RoverAndOut

Aside from the fact I don't really fancy running the game, this sounds like great fun! And, like you Biblio, I could come up with enough names off the bat for all categories. But if you don't mind, I'll do a little research and get back to you. But I'm in!

Likewise Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative candidate who is MP for Richmond Park. Sadiq Khan is MP for Tooting. While Boris has done the last year of his mayorship while also being an MP, I can't see either of them doing the same thing until 2020 so a by-election is virtually guaranteed. There is vested interest in the outcome, by my calculations 3 people (Rockhopper, The Engineer, VoYM) have Khan, while no less than 8 people (Deathray, Handrejka, msc, time, Maryport, Dead Cow, Manuel and myself) have Goldsmith. Not sure why there is such a difference, maybe because after the 2015 general election Goldsmith was the only serious challenger for the Conservative nomination for mayor while Labour had Tessa Jowell, Sadiq Khan and David Lammy to name but three..? Will the Voice of Young Maryport come out on top in the Maryport household once again?

Haven't they ever done that? How extraordinary. Seems an obvious moneyspinner. I don't see how. Isn't Eurovision like a 3-4 episode event? Seems like it would be pretty expensive to recruit acts in all 50 states for basically a miniseries. Also the people who like Kitsch/Camp and people who like state jingoism are 2 entirely different demographics in the Us. The Eurovision Song Contest is a single event, not a miniseries. A TV spectacular, a gala occasion. (Unless it's changed, I haven't watched it in years.) In th UK I think we have a preliminary show in which viewers can vote for the song to be performed. This aspect has varied over the years though. I suppose you could have people in each state vote for the artist who would perform the state's entry song, and/or vote for the song itself. As in American Idol or X Factor. That could be a series of programmes, then you have the competition itself. It's clearly transferable to the States. Each state selects it's act during the first few months of the year, by whatever means it likes. It can have a one-off contest, turn it into an X Factor style mini-series, the public might or might not be involved, that's up to the states themselves. 50 is too many for the contest, so as with Eurovision, there would be a random split into 2 semis of 25 (alternatively do it geographically, East and West). People at home vote for their favourites (maybe all 50 states can vote on the semis, maybe only those involved in each semi) and those with the most votes score points, just like Eurovision. Highest 12 points scores in each semi qualify for the final, plus the 13th placed state with the most points from either semi leaving 25 in the final. Same format for the final, leading to an overall winner. Simples. Many people don't watch the Eurovision semis, just the final, so it's up to viewers how involved they get. But if doesn't have to take more than 3 nights over 1 week for the main event. Only issue would be diversity: Is a song from Oregon going to be very different to a song from Florida? The wonder of Eurovision is what passes for music in Montenegro and San Marino...

PR release I saw said only two 1,000/1+ singles have ever come in as a bet in history before this Leicester thing (some guy in the 60s got a 1,000/1 on man walking on the moon before 1970 and a 2,500/1 "my son will play international football" bet for some guy). Can this be true? Is this the famous Chris Kirkland bet? And wasn't it a friend of his father's rather than his father himself?

Just turned up on The One Show, who were doing a piece about Bedknobs and Broomsticks. She was speaking via video link from the US but still looked in fine fettle, old (unsurprisingly) but clearly still with all her faculties.

None at this moment in time, all it means is she's currently sitting as an Independent rather than a Labour MP. But it may lead to her being forced to quit Parliament, which would trigger a by-election. She's been very contrite about it all though, and it has been dug up from before she was an MP. MPs have done and said far worse than this and survived, at least until the end of the Parliament. I'd be surprised if we get a by-election out of this one, which suits me fine as I don't have her.

No complaints about liking a different sort of companion, I was quite looking forward to Victorian Clara being the companion but alas, and they certainly wouldn't have two blokes and no women on the show as a permanent thing. But that said they're not all from London. Amy was unashamedly Scottish and Jenna's a northerner whose character was from Blackpool (admittedly she lived in London the brief times she was actually there). As for the new girl, I believe her only tv was an episode of the daytime soap Doctors and otherwise she's worked exclusively in the theatre, currently touring with a production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. If the brief clip we saw is anything to go by her character seems very talkative and not the smartest of cookies. But we won't see her properly until 2017 anyway.

