Tamura

So it's the final weekend of the July tournament. Various things were happening going into this tournament, mainly the return of yokozuna Hakuko and the potential promotion from ozeki to yokozuna for Terunofuji, the latter needing to either win the tournament or have an equally strong showing. The latter isn't explicitly defined, as neither are the wider criteria for promotion to yokozuna. But the de facto standard is two consecutive tournament wins or equally strong performances while an ozeki. It's generally speculated that losing a play-off for the championship or having a 13-2 or better record might do. But anyway, on to the tournament.

I don't have a problem with attempting to try and return to some degree of normaility, but I do have a problem with the way Johnson is doing it. They've said all along they are going to be guided by science, so exactly which scientists are saying "wear a mask if you feel like it" is the best idea right now? I mentioned the Netherlands earlier on, the joke right now is that they've flattened the curve so much it's a vertical line. I can imagine the UK's line doing something similar over the next few weeks. That graph comes from this FT article that tells us new cases have risen 15-fold since the beginning of May, a figure that's expected to rise from 30,000 to 100,000 due to the dropping of all legal restrictions. The same article says hospital admissions are expected to rise to 1,000-2,000 per day, with 4,000 not being ruled out. Only at the weekend Sky News reported hospital admissions were up 55.9% (2,872 new admissions) compared to the previous week, so I'm not sure where this idea that the vaccine has broken the link between cases and hospitalisations has come from. So taking all this into account, the rather obvious question has to be "Is this really a good time to remove the legal requirement for people to wear masks in certain situations?"

Basically the more cases there are, the more chance of new variants that are super-infectious and/or resistant to existing vaccines. You also have to worry about whether drastically increased infections will cause other countries to introduce travel bans, which isn't good news for anyone trying to plan for overseas holidays. Given how badly the Tories have managed this from the outset, you'd think by now we'd be following the examples of countries that have been successful in dealing with the pandemic.

Dutch PM apologises for easing of COVID-19 curbs as cases soar So this happens minutes before Johnson announces the lifting of pretty much every single restriction, making the important ones "if you feel like doing it" type advice instead. Still, at least we know to make the most of the next couple of weeks...

If fans today, in particular ones at live events, really do buy into the heel/face dynamic then why do they chant "this is awesome" when the heel kicks out of the babyface's finisher(s)?

He actually debuted the chainsaw in 1989. Not sure if it's still available on the Network, but it was released as the A Lesson from Funk University in Hidden Gems back in 2018. That version was first made available by me on XWT Classics back in January 2017, before being uploaded to Youtube. I like to think its appearance online encouraged WWE to release it in better quality...

I did try and look for the old thread but it appears to have gone AWOL. Obviously international travel can be risky right now due to quarantine rules changing while you're on holidays, but there's still plenty to see in this country. I could pretend I'm being responsible and not travelling abroad needlessly and have decided to stay in the UK, but I'd be lying since this trip was actually booked all the way back in 2019 but last year's trip got postponed for obvious reasons. Possibly one of the most difficult places to get to in the UK (except for Rockall), it's in the Atlantic Ocean about another forty miles northwest of the rest of the Outer Hebrides. To get there you have to go on a trip organised by various tour companies who operate in the Hebrides, the ones I've found run trips from Skye or Lewis and Harris. You can only go beteen April and September (possibly late March and early October too), as the weather is considered too bad for a good chance of actually being able to get to St Kilda. St Kilda is an archipegal of several islands and sea stacks, the biggest island Hirta was continuously inhabited for centuries before all the remaining inhabitants were evacuated at their own request in 1930 as the dwindling population was making life too difficult. Since then there's been no permanent residents, although there are some scientists and National Trust volunteers that stay there for brief periods, plus there's a missile tracking station run by the army too. But apart from that, it's uninhabited. Except for the millions of sea birds that nest on the islands, and some sheep. If you're into abandoned things, it's a great place to go. Plus I get to spend a few days on the Isle of Skye too, which is a big tourist attraction in its own right. Anyone else going anywhere good this year?