RoverAndOut

Wasn't Ryan Lowe at Plymouth a couple of managers ago..?

Another stupid start to the season. Preston lose 2-0 to Sheffield United and Ryan Lowe walks. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c990yxd90y5o What a waste of pre-season. That's 2 managers down after less than a fortnight of the new season. Anyway, a good start to the season for Diego, who had both of those, and Wannamaker, who had Ryan Lowe on his list. And to correct my previous post, it was Wannamaker not Lady Fiona who was also on 12, and subsequently he is now on 13! Below is the updated scoreboard and, since it's been a while, I've listed what is still needed for each player to bring victory. Will we complete before Christmas..? Checking has enabled me to discover that Diego has been a hit down since last November, as he had Malky Mackay but wasn't included on the Master List. Subsequently, he's on 14 now and joint-second! Updated Scoreboard Great Uncle Bulgaria - 15 Sly Ronnie, Diego - 14 Wannamaker - 13 Rover and Out - 12 Lady Fiona - 11 MariNisia, Bibliogryphon, Maryportfuncity, Buffalo Phil - 10 Commtech Sio Bibble - 9 GUB - 5: Postecoglu (Spurs), Farke (Leeds), Martin (Southampton), Evatt (Bolton), Selles (Reading) SR - 6: Iraola (Bournemouth), Dyche (Everton), Edwards (Luton), Corberan (West Brom), Warne (Derby), Ferguson (Peterborough) D - 6: Scopes (Aveley), Robinson (St Mirren), Agnew (Stranraer), Davies (Caernarfon), McAree (Dungannon), Small (Ballyclare) W - 7: Iraola (Bournemouth), Dyche (Everton), Edwards (Luton), Bulut (Cardiff), Carrick (Middlesbrough), Goodwin (Dundee Utd) RAO - 8: Iraola (Bournemouth), Dyche (Everton), McKenna (Ipswich), Ferguson (Peterborough), Maloney (Wigan), Lindsey (Crawley), Cook (Chesterfield), Maher (Southend) LF - 9: Arteta (Arsenal), Dyche (Everton), Silva (Fulham), Bulut (Cardiff), McKenna (Ipswich), Carrick (Middlesbrough), Evatt (Bolton), Jackson (Wimbledon), Parkinson (Wrexham) MN - 10: Iraola (Bournemouth), Dyche (Everton), Silva (Fulham), Edwards (Luton), Postecoglu (Spurs), Bulut (Cardiff), McKenna (Ipswich), Farke (Leeds), Martin (Southampton), Corberan (West Brom) B - 10: Iraola (Bournemouth), Frank (Brentford), Dyche (Everton), Silva (Fulham), Postecoglu (Spurs), Bulut (Cardiff), Farke (Leeds), Carrick (Middlesbrough), Warne (Derby), Maloney (Wigan) MPFC - 10: Edwards (Luton), Postecoglu (Spurs), Martin (Southampton), Selles (Reading), Maloney (Wigan), Lindsey (Crawley), Maher (Southend), Scopes (Aveley), McInnes (Kilmarnock), Agnew (Stranraer) BP - 10: Bulut (Cardiff), Farke (Leeds), Martin (Southampton), Evatt (Bolton), Warne (Derby), Ferguson (Peterborough), Mousinho (Portsmouth), Selles (Reading), Weaver (Harrogate), Clough (Mansfield) CSB - 11: Arteta (Arsenal), Iraola (Bournemouth), Frank (Brentford), Dyche (Everton), Silva (Fulham), Guardiola (Man C), Postecoglu (Spurs), Robins (Coventry), Farke (Leeds), Bell (Crewe), Clough (Mansfield)

Already got it. Pretty sure I got it as soon as it came out, maybe Christmas 2012. Elbow's BBC Olympics theme is a masterpiece too.