Putting the words 'Tina Turner stroke' into Google just brings up a shed-load of 'Tina Turner denies stroke rumours' stories. Make of that what you will. Seems the story originated in Germany but I wouldn't put too much weight into whether it happened or not. Found this story from a year ago that has pics of her out shopping and she looks great for 75. Then again, the last four months have given me much cause to reconsider how I judge the health of various celebrities. See: Bowie, Prince, Rickman...

Yeah, but is that 8 years or 16..?

94% of the votes now in and solid wins for both Clinton and Trump as RadGuy says. Trump 60.5% Kasich 25.1% Cruz 14.5% Clinton 57.9% Sanders 42.1% With the rough breakdown of delegates (which is done both on a statewide and congressional district basis in NY), this is what they're walking away with at present: Republicans - 95 delegates Trump - 89 delegates Kasich - 3 delegates Cruz - 0 (that's ZERO) delegates Democrats - 247 delegates Clinton - 139 delegates Sanders - 108 delegates Overall, this means Trump has 847 delegates, Cruz 553 (a lead for Trump of just under 300) and Kasich 148 delegates. Clinton has 1443 pledged delegates and Sanders 1183, a lead for Clinton of 260. Looking ahead, tonight has made it MORE likely that Donald Trump can get to the magic 1237 he needs to win the nomination on the first ballot. He has smashed his rivals today and is likely to top 90 delegates from New York when they're finished counting. Next Tuesday sees 5 states vote: Delaware, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Rhode Island. Trump is expected to win all 5 states. Straightaway that would give him at least another 50 delegates for the statewide wins. There are then another 99 delegates split among the various congressional districts within the states, with all but Pennsylvania decided on the night. Let's say he wins 66% of those (and he may win a great deal more) that's going to be another 66 delegates. A fortnight ago, we said that if Trump could come out of April with 200 more delegates he'd done well. On that prediction he'd be closer to 230 delegates better off at the end of April, and that's being slightly conservative if anything. That would put him in the region of 1000 delegates, with favourable territory in California, New Jersey and Indiana still to come (total delegates available: 280) plus another 8 states as well, which even if he doesn't win he may well pick up a few delegates from each. Put simply, even if Trump does NOT reach 1237 before the convention in Cleveland, he may be close enough (within 100, say) to virtually guarantee himself the nomination, as there are around 150 so-called 'unbound' delegates, who are free to vote for whom they like on the first ballot, and are most likely to vote for the frontrunner should he need their support. A couple of months ago, the aim of Cruz, Kasich and the rest of the 'Never Trump' wing of the Republican party was to try and prevent Trump from getting too close, definitely under 1200, preferably under 1000 - the further away from the magic number he was, the easier it was to stop him winning. Now, he may be at 1000 before the end of this month. It's looking increasingly like 'The Donald' may have sealed the deal... Oh, and if you're wondering about the Democrats, Hillary's big win tonight (nearly 20 points) has crushed any small hope Bernie had. He can fight on, but the maths is with Hillary. If she can win in Pennsylvania next week, then it's game over. But we've reached that stage now anyway.

Fidel unexpectedly turned up to address the Communist Party Congress (where brother Raul (84) was re-elected for another 5 years as President...) and helpfully suggested it may be his last appearance. Either he's being unduly pessimistic or he's finally on the way out. Another hit in a few months time? 10 years now since he "gave up" power... Fidel Castro bids farewell to Cuba's Communists as he says he will die soon

As a relatively new member of the forum, I tend to just ignore a lot of the fairly pointless back and forth. Plenty of the regulars seem thoroughly decent folk, have welcomed me without question and have had some back and forth with me on a variety of topics and I'm certainly not on here to cause any aggro (surely people have better things to do with their life?) I do have an argumentative streak in me, but choose not to post on some of the more controversial topics because I cba defending my possession for a month. Whether that makes those particular topics 'off limits' to newbies I don't know but as I'm sure I've done nothing to break any of what I'd imagine would be the proposed 'House Rules' it doesn't matter to me either way if they're imposed.

