Post of the Year 2023

[gmoney]

On 2/24/2023 at 7:52 AM, Harry Wiseau said:

On the subject of Tunnocks, if you leave a comment on their "Contact us" section of their website then you may receive something in the post in the following days. I left a message saying how I had a dream that I met Boyd Tunnock and he gave me a lift in his Land Rover, the following week a Tunnocks woolly hat arrived in the post. A few weeks later I sent one in for somebody at work saying how my Tea Cake while listening to Popmaster was the highlight of my day during lockdown - two boxes of Tea Cakes arrived in the post! Then just two weeks ago I did one for someone else at work telling them how I was impressed to see it's now 7 million caramels that are made and sold each week and I could remember when it was 5 million - he got a tea towel, little tray and a packet of dark chocolate Caramel wafers! 

 

Just don't all do it at once as they might suspect something.

Got to be this. For the joy it's brought. 

[Fatty Facesitter]

That's superb - it's totally bypassed me and it's a riot reading the replies. Poor Ann must be absolutely shagged. 

[deathrey]

I'm sure Ann is loving her new minor celeb-dom

[Accident Prone]

If you see a BomberPat post, chances are it's going to be fantastic, and this examination of modern pop culture in the Minor Annoyances thread is no less than stellar:

  

On 3/17/2023 at 9:50 AM, BomberPat said:

I read something recently about how the way we - and particularly younger people - consume pop culture now has changed to the point that time isn't really relevant; to a kid who's basically never watched linear TV, never rented a movie, never bought an album, there's just no distinction between something released today and something released twenty years ago, because they're all available in the same places at the same time, at the press of a button. There's little to no sense that there's been a progression between those two points.

The post I read was talking about it in terms of why things like Roald Dahl's books are being rewritten, or why certain TV shows might be edited or given trigger warnings - because if everything seems in some way contemporary, without the framing of instinctively knowing "oh yes, this old show is a repeat, it's been on ITV every Sunday for decades", if everything feels now, you don't have the experience to allow you to intellectualise, "this was made a long time ago, so it will be slightly problematic", because "this is here now, just like the show I watched five minutes ago that came out today".

I don't know how much I agree with in that sense of values and problematic content and so on, but I definitely think it plays a huge part in the nostalgia contingent on old media, especially music. "Running Up That Hill" may as well have been a brand new sing when it was on Stranger Things, for how Gen Z seized upon it as a bit on anthem - to the point that I got thoroughly annoyed at lots of "maybe you're not ready for this, but your kids are going to love it" memes about Kate Bush, as if she was some obscure '80s relic, and not one of the biggest stars of the decade. But when you can just pluck an incredible song out of the past and, through its inclusion in other media, or even just a TikTok trend or savvy social media, get it back in the charts, what hope does a new release have? 

This has probably always been somewhat the case (I'm thinking '50s revival stuff in the '70s and '80s), but think of the TV and cinema that's come out over the past twenty years, and how much of that has been soundtracked by contemporary music? Most Marvel movies - and especially Guardians Of The Galaxy - have consciously "retro" soundtracks, and any time I see a kids/family movie, it seems to be soundtracked by stuff from the '80s or '90s. In Red Rose, a series about teenagers finishing their GCSEs in the present day, they all listen to Sandstorm by Darude at their end-of-term party. Between all that, no Top Of The Pops, and I doubt many kids are listening to the radio or watching Kerrang! or Kiss TV or whatever, and most music festivals are headlined by bands that have been around for decades. There's no coherent cultural moment around which a new song, artist, or genre can feel like it's definably of its time. Not enough people are all listening to something all at once for there to be any solid sense of 2010s nostalgia in a decade's time, in my opinion, because it wasn't a decade defined in any way by its music - and I don't think that's me getting old. 

It always amazes me when I see covers bands in pubs, and while there's usually a few idiosyncrasies, you can generally predict the entire setlist. You're going to get Mr. Brightside, you're going to get Sex Is On Fire, you're going to get Seven Nation Army. You might get the odd "ironic" cover of a more recent pop song, but aside from that, if these were the only bands you ever saw, you'd be forgiven for thinking that no new songs had been released since 2008.

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Accident Prone

[Supremo]

.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Supremo

[Gus Mears]

9 hours ago, FelatioLips said:

You highly underestimate just how bored I am.

I've come to a conclusion after extensive research into both the Butlins Breakfast menus and the photographic evidence provided across multiple channels.

