How is a concern for prejudice and discrimination incompatible with humanism? Which basic principles were you thinking of?

I was quite surprised that he invaded, I thought it was mostly macho posturing to see how far he could push the west, and maybe get the Donbas region to secede and join Russia, inching them closer to enveloping Crimea in Russia proper, rather than just an isolated outcrop of "Russia"... get the west to agree that Ukraine wouldn't join NATO, and maybe also formal international recognition of Crimea as Russian.

But obviously that's not what happened. Putin is as cold-blooded and ruthless as everyone thought, but it appears he's not quite the cerebral strategist that he seems. This invasion has proven quite a miscalculation. It does look like the Russian military is struggling a bit now. I think he might take a decent exit route if one can be arranged. Latest news appears to be that they're shifting their goals to say the offensive across all of Ukraine was just to weaken the Ukrainian military, so that Russia could proceed with taking Donbas, which was what they "really" wanted all along. This could certainly drag on, but it may be that Russia is genuinely looking for a way out of this mess now.

There's also the question of morale, which is so vital in football. If Man C suffer defeat in the CL and Liverpool win, or vice versa, it could affect their confidence going into the league game. Morale and keeping up a winning mentality is probably more important than a player or two getting injured, the top teams can usually replace most players with someone almost as good... but when morale is gone, that's tougher to compensate for.

I'm sure if N Mac play Portugal, they'll have the exact same game-plan they did against Italy. And as with the last game, I'd strongly favour Portugal to win, but I'd think it would probably be quite low-scoring. These games tend to follow a similar pattern, usually 0-0 with the big team pushing hard and the little team with 11 men behind the ball. Then when the breakthrough comes, the little team open up in search of an equaliser, and that's when the score can start to ratchet up. But the longer they keep it at 0-0, the more their confidence grows, the more the big team gets frustrated, and the more likely a result like yesterday's becomes.

I don't think it's a case of big teams underestimating little teams, it's more a reflection of how good or bad the big teams are at breaking down opposition who stick 11 men behind the ball. Dominance is nothing if you can't break through.

I'd think Arsenal would struggle against Chelsea, but should be able to beat Man U and West Ham without too much trouble. There's definitely a bit of a gulf in class between Arsenal and those two. Arsenal will be fighting for a Champions League place, those two won't. The only team outside the current top 4 who I think has a reasonable chance of Champions League qualification is Spurs.

I'm still not sure which is the better car, RB or Ferrari, but they're obviously close. It's quite difficult to evaluate. I'd say Leclerc and Verstappen are pretty evenly matched as to who is the better driver, with Sainz behind them, and Perez behind Sainz... which is how it was playing out in the race.

If it stays that way, it could come down to which team has better in-season development, for which I'd maybe favour RB over Ferrari.

Not sure how much of an issue the first race retirement will be over a 23 race season, but yeah it's certainly not a help.

Well, I was right that Italy vs N Mac would be a low-scoring game, and that N Mac would put 11 men behind the ball, and right that anything can happen in a single winner-takes-all knockout match... but still, despite all that, I'm hugely surprised that they won.

So Italy are now in the crazy position of not qualifying for two world cups in a row... and what did they do between those two failures? Entered Euro 2020 and won the tournament!

There is no swing, that's a straight line across the surface of the Earth. It's just that the Earth is round, not flat, that's why it looks curved.
Try it yourself on Google Earth...

I think Greenland or Iceland would be a bad idea, too. Whilst they are remote, they are also quite inhospitable (Greenland in particular), and not a pleasant place to wait out the end of the world. But the main reason I'd say to avoid these two places is that the normal Mercator projection of the world map is really misleading. Obviously the world is (roughly) spherical, and the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line on a Mercator map. It turns out that Iceland and Greenland are directly in the Moscow-New York flight path. So if we're talking end of the world, there's a decent chance of nuclear missiles flying directly overhead.


https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=SVO-JFK

As for South America (or even South Africa), whilst they're likely to be a long way from the centre of any action, they are also a part of a heavily-populated continental landmass. If this is your safe haven whilst the rest of the world burns, chances are that you'll end up with millions of unwelcome and heavily-armed visitors. Whereas New Zealand is isolated by 1,000 miles of ocean from Australia, the nearest big landmass.

