Nick

Losing to Sunderland is bad. Seeing one of our fans has been racist? Way worse. Racism is rife in our Country currently and they're getting braver. If anyone hears this at any game, call it out and call them out. Racism has no fucking place in society.

A railway company in Japan once ran out of money to pay a stationmaster. So they gave the job to the cat who lived outside the station. She wore a custom made hat, worked for cat food, and saved the entire line. Her name was Tama. She was a calico cat who had spent her days sitting near the entrance of Kishi Station in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, greeting passengers anyway. When the company destaffed the station in 2006 to cut costs, the president visited to discuss what to do about the stray cats living nearby. He looked into Tama's eyes and later said they conveyed a sense of purpose as strong as any of his employees. He made her stationmaster. Within a month passenger numbers rose by seventeen percent. People began travelling from across Japan just to see her. Tourists arrived from other countries. A French documentary crew came to film her. The station was eventually rebuilt in the shape of a cat's face. In her eight years as stationmaster Tama contributed an estimated one billion yen to the local economy. She was promoted four times. She eventually held the title of Honorary President of the railway. The only female in a senior position in the entire company. When she passed away in 2015 over three thousand people attended her funeral. She was given the posthumous title Honorary Eternal Stationmaster and enshrined at a nearby Shinto shrine as a goddess. The position of stationmaster at Kishi Station is still held by a cat today.

@bbc5live Hidden track nomination. Sick Party by Ash - which was itself a hidden track on their debut album 1977. 🤢

🚨 It's Mixtape time! This week's theme: Bodily noises! 🎶 What are the best songs that have bodily noises in them? Let's hear 'em! 👇

A really honest and vulnerable moment from the #UCLToday crew to open today's show 🥹❤️

Booze! Drugs! Sweary lawyers! Egg in the buff! Ricky Gervais' big break! It's 30 years today since #ThisLife arrived on our TV screens and BBC4 are rerunning it tonight at 10pm. I wrote about how it discovered a generation of talent and changed TV drama theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2…

19 years ago, a high school basketball coach put his team manager into a game for the final four minutes. The kid had never played a single minute of competitive basketball in his life. He scored 20 points. Jason McElwain was diagnosed with severe autism at age two. He didn’t speak until he was five. He couldn’t chew solid food until he was six. He wore a nappy for most of his early childhood. As a baby, he was rigid, wouldn’t make eye contact, and hid in corners away from other children. He tried out for his school basketball team every year and got cut every time. Too small. Too slight. Barely 5’6 and about 54 kilograms. But he loved the game so much that his mum called the school and asked if there was any way he could be involved. The coach created a team manager role for him. For three years, McElwain showed up to every practice and every game. He wore a shirt and tie on match days. He ran drills, handed out water, kept stats, and cheered every basket like he’d scored it himself. On 15 February 2006, the last home game of his final school year, the coach let him suit up in a proper jersey and sit on the bench. With four minutes left and a comfortable lead, the coach sent him in. His first shot missed. His second missed. Then something shifted. He hit a three-pointer. Then another. Then another. His teammates stopped shooting entirely and just kept passing him the ball. He hit six three-pointers and a two-pointer. 20 points in four minutes. The highest scorer in the game. When the final buzzer went, the entire crowd rushed the court and lifted him onto their shoulders. His mum tapped the coach on the shoulder, in tears. “This is the nicest gift you could have ever given my son.” McElwain won the ESPY Award for Best Moment in Sports that year, beating out some of the biggest names in professional sport. He’s 36 now. He works at a local supermarket, coaches basketball, has run 17 marathons including five Boston Marathons, and travels the country speaking about never giving up. When asked about that night, his coach still gets emotional. “For him to come in and seize the moment like he did was certainly more than I ever expected. I was an emotional wreck.”

In an attempt to explain just why it is that some 77 million Americans voted for the dumbest man alive to be their president for a second time, I’m absolutely delighted to present you with the expanded list of US food that you cannot legally sell in Europe!🧵

This may just be the best penalty ever taken.

@bbc5live Walk On By - Dionne Warwick youtu.be/vsGsCvJWEo8?si…

🚨 It's Mixtape time! This week's theme: Crying! 😢 🎶 What are the best songs about crying? Let's hear 'em! 👇

Okay but this is officially the best hiring story ever. A company in Mexico rescued an orange stray cat and decided not only to keep him… but to hire him. They named him Engineer Miauricio and gave him the title of Emotional Support Director. His responsibilities include smiling at coworkers, gently meowing, and walking around the office making everyone’s day better.

