DFF

Denver Broncos vs Detroit Lions 4

Chicago Bears vs Cleveland Browns 2 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs Green Bay Packers 5

Houston Texans vs Tennessee Titans 1 

New York Giants vs New Orleans Saints 3 

Awful news. Captain Holt was one of the comedy characters of a generation.  

I think that result means I defo make the play-offs. Been tough sledding this year trying to separate the teams at the top! 

Wrapping up my listening of 2023 albums in the coming week or so - if y'all could pick a handful of must listen to albums, what would they be? 

I actually really dug the episode tbh. Horses for courses and all that. 

Indianapolis Colts vs Cincinnati Bengals 2 

Los Angeles Rams vs Baltimore Ravens 5

Minnesota Vikings vs Las Vegas Raiders 4 

Buffalo Bills vs Kansas City Chiefs 3 

Philadelphia Eagles vs Dallas Cowboys 1 

Brighton 3 vs. 1 Burnley (Sat 3pm)
Wolves 2  vs. 1  Nottm Forest (Sat 3pm)
Aston Villa 2  vs. 3  Arsenal (Sat 5.30pm, Sky)
Everton  1 vs. 3  Chelsea (Sun 2pm)
Tottenham 2  vs.  2 Newcastle (Sun 4.30pm, Sky)

As the resident Blade on here, I do agree it's probably time for him to go. This long term strategy of signing younger players for the future is fine if you're at least competitive in the Prem. But, we just lost 5-0 to fucking Burnley of all teams - time to go. 

Not thriller with Wilder coming in unless its just a short term measure. He's probably getting it on the proviso that there's very little money to spend in January and he knows the majority of the squad etc so theoretically could give them a morale boost. 

We have at least 1 squad position to fill in January (Basham aint gonna be back this season), but I'd personally like to see us turn over 3-5 other squad spots too. 

We're likely down (though our chances are better than they should be due to the generally poor nature of Burnley, Luton and Bournemouth, as well as Everton's financial faux pas), but if we're to make at least a go of it we need some fresh blood and fresh ideas. 

One main downside to Wilder? Like Hecky he has no plan B. I'd rather we got a versatile manager in and gave them til the end of next season to put things right. 

Week 14;

Brentford 2 vs. 1  Luton (Sat 3pm)
Burnley 3 vs. 0 Sheff Utd (Sat 3pm) 
Newcastle 2 vs. 1  Man Utd (Sat 8pm, TNT)
West Ham 1  vs.  1 Crystal Palace (Sun 2pm, Sky)
Man City 3  vs. 2 Tottenham (Sun 4.30pm, Sky)

Week 14: Burnley

I'm just going to pick against us where possible, I think >_>

Indianapolis Colts vs Tennessee Titans 3 

Carolina Panthers vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers 4 

Denver Broncos vs Houston Texans 2 

San Francisco 49ers vs Philadelphia Eagles  1

Kansas City Chiefs vs Green Bay Packers 5 

On 23/11/2023 at 13:40, Naitch said:

@Bobfoc It was Estonia who only got one point, which makes it more baffling that they're in the Path A playoffs - presumably because they "topped" League D? This bit claims to explain how these paths were drawn. If anything it sounds like Finland were the most screwed over in drawing the short straw between themselves, Ukraine, and Iceland.

It also almost guarantees that the three teams drawn with the Path C playoff winners' group will advance to the second round next summer.

I'd like to see Finland, Ukraine (although Israel would be an acceptable alternative), and Luxembourg or Kazakhstan as the qualifying teams, solely because these are the teams who were most competitive in their qualifying groups.

The group seeding looks interesting too 👇

Looking forward to England drawing Hungary, Netherlands and Italy and limping to about 1-2 points... 

Thoughts on the first special? 

I thought it was... a mixed bag. I enjoyed the antagonist, and it was nice to see some of the old characters back (and Donna's fella might be the most chill guy ever). However, I thought the script was all over the place, and the resolution to one of the big plot points felt very cheap and throwaway, negating the the weight of the issue in an instant. 

Gotta say, going in with little expectations, I really enjoyed The Marvels. The mid-credits stinger was a fun one too - and seemingly actually important for once! 

On 23/11/2023 at 21:13, TheWho87 said:

Watched through The Daleks in colour and...

The colour is great, but the rest, they've cut 100 minutes from the original, which puts it a little behind the film version, which loses some points, but the worse thing is the addition of the incidental music to make it like NuWho, but it's so over bearing and forced that it's extremly distracting and over shadows scenes.

The original serial was heavily bloated, so some trimming was definitely warranted tbh. 

New Orleans Saints vs Atlanta Falcons 3 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs Indianapolis Colts 2 

Cleveland Browns vs Denver Broncos 4 

Jacksonville Jaguars vs Houston texans 5

Buffalo Bills vs Philadelphia Eagles 1 

Man City 3 vs. 1  Liverpool (Sat 12.30pm, Sky)
Luton  0 vs. 1  Crystal Palace (Sat 3pm)
Newcastle 2 vs.2  Chelsea (Sat 3pm)
Brentford 1 vs. 2  Arsenal (Sat 5.30pm, TNT)
Tottenham 2 vs. 1 Aston Villa (Sun 2pm, Sky)

Week 13: Oxford United

I'm wondering whether the audiobook novelisations of any of the missing stories might be better than the alternatives. Marco Polo, for example? 

8 minutes ago, TheWho87 said:

If you don't want to skip missing stories, you can find the Loose Cannon reconstructions over on Dailymotion.

Pacing is a key issue for a lot of early Doctor Who, their focus was more to fill episodes rather than the stories, for many you could easilly lose an episode worth of content and you wouldn't lose much, plus they tended to split off the crew and run 2-3 stories within each story, Romans is a good example, they have the Doctor and Vicki go off and Ian and Barbara split up and all three groups have their own stories over the episodes and then get reunited at the end.

Ah nice one. The BBC upload on the iplayer actually includes stories where they've animated missing episodes, so they have Reign of Terror, for example. 

Anyone else been doing a run through of classic who since they arrived on the iplayer? (I also cheated and watched the first story on ITVX)

An Unearthly Child - quite awkward, and the Doc is a bit of a prick tbh. 

The Daleks - a fair step up on the first serial. Interesting to see the very first iteration of such long standing and iconic villains. Main criticism is the pacing - could be tightened.

The Edge of Destruction - a little two part filler ep thats a bit crap tbh. However, its the very first time they hint at the TARDIS having some kind of consciousness, which is kinda cool. 

Then we skip the lost story of Marco Polo to get to The Keys of Marinus. Am a couple of episodes in so far and its probably been my favourite so far. 

4 minutes ago, Adam said:

Aye, I remember that happening, but I don't feel like the European thrashings ever usually get higher than 8/9.

Previous record was 13-0, Germany over San Marino, in the mid 00s

Just now, Adam said:

Has there ever been a European qualifying score as wide as 14-0? I know Australia used to knock 15-20 past Oceanic island minnows but I can't remember a team being as resoundingly destroyed in Europe as Gibraltar were last night by France.

Australia beat American Samoa 31-0 in a World Cup qualifier

Watched Totally Killer the other day. Slightly odd tone, played a bit seriously im places for whats otherwise a colourful, zany time travel slasher. Still, a fun popcorn movie.