If you love the game, don't let Infantino (Sycophantino) or the nakedly corrupt and money-worshipping FIFA change that. World Cup draws should take place in the barrios, the favelas, the grassroots clubs. All this blue-tinged corporate sheen is fake.

The next step is to stop bothering to pay anyone to do so.

Apparently they were concerned about hitting residential areas. Not something the Ruzzians lose any sleep over.

Having missed his 3-day deadline, I think 800 years is Darth's revised timeline for the subjugation of Ukraine.

In the past few months, police in Denmark and Germany didn't shoot down drones near their airports.

If the Dutch had spent every spare guilder on defence they still wouldn't have repelled the Nazis. There is no doubting their courage. Nor that of the Ukrainians.

Neither NATO nor our imperialist neighbour prevented the drones on Tuesday.

Hilarious ignorance about Ireland. We have almost no meaningful capacity to defend against aggressors. In 100 years as an independent state, we haven't needed to.

Happy to be proved wrong! 😃

Except for Foden's winner.

Bijol has been awful. 👎

It's wrong every which way you look at it.

That's a remarkable piece. It recalls Heisenberg's revelation in quantum physics having seen a man appear and disappear as he walked at night between streetlights.

🤣🤣🤣 We can do this the easy way ...

Not to mention the audio. Those low frontline skies are like tiled ceilings.

@timothysnyder.bsky.social makes a key point about this. A settlement on these terms will lead to a nuclear arms race. I hope Zelensky and Ukraine have the courage to reject terms that give Russia what it's taken by force. A lot rides on this.

The writing is lighter, more fluent, less self-conscious, though not entirely transparent. I greatly enjoy the Quirke and Strafford books.

I don't want to trivialize Zelensky's difficulty but this is big picture stuff. He can't accept this proposal. If he doesn't, the US withdraws support (for now). But it's charging for its conditional support now (as Kallas has noted). Time for Europe to step up. If we don't, we're next.