@bbc5live Teardrop - Massive Attack.

It was a tale of two cities and two very different football grounds for an @FCBarcelona fan who turned up at the wrong St James Park last night 🏟️ The Spanish supporter, who made the journey to Devon from London, turned up at the turnstiles of Exeter City’s Adam Stansfield stand last night, expecting to see his team take on @NUFC. It was only when he showed his ticket to staff that he realised his mistake. But he got to see a got to see a game of football – Exeter City staff sorted him out a ticket for the game against Lincoln under the lights of the real St James Park! Adam Spencer, Supporter Experience Officer at Exeter City, said: “One of our volunteers came to the office to let us know that this guy had turned up expecting to see FC Barcelona. His English wasn’t great, but from what we could gather, he’d come from London. My guess is he’d put St James Park in his phone and then just followed the directions from there. “He was pretty gutted and a bit embarrassed. So, we sorted him out a ticket and he got to watch a game at the real St James Park. He’d be welcome back any time.” #ECFC #SemperFidelis

In 2021, after 6 years of shopping at my local Sainsbury’s and tracking where I parked each time on a spreadsheet, I completed all 211 parking spots the store had to offer. In 2024 I moved to a new town - and guess what I’ve been busy doing since :) A thread 🧵

@Barry_Carter @seanperrywins I’ve read her stuff in the Gruffington Post.

@seanperrywins Oh nice you went to one of those "have your picture taken in a grounded jet" experiences too? We put my mother's dog in it, here she is doing some social media barketing.

Move in silence, until the results make noise

@RealKidPoker Seidel never gets the love he deserves in these types of conversations.

70’s Johnny Moss Doyle Brunson 80’s Stu Ungar Johnny Chan 90’s thru 2010 Chip Reese 2010’s Phil Ivey Who’s Next?

@dklappin I used to play the $10 version of this on the train on the way home from work in ~2012, was quite the sweat if I went deep due to tunnels. Do you remember the $54+$0(!) 3-max hypers to the 2am Nightly $162? They only ran for ~90 mins before it started but were brilliant fun.

This was such a fun wee hyper on @PokerStars back in the day!

"HERE WE GO!": the lowdown on "football journalist" Fabrizio Romano sportingintelligence832.substack.com/p/here-we-go-t…

Last year, the Telegraph published a long, detailed piece by Georgina Fuller, entitled: 'We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays — Labour’s VAT raid forces six-figure families to make lifestyle sacrifices' It was all FAKE! Made up, every single last word of it, including the stock photos of a happy smiley family. The author had concocted a family from thin air to take a swipe at the Labour government's VAT addition to private schooling. In hindsight, when we look at the names she came up with, perhaps alarm bells should have rung — Al, Alexander and Ali Moy. That's the names of the family. Oh, and Harry! It was removed fairly swiftly after some complaints but, the article was incredibly detailed about the fake family: “The Moys, who are originally from Singapore but also lived in New York for 20 years, have decided that rather than disrupt their children’s education, they will make sacrifices in other areas of their lives.” The bit that riles me in particular is that IPSO have today ruled that the Telegraph must publish an apology and display the ruling on their homepage for all to see, and they have ... way, way down the page, under an article entitled “The best and worst supermarket barn flakes”. This is such a monumental breach of the rules, but they can file it so far away so that no one even sees it. I write so often about the failings of our journalistic standards, but this work of fiction is a disgrace. To make up such a ludicrous article with that level of detail. If you want to read the IPSO ruling, it's here: ipso.co.uk/rulings/02104-… And if you want to read the original article, it's here: archive.ph/RqFix

Lemmings turned 35 this year (a few days ago)... Not just one of the most unique games ever, but also one of the best. When Lemmings hit the market in February 1991, it felt like a completely new concept - something never done before. At least I don’t remember any game that came even remotely close. On top of that, it had an incredibly gorgeous style, beautiful graphics, the cutest animated pixel characters, and one of gaming history’s most recognizable soundtracks. I remember one review giving it a 99% rating with the comment that “we need to leave the 1% off so there’s room for something better - if it ever comes” (paraphrased). In all the years since, you’d have a hard time finding a more unique concept that’s also so very playable. The early levels are super easy, basically a walk in the park, gently introducing the idea and controls. But once you reach the later levels, boy, does it get tough. It never felt unfair, though - the key was smart usage and timing of the different Lemming types. That’s why the game was also great with friends: you’d sit around the screen and try to figure out the best strategy together. Lemmings became one of the most sold games ever on the Amiga. Deservedly so. This game is timeless and 99% perfection.