He wants to live to 192? Well, it's a serious question as to whether he will be. My money would be on Villa returning to the top flight (on the size of the club and strength of the competition in the second tier) within four seasons. They'll need to offload the over-paid and generally useless people they have now, probably including their current owner. So Doug would be 96/97 if he saw them back again. Hmm, dunno. What does anyone else reckon? Not convinced myself. Maybe, but they may need to do a Southampton/Norwich and go down to League One then do back-to-back promotions to get there inside 4 years. As a Blackburn fan, I'm well aware of how shoddy management at the higher levels can make immediate/near immediate returns difficult. See also Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich and more recent examples such as Bolton and Fulham. The Championship is hugely competitive, something that is often overlooked. In a given season anyone can beat anyone and it can be a shock to the system for new teams. Few cases in point: a couple of seasons ago, when Cardiff won the Championship comfortably, they lost home and away to Peterborough, who were relegated the same season. Last season, Brighton were nowhere, just avoiding the drop. This season they're flying and in with a chance of getting into the Premier League. Here are the performances of teams who got relegated since 09/10 (colours represent: relegated the season after promotion, relegated two seasons after promotion, relegated three seasons after promotion) 09/10 10/11 11/12 18. Burnley - 8, 13, 11, 2 (promoted in 13/14) 18. Birmingham - 4, 12, 21, 10 (still in Championship) 18. Bolton - 7, 14, 18, 24 (relegation to League One confirmed) 19. Hull - 11, 8, 2 (promoted in 12/13) 19. Blackpool - 5, 15, 20, 24, currently in danger of dropping to League Two 19. Blackburn - 17, 8, 9 (still in Championship) 20. Portsmouth - freefall (currently in League Two) 20. West Ham - 3, promoted in 11/12 through play-offs 20. Wolves - relegated to League One in 12/13 but promoted straight back, currently in Championship 12/13 13/14 14/15 18. Wigan - 5, 23, currently on for immediate promotion from League One 18. Norwich - 4, promoted in 14/15 through play-offs 18. Hull - currently 4, on for a play-off place 19. Reading - 7, 19 (still in Championship) 19. Fulham - 17 (still in Championship) 19. Burnley currently 2, possible automatic promotion 20. QPR - 4, promoted in 13/14 through play-offs 20. Cardiff - 11 (still in Championship) 20. QPR - 11, no chance of promotion this season As you can see, only West Ham have been promoted the year after relegation having been in the Premier League for a period of longer than 3 seasons (in their case 6). Indeed, of the five other sides in a similar boat, three have actually been relegated again and the other two are still in the Championship. The last comparable situation to Villa's (long-established top flight side, large fanbase) would be Newcastle, who did manage to bounce straight back after relegation in 08/09 by winning the Championship in 09/10, however whatever you think of Mike Ashley (and there's plenty to think), Newcastle were in a far better place to bounce straight back than Villa are, not least thanks to unearthing a local lad who scored a shedload of goals to get them back up in Andy Carroll. Plus Newcastle were relegated on the last day of the season previous with 34 points and 7 wins, while Villa are going down with 16 points (currently) and 3 wins, no confidence, haven't won more league games than they've lost since 2009/10 and haven't finished above 15th since 2010/11. I've tried to find a side with a similar record, but it's rare a team does so badly for so long without going down. Best example I can find is Wigan, who were promoted in 04/05 and had the following results: 10, 17, 14, 11, 16, 16, 15, 18 (relegated). In none of those seasons did Wigan win more games than they lost and there's only so many times you can escape. By then, they'd been in the Premiership for 8 seasons and had a relatively decent squad (i.e. not packed full of championship stalwarts) and haven't been up since, as the table above shows, instead they were relegated again last season after just two seasons in the Championship. The only thing going for them is that they have a squad that should be well-built for the Championship, with players who have experience at that level (Gestede scored goals for fun for us, would have him back in a heartbeat) plus some experienced heads like Lescott and Agbonlahor, but how many are still going to be there next season and what mental state will they be in? I know this is stats-heavy but make of it what you will. I reckon it will be difficult for Villa next season and, unless they get it right this summer (and picking the next manager will be crucial) they could easily be in a relegation fight next season. Or they could make me look like a fool and win the division at a canter. But I wouldn't put your money on it.

