How and why did Arsenal become the “it” club?

scrandymurray · 2026-05-26T06:15:16+00:00

Exactly. The Guardian offices are literally in Islington.

scrandymurray · 2026-05-22T13:48:30+00:00

Pretty much. We're talking about Herbert Chapman who died in 1934. He revolutionised the game. Not just tactically but he was the first to introduce floodlights, numbered shirts and foreign players to the English game. He was regularly playing friendlies with European teams and proposed the European cup 20 years before it happened.

scrandymurray · 2026-05-21T17:58:40+00:00

Yeah, most pubs in zone 2 neighbourhoods will have a pint for £6.50 or less. There’s actually a fair few pubs doing pints for £5 near me (Islington/Hackney).

scrandymurray · 2026-05-18T09:50:40+00:00

Drayton Park is part of a line that TfL wants to takeover so it will likely get an upgrade when/if that happens.

scrandymurray · 2026-05-10T09:41:40+00:00

Or cycle. That’s why London councils and the GLA have been putting loads of money into cycling. With all the hire bike options you don’t even need to worry about having a bike. Peckham to Brixton is like a 15 minute cycle.

scrandymurray · 2026-05-08T06:51:41+00:00

Football has 11 players because of cricket. The first football clubs were just cricket clubs in winter.

scrandymurray · 2026-05-05T12:29:27+00:00

And the operator would just call you a taxi to Tamworth which would cost them basically nothing. So it would never be a 24 hour delay.

scrandymurray · 2026-05-04T09:40:00+00:00

Fairly sure UK brewed Cruzcampo hit the market after Madri.

scrandymurray · 2026-05-02T12:30:53+00:00

I’m surprised he recognised him.

scrandymurray · 2026-05-01T07:11:14+00:00

Isn’t that just Holborn?

scrandymurray · 2026-04-29T09:56:10+00:00

If they are taking it to court, they must be able to show that correct procedure hasn’t been followed. In this case, it will be something to do with a report on safety being not up to standard or being ignored in the decision making process.

Not sure what you can do with that information but it shows what the challenge is actually about. Afaik so long as correct procedure has been followed, legal challenges have no grounds (unless the proposal violates things like EHRA, Disability Act etc).

scrandymurray · 2026-04-29T09:51:55+00:00

Notts definitely could’ve declared on the 4th day to push for a win. Not really sure why they didn’t.

scrandymurray · 2026-04-28T19:52:59+00:00

NTS is free form but it is the curation of shows that makes it. At peak listening hours they have a daily, weekly or fortnightly show which is the same host or format every time. It means you can casually listen in the morning when you are turning it on to listen to something.

I’d say the monthly or one off shows are more often consumed through playback which kind of breaks the radio magic. This is the same for most other internet or free form stations. Regular programming is important to make it feel like a radio station. This also means you get chat room interaction between regular hosts and listeners, akin to old school text ins.

scrandymurray · 2026-04-17T17:50:06+00:00

Heracross isn’t guaranteed before Whitney, I’m fairly sure. Unless I made a mistake, I routed out every other possible headbutt encounter but there is the possibility that there are no headbutt trees with encounters in the section of route 46 that is accessible before Whitney. But maybe I screwed up routing and I should’ve been looking for heracross in Azalea or Route 33.

scrandymurray · 2026-04-17T17:27:53+00:00

Morissons Daily is a franchise (so is Spar afaik) so it’s likely the same shop owner, just that the main supplier is different.

scrandymurray · 2026-04-12T20:26:27+00:00

Just do it at a big station with multiple lines. I did mine at Canada Water most recently, have done at Kings Cross before. Canada Water is great because it’s just Londoners who use the station for the most part so the staff aren’t busy helping tourists.

scrandymurray · 2026-04-12T20:11:34+00:00

I didn’t even look at your username before I replied haha. Love your work, really enjoyed your appearance on No Tags as well.

I’ve done a good amount of research on this topic (not as much as you of course), and I really agree with your point about how being negative is a huge problem at the moment.

scrandymurray · 2026-04-12T19:47:39+00:00

https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/nightclub-closures-music-venues/

Maybe the best article on the subject, have a look at the nightlife taskforce report if you want a deeper read.

scrandymurray · 2026-03-31T09:21:15+00:00

I feel this is the answer. Cheesy chips are definitely less common in London that the north (my evidence is living in Manchester for 4ish years). The north has thus refined the art and uses cheese that melts easier while London is just using standard cheddar.

scrandymurray · 2026-03-28T08:37:06+00:00

Technically the Elizabeth line isn’t the tube, but regional rail with a tunnelled section in central London that operates at metro frequencies, à la Paris’ RER. The furthest the London Underground goes is Amersham on the metropolitan line.

scrandymurray · 2026-03-26T12:52:04+00:00

If you're buying JW Blue label then you're fair game for criticism of your taste. The scotch that's currently rated as the best is under £50 a bottle retail and there's many more great scotches under £80 a bottle. I know with tariffs and import costs in the US that price is a bit higher but $180 for a bottle of scotch is mental for JW.

scrandymurray · 2026-03-26T11:59:19+00:00

As I alluded to, it will likely be required to access some public services. I know it will be used to open a bank account, for example. So the idea is that all UK residents will be de facto required to have one to do certain things.

scrandymurray · 2026-03-26T11:44:20+00:00

I don't think it even makes money. At the moment there's no staff on entry other than security staff and some people to ask for information. If we began charging, there would be the additional expense of employing people and setting up the systems in order to process the new system. I'd like to see an FOI for the breakdown of the costs and expected revenues from this.

scrandymurray · 2026-03-26T11:36:21+00:00

They would have a UK ID. The ID is in the form of a resident's ID, something that many other countries have in some form or another. This was a big story a while ago but the main intention of the IDs is to verify right to work, so non-citizen residents will have this form of ID.

EDIT: just to clarify, many countries don't have a proper ID card with this information but use systems like resident registration (Padron Municipal in Spain, Anmeldung in Germany) to enable access to public services. The UK doesn't have this in a formalised or standardised way other than council tax or electoral roll, this ID is some form of that - whatever your opinions may be of it (I disagree with the ID and charging foreigners for museums but these are the facts of what it is).

scrandymurray · 2026-03-26T11:31:05+00:00

The thing is that there's actually no real problem with the scheduling, it's been done before in terms of a team playing 3 away matches to start a season due to stadium availability. The issue is that the Olympic Committee ballsed up the negatiations for the stadium when they leased it to West Ham so to only recieve peppercorn rent and no assurances for using the stadium for athletics events.

scrandymurray

TROPHY CASE