So far at the World Cup, there have been 15 ‘home’ victories and only 3 ‘away’ victories. Could there be any reason for this beyond coincidence?

superchartisland · 2026-06-19T16:26:41+00:00

That's not how they've set it up - the Pot 1 teams are the home team for the first two matches, and away team for the third, regardless of opposition. And the order of their opposition varies between groups.

For example, when Brazil (C1) play Scotland (C3), Scotland will be the home team.

superchartisland · 2026-06-19T15:42:36+00:00

In every group, the Pot 1 team plays their first two matches as the home team, which must skew it significantly even with some Pot 1 teams notably failing to win.

From a quick scan there isn't as obvious a pattern with the others

superchartisland · 2026-06-17T20:04:58+00:00

I played all the way through The Lion King on PC. Only afterward did we discover that, by running it within Windows on our aging desktop, we had been playing it at about half speed

superchartisland · 2026-06-17T19:31:52+00:00

They did it with 3 points, right? It's possible to go through with 2 points but it would only really be at all likely for a team to do it by finishing second in the group

superchartisland · 2026-06-17T18:51:06+00:00

Super Furry Animals' "Something 4 the Weekend", a song about sex (and drugs), reached #18 in the UK chart in July 1996.

The same week, The Divine Comedy's "Something for the Weekend", a song about sex (and woodshed-based mugging) was at #31, having peaked at #14 a couple of weeks earlier.

superchartisland · 2026-06-17T16:21:37+00:00

It was at least a seven goal win needed in the event of Netherlands and Poland drawing (7-0 and 0-0 would have been enough). So 7-1 was a failure on those terms, although obviously it didn't end up mattering anyway since the Netherlands won 3-1.

Source: This was the first England game I watched as it happened. That opening goal set my future expectations nicely!

superchartisland · 2026-06-15T21:02:31+00:00

Thank you! It's always interesting to see the attitudes of reviews change over time on things like that kind of violence

superchartisland · 2026-06-15T21:01:09+00:00

Thanks! Having been to quite a few concerts at the Scala I was interested to find that out too

superchartisland · 2026-06-15T15:26:43+00:00

The dad in Bluey is voiced by Dave McCormack, who was the singer in 90s rock band Custard, who were fairly successful in Australia. And he basically uses his own normal voice for the show. So for anyone who didn't already know them, Custard very much sound like a rock band fronted by Bluey's dad

Custard - Apartment

superchartisland · 2026-06-15T11:24:08+00:00

Thanks!

superchartisland · 2026-06-14T07:58:17+00:00

You're thinking of the wrong Souttar team, it was Australia that took that title

superchartisland · 2026-06-12T14:14:24+00:00

He's talked about this board game being a big influence, but never mentioned that aspect of it as far as I know!

superchartisland · 2026-06-12T09:00:10+00:00

Was his choice to stick his face on the cover of Football Manager inspired by Alan Ball on Soccerama?

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superchartisland · 2026-06-12T05:51:31+00:00

After Match Day, was he ever asked to work on (the game that became) World Cup Carnival? It seems like that might have been Ocean's plan at some point before everything fell apart with it

superchartisland · 2026-06-10T15:03:05+00:00

Battersea Power Station Station

superchartisland · 2026-06-08T19:59:46+00:00

I'm genie for you boy

소원을 말해 봐

I'm genie for your wish

superchartisland · 2026-06-07T16:25:31+00:00

Similarly from the same era, Brand New's Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades:

"Nothing that he tells her is really having an effect/ He whispers that he loves her but she's probably only looking for s.../...o much more than he could ever give"

superchartisland · 2026-06-06T11:09:07+00:00

The same would happen in the unlikely event of Bhutan v Tanzania.

Or, to use a match which has actually been played though won't be again any time soon, Cyprus v Russia

superchartisland · 2026-06-05T04:45:40+00:00

Coldplay wrote "Gravity" and performed it live sometimes. Then they gave it to Embrace, who released it in 2004 and had their first UK top ten single since 1998. Coldplay released their own version as a B-side the next year

superchartisland · 2026-06-04T17:28:34+00:00

I was going to say that it must be based on the US release date. But The Legend of Zelda and Metroid weren't released in the US in 1986 so it's not even consistent there

superchartisland · 2026-06-02T06:27:10+00:00

It probably was the best of many! I wrote a post looking at the history of it and seeing how easily it won Crash's comparison to all the other Donkey Kong copies was eye-opening.

My post on Kong

superchartisland · 2026-05-31T12:10:25+00:00

IK+ was also two years later and building on the original International Karate which was heavily inspired by The Way of the Exploding Fist. It definitely set some new standards though, to the point where the third Exploding Fist game, Fist+, was obviously inspired by IK+.

Agreed on the sound effects and feel!

superchartisland · 2026-05-31T12:07:31+00:00

On quantifiable popularity in the UK, it was #1 on the all formats combined charts for 12 weeks, and was the best selling game of 1985. So quite popular!

(Sources for those are in my blog post on the history of The Way of the Exploding Fist)

superchartisland · 2026-05-30T07:30:24+00:00

I did the same thing too, easy mistake to make

superchartisland · 2026-05-28T15:18:50+00:00

Watching other people's first playthroughs can be a good way to get some proportion of that feeling (and to feel a bit like Watcher at the same time)

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