TBH I was half-expecting Man City to slip up last night, with Liverpool having the psychological advantage now... but they remained strong and returned to the top of the table. It really is too close to call, and the margins too fine. You do get the feeling that if either of these teams drops any points at all, then they will finish second. It really does highlight the gulf between Man City and Liverpool and the rest of the league. No other team can get close to them in either quality or consistency.

Mercedes have said they may be bringing upgrades to Imola, but I don't think it can be enough to propel them to the front of the grid. Their lack of pace has been hidden a bit by some bunching behind safety cars which reduces the gap at the end of the race, and their positions have been boosted by some DNFs... but the fact remains that the Mercedes is about a second per lap slower than the Ferrari and the Red Bull. It seems incredibly unlikely that they could bridge that gap with just one set of upgrades.

Yeah, I think so, too. Wimbledon want to look like they are taking a stand against Russia, but they will want the top players there, including of course Medvedev. But the biggest reason I suspect is their existing legal commitments to the ATP that ranking is the only criterion they use to determine who plays. Wimbledon will not want to get into a legal fight over this... we will surely see Medvedev playing.

Edit: and is the timing of this relevant? They are announcing it now, rather than on the eve of the tournament. This leaves plenty of time for the ATP to point out the legal obligation, then for Wimbledon to protest a bit and then grudgingly say "Okay, they can play. We tried our hardest to stop them, but ultimately our hands were tied by contractual obligations".

It's quite a shock to see Arsenal winning away at Chelsea like that, but I don't think this suddenly turns them back into the strong, confident Arsenal of a couple of months ago... It's one game, and they were the underdogs here, so had no pressure. I think Spurs still remain favourites for fourth place.

The interesting thing for me about the premier League race is that Liverpool now not only have the psychological advantage of winning their last match (with that 3-0 lead, too), but they also have the psychological advantage of having deposed Man City at the top of the table. I'm really starting to think Liverpool should be title favourites.

I'd love to see Ferrari win in Italy, especially when they are looking so strong and are probably favourites for the championship. The fans will go wild if Leclerc wins.

Will be interested to see the RB upgrade... but obviously all eyes are on their reliability and whether the car can finish, not so sure if the suspension can feed into that at all.

I don't think Portugal are strong enough. Argentina I think are better than Portugal*, so have a better chance of winning, but yes there are plenty of other good teams, so the eventual winner will face some real fights, it won't be easy for anyone.



*And as we all know, Messi is better than Ronaldo. 

Maybe that's the root of the problem, then. For a lot of people there is a distinction, gender is the feeling of who you are, and sex is the binary biological either/or.




Yes, definitely. A big part of the problem is the inadequacy of the English language. If we had an appropriate and widely-accepted non-gender-specific pronoun that was used by everyone, instead of sex labels, there would be much less of an issue.

I think I'm getting a bit carried away with Alcaraz now, I'm expecting him to beat everyone he plays and win every tournament (with Medvedev out and Djokovic rusty). I can't be the only one thinking like this, and I wonder if the betting odds are reflected accordingly, so odds for Alcaraz are somewhat less favourable than should really be the case.

But even having said that, of course I expect him to win his next match. 🙂

Normally that's fair enough, but against Liverpool it's harsh. No team in the world can be expected to keep a clean sheet against Liverpool... even Man City concede several goals every time they play.

I think the top 4 will be:

Liverpool
Man City
Chelsea
Spurs

The top two are miles clear, and Liverpool's recent FA Cup triumph may give them the psychological edge, plus Man City look a bit jaded after their recent exertions.
Chelsea are alone in third.
As for the fight for fourth, yes we all thought Arsenal looked most likely, but now they are sinking rapidly. Form is vital, and their form is the worst in the league, so I don't think they will be fourth. Which leaves Spurs and Man U - Spurs have the position at the moment (3 points, plus goal difference), and have better form, so I'd say they have the best chance. The only doubt I have really is that Ronaldo is coming into form with that hat-trick - if he hits a good patch, he might be enough to propel United into fourth... but it seems a stretch, Spurs have to be favourites.