Firstly I present Exhibit A: Waters44's Breakfast -

My first and most prominent theory was that it was the underside of a fried egg but looking at the bacon and the scrambled eggs, it's plain to see that absolutely nothing on this plate would ever be cooked well enough to brown that much. So then I got thinking, it's all you can eat and you already doubled up on everything else including eggs, so what harm would a third egg option do?
That got me thinking it was maybe a omelette until I saw no such option exists on the Butlins breakfast menus as part of the breakfast buffet so that was also ruled out. The mystery remains.

That brings me to Exhibit B. Someone else's Butlin's Breakfast-

I know you claimed you had no Hash Brown, but look at the circled areas. The triangular shape could not be anything else. They clearly match up with your mystery food. One thing that threw me a little was how well cooked this hash brown was compared to the light colour of your item, but then look at everything else. Sausages are darker, mushrooms are darker. This is simply a slightly more cooked breakfast.

My theory that I present to the board is that you did in fact have a hash brown on your breakfast, but in posting you forgot you had one and were too embarrassed to go back and correct yourself because you had already marked the breakfast down for the fact.

Waters had a hash brown and he's fibbing to us and I won't stand for it any longer.

 

Detective Inspector FelatioLips (yeah, that doesn't work) with fine work. Wish ITV would make a procedural crime drama about breakfasts for a change.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Gus Mears

[Keith Houchen]

52 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

It’s hugely variable. But yeah, I could maybe see that. Typically rental costs for Wembley will vary - I think, I’ve been more involved with the flogging shows than renting them - between around 200k at the low end (charity connected events usually) and 1mil at the top end (events with a higher than normal expectation of misbehaviour, events that require Wembley to pay for stewarding in the surrounding area or events where the promoter simply doesn’t want to give much of the gate away).

If you’re paying 400k US, you’re nearer the lower end - so maybe you’ve done a deal because of who you are, or maybe you’re giving away 20% or 25% of your gate to the stadium.

But, like, venue rental shouldn’t *really* be your headline costs and is a bit of a red herring. At an average ticket price of 100 quid you’d only need to sell 4k to break even. It’s a big number, but it’ll be dwarfed by the sum of everything else.

The costs come from - what’s your marketing budget; what’s your PR and promotional budget; what’s your presentation budget for the night itself; what’s your cargo cost if you need to ship any of the staging elements in; you’re going to have to pay for in-stadium and concourse staffing to some degree; what’s your talent travel, accommodation and per diem allowance; what’s your medical budget to ensure you can pay for on-site paramedics and doctors; are any of your talent on gate deals…

There’s loads of other costs that rack up in a hurry. Insurance will probably take the guts right out of you too.

I’m sure they’ve done the maths and will get out alive financially. The Khan’s are richer than God, anyway.

But if it’s true that they’ve got 25,000 people on the waiting list, then I reckon they’ve then got to hard sell about that number all over again (presuming they sell 25k or thereabouts at pre-sale) to make it so they can slap the ring in the middle of the stadium and make it look good from every angle.

If they want to hoik the ring up one half and run half a stadium they might get there on pre-sale alone… but feels like an awful step down from the mega statement of running Wembley Stadium.

I remain pretty excited to see what they do. I hope they don’t just take what they can get and run half the stadium, I’d love to see them give it a good go and get around 50 in - but to circle back to my original point, that won’t be easy no matter how big a brand you think AEW is.

I’m loving Dazza in this thread. His experience and insights into shifting tickets and running huge events are fantastic and fascinating to read. 

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, Fatty Facesitter said:

It's JUDGEMENT DAY, and I'm not talking Rhea Bloody Ripley. 

Over the course of Tuesday/Wednesday, 32 cueists will battle it out for the 16 spots left for the main Crucible draw. There's a mixture of steady old hands and some surprise packages all trying to get through to the Big One. Predictions below (which will become out of date pretty quickly as it's all happening now as I type this).

Jak Jones vs Barry Hawkins
The Hawk is a Crucible thoroughbred with many appearances in the latter stages and someone who tends to perform better in long-form matches, however he's dropped out of the top 16 and finds himself having to go through the rigours of qualification to return to the big stage. Welshman Jak Jones, still quite young in snooker terms at just 29, has had a shite season progressing no further than the fourth round of any competition. However, as I type this, the first session between these two is now complete and Jak leads 5-4. You'd expect the Hawk's experience to come into play to see him over the line - if he does that's a bastard of a draw for whoever he meets from the top 16 in Round 1. 
Prediction: Bazza

