RoverAndOut

This is great. These things always come across so forced and awkward but this one doesn't, just two decent people shooting the breeze, finding out about each other, and relaying experiences that ordinary people can understand. Can you imagine what an equivalent conversation between Trump and Vance would sound like?

Oh yes, final 5. This is going to be a bloodbath once the low hanging fruit is purged.

I can't even begin to detail what's in here, read for yourself. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wjgkr1750o Farage has declared his outside earnings as per the rules as an MP. He's earning £1m a year from GB News alone. His little trip to the US to support his critically injured (in the ear) mate Donny for him and a staffer for flights and accommodation cost (wait for it) £32,000. Paid for by a crypto currency mate, obviously. Man of the fucking people my arse. The people of Clacton deserve everything they get this with this charlatan.

One more I reckon. Well, depending on when you vote. It could be done after midnight I suppose.

17/8/24  47 Gotye ft. Kimbra — Somebody That I Used To Know +4 29 Harry Styles — Sign Of The Times 10 OneRepublic — Counting Stars -6

17/8/24 73 The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian 67 Queen - A Kind of Magic 63 The Damned - Eloise 51 Heart - Alone +4 40 Michael Jackson - Bad 37 The Housemartins — Happy Hour 32 Cameo - Word Up! 10 Alison Moyet - Is This Love? 07 Mental as Anything - Live It Up -6

Suppose I need to decide which of these top 7 I want to put through (I'll lose the perfectly pleasant Alison Moyet ditty). Alone is a tremendous power ballad and iconic. Word Up is very cool. Michael Jackson's Bad is far better than the other contender he had in this round. Happy Hour is just fun, but I'm amazed by its recovery in this round, it looked dead and buried about 3 days in. I love the Damned's Eloise more than Barry Ryan's. A Kind of Magic has been slightly ruined by being used for a while on an advert (Argos maybe?) but listening to it again for this round (and watching the video for the first time) it is really good. And Walk Like an Egyptian is great too, not to mention that if my formative years had been in the mid-80s (which were about 3 years before I was even born), I would have been head over heels for Susanna Hoffs. Still am now, and she's 65. Her and Belinda Carlisle. I was born in the wrong decade... Think it's probably Happy Hour and Bad missing out, but they're all pretty good. Strong round! Again!

Just so we're clear, unless you change their scores, can the next person pop Housemartins above Cameo just so they're in order? Otherwise it gets confusing. TY.

16/08/24 75 The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian 60 The Damned - Eloise  58 Queen - A Kind of Magic 44 Michael Jackson - Bad 41 Heart - Alone +1 39 Cameo - Word Up! +1 39 The Housemartins — Happy Hour +2 29 Alison Moyet - Is This Love? 19 Mental as Anything - Live It Up -1 12 Bananarama - Love In The First Degree  00 Jackie Wilson - I Get the Sweetest Feeling -5 Perfectly nice song but surprised it's lasted as long as it has given it's anachronistic - it's from 1968! They don't usually survive very well in these games.

16/08/24  37 Gotye ft. Kimbra — Somebody That I Used To Know +2 36 Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynne — Rather Be +2 26 Harry Styles — Sign Of The Times 23 OneRepublic — Counting Stars -6

Just to say, the facepalm is for the delusion not your post.

Good to see you engaging with something TQR, missing your posts elsewhere. I am highly surprised Counting Stars has lasted as long as it has and I really think Symphony was the superior Clean Bandit song, although Rather Be is fine. I'm surprised King fell as early as it did given it romped through it's qualifying round. Think we all know what's going to win now.

Another nifty little bit of analysis from the i today. In the time the Tories were in power (2010-2024), 110 sitting MPs were given knighthoods or damehoods. By comparison, the 13 years of Labour government previously (1997-2010) saw a grand total of...11 MPs given such honours. Of those 110, the breakdown was as follows: 77 Tories (including SIR Gavin Williamson and DAME Andrea Jenkyns ) 27 Labour 5 Lib Dems 1 DUP (SIR Jeffrey Donaldson, currently facing trial for historical sex abuse charges ) The Tories are accused of giving out knighthoods "like they were lollipops". Colour me shocked.

