Michael*

Thanks to The Queen's Gambit, there's surely more chance now than at any point in recent history. Would you rather be Selina Meyer from Veep or Don Draper from Mad Men?

There must have been some champagne corks popping at Democrat HQ, I doubt they could have wished for a more perfect foil than a defeated one-term president who left office with 39% approval (now down to 34%) strengthening his grip on the Republican party.

Better than Men in Black 2, at least. Indiana Jones 4?

Kurosawa. Human or dancer?

Without the red carpet, it's a bit harder to collate photographs from the ceremony, plenty of awkwardly framed at-home video screengrabs though. Maria Bakalova got screwed (thankfully not by Rudy Giuliani ), although she probably would have won if they'd submitted her in the supporting category, like they're apparently doing for the Oscars.

Curious how they seem to have dreamed up a new, fairly bland-looking character to frame as the main protagonist. I haven't played the games for ages, but I think I'm right in thinking that Liu Kang has been in that role for a good chunk of the franchise.

Couldn't have seen Lambert overseeing an Old Farm derby anytime soon unless the FA Cup draw were to oblige him, perhaps playing for goalless draws in Old Firm games will appeal instead. Evidently, Old Royston squandered the last real money invested by Ipswich's ownership in the early 2010s, ever since then the club has been allowed to slowly go to seed. Micky Mac was the thin paper over the cracks that held things together for a while, but presumably there was only so much League One stodge the fans could take before patience snapped.

I would maintain that it's been a surprisingly interesting year for film, one of the few upsides (that it should go without saying in no way redeems the horrific situation) of the pandemic has been the increased focus on passion projects and generally scaled-down stuff. Having said that, the Globes' nomination process has always been a bit ridiculous.

Sampaoli for Marseille? "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" springs to mind, for all concerned.

I don't think it makes any more or less sense now than it did back in the day, I just think the image is getting old. Kept trying to sell to a narrow band of appeal despite being well into the land of diminishing returns, tried moving towards the mainstream and got usurped on the high end by more exclusive brands.

Surprisingly not bad. John Carter?

Oranges Clint Eastwood or Vivienne Westwood?

Not quite yet, we're about another three weeks out from the release date (Thursday 18th March).

It's interesting that some of the names I'd usually associate with high rankings and being a threat at any given time suddenly feel less relevant. Not to say they're in decline, but Svitolina, Pliskova, Konta, Garcia and maybe even Bertens have seemingly gone from being the best of the rest to just "the rest". Then again, a lot of the most notable exits we've seen recently were at least somewhat quarantine-related, so it would probably be wrong to read too much into unexpected outcomes.

The younger guys still can't seem to figure out how to win a slam against Djokovic or Nadal. I heard it said once that the big three hunt as a pack, in that winning a slam would require another player to play and beat two of the three. One is difficult, two is near impossible. Should be interesting to see if that dynamic returns when Federer does.

Osaka, Barty, Halep, Kenin, Muguruza and Serena are going to be the clearest threats at most tournaments, I'd say, closely followed by Swiatek who perhaps still needs consistency off the clay. Then, form and fitness permitting, Sabalenka, Brady and Andreescu too. That's a pretty exciting top ten.

Sweet potato fries?

Couldn't possibly comment Venom (the Tom Hardy film)?

Hot Fleetwood Mac

It'd be an Olympic sport if I had my way. What would you do if your name was Neigh Bours?

The first goal for J-Lingz in roughly 12,000 games, almost certainly guaranteeing his unconditional inclusion in England squads for at least the next four years.

I'm given to understanding that Disney had contacted UTA (Carano's talent agency) several times in the past year asking her to dial it back and she refused. She continued posting inflammatory (covid and election related) comments until Filoni asked her to refrain and she refused. Finally, Favreau contacted her and asked her to refrain and again, she refused. This isn't to say that I personally think any of Carano's posts quite touched the really unforgivable third rails that require insta-bans, but this was never a hill that Disney would be willing to die on. The only thing that's absurd about it is that she appeared to think social media wouldn't do to her what it does to everybody else. Before I go, I should add that the Pascal comparison doesn't fully track for me. That was one tweet (unless there are more that I don't know about) equating actual children in cages, while the Carano post (one of dozens, which was the main problem) likened that to attitudes towards people with different political affiliations. Best case scenario, she was arguing that so-called "cancel culture" is a pathway to legitimate dehumanisation. Even then it reads like silly hyperbole.

I'm beginning to think that even Sam Beckett would struggle to leap enough times to fix all this. Certainly excellent timing for the Joker to enter a late nineties Marilyn Manson phase, too.

She's not a great actress by any stretch of the imagination but was a very good fit for the physical design of the character. In itself, the fact that there aren't really any Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dwayne Johnson-type female actors beyond Carano seems like a bit of an absurdity.

You might say she said Alderaan things (ahem). My impression of what finally tanked Carano, although technically speaking she wasn't actually fired, is that her bosses (including Filoni and Favreau) repeatedly asked her to modify her online behaviour over an extended period of time, and she refused. I don't know enough about her to speculate as to why she couldn't just take a step back and give her Twitter fingers a rest, but she must have realised that she was digging a hole for herself and instead of putting the shovel down, kept tunneling. That can never end well and there was always going to come a point where Disney, bearing in mind that they were under no contractual obligation to keep her around in the first place, didn't want to have to deal with it.