I'm kind of leaning the other way. It's a single-leg winner-takes-all match, and I expect teams to sit behind the ball and not take many risks, and so even the weaker teams will be tough to break down. I'm leaning towards lower scoring matches. But I take your point on Italy vs N Mac... it's difficult to see Italy being kept to just one or two goals, but still N Mac are likely to put 11 men behind the ball.

It's true that anything can happen in a single winner-takes-all match, we've all seen enough cup surprises over the years. A single match definitely gives N Macedonia a better chance than a two-leg match, but still, it's not much of a chance. Italy really should win comfortably.

I think from the three paths I'd probably have Ukraine, Czech Republic and Italy as my picks to qualify.

I don't think London or New York would be great choices.

New Zealand seems to be the nuclear bunker of choice for the billionaires. Might be worth a look. It's sufficiently remote, large-ish, with a tolerable climate.
Here's an interesting article from a few years back about Peter Thiel making pre-apocalypse preparations there.

It's probably harder on Man City TBH, their two CL games are against Atletico Madrid, and you'd think they'll be tougher than Benfica.
Not sure the FA Cup game is so relevant really. I think they'll give everything they have in the league game, as much as they have to in the CL games, and then give whatever is left in the FA Cup. It's the least important of the three tournaments.

Justine Henin springs to mind. Serena Williams wouldn't be pushing the grand slams record if Henin had continued playing.

And thinking of Henin reminds me of Clijsters, too. Not sure how much of this is just dealing with injuries, but again, injuries are due in large part to the ridiculous demands of the tour, and a lot of players' bodies can't cope with it. Hingis is another one who quit young and whilst at the very top of the game. It does seem more prevalent on the women's side, I can't think of as many on the men's side, Borg being the only obvious example (although I'm sure I'm missing some).

Portugal should be slight favourites, but they're not clear favourites. Turkey aren't some random team, they did finish second in their group, above Norway, and only 2 points behind the Netherlands. Play-off matches are like cup ties, rather than the full qualification campaign which is a league... in play-off games it's winner-takes-all, and I don't think we can write Turkey off.

TBH they could probably take enough engine change penalties to start at the back of the grid, then during the race overtake everyone else to end up P3 and P4 behind the Ferraris... such is the RB and Ferrari pace advantage at the moment. But I'm hoping the gap will close over time, as it's often biggest at the start of new regs, I remember the ludicrous Merc advantage at the start of the last era, that was then slowly reduced.

I know that only the best results count (although I didn't know the exact number - thanks casperBGD). But it's not like they can play say January to June and then have six months off. The big tournaments run throughout the year, and you have to keep yourself in perfect physical condition for the whole year. You can't say have a month off and then turn up at Wimbledon and expect to win it. And playing fewer tournaments is only really an option if you know you're going to score big points in all of them... if we're looking at the tour as a whole, most players will get knocked out early by a seeded player, score hardly any points, and need to play another tournament. I'm not just talking about someone at the top like Barty, but I think it affects the top players too.

Depends on the nature of the transition, I suppose. The way things have gone over the last month, I can't imagine it being a peaceful, dignified swap to a hand-picked successor. More likely Putin goes down in flames and the next one comes in (hopefully democratically-elected) on an "I'm not Putin" ticket*.

I mean, I'm not hugely confident there will be a democratically-elected successor, it's far more likely to be someone chosen by the oligarchs and others from the elite... but surely they'd take care to pick someone who wouldn't cause all their considerable global assets to get frozen.





* see also Joe "I'm not Trump" Biden.

I also have to say about Barty... it's not the first time a tennis player has done this. And she was picking and choosing her tournaments before this anyway.

I think the authorities have to take a look at the tour, it's just ridiculous now, men and women. The calendar has so many tournaments crammed in, to make some $$$, but for the players it's basically a full year of relentless tennis, moving around the world from week to week, with the only respite a couple of weeks off over Christmas... which no doubt gets cut short anyway as pre-season training needs to start ahead of the January events. It's crazy.

Not sure how much this feeds into the Barty decision, but it has to play a part. Probably also with some of the mental health issues we've had, Osaka etc.

Yeah, how dare they ask not to be discriminated against. 



How dare they want to vote, how dare they want to sit in the 'whites only' part of the bus, etc. How dare people expect to be treated like people.