Paustovsky comments

It's a lucrative but predictably ignominious ending for such a natural, but wasted, talent.

I am struggling to recall a more universally disliked player than Neymar. The hard-partying evangelical, the master of malicia.

If his ego hadn't demanded a transfer from Barca it all could have been so different.

https://teamukfl.com/blog/ukfl-by-the-numbers-is-american-football-popular-in-the-uk/

That site is quoting the same creative data from the NFL.

A more accurate figure is mentioned in the amount of people applying for tickets for the NFL game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

One of the most remarkable statistics I found when researching this article is about those unfortunate people. The NFL confirmed that the Tottenham games in 2019 were 12 times oversubscribed and sold out in 45 minutes.

Twelve times oversubscribed. That means somewhere in the region of 750,000 fans were unsuccessful in their effort to buy tickets.

I'm going to be generous and suggest that figure is half of the total of NFL fans in the UK.

1.5 million seems much more realistic.

14 million British NFL fans and around 4 million of them are 'avid' fans.

That sounds very much like some creative marketing from the NFL.

I am not denying that NFL has fans in the UK, I'm a casual watcher, but you'd be hard pushed to find many Brits who have even basic knowledge of the sport. I haven't had the heart to tell my mate that the team he 'likes' has been the Las Vegas Raiders for 3 years now.

compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.

That would be the Convention that the tories are pushing to leave because they want to send humans to Rwanda or Ascension Island.

@wallace

Have you been watching illegal downloads ? You have to be carful with that.

I tried watching Sound of Freedom but the dialogue had been dubbed with the voices of The Muppets.

The filmmakers earnest portrayal of the horrors of human trafficking, and my questionable desire to witness child actors traumatised for my entertainment, were somewhat spoilt.

Really? How? LOL!

I dunno. I guess one could come out of the movie feeling uplifted, positive even, and henceforth decide to not be the kind of relentlessly boring old man who guffs on about woke children's movies.

Thanks for letting me know... to make sure I don't watch it.

Oh go on, you know you want to.

It definitely won't make you a worse person but it might make you a better person.

It seems that American men who don't like football, don't like American women who do like football. Especially the American women who are very good at football.

What is the source of their ire ? Is it because they are American women who are good at football ? Or is it just because the American women who do like football have achieved far more than the American men who don't like football ?

I have never tasted curry, it is hard to find it in my all vegetarian diet. Unless of course some one makes a salad dressing in a curry flavour one day, but I doubt that happening.

Er... isn't most Indian food vegetarian ? It's other countries that add meat.

 am a gentlemen at all times

No, Sir. A gentleman always retires to the study to smoke cigars and discuss the relief of Mafeking.

Since the wall was finished in 2010, the land the wall helped to reclaim from the sea remains largely barren. Once seen as a major development project for a region lacking an industrial base, it’s now increasingly viewed as an ecological blunder that wiped out coastal wetlands and hurt fisheries production.

Human greed, ignorance and corruption knows no bounds.

visited a war memorial and the former presidential palace

Then, to add insult to injury, they drag the teenagers around the most boring places in Seoul.

The Bolsonaro-supporting, evangelical christian Neymar and Saudi Arabia seems like a match made in Heaven.

I think there’s something very dark behind all this

lockdown debacle

One can sense a Venn diagram forming.

The amount of energy expended over a minuscule yet vocal (and some would say “obnoxious) part of our society just boggles the mind.

Exactly. We have all benefitted from the gender-neutral toilets in the convenience stores. What kind of backwards cad would argue against that ?

The perfect toilet is clean, well-lit, gender-neutral with disabled access and baby-changing facilities. Anyone who argues otherwise is a cad and a bounder with some nefarious agenda.

1850 - No public toilets

1851 - First public toilets

1877 - First gender-separated public toilets

2023 - collapse of civilisation, you see.

Why are you so keen on genderless toilets anyway?

Because anyone can use them. It is spiffing convenient.

especially being located on the restaurant/pub level of a building in a part of town known for hard-drinking and rowdy partying, had more potential to make some feel a sense of unease, and ultimately that’s what the management has chosen to address.

This is the key point old bean. Inebriated people, you see.

I'm going to presume some politician received a nice kickback for hosting 42,000 kids. Unfortunately it resembles a brightly coloured refugee camp with nothing to do.

At least in Jenin you can join Hamas.

You need to read the comments in the voice and demeanour of Little Britain's Emily Howard.

lol. I always read his comments in the voice of Johnny Depp's weak English accent.

I will be watching “Sound of Freedom” soon.

I wouldn't bother. It's just virtue signalling from a bunch of SJW's. If those people put their money where their mouth is, their houses would be full of humans rescued from traffickers.

Been watching my old Steptoe DVD’s today, what a laugh they are, eh! Harooooold!

There was a reason only six people attended Wilfred Brambell's funeral.

If only Japanese film fans had the option of watching any of these films right now, like film fans in every other country in the world can.

Good grief Derek. You've been flogging the same dead horse for weeks now.

‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

What a pair of absolute nimrods.

This may come as a shock, but here goes: You do not to take ANY mind-altering drug of ANY type in order to live as a human being.

Factually correct but, my god, what a boring artless world it would be. Devoid of creativity, alernative perception, spirituality, ideas. Everything that separates us from animals.

Jeez, even some animals like to get high.

I'm pretty much ok with the cycle behaviour in Japan. The rules place the fault with the car so it tends to make drivers think about their surroundings more.

Unfortunately, the level of driving ability in Japan is atrocious. Pedestrian crossings ignored, tailgating, watching tv, playing games, line-chatting with friends, cutting corners through the conbini car park, turning into a road without looking if it is clear, kids boshing around inside the car like it's a softplay park, window visibility nullified by net curtains, soft toys or figures.

The local police could make millions of yen everyday fining drivers sailing through red lights.

The 'Japanese' mask slips off when they get behind a steering wheel.

@Peter Neil

I think you're on to something there. Twin Kitty's or Kitty Seven maybe ?

Poor people make poor choices. Can't be helped.

Having said that, larger people are much more fun to be around than some dull bodybuilder or gym bore.

City dwellers don't care about animals enough to see them beyond a form of entertainment. When was the last time anyone saw a vaguely intelligent nature documentary in Japan ?

They don't exist.