Fog Dude

FA Cup semi-finals (@ Wembley) Chelsea 0-3 Manchester City Coventry City 0-2 Manchester United Premier League Luton Town 2-1 Brentford Sheffield United 3-3 Burnley Wolves 1-1 Arsenal Everton 0-1 Nottingham Forest Fulham 1-2 Liverpool Scottish Cup semi-final Hearts 3-0 Rangers (@ Hampden) La Liga Valencia 2-2 Real Betis Real Madrid 1-0 Barcelona

Apologies for lateness once more, been to the zoo today and was waiting longer than expected for the bus back. Anyway, the final scores were able to go into the opening post earlier than expected, and then the table was recalculated soon after that. The reason we could get a definitive update even sooner is that my innocent selection of Udinese-Roma as our Sunday Italian fixture ended up being abandoned when Evan N'Dicka collapsed and had to be stretchered off while unconscious. Picks would still have been valid had the game been completed this week, but Roma are busy in Europe still. Besides that, both sides are probably mentally shaken from seeing a colleague suddenly keel over so you can hardly begrudge them some distance from the incident. Presumably the remaining 20 minutes will be concluded in another free midweek since the two teams are out of the Coppa. Anyway, among the matches that definitively finished, the randomly selected 'wildcard' fixture was match #6 which ended up a lot closer than I thought as Spurs only overcame Leicester 2-1 after extra time. The four people who foresaw a tighter affair deservedly claim a pair of bonus points each. The other bonuses all went to ultimo as Parma swept the team from La Spezia aside as expected – and five of the other eight participants somewhat surprisingly gambled on disagreeing. Those additional points go a long to way towards making up for missing the previous round as they catapult him back into second place. However, without the bonuses MVP RULZ would've been top scorer and even though he moves down a place, he's actually closer to Rory in terms of points than he was a week ago. Meanwhile, Tilde leapfrogs Bent Wookie in mid-table while at the bottom, I jump up one spot at worst performer Vegeta's expense, leaving Chutney Spoon a further point adrift overall. Still a few weeks until the FPL Cup final, but the contrast in form between the two finalists could hardly be starker. As for the other results: a home win for Man City was universally good for one-pointers in a crucial turning point for the title race (I have a feeling the Sunday outcomes, if included, would've been duds). Elsewhere, an overdue victory for Brentford and three more score draws in the EPL all proved fruitful, but a rare defeat for Chelsea's women plus a stalemate in the Turin derby caught most players out. Okay, that'll do. New ordinary-ish (keeping in mind there's a lot of knockout football) set of 10 coming up in the initial post lickety-split.

Giving this a bump for anybody who missed it or who's still mulling it over and might miss the deadline next weekend. When the thread first started I immediately reeled off the names of dozens of IPs that deserve to be in contention, quite a lot of which have more than one entry which could belong in a top 10 convo. Besides that, honestly depending on what mood I'm in I can easily feel like my personal favourites are all platformers or fighters or puzzlers or sports sims or point-'n'-clicks, or that they're all from the 16-bit or PS1/N64 eras. But I tried to come up with a list containing some variety and no more than on game per franchise, so that's what I might as well stick with now time's running out. So without further ado: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS, 2013) = 10pts Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror (PSX/various, 1997) = 9pts Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (SNES, 1996; GBA, 2005) = 8pts Mischief Makers (N64, 1997) = 7pts Suikoden (PSX, 1995) = 6pts Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Arcade/PSX/Saturn/SNES, 1996) = 5pts Final Fantasy VII (PSX, 1997) = 4pts Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2, 2002) = 3pts Little Nightmares (PS4/Switch/Xbone/PC/mobile, 2017) = 2pts Mega Man X (SNES, 1994) = 1pt Is the scoring system unintentionally confusing by being kept so simple, or is that just me? I find it makes reading peoples' lists awkward because I keep thinking their #1 is their #10 and vice versa. Either you could've asked us to name a Top 10 and figured out the maths for yourself, or else done it Eurovision-style with everyone's #1 getting douze points, etc. then you can tell which end of each list is the top.

