Aaron Neville, my artist du jour. His incredible voice is a once-in-a-generation gift to the world that I so very much love and appreciate! https://t.co/0TOsgsZK0q
The incredibly smooth proposal at the end of episode 5 of series 2 of The Gentlemen is utter perfection and romance at its finest! It's classic Guy Ritchie - wrapping intense, gritty survival and high-stakes criminal ambition in a layer of immaculate aristocratic charm 🤌🏼🔥
LTJ Bukem's Progression Sessions JAPAN Live 2002 is one of THEE most epic live albums.
'Music Has Never Let Me Down' (@Makoto_Music@Makoto_MusicJP) 'You Make Me Feel', - some of the finest drum and bass ever produced! @therealLTJbukem 👌🏽🇯🇵
A reporter asked Lamine Yamal how he handles the pressure of carrying Spain at 18. His answer: my mother had me when she was 16, that's real pressure. My father picked things off the street to bring food home, that's pressure. All I have to do is play football.
That's the whole story of who he is, and most fans only know the surface of it.
Before he was born, his teenage parents fell behind on rent. Two neighbors named Lamine and Yamal covered them, and his father vowed his son would carry both names forever. His legal name is a permanent record of a debt his family couldn't repay in money. In Arabic, the names mean "the trustworthy" and "beauty."
His parents split when he was around 5. His mother raised him in Granollers on a fast food wage. And here's the detail almost nobody knows: that job is the reason he became a footballer. Through work she met the daughter of the youth coordinator at CF La Torreta, his first club. When she worried she couldn't cover the fees, he told her that if the boy wants to play, money will never be the reason he can't.
As a kid, Lamine told his parents: if you're counting on me getting a normal job, we're in trouble. But if I become a footballer, you'll never have to worry again.
He signed with Barcelona at 7. He was right by 15.
Every goal, he flashes 304 with his fingers. The end of 08304, the postal code of Rocafonda, the neighborhood where strangers paid his family's rent before he existed. It gets credited on every goal since.
Today, at 19, he plays for the World Cup. And if he scores tonight, somewhere in the biggest broadcast on Earth, two neighbors will hear their names, and a postal code will flash on 2 billion screens.
Not one for publicly criticising referees but Ilgiz Tantashev has been absolutely shocking tonight in this France vs Paraguay game.
The same man that refereed our game vs Morocco and was shocking that day too.
Not good enough for the biggest stage.
Let's ban every government minister and the rates assessor from their local pub until the business rates are fixed.
Business rates are having a terrible impact on businesses across Scotland, particularly in hospitality.
What will it take to make the government officials and rates assessor understand the damage they are doing?
Instead of the government mandating digital ID and surveillance on us, we should be mandating digital ID and surveillance on the government to monitor how they are spending our money and what they are discussing with their corporate lobbying cronies. We fund them. They serve us.
I have good friends from right across the political spectrum. I enjoy a debate with opposing views. We are all different and we can learn from our differences. But there has been a huge increase in dogmatic and aggressive toxic tribalism and the emotional immaturity of refusing to be friends with those who have different opinions.
Where is the bipartisanship, respectfulness, balance and empathy in our political discourse? We are moving apart rather than walking towards each other. Increasingly, it seems that on almost every political issue, binary choices of division are being made. This is increasing the levels of division and hatred. This has been evident this week with certain individuals celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Instead, we need to find ways to reduce the toxic tribalism. Instead of hating those who have a different political opinion, we should try and find some common ground.
Trying to reach a societal commonality of empathy and respect through our political discourse will not be an easy outcome. Our political battlegrounds are increasing rather than dissipating and we are now engulfed by a set of culture wars on almost every single political issue.
We have become blindsided by the intoxication of aggressive toxic tribalism and group mob mentality. We have been seduced by the dogma that one group is “wrong” and “evil” while our own group is “correct” and “good”. Politics is a set of worded opinions. But it should never become sets of worded abuse. When was the last time we ever heard someone from a different political viewpoint say “good point, I need to learn more on that”?
We see examples of exactly these types of factional battles, especially within political parties, played out daily across social media. It takes a few seconds for strangers to shout each other down on social media platforms, and a lot longer to get to know one another, respectfully listen and even learn something from someone with a different opinion.
The spectre of angry, tribal and entrenched political positioning where people pick a side has increased. Pragmatic, nuanced and well thought through respectful debate is becoming a dying art.
So rather than seeking to disenfranchise ourselves from anyone who has a different political view, perhaps we should remember that one differing opinion from someone else does not imply that this person is a bad personality. It just means they think differently. And just perhaps, if we got to know them a little bit better, we might actually discover that we like them because we have found other things to relate, empathise and agree with them on.
Perhaps I am being idealistic in seeking to build bridges rather than walls with those who have a different political opinion. Extremism never works. History has taught us that. And we forget those lessons at our peril. But the majority of people are not extremists. The majority of people are decent. We all have our differences, but we must remember that the commonality of decency, respectfulness in debate and common ground far outweighs the narrow and stubborn tribalism of aggressive group think.
This tribal “Us” versus “Them” mentality is not leading us down a healthy path. In fact, it’s slowly destroying our collective society by walking us down an aggressive and narrow path that leads to extremism and toxic tribalism which surely the majority of us don’t actually want. We need more balance, bipartisanship and respectfulness in our political discourse and less confirmation bias and tribalism. Because right now, more than ever, we need to come together rather than walk further apart. We should strive to become more bipartisan and discover what we can agree on. We may find that it’s more than we think.
Britain has endured decades of governments that do not serve the people first. They serve their corporate cronies first by repeatedly asset stripping the country and then selling these assets to multinational corporations. Our taxes are funnelled to these corporations through enormous procurement contracts. This is the main root cause of why Britain is in such a mess right now. Modern day robber baron feudalism under the auspices of technocratic corporatism.
Reminder that Novak Djokovic was banned longer in Tennis and forced to miss 3 Grand Slams for not taking a brand new drug, then Jannik Sinner was banned for taking a well known performance enhancing drug. Sinner didn't have to miss a single slam.
Make of that what you will.