Miguel Sanchez

I was at Govan at half six and saw four guys on the other platform. One of them was wearing a St. Pauli hat.

My response, as an intellectual: "Well in the interests of competitive fairness the correct decision was reached, I can have no complaints. Chapeau, Mr. Referee." Polite applause before Celtic score five in the next 20 minutes.

The Mummy (1999) Some harm comes from reading a book. The ultimate blockbuster - action, horror, comedy, a history lesson, a healthy fear of the unknown and a distrust of Americans. And some utterly heinous CGI. As good now as it ever was. I watched this on TV at half six in the evening so some of the gorier bits were missing. The Exorcist (1973) Priest has spiritual crisis and resolves it by going for a trip. Some films I watch and just instinctively know I'm watching something good, even if I don't fully appreciate and understand every aspect of it the way I'd like. Is it because I spend a lot of time watching Mark Kermode reviews on youtube? Probably. All I know for certain is this is just captivating from beginning to end, now matter how unsettling it is. Alien (1979) What is it with horror films and people not acting the way people do? John Hurt is an astronaut on a ship that receives a strange signal from a nearby moon. He and his crew investigate and discover a huge spaceship crash landed on it. It's huge, it's black and glossy, filled with extremely intricate architecture and structures. There's a giant humanoid skeleton on a plinth with something sticking out of its chest. John Hurt finds a bunch of eggs surrounded by mist in a room. He goes and looks at one of the eggs and sees something moving inside, so he sticks his face over the top and the thing jumps out and wraps itself around his face. His crew take him back to his ship and do some investigating. They try cutting it but it has literal acid for blood. Then they go away and leave him for a bit. Then they go back and the thing has left his face and seemingly lies dead on the floor. Then they leave him for a bit again. Then they come back and he's up and fine and hungry so they go and have dinner and then the Alien bursts out of his chest. I've seen this before and never really taken to it, despite it largely having a bunch of traits that I like. I realised partly why I've struggled this time around. There's something... presumptive about the way the characters talk to each other and do things. I don't know if I'm just stupid but nobody talks to anyone, nothing is explained, they just seem to move to the next bit of the ship so the next scene can happen. There's very little conversation and really there's not much that suggests to me this crew know each other very well or really care. Luckily we have a young Sigourney Weaver who looks like the least likely survival horror action star possible but pulls it off very well. While watching this I discovered I've only ever seen her in three films - this and Ghostbusters 1 and 2. This is her best. Boiling Point (2021) The world's most Scouse chef has the ultimate kitchen nightmare. Shot as a one-take (but not really, even though I watched it on streaming with ad breaks you can see the few cuts it has) we see everyone in a restaurant have a night. It's very real. It's so real you spend the run time even more wound up and anxious and angry than all of the people you see. You're in the restaurant as much as they are. You loathe and sympathise with certain characters, whether they're objectively annoying or terrible or not. Very good, but it will raise your blood pressure. If you've ever worked in a restaurant or bar this is probably the sort of fever dream you have years later where everything that can go wrong in a night does.

They've definitely run out of tasks.

Oh I forgot, the NHL also fines/suspends players for dirty hits/plays, with video (slow motion video) presumably forming a big part of the cases against players. It is, quite literally, a lottery. You think bad tackles in football look bad in slow-mo, imagine the players are twice the size and twice as fast and are trying to make full body contact. It goes as well as you'd expect.

Ever since I started following the NHL in 2002 there were video reviews for goals that weren't clear. A combination of the net, players and early 2000s cameras could make it difficult to see if the puck was fully across the line, and there were inevitably some contentious moments. Google "flames game 6 goal" and you'll see. There are also reviews to see if a goal was scored by a high stick (if the stick is above the crossbar when it touches the puck before it goes in, it's not a goal). These make sense. You need to see if a goal is scored, and goal line technology isn't possible with a net that moves and various other factors of the game. It also helps that hockey is a stop start game, where the clock stops when there's a stoppage. A few years ago there was a game with a really bad missed offside call: It's offside if a player is over the blue line before the puck is. Well. The result was a coach's challenge for offside and goalie interference calls. You get one per game. If you challenge and the challenge was right, you keep it. if you challenge and get it wrong, you lose the challenge and the other team gets a powerplay. Offside challenges were a nonsense. They started making up rules. Oh if a guy is offside but on the other side of the ice it's fine. Oh his leg can be up in the air if it's in line with the blue line. Oh if a guy carries it in but isn't in "control" it's fine too. Nonsense. Still is, but at least they've clarified it as they've gone along. Goalie interference was predictably terrible. Goalies started selling everything, and refs bought it, usually. Eventually this changed. I don't think it was ever explicitly stated, but there was a shift to a sentiment of 'if the goalie wasn't getting to it anyway, it's fine.' The point is, in a sport with far fewer moving points, a smaller and better lit field of play, regular stoppages as part of regular play and with a limitation on how much video review there can be for either team, it's still an utter nonsense. Football is a much more fluid, subjective sport, with more moving parts and a much more hostile environment for the officials in terms of players, coaches, fans and media pressure. Fundamentally I don't think the concept works, and I don't see what improvement there can be.

This pair of badly made-up old p***ks in the lottery adverts are beginning to grate.

The V in VAR stands for virgin.

He'll be facing the Burgundy Juggernaut next week. Hopefully he gets a real welcome to the league.

I didn't know Rachel Riley was Jewish. I wondered why she hated Jeremy Corbyn so much.

I am also fed up of Bedard and he's only played two games.

Imagine if there was an Old Firm game at the weekend. With away fans.

Besides you

"Mark Goldbridge" I don't know who or what this is but I don't care.

Currently like this trying to look at the Subcrawl and Israel/Palestine threads:

Pie & Bovril Big League Pie & Bovril Diddy League Pie & Bovril Seaside Leagues 1 and 2 Pie & Bovril Git Doon. Stay Doon. Die. League Relegation Playoff

They look pretty small, I think a ferry would just plough through those.

Some of us have seen Brian Boucher and Paul Bissonette on the television and have a differing view of their capacity for insight.

Any time I've been in the Hydro I've been at the front so I don't know if it's down to that. Compared to The National last week, I noticed it.

These camera angles that pan right as the cars turn into a corner are some laugh. Everything looks like it's going to be a crash.

I want to see Sargeant spew before he can open his visor.

My stream's breaking up a bit tell me "Sargeant" isn't retiring because he feels a bit sick.

F1 should have Joker laps.