Wish that last image had a time stamp, because Tiverton & Honiton is being split in two for the next election. Also, no way are the Tories winning back Wakefield so no tactical vote needed there at all anyhow. Can't help but notice those are both seats that have had by-elections in the current Parliament, suggesting either those are the only constituencies Tanskii has heard of, or she thinks all her potential supporters weren't paying attention until about 3 years ago. On top of all that, a 'swap my vote' scheme needn't require a huge amount of donations except, I suppose, whatever the hosting/running costs are for that website.

Started the spreadsheet for next season today. Obviously it's just a skeleton of the fixtures tab for the moment, so anyone's free to take it over between now and mid-July if they wish. Premier League Brentford 2-1 Sheffield United Burnley 1-1 Brighton & Hove Albion Manchester City 3-1 Luton Town Nottingham Forest 1-0 Wolves Bournemouth 2-2 Manchester United Women's FA Cup semi-finals Spurs 3-0 Leicester City Manchester United 0-1 Chelsea Serie A Torino 1-2 Juventus Udinese 1-3 Roma Serie B Parma w/ultimo the great 0-0 Spezia

I think Jericho v Regal at Backlash 2001 did it best, but I don't think I'd have enjoyed it if Sunday had been booked the same way. Mind you, in that match they constantly got Fink to stand up and announce the latest change to the rules - so we'd have heard a lot more from Samantha Irvin long before the finish if they had decided to copy from that version of the "heel makes it up as they go along" stip.

mineHead of the Table??

Sorry for the delay again folks, major tech issues on my main laptop this week. Was still able to put the results into the first post on another device last night and then update the table but could only upload it just now. And it's important to link to it this time, since there was a lot of movement: top scorer Bent Wookie almost catches up to the absent ultimo (his D2D is next, so I'll tag him then) and now only trails on most exact scores, with MVP RULZ and Stinky also taking advantage of that skipped week. The champion suddenly has another title in his sights, although Rory still leads by the comfortable margin of eleven. Chutney Spoon cuts the huge gap at the other end but only by a solitary point, while Tilde leapfrogs Vegeta, who got his D2D bet wrong and, as is tradition, was also the worst performer for the round. However, both of that duo still got bonus points from the 'wildcard' fixture which was randomly selected after the fact as match #3, Wolves v West Ham – a somewhat surprising home reverse at Molineux which they both got spot on. Luton's late comeback to avenge the previous month's midweek defeat yielded a pair of bonuses each for five of the other seven participants. Elsewhere, wins for the Lionesses, Sporting Lisbon and the Tyneside duo of Gateshead and Newcastle all generally proved fruitful, alongside score draws at Old Trafford and Ibrox. Yet another crushing setback for Ajax in a poor season (by their usual standards) meant one-pointers at best, but the Copa del Rey being decided on penalties made that tie a dud outcome. Right, best get on with editing the top of the thread again sharpish!

It's a nice story, but there's another one involving the team just behind them in third. On the recommendation of the retro gaming thread, I went to the Arcade Club in Bury on Friday and thought I'd stick around and make a weekend of it by taking in a game at Gigg Lane too. It was only when I read the matchday programme that I thought - hang on, what do they mean they're trailing both Wythenshawe clubs in the race for promotion?

Premier League Fulham 2-2 Newcastle United Luton Town 2-1 Bournemouth w/Vegeta Wolves 1-0 West Ham United Manchester United 1-2 Liverpool FA Trophy semi-final Gateshead 3-0 Macclesfield Scottish Premiership Rangers 1-1 Celtic Spanish Cup Final Athletic Bilbao 2-0 Real Mallorca (@ la Cartuja) Eredivisie Feyenoord 3-1 Ajax Amsterdam Primeira Liga Sporting Lisbon 0-0 Benfica UEFA Women's Nations League Ireland 1-3 England