Posted this in the Olympic deaths thread but guess it makes sense here too. France reports a 'London 2012 curse' following the deaths of 18 athletes who took part in the games in the subsequent 4 years. Full list of those cursed included in the article, complete with helpful details of their cause of death: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36055238

Not sure if this has previously made news on here, but I can't be arsed looking at this time of night. Just came across this on the BBC website. Apparently, France reckons there's a 'London 2012 curse' as 18 athletes have died in the ensuing 4 years since. All athletes names are provided, complete with helpful details of their causes of death. Clearly bollocks, but then we are in the business of predicting deaths so any flimsy patterns are worth knowing/exploring naturally... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36055238

Only in America could it be deemed not a right to 'stimulate one's genitals' but is deemed an absolute right to carry a loaded gun.

New York will almost certainly go to Trump and Clinton, Trump has at least 50% in most polls, with Kasich and not Cruz running 2nd, about 30 points behind. Clinton seems to be holding around a 55-45 advantage over Sanders, though of course that could tighten up. Trump likely to win most of New York's 95 delegates, the Democrats, as ever are proportional so Clinton will get about 136 to Sanders 111, a relatively insignificant difference once again. There are 267 delegates up for grabs this month on the Republican side and chances are Trump will win a lot of them, let's say for arguments 3/4 without going into the particulars of each states' distribution of delegates (some are winner-take-all, some are proportional in various methods). That would mean around 200 delegates to Trump if he does really well. But then May is on far less certain ground for The Donald, with contests out west in areas that Cruz has done much better, albeit for far smaller delegates hauls than in April. 199 delegates available there, say we split them 2:1 for Cruz, a really good month for him, then he gets around 132 delegates to Trump's 60-odd. This would put Trump in the region of 220 delegates short of the nomination, with ONE DAY of primary voting left. June 7th sees California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota voting, a total of 303 delegates left, which Trump would have to win over 2/3 of. The thing in his favour is that California has by far the most delegates (172) and is leaning more to him than Cruz and, crucially, is winner-take-all. That would leave him needing 50-odd delegates and New Jersey - right next door to home so should be shoo-in, has 51 which might (emphasis on the MIGHT) take him over the top. Far more likely is that Trump doesn't do quite as well as hoped in April, Cruz may do better than hoped in May if he can keep some sort of momentum going and both fall short of the magic number. At the convention God only knows what's going to happen. Far quicker maths on the Dems side, since everything is proportional anyway. Overall, taking the pledged delegates as a guide, Hillary is winning around 54-46 across all contests. So, with 1647 pledged delegates left to be voted on, with that split, Hillary would get 890-odd to Bernie's 750-odd. So it will stay close, and Hillary will be short of the magic number on 'pledged' delegates by about 200. On the Democratic side though, superdelegates make up the rest and she would need only 200 of the 700 superdelegates to win, just as Barack Obama did in 2008 and as she has well over that number pledged she will win on the first ballot barring a shock between June and the convention. So, overall, Bernie desperately needs New York, preferably by a 60-40 margin, which won't happen. Trump will win comfortably and take most of the delegates and will hope for a significant bump in the polls through the rest of the month. Cruz's aim is simply to limit his gains as much as possible, which will be difficult since most of this month involves winner-take-all primaries. EDIT: As CarolAnn says below, California is not entirely winner-take-all, so unless Trump can win resoundingly he is unlikely to get to 1237. Relevant but not generally discussed is who amongst the likely contenders actually wants to be the candidate for his/her party. I'd say Clinton feels she has to, Saunders largely wants it but probably feels daunted at the prospect. Cruz feels he was born to do it and feels confident he could and Trump may well be more frightened of the realities than he'd like people to know. As a publicity stunt this was a great idea, as a job it might get in the way of being Donald Trump and might do serious harm to the other business ventures. Fair point. Something else I don't think is mentioned but is clearly coming to the fore in this election is the ridiculous nature of the American two-party system. In Trump and Bernie, you have two leading contenders for the major parties' nominations who have little in common with the party elite. Bernie only registered as a Democrat a year ago (although he has voted with them for much longer) and Trump has been across the political spectrum during his life. Indeed, his daughter Ivanka confessed last night she is still registered as an independent and thus can't vote in the Republican New York Primary for her own father. Perhaps both have more in common with their parties' grassroots but it just strikes me as a strange way of electing a candidate, can you imagine such a random system operating here? As for what you say, I think you're largely right. Hillary should have already been President and I'm not sure she intended to run again after losing in 2008 and was content to let her political epilogue be her spell as Secretary of State, but the groundswell of support was there and she decided she had to give it another shot. Bernie got into it mostly to raise issues and give the left of the party a voice but I don't think he ever expected to win, not least because he can't get most of his policies enacted anyway if he is elected. Cruz sees himself as God's nominee, so I'm curious to see how he'll react when he doesn't win. I think Trump wanted it, but perhaps didn't think through the whole process of what winning actually meant, and didn't expect to actually get it.