Fan Zhengyi vs Stephen Maguire
Maguire is another former top 16 regular who now founds himself out of the elite. He's had a horrendous season - only a Championship League semi-final for a pittance to show for his efforts and multiple early exits. He needs a run at the Crucible for the bank balance and his ranking. Fan Zhengyi is only 22, already a ranking event winner and he also reached the semis of the Champion of Champions earlier this season. This could go either way - Maguire's got a terrible temperament but does have the experience factor over the young gun, who as yet doesn't seem to have been caught up in the betting scandal that his Chinese contemporaries have been thus far...
Prediction: Maguire

Chris Wakelin vs Wu Yize
Wakelin has quietly had a good season, taking home his first ranking title in the incredibly famous and prestigious Shoot Out followed up by a strong run in the German Masters and he's been very competitive throughout. Wu Yize - just 19 - has had some good results too considering his age including a run to the quarters in the European Masters and an impressive 10-2 win over compatriot Tian Pengfei in the previous qualifying round. However, Wakelin is 6-3 at the conclusion of their first session and the former should see the job through from here. Far from an easy draw for whoever he meets from the top 16. 
Prediction: Wakelin

Jordan Brown vs Si Jiahui
Jiahui is another youngster off the Chinese production line with a bright future - he too has made a ranking event quarter final this term and impressively dispatched veteran campaigner Tom Ford 10-5 in the previous round. Jordan Brown hasn't been able to build on his 2021 Welsh Open title victory and ever since has been mostly floundering on the tour trying to rediscover that mojo, though he does have a couple of Championship League semis to show for this season. It's even stevens at the time of writing this masterpiece and I'm going to break from previous predictions and go for Si Jiahui to cause a mini-shock in making it through to the big one. 
Prediction: Si Jiahui

Thepchaiya Un-Nooh vs Ricky Walden
This is very, very tough to call. Both have progressed through the Judgement Day phase on several occasions and both are good players in different ways - Thepchaiya is fast-paced and aggressive on his day, but Walden's a crafty veteran and always has a knack of getting himself out of trouble. Theppy leads 5-4 after the first session but I reckon this one will go the distance - one of the toughest to call of the batch but I'll go with Un-Nooh purely out of favouritism and because he's currently got a slender lead!
Prediction: Theppy

Graeme Dott vs Matthew Selt
This one's a bit of a bastard to call as well. Dott, World champion in 2006, has been around the block and back but has struggled to make it through to the latter stages of many competitions this season. Matthew Selt is a tough opponent at any stage, let alone a final qualifying round, and this season he's appeared in the semis or the final of each Championship League phase - not a massive set of tournaments by any means but with events cancelled this season and with the Chinese events still on hold, it all counts. Selt leads 5-4 as it stands, but you can never count out 'Pot the Lot' - so expect this one to go the distance as well. 
Prediction: Selt by a hair, which ironic as neither of them have any...

Noppon Saengkham vs Zhang Anda
I've always liked Noppon - a very underrated talent with a decent CV in terms of Crucible scalps. He's had some great runs this year reaching the semis of the British Open and the World Grand Prix, and more recently the fourth round of the WST Classic. By contrast, 31-year-old Zhang Anda has had nothing to crow about this season with his results, but he's already won two rounds to get to this stage of the quallies and he currently leads Noppon at the end of their first session, so he's gunning for quite the payday. Noppon's a classy operator though and I expect him to not only pull through, but to be a potential surprise package for the Big One depending on the draw. 
Prediction: Noppon

Anthony McGill vs Cao Yupeng
It's been a mixed bag for Crucible regular McGill - quite a few early exits, but a run to the semis in the Northern Ireland Open and a run to the quarters of the World Grand Prix mean it hasn't been a total disaster for the Scot. He's made it through to Judgement Day by the hairs of his arse by limping over the line against an unfancied John Astley in a decider in the previous round. Cao Yupeng's biggest claim to fame so far is being banned for two years for match-fixing. The deviant. McGill leads 5-3 heading into the second session and he'll surely go the distance now. He's had crap seasons before and still gone deep at the Crucible, so you wouldn't bet against him doing so again. 
Prediction: McGilly 

Matthew Stevens vs David Gilbert
A pretty poor season for the two-time Crucible finalist Stevens, consistently crashing out in tournaments early doors and sinking to 54 in the rankings. He does arrive at Judgement Day off the back of two wins in the qualification process including a 10-3 spanking of compatriot Jamie Clarke, so perhaps he's been saving his best for the big spectacular. It hasn't been much better for the Angry Farmer - a run to the Northern Ireland Open quarters scant consolation for losing his top 16 placing. He easily (and sadly) dispatched Norfolk's Barry Pinches in the previous round 10-3, but this will be a sterner test. This one might go the distance on the count of a lack of form or quality, but I'll plump for Gilbert on the basis that he's got better recent World Champs pedigree.
Prediction: Angry Farmer 

