Michael*

I wouldn't mind if JT decided to find himself a new club this summer, if only to keep him away from the old punditry game for a bit longer, although I'd certainly stop short of wishing him upon Aston Villa. I'd like to be able to say that we wouldn't be daft enough to take him either, but, well, you know.

All the shrieks in the press of "you'll be raped, robbed and pillaged if you go there and they don't even have roads" with regard to South Africa and Brazil proved to be wide of the mark, and I would expect this to be much the same. Russia has hosted multiple large-scale sporting events and to the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any major issues. Whether they, or Qatar, are fit to be hosts from a moral standpoint is another discussion altogether, but if the system were honest enough to strip them now, they would never have been awarded it in the first place. It's taking hopes for ethical behaviour by FIFA far beyond the realms of real possibility.

I tend to think properties like this one are relatively bulletproof, in the sense that most of the folks queueing for it at the local cineplex won't have even read the reviews. Whether they yield truly monstrous numbers usually depends, as you say, on word of mouth and also repeated viewings by the built-in fanbase. When the diehards are prepared to come back more than once, it's almost always cause for optimism.

I've always done it that way with YouTube videos, didn't know it was possible with Instagram too. You're a genius, MD!

I'm surprised they weren't tempted to reference Snoke in that First Order picture. I guess they're going to wait for the movie to actually come out before making the reveal.

It's something to do with the slang term for rugby, isn't it? I believe rugby was 'rugger' and association football was 'assoc', which gradually evolved into 'soccer' because it was easier to say. It probably wouldn't have been until about the 1970s that people started perceiving it as an Americanism.

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Kind of weird to think that next month will mark the tenth anniversary of this movie's release. As a major Transformers fan growing up, I waited years for a live-action film and found it enjoyable at the time, although I never got around to a second viewing. I did appreciate Peter Cullen reprising the voice of Optimus Prime, and I remember Hugo Weaving (albeit on autopilot) making a decent Megatron.

Yeah, the CGI on that leap above the car towards the end of the trailer looked like something from a Resident Evil movie. Saying that, I would fully expect the subsequent clips to become more and more polished as we edge closer to the release date.

The first teaser trailer just landed.

Of course very few, if any, of the deaths I mentioned would have been deliberate, and even fewer the result of a maniac targeting random citizens in support of a sick ideology, but the fact remains that there are greater dangers out there, even if their atrocities are more shocking. Personally, I always find facts and context useful. Different strokes and all that.

Give it a few more years and all the snowflakes will have been melted by global warming. Problem solved.

It's about looking at an issue in context, though. Less deaths due to terrorism in Western Europe than during the 70s, 80s or 90s. That’s important context. Furthermore, it’s roughly about a hundred deaths per year in an area populated by around 800 million people. By way of comparison, 450 people die in the USA each year by falling out of bed. We should also take note of the great lesson of the 20th century, that we have far less to fear from over-hyped external threats than we do from our own governments, if their power is allowed to run unchecked.

I saw something recently where pollsters asked the 'Great British Public' how many people in Britain they thought weren't ethnically white British. The guesses were in the range of about 40%, when the actual number is 18%. The guesses for Muslims in Britain were somewhere in the 25-30% range when the answer is actually 4%. In other words, people in this country are being sold a big lie about 'marauding hordes' of immigrants and particularly Muslims. The reality is that in most areas of the UK, everyone is white British. The vast majority of ethnic diversity can be found in the inner cities (which interestingly, were mostly areas that voted to remain). Places that actually experience high levels of immigration don’t mind it as much, while places that haven't experienced it seem to fear it more. I myself come from a city that is 96% white British and immigration was the hot referendum topic there. But, side note. The principal cause of Brexit was the delayed effect of the 2008 financial crash, and a series of decisions by our own government immediately afterwards. Years of attrition reinforcing the financial position of those who caused the problem in the first place, while offering no solutions to those stranded with low skills, as globalisation exported more and more jobs to cheaper wage economies elsewhere. Investment in infrastructure and education is a better approach in a time of cheap money than trying (and failing miserably) to reduce national debt and deficit by cutting taxes and public services.

Harper's Bazaar May 2017 Ph: Petrovsky & Ramone

Height: 5'9 (175 cm) Chest / Bust: 84cm / 33'1 Waist: 61cm / 24'0 Hair Color: Black Eye Color: Brown Hips: 34 Shoe Size: 41 Agency: IMG Paris

So apparently, this is the squad of the season for the Champions League. Wot no [insert name of rubbish footballer here]?

Agents of SHIELD press room at Anaheim WonderCon April 2017

The trailers suggest a Captain America vibe, too. My gut feeling was that it would be in a similar range of quality. Putting comparisons to DC's recent output and Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy aside for a moment, I'd be most interested to find out how it stacks up against Superman '78 and Batman '89 as a debut superhero outing on the big screen. I suppose, given that the other two have 30 and 40 years of nostalgia behind them, it might only really be known in retrospect.

I remember there was a slight touch of disappointment when I found out Sasha was playing an alien in it, because I knew she'd probably end up hidden under a mountain of CGI. I can see why she got the part though, she has a very otherwordly quality to her.

I remember reading about a year ago that Sasha had landed a modest role in Valerian, the new sci-fi film from Luc Besson, but it's certainly news to me that she was in Wonder Woman as well. Another reason to see it on the big screen. After trawling around Doutzen's topic for a bit, I found a few publicity shots. She sure does look the part.

Besson has had a few misfires but by and large, his stuff seems to do well at the box office. Interestingly, this movie seems very Mass Effect from a visual standpoint. Or perhaps Mass Effect was partly inspired by the original Valerian comics, I'm not too sure.