The results were only fully up (ahem) in the initial post late last night, because Halifax-York ended up being put back to 7:45pm on the Tuesday which then put everything else behind schedule. I'm sure I checked 8 days ago and it was definitely still set for Monday afternoon then. Oh well, at least we didn't lose any matches to the terrible early Easter weather and that last game was completed within a reasonable timeframe so all picks count. Anyhow, the table's been updated and in truth, there wasn't much to do this time. Scoring was on the low side for a double round, with Chutney Spoon in single figures and now a whopping 32 points adrift at the bottom. Only Stinky would've made it into double figures under normal circumstances, while at the top Rory still leads by 7 over ultimo. The three joint second best performers all deserve particular praise: Vegeta for actually managing a bonus point, Bent Wookie for leapfrogging me – the only bit of movement this week – and MVP RULZ for playing himself back into contention for The Double having looked for most of the campaign like he'd be way below his usual standards. Feel like we could be in for an exciting title race now. So what happened to all those other bonuses I promised? Well, the first randomly selected 'wildcard' fixture was #4, a dud since it was a draw at The Hounslow Bus Stop and 7 people went for an away win (consistent with the Bees' form and United's recent luck) whilst ex-Shy Dad and I both plumped for 1-0 to the home side and were so nearly right but alas, it wasn't to be. The next 'wildcard' was chosen by a number generator as #13: unlucky for some, and in fact unlucky for everyone since nobody could've realistically foreseen a 5-1 away victory at The Stadium of Light but the aforementioned Vegeta at least bet on the right outcome, if not a full Black Cat collapse. Elsewhere, victories for Villa, QPR, Pompey, Gateshead, The Mighty Glovers, Liverpool, Bolton, Stockport, Scunthorpe and PSG (imagine a league with just those in it!) all proved fruitful, alongside score draws at The City Ground, Hillsborough and The Shay. Our only Saturday lunchtime EPL game this term was probably the best one, but a seven-goal thriller is obviously difficult for anyone to foresee. Equally tough to guess beforehand were triumphs for Dortmund and Morecambe, plus another draw at The Hawthorns and the already-infamous anti-football stalemate at Eastlands. Right, that'll do. A new set of 10, including the last 'easy' D2D before a couple of awkward ones to finish off, will go live in the original post shortly.

That made me want to check how long she's been a regular face on TV, and it turns out her first appearance as Philomena Cunk on Screenwipe was over 11 years ago. Time moves too bloody fast these days!

What made you think that? It's generally late March or early April so that would've made it the latest one ever, topping only 37. That one was held on the 10th & 11th of April because they wanted to delay it as long as possible until enough Covid restrictions had been lifted to actually get a crowd in.

A reminder there'll be two 'wildcard' matches this time, one for each set of 10. Also you've only got about 18 hours to get your picks in for one quarter of the Paschal line-up. Sorry, couldn't find room for the Women's League Cup final in the B half of the round. Week 34A Premier League Newcastle United 0-0 West Ham United Nottingham Forest 3-2 Crystal Palace Aston Villa 2-1 Wolves Brentford 1-0 Manchester United Championship QPR 2-3 Birmingham City Sheffield Wednesday 1-2 Swansea City League One Wycombe Wanderers 1-1 Portsmouth National League Gateshead 0-1 Rochdale National League South Yeovil Town 3-0 Torquay United Imitation Bundesliga Bayern Munich 2-2 Borussia Dortmund Week 34B Premier League Liverpool 5-1 Brighton & Hove Albion Manchester City 3-0 Arsenal Championship Sunderland 2-2 Blackburn Rovers West Bromwich Albion 3-1 Watford League One Bolton Wanderers 2-0 Reading League Two Morecambe 1-1 Barrow Stockport County 3-2 Wimbledon National League Halifax Town 0-0 York City National League North Southport 1-2 Scunthorpe United Ligue 1 Marseille 0-3 Paris Saint Germain

Good to know, although even when you're tuned into it on linear TV they've got an English option behind the red button for those who ddim yn siarad yr iaith. Which now won't be needed in the summer, sadly.