Apologies Carol, I misread Wiki's table of how state delegates are rewarded. Only the 'at large' delegates are winner take all as you say. That helps Cruz and hurts Trump and makes a contested convention all the more likely. Personally I have no idea how you Yanks have a clue how your system works at all. Out of interest (because you clearly didn't make it complicated enough) does the winner of a congressional district get all three delegates or are they rewarded proportionally within the district? We have no idea how it works. We depend on the League of Women Voters to explain it to us every two years. Interestingly enough, it changes fairly often. As far as California goes, the Republicans award winner take all at the district level - if you win a district, you get all three delegates. The Democrats award proportionally at the district and state levels. Although I legally reside in Texas (which has a mish mash split proportional system that I suspect is heavily influenced by the copious consumption of Jack Daniels in smoke filled rooms where people wave guns around), I own residential property in California and I spend about half the year there. I vote in Texas, but out of interest I keep up with what's what in California. The idea that California is a hotbed of liberalism is not the total truth. The coastal areas (read: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego) have the majority of the population and clearly lean left, but the rest of the state is pretty conservative. If you look at the 2008 voting results for Proposition 8 (outlawing same sex marriage) you can clearly see the political divide in the state. Wikipedia has a good map that I can't post here because extension. Hopefully this should work as your map does explain things very well: http://s16.postimg.org/p47khqg6t/621px_CA2008_Prop8_svg.png So, as our resident California expert, what do you reckon? Will Cruz do well in the more conservative areas or will wealthy TV-friendly Trump win across the state? And lucky you, living in Texas, home of Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, George W. Bush and these fine folk:

Apologies Carol, I misread Wiki's table of how state delegates are rewarded. Only the 'at large' delegates are winner take all as you say. That helps Cruz and hurts Trump and makes a contested convention all the more likely. Personally I have no idea how you Yanks have a clue how your system works at all. Out of interest (because you clearly didn't make it complicated enough) does the winner of a congressional district get all three delegates or are they rewarded proportionally within the district?

New York will almost certainly go to Trump and Clinton, Trump has at least 50% in most polls, with Kasich and not Cruz running 2nd, about 30 points behind. Clinton seems to be holding around a 55-45 advantage over Sanders, though of course that could tighten up. Trump likely to win most of New York's 95 delegates, the Democrats, as ever are proportional so Clinton will get about 136 to Sanders 111, a relatively insignificant difference once again. There are 267 delegates up for grabs this month on the Republican side and chances are Trump will win a lot of them, let's say for arguments 3/4 without going into the particulars of each states' distribution of delegates (some are winner-take-all, some are proportional in various methods). That would mean around 200 delegates to Trump if he does really well. But then May is on far less certain ground for The Donald, with contests out west in areas that Cruz has done much better, albeit for far smaller delegates hauls than in April. 199 delegates available there, say we split them 2:1 for Cruz, a really good month for him, then he gets around 132 delegates to Trump's 60-odd. This would put Trump in the region of 220 delegates short of the nomination, with ONE DAY of primary voting left. June 7th sees California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota voting, a total of 303 delegates left, which Trump would have to win over 2/3 of. The thing in his favour is that California has by far the most delegates (172) and is leaning more to him than Cruz and, crucially, is winner-take-all. That would leave him needing 50-odd delegates and New Jersey - right next door to home so should be shoo-in, has 51 which might (emphasis on the MIGHT) take him over the top. Far more likely is that Trump doesn't do quite as well as hoped in April, Cruz may do better than hoped in May if he can keep some sort of momentum going and both fall short of the magic number. At the convention God only knows what's going to happen. Far quicker maths on the Dems side, since everything is proportional anyway. Overall, taking the pledged delegates as a guide, Hillary is winning around 54-46 across all contests. So, with 1647 pledged delegates left to be voted on, with that split, Hillary would get 890-odd to Bernie's 750-odd. So it will stay close, and Hillary will be short of the magic number on 'pledged' delegates by about 200. On the Democratic side though, superdelegates make up the rest and she would need only 200 of the 700 superdelegates to win, just as Barack Obama did in 2008 and as she has well over that number pledged she will win on the first ballot barring a shock between June and the convention. So, overall, Bernie desperately needs New York, preferably by a 60-40 margin, which won't happen. Trump will win comfortably and take most of the delegates and will hope for a significant bump in the polls through the rest of the month. Cruz's aim is simply to limit his gains as much as possible, which will be difficult since most of this month involves winner-take-all primaries. EDIT: As CarolAnn says below, California is not entirely winner-take-all, so unless Trump can win resoundingly he is unlikely to get to 1237.

