bluearmyfaction

Bhutan. Best country I've been to.

If you like Classical history, then yes. Definitely. Jerash has some fine Roman remains, it's much better to approach the Dead Sea from the Jordan side (not least as you get the actual [reputed] baptism of Jesus site which is a waterhole away from the river), even Amman has a good Roman theatre, and Madaba has a unique mosaic map that's worth a shufti. Plus Crusader sites like Shawbak, the extraterrestrial Wadi Rum, and obviously Petra. It literally took my breath away - you go in at the main entrance, walk for a mile through a narrow gorge, weave around a few corners and...wow. I did hold my breath as the Treasury emerged.

And not many hats. Go back 20 years and everyone seems to be wearing one. Funny how these things change almost by stealth.

Oh, and Turkmenistan.

Me too, albeit only for a day. Took an hour to get through the border controls. It's like an alternate reality, the signs are all Cyrillic, you don't see any Western brands. Booze is cheap but one of the startling things is that they have plastic coins that look like casino chips. It's still very Communist, Lenin statue outside Parliament, propaganda about how they only want peace and unification for Moldova with Russia, the South Ossetian and Abkhaz flags outside their embassies. And they still have the hammer and sickle on the flag. Sherif Tiraspol play in the Moldovan league solely because they can't get into Europe via the Transnistrian. And you see a lot of cars in Moldova with Transnistrian number plates cos there's no road tax in Transnistria, and it's cheaper to tip the rozzers in Moldova than to buy your road tax. Technically Transnistrian cars should not overnight in Moldova.

I'm not sure there is that strong a sense of "Englishness", at least when it comes to the international stage. Take motor racing for instance. English drivers, if they have a flag on their helmet, have the Union Jack; Mansell, Button, Derek Bell. Scots drivers tend to have the saltire; Coulthard, Franchitti, Gerry Birrell, John Cleland, even Jim Clark's was Scots blue. (Perhaps notably Eddie Irvine and John Watson both had Ulster orange rather than red/white/blue and Tom Pryce had the Welsh flag on his.) I think it is in part because many nations define themselves by what they are not. Cymri is Welsh for, roughly, companions. The ancient Greeks thought that anyone who wasn't Greek was a barbarian - "barbaroi" - because their languages sounded like bar-bar-bar to them. The word Slav in Slavic languages also means "word", as they thought they were the only people speaking properly, and then again the word "slave" also refers to Slavs, as being beneath contempt. But whereas Scotland has had the existential threat of England on its doorstep for a millennium, England hasn't really been in the same position, the 45 got a long way but not a threat, there's not been a successful foreign invasion since 1066 unless you count William III but that was a constitutional coup more than anything. So there's been less of a need to forge an "English" identity. By the time there was the whole world war/cold war thing, it was about the UK rather than England. If England were ever to vote independence it would most likely be as a snub to the SNP...but I think e.g. Yorkshire might be more likely to do so.

Yeah. They even need an arrow to show which way to read them.

Thanks, Lurkst. Thurkst.

Think it would have been better had the bolts been diagonal, in homage to Rayo Vallecano. I like the idea though.

Case report is actually shocking. The EFL was writing out to clubs telling them that Birmingham City were being told to sell players in the January window (which depressed the price) - at the same time as they were telling Wednesday to backdate a ground sale so they would not fail. It's the epitome of bias.

I have never been so still in my life.

I met Kenny Burns when I was about 5 and shyly asked for an autograph. He acquiesced, so long as I held his pint and cigarette while he did it.

I wonder why they didn't change the Vs on the sleeves to chain links to celebrate the city's rich slave-trading heritage.

Given that Derry City moved to the RoI League because of problems in the Irish League, I'm not sure matters would improve by having Linfield v Cork as a biannual fixture. It's really unnecessary. If there were to be a cross-border league the sensible one would be a UK League, which would only be feasible if the Champions League franchises effed off to spend eternity playing for 14th place against Werder Bremen and Lazio.

I don't think the CAS judgment re Man City would stand up under English law. (I think Scots law is the same as well.) The main point was when the clock started running for limitation purposes. The initial panel said that the starting gun was delayed because Man City deceived UEFA in an earlier settlement. CAS disagreed. Under English law though there's never a starting gun for fraud, until you discover it. The initial panel ruling followed that. Which made sense - there was an English QC (the chap who literally wrote the book on sports law) on it. The CAS panel was, paradoxically, less distinguished - and it seems for some reason Man City were allowed to nominate 2 panel members, which is unprecedented, and smacks of a deliberate stitch-up.

Surely the Man City case proved the opposite? Came to a mental conclusion to placate Abu Dhabi.

Did they allow floodlit League/Cup matches back then? It took a while to catch on and some tournaments (including the European ones) were more or less made up to get some use out of them. There were still Floodlit Cup contests listed in the Rothmans into the 1970s.

They'd be better off as Bs still, albeit Bo'ness Utd might complain...

It's a hart for Hertfordshire. But it looks more like a moose. Not as bad as Brentford. Ever seen a red-and-white striped bee?

Unless more feeders would have a play-off amongst themselves before meeting Club 42? In a way it might be better for the SPFL; a relegated team would have an easier task to win a smaller feeder structure (albeit the play-off would be harder). Also more derbies/lower travel costs.

I think one problem with the exam solutions is the media coverage. Whatever anyone does gets negative coverage. Negative coverage for taking into account teaching bias; then negative coverage for not taking it into account. The exam situation is a no-win because the media have decided it is no-win. The original idea of moderating down to take into account teacher bias was probably the best one, even though it does not look good. But it's better than a ridiculous and statistically impossible 15% jump in one year. It affects all those kids who deserved their grades and instead will find univs and employers always putting a mental asterisk next to them.

It says a lot for a place that a main tourist highlight is a sign. They had signs leading you to the sign. Very Ace of Base. I was a bit disappointed that there were no signs pointing to the signs that led you to the sign.

Las Vegas Lights are basically named for the Neon Museum, which is the second-best thing in Vegas (after the Mob Museum). Their first kit was rather striking, black with a sort of halogen V.

The risk is that there's a more stringent shutdown that puts the Celtic-KR tie in peril...

The League and Stevenage's appeal against the suspended points deduction for Macclesfield has been successful. The Macc Lads have had 6 points deducted, rather than the idiotic 2 plus 4 held over to 2020-21 that had been put in place. Which means they get relegated. By 0.1 point per game. Although I don't think they've amortized the point deduction over the season, which is what logically should happen (i.e. they've been deducted points for a 46 game season rather than the 37 they played). Had they done so, then Macclesfield would, by my maths, have gone down by 0.01 point per game. I wonder what this means for the Sheffield Wednesday case. Given that their deduction was also held over...