glb

First Love - 3/5 Takes an age to set its pieces up, and at times feels a bit dated and laboured but has enough dark humour to keep things mostly on the right side of enjoyable. Mostly.

Your home shirt this year is spot-on. Clean and simple with no fuss. Hope so, and the quote ‘claw posted is accurate. Keeping the darker red we’ve had the last couple of seasons would be nice. Nike must be rubbing their hands at the potential they can do to commemorate (cash-in on) this season...

With Liverpool switching to Nike kits this summer, really hope that’s not a potential template; can envisage a horrendous away kit that’ll make Warrior’s efforts look sane.

Serenity - 2/5 Trashy b-movie thriller with an A-list cast. They got a lovely holiday, we get a bonkers attempt at something different that pretty much fumbles everything it’s going for.

Tyler will jizz over his own mother when Liverpool next concedes a goal, let alone lose a game. Really hope a different commentator is on duty for the coronation of the thing that probably will actually happen (!) because when it’s late and I’m watching this season’s review for the 484th time, it’d be nice to have it soundtracked by someone with more enthusiasm than a man strapped to an electric chair reading tomorrow’s weather forecast. Anyway, decent yesterday in average conditions off the back of a prolonged break. Norwich are a decent, but sadly doomed-looking, side, and with calmer heads could have scored a couple. But even if they had done, felt like Liverpool had another couple of gears with which to respond. Used to stress over single-goal leads but this side is so, so good at controlling games. And Big Cup is back on Tuesday

Lucky, lucky Liverpool

Cheers for the heads-up, will check that out

Birds of Prey - 3/5 If ever a film can get dragged along by the sheer force of a personality, this is it. Margot Robbie has an absolute ball as Harley Quinn, and the audience almost gets to have as much fun as she’s clearly having. Small in scale, but big on style, think it sags a bit in the middle, but on the whole is irreverently enjoyable and a nice change of pace for DC.

And one from The Guardian, this time about Houllier. Houllier article. Was too young to fully appreciate the tail end of the great 80s sides, only seeing the 88-89 sides firsthand a couple of times, so Houllier’s era was one of the first notable success. That cup treble season was glorious, but also have fond memories of away trips during that period, enjoying players like Gary Mac, the best free agent we’d ever signed until Milner. Houllier always came across as a quietly dignified man, a sort of throwback to a fading era. He was a great servant to Liverpool, and if he hadn’t been followed by Benitez and number five, think he’d be more widely appreciated.

January Injustice 2 (story) February Don't Die, Mr Robot - picked this up for some 10-15 minute plays a few months ago, albeit often ended up playing for an hour or more. Finally unlocked all the special guests and got at least a bronze in all the remix modes. May go back to try for all silvers now and then, but think golds and platinums will be beyond my ageing reflexes Lovely game, so simple and yet so moreish.

Katie - 3/5 Documentary about Ireland's boxing world champion Katie Taylor, currently on Netflix. Often veers into promotional material, but earns a decent score thanks to revealing a bit more about Taylor's mindset. She's a pioneer in her sport, and deserving of being a bigger sporting star because of her talent. The Personal History of David Copperfield - 4/5 Thoroughly enjoyed Armando Iannucci's Dickens adaptation; it strikes a lovely balance between manic and poignant, with the occasional directorial flair adding a whimsical flourish. Less scathing than his previous films, but all the better for it given the material. Dev Patel is very good as the titular David too.

After a shaky start as sub, understandable given the situation on the night and with having just joined, he chipped in with some good performances and made sure Allison's absence was a mere blip. Also love that Milner is the club's trophy guardian, probably because no one can outrun him if they take a pot without his permission. And the saltier comments on the article are delicious. Premier League is so poor, standards are slipping and Liverpool would be battling relegation if they were in Serie A, apparently. Bless 'em.

Think they’d have to agree... so yeah, probably not going to happen any time soon Based on his two most recent performances, think Jones would get handled by Stipe. I’m a sucker for the HW champ admittedly, but think he would be too much for Jones. A fight with DC at HW would be very interesting, but think even Jones has said he’d struggle without a long lead-in, and DC, being the wrong side of 40, is unlikely to want to wait when he holds an advantage.

It would be greedy and ungrateful to wish for much more from this astounding season... but gosh this really was a stupendous almost goal.

Open scoring makes perfect sense. If anything, over time it will make corners much more dynamic and adaptive, as they can properly coach their fighter between rounds instead of going on feel alone. Generally they already have a pretty fair idea of how fights are going, and in lopsided fights it of course won’t make much difference, but close calls will allow corners to much better implement alternate strategies that will better serve their fighter rather than second-guessing what Bruce Buffer might soon announce. Think you’d see a switch in crowd engagement too, which adds positive pressure to judges. It’s the equivalent of showing your workings; if I was scoring, knowing that score was about to be revealed, I’d be damned focused on the fight, not looking elsewhere as Rogan claimed happened on the weekend. They’d still be crazy scorecards, but at least with those being revealed during the fight, the fighters would not be under any illusion of how a fight was being scored and have more of an opportunity to adjust.