Finals often disappoint. The heat was a big factor, both teams weren’t thinking clearly especially in the final third. Pochettino should have started Moura.
But I’m amazed at how Spurs just didn’t go for it, they waited too long, perhaps confident they could get a late goal. Liverpool were there for the taking…something of a Tottenham bottle job.

For what its worth, I’ve been having quite a bit of trouble sleeping this spring, Ive found a term called spring lethargy which just about covers it. I’ve also tried to keep my room as dark as possible so that I don’t get woken by the early morning sun.

I live down south in the home counties, my main problem is how reserved the people are, I find I’m always starting and trying to keep conversations going. It’s exhausting, plus it makes people very hard to read. I’m from an Irish background so I feel a fish out of water here.

Greer pioneered the shocking contrarian self-marketing statement in the 70s, but now everyone is doing it, she can’t get a word in. A very insecure lady deep-down who just wants some more attention, but a very decent Shakespeare scholar.

Metabolism, innit.

I’d rather have your so-called problem! I was a very skinny, tall youth, then hit my mid-30s, knees need major surgery, and in the interim have just sat around and have blown up like a beachball.
Thank your lucky stars – so many health problems are correlated with obesity, after all.

Yep. I have a feeling I will be returning to the polling station later this year for a General Election.

When I was bitten by a horsefly it felt like someone had shot me in the back of the leg with an airgun.

Faringdon is also on the overground rail network so you can commute in from quite far outside of London. Have a look at the network rail map.
A friend is subsidising his son who is doing a work placement in London and giving him about £700 a month, it’s an expensive city and there aren’t any real ways around that in terms of accommodation.

It will be between Johnson or Raab. They will reach out to Farage to get the Brexit vote, there will most likely be another General Election as parliament won’t pass any Brexit deal, but it’s a big risk for them, if Corbyn backs Remain he could well win a General Election.
Crazy times. I think Johnson will most likely prevail however and there will be a Brexit deal at the last hour, using the threat of a WTO Brexit, but we are now looking at least a year down the road.
The other factor is Macron, he could kick the UK out in October without a deal.

@bigyinn, I have a friend who is the spitting image of Tony Slattery, who also worked in a busy job in the City in the 90s, and had a breakdown from which he hasn’t really recovered at all.
It is all very sad.
Tony Slattery was taking on far too much work in the 90s, I think creative careers can be so demanding as you feel the need to take the work whilst it is there, but the long-term consequences can be devastating given there is a lot of bipolar sufferers in the creative sector. Something similar seems to have happened to Peter Cook in the 70s.

Only a hundred years ago, the average expectancy was so low, our bodies weren’t made to last as long as 45 plus years – especially knees.
Never met a poor knee surgeon.

Watching with interest…not a total knee replacement but major knee surgery coming up.
OP did the need for a replacement come out of the blue or have you had knee problems for a while?
A friend who works outdoors says his one regret is he didn’t get a knee replacement earlier in life.

First entry on this thread… I am the heaviest I’ve ever been. Probably three stone overweight now.
Awaiting knee surgery, but in the interim I’m in too much pain to do anything physical. Now walking around with a stick and getting the bus with the old grannies. I’ve gone from a fit mountain biker to an old man in the space of five years.
To compound things I’ve been using beer to self-medicate the pain when I have to walk somewhere, as well as just to get a break from the nagging aches.
Anyway, enough feeling sorry for myself!
Any diets that have worked for you guys – please let me know.
I have to give up beer, that much I know.

Exercise doesn’t mean you won’t develop problems – I know plenty of people who now wish they had taken it easier in their youth as they’ve worn out their knees from too much running.
The idea that “building up your core” is the answer to what sounds like a specific back injury is the kind of thing I used to overhear in gyms from dodgy personal instructors who in a previous life would have been estate agents. From what I hear back problems can be debilitating and understanding/sympathy are needed in abundance as well as professional advice, i.e. physio.
She is also 52, not a spring chicken, and she may have a valid point in taking it easy and resting as the best way to manage the condition.

I’m a social drinker, but over time I’m reducing both the frequency of the sessions and how many pints I have in a session.
I value local pubs. They’ve been very important for forming new friendships and acquaintances as I’ve had to move around a bit for work.
But I’m single and I doubt I would drink at all if I were married with kids. Still, I’m amazed at how many bottles of wine the local residents get through. I think the worse thing would be for two heavy drinkers to get married, that can never end well.

Friend of mine had a serious problem with alcohol – he ended up in A and E three times after drunken accidents – one of the main reasons being he simply didn’t get hangovers, so it didn’t affect his work for the most part. He could also sober up during sessions by not drinking for an hour, then start again.
But he’s given up completely now since getting married, I think his wife would have definitely left him if it continued. I saw him in the pub the other day and I’m careful to keep a distance from him – I don’t want to be good friends with him incase it means he wants to come down the pub more and it sets off the old drinking patterns again.
For some people, social drinking inevitably leads to alcohol problems.

Not a funny joke really.

If people are having reactions to just one pint of beer, then it can’t be the alcohol they are reacting to, as it’s barely 4percent alcohol, must be the other stuff in it surely.