Mark Davis vs Joe Perry
I like this one - two old gunslingers. Davis, I believe, is fighting to keep his tour card, and the bottle he's shown to win the previous rounds 10-8 against tough opposition in Michael Georgiou and Lyu Haotian respectively could stand the 50-year-old in good stead. Perry though is different gravy and still capable of mixing it up with the best. Nothing major to shout about other than a run to the quarters of the UK Champs at the back end of last year, and he too had to squeak through 10-8 in the last round against a game Sanderson Lam. But Perry has more pedigree at the event and should take this one. 
Prediction: Gentleman Joe

Andrew Higginson vs David Grace
Now this is interesting - Higginson, technically an amateur, has competed since the very first qualifying phase at the EIS. He's faced some tricky sorts as well - Andy Lee, Louis Heathcoate and the fancied Joe O'Connor have all succumbed to the Scot. 'Amazing' Grace has slipped to 66 in the rankings but does arrive in ok form having reached the fourth round of the WST Classic and having won in the second and third qualifying rounds in tight encounters against Sean O'Sullivan and the fancied Sam Craigie, the latter being a bit of a surprise result. Logic dictates that Grace should take this, but I'd love to see an amateur reach the Big One having done a Shawn Michaels by going from the beginning and winning to earn a spot at the showcase of the immortals! He hasn't made to the Crucible since 2012...
Prediction: Higginson

Hossein Vafaei vs Jackson Page
Decent season for the Prince of Persia though his wait to break into and stay in the elusive top 16 goes on for now. One of the classiest operators in this phase and someone who all of the top 16 will be desperate to avoid in the main draw. 21-year-old Jackson Page has a bright future and has picked up some decent wins here and there this season. He also took down Martin Gould 10-6 in the previous round and arrives in good form after a decent run in the WST Classic. But I can't see past Big Hoss for this one. Iran Number One! Hack! Puh! 
Prediction: Prince of Persia

Elliott Slessor vs Zhou Yuelong
Crap season for Slessor and the Geordie is close to losing his tour card. Yuelong, still only 25, has been a consistent performer all season which includes two ranking finals. I think he'll make short work of Slessor here and this could be one of the more one-sided victories during this phase. 
Prediction: Yuelong

Anthony Hamilton vs Jimmy Robertson
Another one I really like and another tough one to call. The Sheriff of Pottingham has been around for donkeys, pre-dating even the famous class of 1992 (he turned pro in 1991!) and at 51 is still holding his own at 42 in the world. A relatively consistent season by his standards with a few early-round progressions keeping his head above water in the rankings, and he imposed law and order on Oliver Lines by breaking his heart in a decider in the previous round. It's been a similar story this season for Robertson and he had a good run in the German Masters again a few months back. My heart says Hamilton, my head says Robertson...
Prediction: Went with my heart. Up the Sheriff

Xu Si vs Pang Junxu
Crap season with nothing to crow about for Xu Si, but his compatriot Junxu arrives in inspired form - in the last two big tournaments he reached the semis of the Welsh Open and then the final of the WST Classic. He took down the Darling of Dublin Ken Doherty in the last round fairly comprehensively and I expect he'll do the same again here - this 23-year-old is a tidy prospect and definitely one to watch.
Winner: Pang Junxu

Ryan Day vs Scott Donaldson
A very good season for 'Dynamite' Day who has played some great stuff this term along with taking the British Open crown. A player who's always either just inside or just outside the top 16 but always extremely consistent. Also bagged a maximum against Selby in the Tour Championship a few days ago. It's been a crap year for Donaldson, but he did reach the fourth round of the WST Classic and has consistency from winning two previous qualifying rounds to get to this point. I can only see this going one way - Day is a bastard hard draw for any of the top 16 and he's perfectly capable of going deep at the Crucible if he can keep his head. 
Prediction: Dynamite

I look forward to revisiting these predictions when it turns out I've gotten every single one of them wrong. Fuck you all. 

Lovely from @Fatty Facesitter who is always fantastic in the snooker thread. Even if you don't like snooker I'd encourage people to read his posts as they are so good. 

Sort of like how I do sometimes with wandshoguns MMA write ups despite despising it, they're so well written, I really enjoy them.

[SuperBacon]

8 minutes ago, Scott Malbranque said:

Apologies, Rashers. I’ve been swamped up me plums in it and only getting around to replying now.
Right, even reading back on what I’d wrote there gave me the Hank Evans’. What an awful little, insufferable cunt he is.
So, a brief update on this lad:
***Any question mark you see at the end of a sentence, is verbatim, because everything out of the insufferable little shitepipe’s mouth is stamped with a question mark inflection.

