of video recordings of David and all the people he interacts with over the course of the story. You search for videos by typing in words. If the word is spoken in a video, it shows up. Through watching new videos you learn and think of more words to search for. This structureless structure has benefits and drawbacks. If you just search for characters' names as they're spoken you almost get the story in chronological order - all the videos are timestamped so you can get a general idea of when things are happening. One name will progress to others as new characters are introduced and it's almost exciting listening out for a new name, knowing you're going to learn something new when you next search. On the other hand, there are 169 videos you can search for so you're almost certainly going to miss some of them, and see some of them in an order that can be disorientating. There's one strand of the story which I think I saw out of sequence earlier than I should have and I had trouble seeing where it fitted in with everything else. It can also be difficult if you see video calls out of sequence. Seeing one half of a conversation then having to wait a few hours to find the other half can be quite jarring when you realise what it is you're watching. I didn't know what to expect going into this game. I was open-minded enough to the FMV format but I didn't realise it was going to come with some assembly required. It just works though. You really do get a buzz from finding the right word to bring up new videos you haven't seen. You do genuinely care about the things going on in David's life and the women whose lives he ruins. The acting from each character is natural and engaging. You don't ever really think you're watching staged recordings. It's also interesting how much detail goes into some of the shots. As much as you need to follow the dialogue to uncover the story, there are always visual cues in the background to look out for too. Even though you're only ever seeing what a phone or a camera can record, nothing you see feels constrained. The result is something which really does keep your attention for the couple of hours you'll spend with it. The biggest problem with the meta format is the apparent lack of instruction. You view the videos on a computer desktop which is fine. There are files you can click on which explain what RETINA, the software you're using to view the videos, is. It also explains where it came from, and why there's an apparent rush against the clock to view videos. The identity of the person viewing the videos isn't revealed until the end and I found it a very flimsy premise once I realised what was going on. For the first three or four in-game hours I was too engrossed in searching for videos, once I started struggling to find new ones I wondered what the point was. Did I need to find out something specific? Was I going to fail if I didn't? The game isn't very clear on the actual purpose of what you're doing and this spoiled my initial playthrough slightly, putting me under an unspecified - and as it turned out non-existent - stress to finish it. You don't, as it happens. Once the in-game clock reaches 5:37 it stops, you can keep watching videos as much as you want. If you finish the game you can restart at this end point and keep searching for any videos you missed. I think in a world where interactive drama exists in video games, Telling Lies does something different. You don't need to guess how David Cage thinks humans react to words or actions to progress a story the way you'd like to. Here you have one story which you have to uncover and piece together yourself, but presented in such a way as to make this actually engaging. The writing and performances of all the cast help a lot and I can't give enough credit to them, but the non-linear way you interact with the story is ultimately the game's real strength. The story itself isn't that remarkable, but the people and the way you consume it are.

Enjoy your upcoming tax cut.

Me, when I learn that people willingly buy Irn-Bru Xtra:

Mantel was on my list. But no, Stephen King and Philip Pullman are older, she's only 70. Useless c***s.

Might go for a job at scottsdad's work. By the sounds of the sort of charlatans they attract I'm sure I'd be running the place within a week.

Ever since I started listening to music I've bought CDs rather than downloading or streaming. I still have all of them. There's some utter, utter shite that I'd never listen to now and that I'm quite embarrassed by, but I feel as if my collection is a complete snapshot of my life and I don't really want to lose parts of that. Recently I had the idea of starting at the beginning and going through them alphabetically. And sharing the shite with you. After hearing their only real hit, Wires, on a Now! CD I remember loving the Athlete album that song was on. Their third album was great and had some stuff on it that's almost interesting even now. I remember it took ages for me to ever find their first album in a shop and being wildly excited when I did. It wasn't good then, it's not good now. Listening to this album gave me the idea for doing this in this thread, and I genuinely couldn't pick which of the twelve songs to post. Chorus!