I was such a cynic about the 2012 Olympics, from the moment we got the Games (I was 16) to about 6.59pm on the Friday night of the Opening Ceremony. It was going to be expensive, inefficient, there'd be endless issues with public transport, getting people into stadiums, ticketing, etc. (Remember the G4S security chaos in the fortnight before?) and our opening ceremony was going to be ridiculous. Remember the Chinese drummers? How were we going to compete with that? I heard Danny Boyle was planning to turn the stadium into the English countryside and there'd be live sheep and I was like, "What the actual fuck is he doing?". I could not have been more wrong. What we got was a celebration of everything wonderful about Britain, completely indecipherable to most of the rest of the world I'm sure, but from Bond meeting the *actual* Queen, to Branagh's Isembard Kingdom Brunel turning England's green and pleasant land into an industrial workshop that forged the Olympic rings in molten steel (still one of my moments of the ceremony), to Mr Bean playing Chariots of Fire, to the celebration of children's stories/imaginations and the NHS to Tim Berners-Lee and the house party to THAT incredible cauldron from Thomas Heatherwick, put together by an item brought in by each of the competing nations and closing up to form the cauldron - it was just the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and started the most amazing 3 weeks of sport in my lifetime. It celebrated so much of what makes us British and it pains me beyond measure to look at what has happened to our country in the 12 years since as that unity has been destroyed by one Tory Prime Minister after another.

This is absolutely wild. To think we let these people vote...

12/08/24 48 Gotye ft. Kimbra — Somebody That I Used To Know 38 Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynne — Rather Be 33 OneRepublic — Counting Stars 33 Years & Years — King 32 Harry Styles — Sign Of The Times 16 Cee Lo Green — Forget You +2 16 Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams— Get Lucky +2 14 David Guetta ft. Sia — Titanium 04 Lil Nas X — Old Town Road -6 04 Ella Henderson — Ghost 

12/8/24 60 The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian 54 Queen - A Kind of Magic 46 The Damned - Eloise  39 Michael Jackson - Bad 36 Cameo - Word Up! 33 Heart - Alone  31 Alison Moyet - Is This Love? +2 30 Janet Jackson - What Have You Done For Me Lately +2 28 Sly Fox - Let's Go All The Way 26 Mental as Anything - Live It Up -3 20 Curiosity Killed The Cat - Down to Earth  19 Bananarama - Love In The First Degree  18 Jackie Wilson - I Get the Sweetest Feeling  18 Michael Jackson - The Way You Make Me Feel  18 The Proclaimers - Letter From America 17 Mel and Kim - Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend) 16 Robbie Nevil - C’est la Vie 11 The Housemartins — Happy Hour  06 Bronski Beat - Hit That Perfect Beat -3

What have special forces troops got to do with anything?

Agreed, best one since London, but to be fair there hasn't been a lot of competition in between (Covid Olympics and a green diving pool). And to echo Hazel: "Let's not leave it another 100 years to return to the city of love." But back to London (or Manchester, or Birmingham, whatever) first please.

We appear to have left the Olympics for a music festival. Nobody has seen sight nor sound of an athlete since they dropped off the Olympic flag.

See edit above.

Tom Cruise: representing Los Angeles. Born in Syracuse, New York. Is there seriously not a single A-list actor actually from LA? EDIT: Ohhh....silly me. He's not Tom Cruise. He's Ethan Hunt. No James Bond, though is he?

All I've had is one tortuous rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner and I'm already dreading the 2028 Olympics.

Agreed.

No comments made on Ukraine's impressive incursion into Russian territory? I think we're 5 days in now, with no sign of end, and Russia are admitting to activity 30km within their territory and have set up defensive trenches around a nuclear power station 50km from the Ukrainian border, so clearly they're concerned. It's bold and creative from Ukraine, its ultimate intentions are still unclear, though. Are they trying to draw troops out of Ukraine? Maybe, but no signs it's working at the moment. Are they trying to occupy territory to trade in a peace negotiation? Are they hoping to unsettle Putin? There's a lot riding on this, but fair play to them for seizing the initiative. The latest from the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkm08rv5m0o