 

So his missus is about 6 weeks out from having their first sprog, and you’d swear this cunt was the first cunt to ever father a bin lid.
He was on the blower to a customer, and this was the conversation:
“Rachel…umm…my partner? My partner is with child, so we’re expecting at the tail end of June?”
With child. With bastard child!

 

“I’ll have to temper my gym work while we – and number 3 – adapt to our new situation?”
It was then, that if ever I was going to throw piping hot black coffee into anyone’s face – that was that moment.

Ah hold on Rashers, there’s far too much…I’m recording a voicey on this so yiz can try and grasp what my poor head is dealing with.
 

 

 

 

 

Truth is, I'm not a bad person, I really aren't - and I'm hope in the name of what the good Universe gives us, I'm not a bad person - but this lad turns me into the absolute worst version of myself.

 

Sorry, but GDPR is null and void. He literally picks his hooter and mills the contents.

 

This car is also too small for him, his partner and their child:

Again, I was crying reading/listening to this. 

"His focking kidney bean shaped head"

😆😆😆

[mim731]

17 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Again, I was crying reading/listening to this. 

"His focking kidney bean shaped head"

😆😆😆

I was just coming in here to nominate that post. Absolutely howling.

[waters44]

+1 from me, amazing 😆

[Jazzy G]

Yeah, that's going to take some beating. 

[SuperBacon]

23 minutes ago, Slapnut said:

Following on from this, I’ve done about 15 or 16 gigs since the start of the year and they’ve all gone reasonably well. I’ve had some absolutely wonderful gigs and I’ve had some painfully average gigs in front of 4 people, but no absolute horror shows.

Until today.

I was booked for a gig this evening in a pub, and it was only this morning I realised it was part of an all-day festival. My arse completely went from under me when I walked into what I can only describe as Brexit in pub form.

One by one each of the other acts walked in and almost everyone’s first words were “fucking hell”.

Within a few minutes of the MC starting, a few of Cardiff’s finest walked out into the smoking area where all the acts were gathered and proclaimed they were going to “glass the cheeky cunt if he tells me to shut up one more time”.

One of the acts was about to do her very first gig until she saw the opening act get absolutely annihilated and instead just left. Poor lass.

Anyway, I was booked for 10 minutes and made it through 4 and a half before bailing. I think I would have been ok until a bloke in his 50s stood at the back threatened to beat me up because I was mumbling “like his ex wife”, and the barmaid stopped my set to shout at everybody for talking too much like they were in school.

Afterwards one of the nicer audience members told me it wouldn’t be this bad again next time I have a gig there. Bit fucking optimistic to think I’ll ever step foot in there again.

I’m already shitting myself about my next gig. I’d better fucking get on Live at the Apollo eventually.

Amazing.

[Chest Rockwell]

Not that much gets me excited about wrestling these days but i thought this was really interesting to read, especially after hearing about this promotion on the Jericho podcast - 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Chest Rockwell

[SuperBacon]

2 hours ago, FelatioLips said:

They're not wrong either.

I started playing Animal Crossing back in around 2009 when I got Wild World on the Nintendo DS and that point of my life absolutely sucked. I was in an awfully rotten relationship that made me miserable, I had dropped out of Uni and I had a bout of Gastroenteritis so bad my doctor said when he had the same thing he curled up on the floor wanting to die. It had made me aware of my own mortality and manifested itself in the start of my life-long struggle with anxiety and depression.

I had no idea to that point what Animal Crossing was despite being a Nintendo fan all my life, but I took a chance on it because games I was usually playing for no reason at all now made me nervous and worried so I went as safe as I could.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that Animal Crossing was such a safe place for me, I don't know what I'd have done without it. It was routine at a time my life desperately needed it and it was somewhere peaceful that when real life got too hard for me, I could absorb myself into. Peaceful music, people to talk to (not actually, I'm not mad) and a quiet little island to just pop around and take my mind off things.

There are so many small things AC does that by design or not, help with things like depression and anxiety. The biggest one for me was that there was always someone awake on it. I could wake up at 3am or 6am having a panic and go on there knowing a villager would be awake to talk to.

I've gotten every game since and while it's still a safe place for me, my life is in a much better place now. I wasn't surprised at all that when the world fell to shit in 2020 millions of people started playing it, and it makes me so incredibly happy that other people got the same joy from it I did.

I really love this from @FelatioLips

God bless Tom Nook.