Hugo Gordon

This is WILD

Didn't see this coming I have to say, but pleased for Rennie. Really good coach, and was really shabbily treated by the Wallabies.

This would be a plan I imagine the Kurds would view with a bit of scepticism even if it hadn't been for all the, you know, repeated US betrayals of them

The easiest analytical assumption to make whenever Trump does something is that he hasn't thought it through at all. And yet everytime commentators contort themselves into believing there's some kind of strategy.

Not gonna lie: much less exciting story than the headline made it sound

So, in launching a huge bombing campaign on Iran they apparently didn't plan for:

- Who takes over;
- Interceptor shortages from sustained drone retaliation;
- How to defend US bases in the region;
- Threats to ships in the Strait of Hormuz; and
- How to evacuate Americans with airspace closed.

I know I say this fairly often: people are right to complain concerts are too expensive, but they got that way because a lot of artists started to make almost no money out of their actual records. We have to look really hard at how we pay for music.

Farrell set to make handful of changes for Ireland's clash with Wales The likes of Nick Timoney, Jack Conan, and Rónan Kelleher have been pushing for starts.

www.the42.ie/ireland-wale...

A few changes to be expected, but I hadn't realised Loughman was now injured as well. Did Irish looseheads get hexed by a witch?

I wouldn't call it optimism exactly, but I think where these two teams are at the moment and the fact that it's in Rome, I just think they'll do it

I heard he was out again

I will say that I said before the tournament that Italy should target this game and that's when I thought England would be 3 from 3 by now

I must speak my truth

In some ways the changes make sense - what's been tried the last two games clearly isn't working. But it also inevitably means disruption, and I think this Italy team are very very capable of beating a time not firing on all cylindars, particularly in Rome.

Nailing my colours to the mast, I think Italy are going to win on Saturday.

(This, to be clear, is not to say that Obama should have won the Nobel Peace Prize, it was always an absurd decision which even Obama seemed a bit embarrassed by.)

It's similar neuroses I think that have led to Trump's obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize. If Obama didn't have one I genuinely think Trump wouldn't care about it as much. But he can't stand the idea of another leader being better respected than him, and receiving recognition he doesn't.

Trump wants that respect and doesn't have it. He seems to believe that Zelenskyy has somehow grifted his way into getting it, and is resentful that Zelenskyy hasn't given him the credit Trump feels he deserves (because Trump feels everyone should always be giving him credit).

Side note but (and obviously this is speculation) I do really believe that much of Trump's clear dislike of Zelenskyy is based in pure jealousy of Zelenskyy's status as someone from an entertainment background who has become a beloved wartime leader, and is widely respected by other heads of state.

you are not prepared for the soundtrack

Fun new definition of "seperatism" emerging among UK politicians and pundits where it apparently means "when voters from a particular group vote in a way that aligns with their interests but not for the party that I support."

Tbh I've never really been convinced by him at 15 (though he did play well on that tour) but he's been really good these last couple of games.

Anyway, that's probably a longer thread than Resident Evil 6 deserves but I would genuinely love to read a deep-dive into how so much money and clear effort was spent to produce something that's this much of a mess.

So maybe, if they do end up remaking it, there's enough of a foundation to do something with. But for now, those moments are generally lost amidst the exhausting incoherence of it all. A bit of me admires how they swung for the fences. But hoo boy did they strike out swinging.

The thing is, there are moments when it does work. The interweaving narrative stuff across multiple characters is fun (it's something the series has often promised but never really fully delivered on), some early sequences are genuinely atmospheric, some of the set-pieces are exciting.

And it's got no idea what kind of game it's meant to be. There are so many ideas here (each campaign is meant to play slightly differently) but there's no cohesion to it at all. It plays like a cross between Left 4 Dead and Gears of War, and if that sounds like it wouldn't work you'd be right.

It's SUCH a slog to play. It's so long, and so repetitive, and the initially exciting set pieces become so constant that they lose their impact and there's no room for the game to breathe. Too many levels are gruelling grinds, full of punishing QTEs and infuriating cheap deaths.

You can see what they're going for. There's a laudably ambitious attempt to tell this huge epic story, a sort of culmination of all the Resident Evils to-date at the time, with huge set-pieces and interwining narratives.

They just forgot to make the game good.

Resident Evil 6 is fascinatingly bad. It's so large-in-scale, and so ambitious, and so technically well-made, and so chock-full of ideas, and clearly so expensive, and yet it's absolutely terrible. It's like one of those mega-budget Hollywood epic follies. Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra with zombies.

The obvious follow up question: why did he sign off the letter in the first place then?