Strange to have that strong a reaction to just the odd pint.
It’s always been my plan to give up the drink at 40, but I might bring that forward as I’ve noticed looking at regular drinkers in pubs, how much it ages people.

st dominics preview by van morrison, a poetic masterpiece

Sounds a nasty one.
If it’s any consolation the strongest cyclist I know has various pins and plates in both legs.
Keep us updated and try to enjoy the rest, if that makes sense – read books, watch movies etc

Been bed-bound since friday, decided I was going stir crazy so popped out to closest (but horrible) pub for a pint.
Bloody hell, wish I hadn’t. Horrible people in the pub, crazy bloke over the road f-ing and blinding into his phone, then a bloke opens his car-door on me as I’m riding home.
I’ve never liked this bank holiday weekend!

You need to establish what the actual property boundary line is. If you think he may be a chancer then you may wake up one morning with a very tiny garden and a wall Donald Trump would be proud of.
I would have just trimmed the hedge.

I’m white and have dreads.
Marriage.
Children.
Death.
I dread em all.

Laying in bed with sore knees.
Next door neighbours are having the most middle-class BBQ in history by the sounds of it.

Yep, another bed-day for me, as I was out and about yesterday and my knee pain has flared up.
Knee surgery probably about 3 months away now, so I’m expecting this year to be very horizontal overall.
Bumped into some mountain bikers in the pub the other day and said I’d join them for some rides in about a year if all goes to plan. I’ve not been out on the mountain bike for about four years now.

I don’t know what it is like now but my cousin got involved with eco-warriers back in the early 90s. Underneath the happy exterior there is quite a dark underbelly, as many people are attracted to it for the same reasons cults flourish. There was a lot of drug taking and surprisingly, quite a lot of violence, with the girls often getting wacked around by the self-designated alpha-male, who would be sleeping with a number of them.
This however looks a lot different – a wider range of people, who seem to have lives outside of eco-activism, I’d sign up if I could afford it! Looks like a fun time.

I think you’ve got a number of things happening
– lots of blokes away with the kids and wife, letting off steam
– alcohol
– an unusually dramatic game
Saying that, I’ve noticed the general anger in our society (e.g. over brexit, culture war issues etc) is now coming back into football, in a more mainstream way rather than the small hooligan element.
I prefer just to watch the games that interest me at home now. I tried to go to support my local non-league team a while back, which sells itself as a family club, but the language was too far on the foul side, I don’t have children, but if I did I wouldn’t want them to expose them to it.
I think the first time I heard adults swearing and general adult banter was watching a cricket match at the age of around 8. I think in the past there were more taboos about using bad language and showing aggression in front of women and children.
In the past football grounds were more segregated, i.e. the more tribal factions had their own ends, but now it is more family-oriented in general, this complicates things when you get a few “hardcore” idiots in seats next to families. I’ve been at a spurs game when a number of people asked one man to stop swearing or they would inform the stewards, which did shut him up in fairness. But if he was with more people I doubt people would have spoken up.

The rise of the banks changed everything. The tories would have happily let them grow as did New Labour, indeed the tories release the big bang and subsequent deregulation. But the rise of the banks was a global phenomenon and no country could really escape it – basically a form of American soft power.
I’m still surprised how little anger is directed at the banking sector. Much of it has instead been deflected to other things and contributed to things like brexit, trump, etc yet the bankers still pocket their bonuses.

It will be interesting to see whether they choose to rebuild the roof with wood, or a less flammable material.
The history of the medieval period is littered with fires, I think Moscow used to burn down every now and often, and we had our Great Fire, mainly because we had to use the same material to build our buildings with which we fuelled our fires.

At least one of the rose windows has gone.

Looks completely gutted. Huge fire.

I’ve been listening a lot to St Dominics Preview by Van Morrison today, which namechecks Notre-Dame cathedral.
That would be a spooky coincidence were it not for the fact I listen to that song pretty much every day.
Looks like the spire has collapsed now too.

Labour spends too much.
Tories spend too little.
So it goes in a circle, innit. Labour – Tory – Labour – Tory.
Yo-yo dieting.

The whole thing surrounding jump racing these days is a big turn-off – the heavy drinking, fighting, the young men killing themselves with gambling problems, the whole classlessness of it all and then the involvement of dodgy dictators like various Sultans and the Queen – I don’t see the attraction of it at all. Seeing that horse die on the first fence was pretty awful too.

A relative of mine divorced then re-married the same woman (who’d had enough of his narcissistic behaviour at the time).
In the long run, he has reverted to type and become the spoilt kid he always was.
I’ve seen one person really change for the better – I knew him at university, which he didn’t enjoy and was borderline depressed. After he left uni and started working he became a positive, optimistic person.
I think it’s a combination of nature and environment – but often when there is pressure and stress, we revert to the same behaviour we displayed in childhood, whether than be avoidance, selfishness, chronic worrying.

I’d make everyone get in a time machine, go to the Western Front and get shot at, then return to 2019. People would have a changed attitude towards themselves (ego-ism) and other (community).

After the war, there was a real sense of hope and optimism for many people. Partly that was a reaction to the preceding deprivations, but there was also a collective spirit to improve things for everyone.
I’d like that to come back, as I don’t think you can achieve much from an atomised culture of pessimism.

Agree with all the above.
Any fool can handle a crisis like a war but it takes heroism to get through the day to day stuff.