@The Old Crem I won't quote you just in case TQR pops back and there's no need to if I'm responding to your points. 1. Target hit. 2. Target missed. If we'd only won 50 medals, we'd have only needed 17 golds for a third, so it's awful that we overachieved. I've already outlined how close we were to a bucketful more golds which would have more than hit the target. There are plenty more nearlys they'll be able to point to, too. 3. Target missed. We don't control the medal table. or what other countries do. If we'd hit our gold target, we'd have hit our medal table target. As it was, we were 2 golds away, hardly disastrous. We could have won 17 gold medals and nothing else, been 5th on the medal table and hit 2 of the 3 targets but I'm not sure it would be a better games for missing out on the top one. If UK Sport consider 29 bronze medals a failure, then our standards are too high. If they consider there to be room for improvement, they'd be right.

I know jack shit about basketball but there is no way the USA Women deserved to beat France there. Missed out on overtime by a couple of centimetres which meant it was a 2-point score rather than a 3-point score. USA haven't lost a match since Barcelona 1992, it's their 8th straight gold medal in women's basketball. They just beat France 68-67 in the gold medal match.

I hadn't considered that. I'm familiar with Jodie's story, you're right, a real fighter and a well deserved medal and moment on the podium.

Agreed. Same thing happened to Joe Clarke in the Kayak Cross. The opponents saw their opportunities to box them off and took them.

Well, technically, from an Olympic standpoint, we're just Great Britain actually. The Irish Olympic Committee represents the island of Ireland, not the Republic of Ireland apparently. Anyway, you can't change it because I like Team GB. Team UK sounds like something Boris would have come up with.

There's been disquiet in the past that Team GB ignores the "and NI" bit of the team, so I think they're trying to emphasise it a bit more. It's a bit of a tricky one anyway, because some Northern Irish athletes choose to compete in the Olympics for the Republic of Ireland - Rory McIlroy and Dan Wiffen, for example. For the same reason, I suppose United Kingdom would be difficult. I think it also reflects the times it was founded: if we think back to the early days of the Olympics (1896, when the modern games start to 1908, when we first hosted, for instance), I don't think "United Kingdom" was really in everyday usage, as Britain was just the centre of the still expansive British Empire. It's only really post-war that we've thought of ourselves as the UK, but lots of Olympic traditions were already established then, including the British Olympic Committee, which rebranded as Team GB in the 90s and has been ever since. Just another part of the muddled nature of our island nation.

Ok, let's try and make this a thing then. I'll try and vary it up so we don't just have the same choices every time. Favourite Home Nation Gold: Wish I was saying KJT, but I'll take Keely for similar reasons - but Yee's was epic. Favourite Sport: I'm a traditionalist at heart, so probably the athletics but the climbing was surprisingly watchable and gripping. Most Impressive Performance: Artistic Swimming girls getting a silver or Georgia Bell's gutsy bronze. Special Mention: Daryll Neita getting so close to an individual medal in both the 100m and 200m. Biggest Fuckup: A fighting fit world leading Molly Caudrey not even making the Pole Vault final or Beth Shriever winning every BMX race apart from the one that mattered.

Interesting read, rather illustrating the pointlessness of the last 2 pages of this thread. I note their research doesn't distinguish between golds and medals. Think it's fair to say that out of 200 countries, the UK is in the top 10 for accomplishments by whatever metric you use, and that will do for me. That said, I said we had 6 chances for medals today - we ended up with 2, both of them bronze.

I left it as a facepalm and didn't comment, you wanted the discussion. I apologise if I've insulted you, I think I've been quite reasonable in presenting you with my workings, I said you were being contrary for the sake of it (devil's advocate if you like) and negative which I don't consider as being personally insulting, no more so than you declaring me intellectually unrigorous. I've said my piece, made my arguments, put out the info and will leave it at that. Have a good day.

I nearly mentioned that actually. But same goes for all the early games (pre-war) when countries were amalgamated and several areas of the world sent few or no athletes. 1984 was boycotted by the Eastern Bloc too. Some Russians were banned in Tokyo 2020 too, although many competed as a neutral Russian team. So many caveats, that's why I just put up the information and left it up to everyone to make their own decisions what to take from it.