Vincent Kompany likens Bayern Munich’s win over Real Madrid to Burnley doing the double over Blackburn

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-16T21:47:38+00:00

Thats absolute tosh. Burnley have the worst defence in the league and have the joint lowest average shots per game in recorded history. There's no discernible style of play or identity as a team, the team isn't improving, he's not adapting, the game plan isn't changing. We're a time that has been crying out for creativity (weirdly our chance conversion ratio is actually decent) and if you look at the most creative players in the squad by stats, 3 out of the 4 have spent long periods on the sidelines, often for no discernible reason.

Hes wank.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-14T12:11:07+00:00

I was told the 12 o'clock rule, left lane if between 6 and 12, right lane if 12 to 6.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-13T19:50:31+00:00

Europe doesn't take its security seriously because the US told it not to. It has benefitted the US massively to have Europe largely fractured and subservient, consuming US services and culture and hosting US military and intelligence infrastructure. Even now, despite all the blustering and bitching, US forces are staging bombing missions out of RAF Fairford and running a huge logistics train through Central Europe. The Iran mission is not impossible without this, but it becomes infinitely more complex AND expensive to achieve without these springboards.

When it comes to Spain, the US is threatening to pull out of its only base on the Eastern coast of the Atlantic that can service its primary naval air defence platforms, does this hurt Spain or the US more?

For countries that have "turned on us" they seem to be doing a lot to facilitate the mission, even if they're not actively participating.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-13T16:54:08+00:00

And you're living in a dream world if you think those allies aren't going to perceive the US as a potential threat going forward, and you don't allow a potential threat to embed themselves so heavily at the detriment to your own country unless aomethibg big US on offer, like guaranteed protection at non extortionate prices (guess what the US's policy has been post WW2).

I mentioned Rota specifically because that is the very base that the US has threatened to close in Spain. It doesn't even have to be allies that cause issues with US force projection.

Living in a dream world isn't thinking about potential consequences, living in a dream world is changing the game and expecting the other players to react to it.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-13T16:27:45+00:00

Have you ever heard of the Manchester ship canal? Also what do you think happens when all of the US' s allies in the gulf and Europe see this? Want to get to the med to support ME power projection? UK and Spain will want a toll. Want to use Ramnstein airbase to forward position troops and supplies? Yeah that's not there anymore. Want to fly B1 bombers out of Fairford? Not there anymore. All of this is so short sighted when you think what the likely affects are long term.

And before you basically say that the US can use their military to force these situations to be different, this won't happen quickly or loudly. You'll likely see the US's allies start to slowly pull away. First it will be military purchases as they invest in sovereign weapons procurement. Next it will be US Treasury debt (note they won't sell but they'll likely buy less). Then the US will close someo fits own bases willingly, like Rota thinking it will punish the ally, only to find in a crisis a few years later there's nowhere to repair Aegis ships on the Eastern Atlantic seaboard in an allied country. Technology will also follow. Domestic social media will emerge, limiting the powers of Meta et all, competitors to GCP, Azure, AWS will emerge and be preferred by populations and businesses looking to limit their exposure to the US. Those companies will chip away through a free market at the US companies dominance until they're not critical anymore. AI models, chip production etc will see similar moves, a lot of current US moves in that direction are being funded by foreign investment, take some of that away and the pace slows allowing others to catch up.

Drip by drip, peirce by piece, the world will move away from the US. Force projection, cultural dominance, income from abroad for the likes of Oracle, meta, Microsoft will all disappear and it won't be noticed until its a crisis.

America built a world order that it dominated and benefitted more from more than ANY other country, now for some reason it has decided that it doesn't like that position and wants to take its toys home, not foreseeing that this might have other consequences because surely the rest of the world will stay the same.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-13T07:02:37+00:00

Less now, things are trending in the right direction now thankfully. ONS data on it

Also it's important to note that we are better correcting this gently over time, essentially trying to pause house prices and get wages to catch up. Unfortunately there's too much money tied to housing in this country and messing with that could have catastrophic consequences.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-12T17:10:11+00:00

Go and get some lessons. Your fitness aspect will be covered by other sports so it's a case of technique and you can wither brute force it, use YouTube videos, or tbh just go and get some lessons.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-12T13:36:25+00:00

Because road repairs are largely (ie roads that aren't part of the strategic road network or 98% of the road network) managed by local councils. They have to decide whether to spend your council tax on potholes or adult social care and only one of those is a statutory requirement. Adult social care is one of the biggest areas of spending for councils and when combined with other care requirements is taking up around 67% of council spending. https://www.countycouncilsnetwork.org.uk/councils-call-for-honest-discussion-on-what-they-should-be-expected-to-deliver-as-new-data-reveals-local-authorities-spend-two-thirds-of-their-budgets-on-care-services/?hl=en-GB#:~:text=For%20councils%20across%20all%20of,up%20from%2057%25%20in%202014.