A good op-ed piece in today's i from the former assistant editor of The New Statesman saying about how Truss would be far better off being self deprecating about her time in office rather than taking offence all the time, but noting that her lack of embarrassment and self awareness means that won't happen and she'll continue to become more and more irrelevant. One delicious nugget in it that has passed me by is that Anthony Selsdon is not writing a biography of her. For context, he has written post-office books about the premierships of Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and Johnson but doesn't see Truss as worthy of a book. Instead - the pièce de resistance - he's going to give her a single chapter in his book on Rishi Sunak.

15/08/24 41 Gotye ft. Kimbra — Somebody That I Used To Know 30 Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynne — Rather Be 26 OneRepublic — Counting Stars -6 24 Harry Styles — Sign Of The Times 18 Years & Years — King 11 Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams — Get Lucky +4 Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

15/08/24 71 The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian 58 Queen - A Kind of Magic 58 The Damned - Eloise 49 Michael Jackson - Bad 38 Heart - Alone 35 The Housemartins — Happy Hour +4 34 Cameo - Word Up! 31 Alison Moyet - Is This Love? 20 Mental as Anything - Live It Up -6 12 Bananarama - Love In The First Degree 10 Jackie Wilson - I Get the Sweetest Feeling  10 Janet Jackson - What Have You Done For Me Lately 09 Sly Fox - Let's Go All The Way 07 The Proclaimers — Letter From America Surprised we've made it to this stage. Happy enough with how the top 8 are looking, still deciding on my top...5 I think it is?

It didn't make a noise, it had no impact on her ability to continue making her point. It was a peaceful and silent protest. It only suppressed her free speech because she CHOSE of her own FREE will to walk off stage, in the way she does every time anything unpredictable or uncontrollable happens to her. It's like her defence mechanism, like when a hedgehog curls up in a ball.

14/08/24 47 Gotye ft. Kimbra — Somebody That I Used To Know 35 Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynne — Rather Be 28 Harry Styles — Sign Of The Times 27 OneRepublic — Counting Stars -6 27 Years & Years — King  14 Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams — Get Lucky +4 This round has really not gone the way I expected. I did not think they would be the final 5 standing. 3 of them yes, 2 of them no. (I'm accepting my up vote will count for little in the long term).

14/08/24 68 The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian 59 Queen - A Kind of Magic 53 The Damned - Eloise 47 Michael Jackson - Bad 39 Heart - Alone 38 Alison Moyet - Is This Love? 34 Cameo - Word Up! 29 The Housemartins — Happy Hour +4 21 Janet Jackson - What Have You Done For Me Lately 19 Mental as Anything - Live It Up -6 13 The Proclaimers — Letter From America 13 Jackie Wilson - I Get the Sweetest Feeling  12 Bananarama - Love In The First Degree  12 Sly Fox - Let's Go All The Way 11 Michael Jackson - The Way You Make Me Feel  This "cunt" (copyright TQR) will try again!

Yep, pretty much...

13/8/24 56 Gotye ft. Kimbra — Somebody That I Used To Know 39 Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynne — Rather Be 38 Harry Styles — Sign Of The Times 29 OneRepublic — Counting Stars -6 28 Years & Years — King 08 Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams — Get Lucky +2 06 Cee Lo Green — Forget You +2 What is wrong with you people? Both the bottom two are proper bops. Might as well rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic for one more day...

13/8/24 64 The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian 62 Queen - A Kind of Magic 54 The Damned - Eloise 43 Michael Jackson - Bad 41 Cameo - Word Up! 41 Heart - Alone 38 Alison Moyet - Is This Love? 28 Janet Jackson - What Have You Done For Me Lately  20 The Housemartins — Happy Hour +4 20 Mental as Anything - Live It Up -6 17 Sly Fox - Let's Go All The Way 16 Jackie Wilson - I Get the Sweetest Feeling  14 Michael Jackson - The Way You Make Me Feel  13 Bananarama - Love In The First Degree  13 The Proclaimers - Letter From America 08 Curiosity Killed The Cat - Down to Earth Go on, I'm feeling devilish...

I don't think Kilty would have gone to Paris had it not been for Ujah losing him his medal from Tokyo.

@The Old Crem interesting though they may be, I think you'll find it was impossible for all those countries to hit their medal targets at the same time. That's how sport works.

Well, I think we all know what's going to happen in October then, if not sooner.