Heavy stuff from Virgil Van Dijk:
“This was the toughest season of my career. Especially on the mental level. It just kept going up and down. We almost never had the consistent feeling and level you strive for.
As a group, as a club, as a player, as a person. As a team, we had very good matches, and then suddenly things went downhill again. Then you basically can’t go on.
This year, a lot has come our way at Liverpool. From the moment I received the call with the terrible news about Diogo until the final match, in which we said goodbye to Salah and Robertson. I sat on the grass watching those two guys, with whom I had played for eight years.
I have never experienced anything like it in all those years at Liverpool. It happened the way it happened."
Veteran news anchor Jon Snow has shared that he’s living with dementia, speaking publicly for the first time to raise awareness of a condition affecting around 1 million people across the UK.
Jon and his wife, neurologist Dr Precious Lunga, are supporting Alzheimer’s Society @alzheimerssoc and shared the story of Jon’s diagnosis in @DailyMail as part of our Defeating Dementia campaign with the newspaper.
https://t.co/Sy08OWXmms
We’ve partnered with Jon, in association with @Channel4, on a powerful new documentary airing on 20 June. Jon Snow: A Last Big Story looks at how he’s navigating life with dementia, and how, when we all come together, we can change the story.
Thank you to Jon and Precious for their courage and openness to bring much-needed attention to dementia 💙
@jonsnowC4
Photo credit: Cynthia R Matonhodze
This is glorious. I’ve read it 3 times already and it was only published 71 minutes ago.
Paul Howard: You’ll spend the rest of your life chasing the way your first World Cup made you feel
https://t.co/bv1eZRhr9w
Strange how living with foxes for 15 years and before that, many years in the field photographing them, makes my views invalid. However a farmer with his livelihood invested in the discussion is the only valid opinion. Double standards don't you think. #FoxOfTheDay
An Irish insurer that covered a ship carrying 440 tonnes of munitions to Israel – which Amnesty International said could contribute to genocide – had the “honour” of having Fianna Fáil’s Robert Troy attend the opening of its new Dublin office.
https://t.co/uQRAmUqAoq
𝘾𝙖𝙡𝙢 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙢 ⚡
🔷 Here is your Leinster Rugby team to take on @THESTORMERS in Saturday's @URCOfficial semi-final 💪
🎟️ Get your tickets here: https://t.co/173tmKMOPB
Full team news 👉 https://t.co/t2BzUXHmbm
#LEIvSTO#NeverLessThanEverything
Everyone at Irish Rugby is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of former Ireland captain Fergus Slattery.
Our thoughts are with Fergus' family, friends and former team-mates at this sad time.
*BRITISH WRITER PENS THE BEST DESCRIPTION OF TRUMP*
Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless or female – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and most are.
• You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
With Andoni Iraola, #LFC get
An honest man
Who admires Klopp
A head coach who will conquer you because you will see him give his all
Basque (so hard working, knowing the priority is the club)
In 1984, an Irish 21-year-old checkout girl Mary Manning, refused to handle Apartheid South African fruit.
Just refused.
And she was suspended.
But in the pre boomer years, people had this mad thing called "trade unions".