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Anyway, although I don't want Scotland to go indie, there are good reasons why people think otherwise – you've advanced some yourself on here – and I've been surprised by how many of the Scots I know (mostly ex-pats) support Yes. But none of them are in that OP.

Puerile in that kind of way, for starters. And because stuff like this is just fraudulent... and this is misleading (nations spend according to their wealth and the UK is – guess what – the 6th-richest nation on the planet) and because his picture of foreign intervention is every bit as...

So do people still think of Grillo and Five Star as being on the left? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/03/italian-comedian-activist-beppe-grillo-controversy-blacked-up-image-politician

The original quote is just awful puerile bollocks. What s/he should have said is that an independent Scotland would be too inconsequential politically, militarily and financially to play a significant part in any war that wasn't for its own immediate survival (which wouldn't rule out...

Occurred to me earlier that if Holland win tonight that's 3 consecutive all-European finals. So vamos Argentina.

Now it gets tough. Based on performances to date, the semis should be Colombia v France Holland v Belgium But can Colombia do it against a 'big team' (though clearly not a great one) or Belgium score enough to see off Messi?

I saw the last hour-and-a-bit of the Belgium-USA game, slightly drunk and in a state of mounting disbelief. It was perhaps the most ludicrously entertainign game I've ever seen. 2 gangs of professional athletes playing like 10-year-olds, hurtling towards the opposition goal every chance they...

5 out of 6 so far – and so nearly all 6. I'd like to think Belgium will demonstrate to the Americans that football is about more than just good team spirit and a hard-to-break defence.

I was listening to the Guardian podcast's resident Frenchman. He seemed massively relieved they wouldn't be playing each other. He was fearing lots of ugly domestic French politics of a kind that puts traditional football rivalries in the shade.

Yes, since 86 at least. If the ko games continue in the same vein it'll even eclipse that.

I stuck a tenner on Colombia after their first match. Don't suppose they'll win, but 33/1 looked good. Still no outstanding team. Germany couldn't beat Ghana, Holland scraped past Oz, likewise Argentina with Iran and Brazil with Croatia. Which leaves France as the only remaining 'big' team with...

Yeah, she's lazy and just generally terrible. A smarter, braver, just better writer, would have acknowledged the irony that, while football is the most tooth-and-claw capitalism you'll find, US team sport still has this freakishly socialist idealism when it comes to divvying up college players...

I can't believe she's still going. I'm sure the Marxist-Islamist-Atheist plot I worked on with Obama called for her to be sold into slavery by now.

I still have that. Remember looking all over Brighton for it – the only shop that had it had stocked it in the humour section. A right mixed bag. There's an essay on Graham Greene which develops into an anti-Irish Catholic stream of filth ("what could be more Catholic than the dirty protest?"*)...

I think it may have been the bog-standard UK punk bands she didn't like writing about. I'd quite like to see some of her stuff from 77. The first I read of hers (apart from Boy Looked At Johnny) was about 1980, when her rep was already established.

Isn't that just a bit of creative revisionism from Burchill - I'm sure she was a massive Patti Smith fan, her response to the Hip Young Gunslingers ad was an appreciation of her. I don't think liking both was that incompatible, even then. Or things like this happen.

Didn't fat boy from Take That do something and then they all kinda went mumble mumble and stepped away from the tax dodger? Edit: Yes indeed. Here you go. http://www.channel4.com/news/england-world-cup-song-anthem-gary-barlow-axed-video

Costa Rica making Italy look very average. If it stays like this, Italy-Uruguay will be an elimination bout.

Haha. We may go out earlier this time, but the way I see it, in '06 we were pampered and useless, more memorable for the farce of Baden-Baden's shopping WAGs than our football; in '10 we were a lethargic inept disgrace and finished in a piss-weak group 2nd to the USfuckingA. In '14, we were...

Anyway, enough history. I didn't think, all things considered, we were terrible last night. Ball retentions stats, fwiw, actually pretty good by our standards - and well above Uruguay's. But the truth is we have an average squad, including some players who plainly aren't international standard...