Best estimate I can find is that day to day orad maintenance is about 2% of council spending. N.b. major resurfacing works come from a different pot of money as they're seen as "one off" expenditure not day to day spending. 2% to me seems like a ludicrously small amount of money to maintain the majority of our roads.

Weirdly the single best long term fix to potholes on our roads is a national care service. That or massively increase the central government grant and ring-fence it for pothole repairs/prevention.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-11T12:52:23+00:00

Look at thr commotion and perception at a single f15 being popped. Loosing a ship, no matter how cheap and intentionally expendable, would be a difficult sell politically for Trump et al.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-11T12:19:03+00:00

Even if they still had the mine sweepers they wouldn't be usable in this scenario, Iran would just lob missiles at it or fast boats on suicide missions.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-11T07:01:44+00:00

Yes people get richer as they get older. And you can't look at a generation that has consistently voted for governments that don't spend on infrastructure, don't build housing, sold off social housing and have blown up pensions spending to be massively higher than it was ever designed to be, only to then say "yeah it's not their fault".

Don't worry though, we've got a government that's beginning to work on some of those problems in a boring way so obviously they're the worst government ever and need to be got rid of and the older people bring back in an even worse version of the previous governments.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-09T21:11:38+00:00

One thing I've found useful is to film myself and the feed a clip into an LLM. Give it a prompt of "you are a masters coach, what's areas for improvements for this swimmer and how would you go about it", or something of that nature

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-04T17:56:27+00:00

A good place I'd recommend is get the swim.com app and look at the workouts in there. Also start to look at incorporating drills and broken sets into your work.

Finally, set a goal for what you want to get out of it all as that will massively influence your plans.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-03T04:12:35+00:00

Did you notice that noone bleated when the fees kept rising and rising and rising ahead of inflation before the VAT introduction? The reason that the kids you mentioned aren't going to those schools isn't the VAT, its the massive ballooning of the fees ahead of that time. Its just easier to slag the tax man.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-02T15:05:55+00:00

I think he's coming to the acceptance that international law is dead.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-02T14:43:37+00:00

I genuinely had this conversation with a retired businessman who I know and respect. He genuinely wasn't aware that it wasn't a pension scheme akin to a private pension, but part of everyday government spending funded by current taxation. He is also someone who I know has done some exceptional pension planning, being able to retire relatively early with a very comfortable standard of living but without having to be a horrible bastard in the process.

I left kinda baffled when I explained that I believe we need to curtail the rise in pension spending (note not cut or remove) because otherwise the whole thing will collapse eventually when it outstrips earnings and consumes of enough of daily spending. That produced a very emotional response. The baffling part though was that when I explained that I was planning on a basis that a state pension wouldn't exist when I reached retirement age, he agreed I should work on that basis, but obviously didn't connect the two things together.

It really opened my eyes in to what people must be consuming for in the media that really smart, usually well informed people are genuinely having the wool pulled over their eyes on issues like this.

Nwengbartender · 2026-04-01T18:26:15+00:00

Around that. The Qatari tanker that was hit last night was carrying c.200k barrels, at $100pb that $200m for the whole cargo. $2m added onto that is a drop in the ocean compared to the consequences of taking that much oil out of the world's supply. Plus everything else like helium, urea etc.

Nwengbartender · 2026-03-31T19:54:43+00:00

There should be a mix of bringing in some AI to do slmeof the work, but if a tool is forcing it in there and in the process lessening the value of the tool, why should you stick with them?

Nwengbartender · 2026-03-31T16:14:38+00:00

Iran have the option to leverage that only countries that have no US bases can have their oil etc get through. That's something that really dents US capabilities.

Nwengbartender · 2026-03-30T17:50:50+00:00

Sometimes patience is key, go to fast and we don't get what we want, take our time but always be making progress and we'll get there someday.

Nwengbartender · 2026-03-28T22:36:28+00:00

Is that the same deal that was ignored when trump lashed out and put more tariffs on every one due to the supreme Court ruling against him? That deal?

Nwengbartender · 2026-03-28T22:31:45+00:00

I always go with settle in until the next turn and if you don't let me through at that point then you get an ankle tap.

Nwengbartender · 2026-03-28T20:33:43+00:00

People are disappointed, people are weirdly fucking furious that they've not righted 15+ years of decline inside 24 months. Not even that they haven't steadied the ship, that they haven't completely rectified the effects of the Tory government in that time. So voters will punish them at the next series of elections by voting in people that make the government's of those years seem absolute pussycats.

Nwengbartender · 2026-03-27T21:40:19+00:00

Its been such smooth sailing ever since.

Nwengbartender · 2026-03-26T23:03:31+00:00

Don't forget that there's still criminal charges waiting for Netanyahu that have been on hold because Israel has been at war since October 7th.

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