u/Beautiful-Square-301

Would be intrigued to know what our resident musical impresarios make up the band du jour? My gut tells me Elis would like the link to bands like Gong, while John, ever the contrarian, would enjoy them much more if they remained an obscure delight.

Dave would bemoan the lack of stadium anthems and relatable lyrics…

I knew Keysey is not listed for the second round but with his schedule now freer, imagine the scenes if he popped up at the “gorgeous little castle” a bit further down the line.

The recriminations, the score settling, the talking over everyone at the round table. Picking apart people’s strategy with no real strategy himself. The name dropping! The emphasis on the name of the person he is voting for (“Carol. Vorderman!”) A man can but dream.

There is a lot of negativity swimming around but I was getting ready for work and popped on a bit of Friday’s episode thinking “I can save the Bureau for when I get off the train”

I remember downloading the XFM/Radio X episodes on a Sunday night to my iPod (I am 4,000 years old) and getting a 45 minute episode riddled with ads and segues and giveaways.

Even in the Patreon-pushing paradigm, there has never so much content from Elis and John. So, by all means, let’s stop bitching for a bit (me included)

Orange is the New Sacked

Robbie Earle (Adrian Lester) has 24 hours to get his story straight with his employer ITV after it transpires his complimentary tickets for the Netherland’s opening game at South Africa 2010 have fallen into the hands of a Dutch company attempting guerilla marketing.

Your Card’s Marked

Graham Poll (Jason Watkins) waits agonisingly on the fall out from having issued three yellow cards at Josip Simunic (Charlie Creed Miles) during World Cup 2006

Any others?

Realised I have seen Johnny JR live multiple times.

- Howl - My friend still says “no problem-o” and “we’ve got a problem-o”

- Hot Shame - my wife will occasionally drop “but I think the driver was Italian!”

- This Tornado Loves You or potentially Where Is My Mind - when he wants to compare a teenage skateboarder with the shop owner dressed the same and says “this (the boy) is a phase, that (the shop owner) is a crisis”

Bad context but lines that I often think about

Genuine question - would be the proper context, England’s first goal or first win? I am asking as I am pretty sure in the commentary of France/England from Euro 2012, Tyldseley says “England are up and running” after Lescott scores but I would assume it is solely for a win?

An interesting piece in The Athletic’s West Ham end of season inside story was how the WhatsApp group died on its arse once several established players left the club. It was used as an example of how there was little unity but it got me thinking - what do they actually put in these groups?

- Earnest football chat about players, training, upcoming logistics
- polls about team bonding and nights out?
- a cavalcade of gifs which one player inevitably takes too far and causes a tumbleweed moment?

Anyone have any insight on this at all?

The US version can seem quite brutal for its turnover of fringe/featured players, but do you think it would happen with the UK? For my money, it isn’t established enough to chop and change for September, and nobody has stood out in the way the US counterparts do and then drop it to focus on movies. Do you think everyone will be back for series 2?

Is Max Dowman the first player in Premier League history to have played, scored and won the league but not be featured in EA FC/Fifa even with the modern world of updated squads? Niche question, Clive

Fletch channels Drury with a B-packed sentence about Buendia’s beauty on the banks of the Bosphorous

McCoist then says he is right behind it

And Fletch rounds it off by saying Villa are in Dreamland

60 seconds of absolute absoluting

Aalborg have been in the Champions League twice. I was screaming it while listening, they were in Man United’s group in 2008/09.

Unless I misunderstood, it was one-time appearances? Have I gone mad?

This is the new #Spygate

With The Killers set to provide the completely necessary and not at all pointless entertainment for the Champions League Final, it got me thinking who is the ultimate milquetoast choice for this coveted spot.

From memory, and avoiding random dance acts and Andrea Bocelli’s two random appearances, we have had:

-          2017: Black Eyed Peas – the absolute middle of the road rap/pop choice
-          2018: Dua Lipa – a slight outlier in that she has gone on to become more critically adored
-          2019: Imagine Dragons – dictionary deffo of background noise
-          2020: [Bent pitch, ceremony abandoned]
-          2021: Marshmello ft. Selena Gomez/Khalid – the only genuinely left-field choice
-          2022: Camilla Cabello – resoundingly booed amid crowd trouble/police ineptitude
-          2023: DJ Alesso + Burna Boy + Anitta – another grab bag of interesting choices
-          2024: Lenny Kravitz – [Alan Partridge shrug gif]
-          2025: Linkin Park – reunited but familiar. Your stereotypical, you know what you’re getting

So, with Coldplay ow down to the 3 ½ hour half-time show at the World Cup, what bands/singers fit the mix to fill the hallowed spot of UCL entertainment.

Based on the list above it needs to tick these boxes:
-          Inoffensive to the point of irrelevance
-          ‘Cool’ at some point but definitely not now
-          Marshmello/Alesso aside – have one ‘anthem’ type song that people know

Running through ideas, The White Stripes would say no, Cardi B would take the money but then get cancelled before the final and Blink 182 are over the hill.

For me, Clive, it’s obvious… Foo Fighters.

With far more serious news that a Hantivirus case has been sent to one of the most remote locations on Earth off the cursed cruise liner, allow me to make light of it by asking what a player called Tristan de Cunha’s career path would look like?

Briefly caught some of Gordon Smart on Five Live earlier and he chatted to Ian Dennis about the then-impending Hearts/Rangers clash. They referenced the February fixture and both said Rangers won “by four goals to two” and it came up at least three times.

It felt odd but also fitting when do you use the suffix “goals” to emphasise a scoreline - when does it make the most sense? “By four goals to two” just sounded right but then odd when I thought about it. The only other I can think of is “two goals to one” being quite common.

Have I gone mad?

My son’s school has changed lunch time caterers and he came back gutted as he said the new regime has removed ketchup (and all sauces). I said “Just wait for a new manager to come in” and lost him, had planned to drop a Capello reference but doesn’t play well with under 10s

I mean, the obvious shout is Jack Grealish sporting the beginnings of a beer belly in a Villa side, but I can also picture Juan Mata looking identical to he does today playing alongside the likes of Jody Morris and Michael Duberry for Chelsea