Huevón

Neighbour backing onto ours has just had tree surgeons in to cut down a huge willow (probably 40-50ft) at the back of their garden. Except they haven’t chopped the whole thing, just all of the foliage and largest branches. What they’ve left staring back at us is a twisted, bare monstrosity that looks like something out of fucking Mordor. Does anybody know anything about tree felling? I can’t believe they’re going to leave it like that, all I can think is that it was either too expensive to remove the whole thing, or maybe that’s just how it’s done and they’ll be back to do the rest later…

If Danny Murphy mispronounces Gakpo once more my telly’s getting lashed through the window

Remeijnders me a bit of Alonso the way he glides around the pitch

Cracking game this

Sure, I can totally see why Wolves fans would get on board with their corruption claims here. It’s been obvious for weeks now that the powers that be are rigging the deck in favour of *checks notes* Fulham.

Kip of that stadium at the end, half of them had got off. They go on about their passion, all that stuff beforehand about creating a cauldron and showing the Premier League that they’d picked on the wrong club, yet those couple of thousand Toulouse fans who came over to watch their club get dicked in a virtually meaningless Europa League qualifier the other week made about ten times as much racket as those bellends did today.

The replies to that Sam Wallace article on Twitter are predictably insane. They’ve gone full MAGA.

One of Uncle Uzzy's properties in Bavaria has been raided this morning as part of a tax evasion / money laundering investigation. You hate to see it.

2016 was brilliant: the conditions were good and I’d stuck to the training plan which meant I managed to keep up an even pace before tailing off a bit at mile 25. Got home in 3:31, so a minute off target but still happy enough! What seemed to help was having a plan for fuelling during the race: I can’t stand the energy gels so carried two bars of chocolate Kendal mint cake instead to eat at miles 7, 13, 18 and 22. That helped both in terms of energy but also mentally, as it kind of broke the race up into chunks which meant you could just focus on / look forward to getting to the next chocolate fix rather than worrying about the number of miles remaining! 2018 on the other hand was absolute carnage: it was that year with the crazy heat in April and the entire course was like a battlefield with runners receiving medical attention everywhere. Also I hadn’t stuck to the training plan, hadn’t done enough long training runs, and so by the time I got to mile 8 I was fucked. I basically half ran, half walked the remaining 18 miles, and couldn’t wait to get out of there away from the noise, the crowds and the bastard in a tree costume who kept overtaking me each time I stopped. I don’t think there’s any rocket science to marathons to be honest, main thing is that in my experience at least you can’t get away with not doing the training and expect to wing it on the day, as you can (to an extent) with 10ks or even halves. Also, if you know someone or have the spare cash, I think getting regular physio / sports massage during the training period helps enormously, as your body is taking a helluva pounding and the last thing you want is for something to break or go ping two weeks before the event! I’m actually doing London again this year, still quite unfit so hoping to use this thread for some motivation to get my arse back into gear!

That’s ace, will it be your first marathon? I’ve been lucky enough to do London twice (2016, 2018) and it’s mind-blowing: just a wall of noise, colour, music and people. Depending on pace you might get over Tower Bridge in time to see the elites coming back past you on the opposite side of the road: it’s pretty humbling to see up close just how fast and effortless they make it look.

When the feeling’s gone and you can’t go on

Never realised that Crayola had moved into the tattoo business.

Waiting to see what kind of mental contortions they come up with to illustrate how this request to postpone is completely different from, and therefore completely justified compared to our own request to postpone..

Give it Esky

Lived and studied in Santiago, but was in the country for a full year so got to see most of the best bits. Some of the scenery in the southern part is out of this world.