Couple of updates of vague significance: 1. Paul Ryan, the recently-elected Speaker of the House of Representatives has today ruled out a presidential run, thus removing himself from the (very slim) list of possible 'third options' in the event of a deadlocked convention between Cruz and Trump. 2. The tight contests in Missouri have finally been ratified and are as originally called. Trump beat Cruz by 2000 votes, 40.8% to 40.6%, while Clinton edged out Sanders by 1500 votes, 49.6% to 49.4%. The main significance of this is that, in the Republican race, as the victor, Trump is entitled to 12 state-wide delegates to add to his total. 3. In a bizarre way of voting in Colorado that I don't fully understand, Ted Cruz has whooped Donald Trump and ended up with 30 of the 37 pledged delegates at the state convention, raising further questions about Trump's organisation 'on the ground', which could be crucial, particularly in the event of a contested national convention. The latest delegate numbers in each race are as follows: Republicans (1237 needed to win) Donald Trump - 758 (479 needed) Ted Cruz - 538 (699 needed) John Kasich - 145 (1092 needed) Approximately 842 delegates left outstanding. Democrats (2383 needed to win) Hillary Clinton - 1304 pledged delegates + 486 superdelegates = 1790 (593 needed) Bernie Sanders - 1113 pledged delegates + 38 superdelegates = 1075 (1308 needed) Approximately 1862 delegates left outstanding, though superdelegates can change their vote right up to the minute they cast them.

FWIW 96% of people in this newspaper survey at the time of writing are calling for him to fall on his sword: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/panama-papers-david-cameron-admits-7711340 The Mirror is a left-leaning paper, the only national paper to stand by Labour since their fall from power and is no fan of the Tories. These newspaper polls are rarely even slightly fair and balanced but even so I accept 96% is a helluva big number.