I think your percentage split example is relevant and might lead to a rational analysis, certainly in terms of sexual orientation which, for want of a better word, is more of a spectrum than a binary choice. Some people are attracted only to men, some only to women, some to both, some to neither, and even if someone is attracted only to women, they can be attracted to a certain type of woman, but not another type... and there are probably as many shades and nuances of sexual attraction as there are people in the world. But humans have a tendency (and often a need) to classify things. Not long ago, there was only one "legitimate" type of sexual attraction, which was heterosexuality... everything else was denied. Since then homosexuality has become more accepted, and bisexuality etc., but it is probably a mistake to try to define everything, there will always be new categories and nuances, it is enough, perhaps, to accept that they exist and are (for the most part) perfectly acceptable in society. Labels are necessary only insofar as there is discrimination against that specific subset.

If gender is an abstract feeling of who you are, distinct from the biological male/female split, then it's fine to describe your gender as whatever you see fit, but it is silly to expect everyone to learn every term in an ever-growing lexicon, it is enough to work towards ensuring that there is no discrimination, irrespective of personal label.

I think I'd probably argue that in that tribe, they are using cows instead of money as a mechanism for quantifying and representing power.

I don't think we can say that money is a representation of resources, because you can have resources without having money - for example you could own a large quantity of poor-quality land, which only becomes valuable when someone wants to build on it, in which case you have the power of who can build there, and you can sell the land to exchange the power for money. The land itself was valuable only because someone wanted it.

Similarly, we can't say that money is a representation of time, because many people around the world work very long hours for very little money.

There may be something to this, it's not just a couple of newspapers or websites, they are all saying the same thing. It does look like he is going to Man City, for 500k per week.
There are not many players in the world who can improve the Man City team, but this is one of them.

No, I think without the reliability issues it's still too close to call. You're right about Verstappen getting lucky with safety cars for that win, but if we ignore that race, then we've had...

Bahrain, where RB qualified right up with the Ferraris, and in the race Verstappen was right up with Leclerc, until the DNF.
Australia, the latest race, where the Ferraris appear to have the advantage and Leclerc was clearly faster than Verstappen.

So as far as I can see, we've only really had Australia where Ferrari look clearly better... which I think is far too early to call it, if we're ignoring reliability. Different tracks will suit different cars, and it may just be that this year Australia is a Ferrari track.

Of course this is just if we're ignoring reliability... if RB have to make some modifications and compromises in order to be more reliable, that will likely slow them down, and hand the advantage to Ferrari.

It's quite surprising how they've collapsed. A couple of months ago, I thought they were practically guaranteed to secure fourth place in the table. But since then, they've just fallen apart. They've had 4 defeats in their last 5 league matches, the only points they've taken from this run is a narrow 1-0 victory against Villa, who are also on a terrible run and one of the easiest teams to beat at the moment.

Arsenal have taken 3 points from the last 15 available... even Norwich and Burnley in the relegation zone have taken more than that!

I'd agree that Portugal shouldn't be amongst the favourites, but are still quite dangerous.
But I'd disagree that England or Germany are likely winners. I am from England, but I think our team is consistently over-rated and is not as good as some of the others. Germany are always a threat, true, but they just don't have the strength that they used to have - they are a bit uninspiring.

I don't think the blisters is luck really, she has been suffering from them a few times this season. We have to remember that her body is not used to the rigours of the professional tour yet, it will take time for her to get used to it not just mentally, but also physically. Remember her matches this week were her first ever on clay at the top level, which just sounds crazy. She doesn't even really know how to move on the surface, it is a huge learning curve.

I'm confident we will see her back up near the top, and I'm sure she is capable of being a top 10 player and challenging regularly for slams... but what she needs now is time. It may be a year or two before we start to see her potential in anything other than brief flashes.

Yes, the Chelsea victory was boring in that it was completely predictable... the other game was much more interesting.
Man City and Liverpool have been very evenly matched all season, so it was surprising to see Liverpool race into a 3-0 lead, but I do think that can be a bit misleading, a lot of it can be attributed to Man City's replacement goalkeeper. We also have to bear in mind that Man City's European tie was tougher than Liverpool's. Liverpool were able to rest some players, and so came into the FA Cup tie a bit fresher... Man City on the other hand must be really exhausted by now. We will see how this goes in the remaining games of the season, but this match may be most important for the psychological edge that it gives to Liverpool.

I think money is a representation of power. If you pursue money, what you're really pursuing is power. Money doesn't give you anything other than power - it gives you the power to acquire things, and the power to control people. If it didn't do either of these things, it would be worthless. Money is also a (quantifiable) way in which people can demonstrate their power.