Alex Macpherson

can't believe no one got there before this!

lol today's tennis x cryptic crossword crossover

Aaahhh glad it worked! Googling gardening advice is intimidating (lotta opinions out there) but this stuff is golden

To make up for the politics post! Vignarola in Rome in May is non-negotiable afaic. God the way the perfectly crispy guanciale just BURSTS in your mouth

Roman graffiti out of a bus window. Fuck Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper forever

An AI photo of Novak Djokovic with 3 arms and 4 hands holding a tennis racquet with two necks and grips

An AI photo of a man with three arms holding a tennis racquet

An AI image of a man with his back to a tennis court holding a tennis racquet in a hand that’s growing out of the palm of his hand

An AI image of a man with a large head who looks vaguely like Roger Federer holding what looks like Salvador Dalì’s tennis racquet by the top of the grip

Every time some tells me generative AI is getting so much better I test out the hypothesis by prompting it to draw someone playing tennis, and it rarely disappoints.

looooool

Yes I loved Tangerine so much but at no point while watching it - or even Anora tbh - did I think it was remotely Oscar-friendly. And even without Oscar recognition, Anora was the kind of film that makes you excited about where everyone involved is going next

I did not like The Substance aside from Demi Moore. Bit bored of supposedly feminist films in which the characters who are most contemptuously belittled and whose punishment we linger on most explicitly are the women. Not as bad as Promising Young Woman for that but then not much could be

Had this debate irl: I don't think Anora ever deludes herself that Vanya loves her, and so never seems pathetic. Her Act II "desperation" is her playing an unlikely hand as hard and as far as she can, but the pay-off (which she's already agreed to) is always the back-up option

Anora! First time I think I've ever seen a film, raved about it endlessly, and then been surprised to find the Oscars agree with me. Obviously Mikey Madison is electric but the "class solidarity between sex workers and hired goons" aspect was an amazing mid-film swerve.

all through Creation Lake I was thinking this book will stand or fall or whether Rachel Kushner lands the ending...... and I don't think she did, oof. felt a bit like it was fishing for a TV adaptation esp with making the main character a vaguely witty, sociopathic cipher

Full Attention Terror Danjah · Full Attention · Song · 2011

oh no, RIP Terror Danjah open.spotify.com/track/5W16Ul...

Two Weeks remains monumental but I think this is the first time a twigs project has held my attention from start to finish

I didn't expect the new fka twigs album to be so Ray of Light coded

YouTube video by MNV1970 Ambidextrous Tennis Kulikovskaya Forumtennis.ru

another ambidextrous player, Evgenia Kulikovskaya, reached the Top 100 in 2003 with two FHs www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEuT...

one-handed backhands into both junior AO QFs (Lilli Tagger and Henry Bernet) - it is (just about) alive!

because Hawkeye isn't based on the actual shot - it's a computer-generated prediction of the ball's trajectory. (there's a different electronic method called Foxtenn that is based the shot, and where that's used they show the video)

Sabalenka's 10th Slam SF. I've been waiting for someone new to get to double-digit Slam SFs for SO LONG (since 2008, to be precise)

(Kerber in the 2017 Monterrey final)

That was a very fun second set between Pavlyuchenkova (that wild reflex volley!) and Sabalenka (that BH DTL slice winner!).

Trivia! Pavlyuchenkova owns 38 Top 10 wins in her career so far but only one over a reigning No.1 - who, when, where?

congrats!

oh lol I forgot, the year Pique bought and ruined the Davis Cup (leading everyone in tennis to loathe him) the Shakira diss track was played all the time at every tournament

(my favourite genres of tennis DJs: mitteleuropean ones who play uncensored rap hits; Miami ones who play Mariah Carey and Tyla; the one who played the Pussycat Dolls during Nicole Scherzinger's ex's match, which he promptly lost)

I am also happy to blame that sport for this pox

This one is funny in a tennis context because the DJ is filling silence rather than stopping chants lol. Some tennis DJs are really good and others are Australian, where they also seem to love Sweet Caroline beyond reason

makes sense it started in another sport (tennis DJs don't have the imagination to do anything that isn't already popular) but I don't know which one to blame for the UK glomming on to an American football thing

Oh I would have been so furious lol, that is the exact correct course of action

point Elina Svitolina!!! had no idea how these two would match up with each other and it seems to be heating up in the second set

understandable! though from this side of the planet, sleep deprivation = the AO vibe lol