Ok, so where does Wisconsin leave us? Cruz and Bernie won! The races on both sides are reinvigorated!! Not really. On the Republican side, Cruz's victory was significant. For the first time, Donald Trump was properly defeated. He lost among groups he has never lost with before. More significantly, the scale of Cruz's victory and the number of delegates he accrued means that it is now extremely unlikely that any Republican candidate will receive the required 1237 delegates before they get to the convention in Cleveland. This would mean the first brokered Republican convention since 1976, the first convention that is likely to go beyond a first ballot since 1948 and, assuming a) Trump goes into the convention with the most delegates and Trump is not the Republican presidential nominee, it will be the first Republican convention since 1940 to nominate a candidate who did not have the most delegates after the first ballot. All of this should make for unusually riveting television and will likely cause a huge schism in the Republican party which should be virtually impossible to repair in the 4 short months before election day. On the Democratic side, Sanders is successfully slowing Clinton's march to the nomination and arguably gathering some momentum of his own (even though many of the states he has won are not traditional Democratic states and no sod lives in them - see: Idaho, Alaska...) The problem Bernie has is that in true 'Democratic' style, every single primary on their side awards delegates proportionally according to their percentage of vote state-wide (no delegates awarded to the winner, or per congressional district, etc.) and as a result he needs big wins to eat into Clinton's delegate lead (as an example, last night he won 57-43 in Wisconsin but this only translated to 48-38 in terms of delegates: a net gain of 10). His other issue is the only places he's getting these big results in award virtually no delegates. The last 5 states he has won - Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii and Wisconsin - have netted Bernie in the region of 110 delegates more than Hillary. But Florida, Ohio and Mississippi (all in the past month) gave Hillary 115 delegates more than him in return. Put simply, he runs up the score in places where there are 40 delegates on offer, and she wins by sizeable enough margins in places offering 100+ delegates. CNN did some maths last night and said if Bernie was to win EVERY contest between now and the convention at a margin of 55-45 (he won't) then he still wouldn't catch Hillary in 'pledged' delegates (the ones awarded by the states). Plus she is massively supported by the 'superdelegates' (significant party figures who are free to vote for whomever they like). Bernie's campaign manager was saying last night that just like the Republicans, the Democrats are headed for a brokered convention as neither Bernie nor Hillary will likely have the required number of pledged delegates going into the convention (2383 for the Dems). While this is true, superdelegates will likely put Hillary over the top and furthermore, this is precisely the situation that Obama and Hillary were in in 2008, where party unity led to Clinton nominating Obama by 'acclamation' during the floor vote in that year's convention. Bernie's big hope is that he can do well in several remaining primaries, narrow the gap, finish strongly by winning by a decent margin in California (not out of the realms of possibility) and convince superdelegates that only he can guarantee a win in November and has the momentum from the primaries. Many see this as pie in the sky, not least because Sanders has only been a registered Democrat for about a year, and does not have the goodwill among the superdelegates that Clinton has to engender them to change their votes. I'll sit up and pay attention if he pulls off a win in New York in 2 weeks time, but if Hillary wins there, and by a decent margin, then the Bernie Bounce is well and truly over once more. Finally (and I apologise for yet another essay) I'd just like to reveal a couple of astonishing numbers that came out of CNN's exit polls in Wisconsin last night: The Republican electorate were asked how they would feel if Ted Cruz or Donald Trump was elected president. Cruz Excited: 13% Optimistic: 47% Concerned: 25% Scared: 12% Overall: Excited/Optimistic: 50%, Concerned/Scared: 37% However, more significantly, 57% of Trump supporters felt concerned or scared about a Cruz presidency (meaning they'd presumably be unlikely to vote for him). Trump Excited: 23% Optimistic: 18% Concerned: 20% Scared: 38% Overall: Excited/Optimistic: 41%, Concerned/Scared: 58% Again, more significantly, 72% (yes SEVENTY-TWO as the old football videprinter would say) of Cruz supporters feel concerned or scared of a Trump presidency. Republicans were asked: If Clinton and Trump are the nominees in November, how would you vote? Clinton: 10% (!!) Trump: 61% (!!!!!) Third Party: 18% Not Vote: 8% 26% of Republicans would essentially rather waste their vote than vote for Donald Trump. 10% would vote for the Antichrist!!! (aka Hillary Rodham Clinton) If Clinton and Cruz are the nominees in November, how would you vote? Clinton: 6% Cruz: 66% Third Party: 18% Not Vote: 5% The results are virtually identical! This illustrates my point about the schism in the Republican party. A third of Republicans won't vote for Trump under any circumstances. A third of Republicans won't vote for Cruz under any circumstances. They are the only two likely Republican nominees. The next six months promise to be fascinating to watch. Apologies again about the essay, but hopefully somebody finds this stuff useful/interesting.

I can name notable living architects I'm familiar with on one hand, but Zaha Hadid was on my radar, mostly due to her Olympic works. She designed the Aquatics centre for London 2012 (the one that looked like a giant pringle) and there's been a lot of controversy over her design for the Tokyo 2020 stadium but that's about all I know her for.

Muted support. He seems pretty pissed off that Lerner stays in the US and doesn't bother asking for his help. His voice sounds warn and that picture of him looks unflattering to say the least/ I don't think he looks that bad for a 92 year old man. And he's clearly sharp as a tack. Don't think he's going this year, but you never know. Yeah, he got screwed with his pants on. Promised money to invest that never materialised and given a team that had given up or just weren't capable. Still maintained a level of dignity lacking in some managers in similar situations, my example is always Mick McCarthy during THAT Sunderland season where they got 17 points or whatever it was. Every MOTD interview was the same...