Highgate

I agree, chuck it out. And put up with the mistakes, isn't that what living with it means?

Except I don't think we'd live with it, anymore than we lived with referee's mistakes before VAR or we are happy to live with the VAR shambles as it's operating now.  Chuck VAR in the bin.  We tried it, fair enough it was worth an attempt, but it's sucking the life out of the game (I'm in complete agreement with you there) as well as creating nearly as many controversies as it solves. 

Who is DCFC Lee? 
I personally don't think Clowes should win it. Just not appropriate,  this award is about ordinary fans.
Clowes deserves all the accolades for what he did (last season, actually) bit in a different arena to this one.

Except I don't think we'd live with it, anymore than we lived with referee's mistakes before VAR or we are happy to live with the VAR shambles as it's operating now.  Chuck VAR in the bin.  We tried it, fair enough it was worth an attempt, but it's sucking the life out of the game (I'm in complete agreement with you there) as well as creating nearly as many controversies as it solves. 

Yeah you can never be sure if the action has been stopped at precisely the right moment or not.  But if you introduce a margin of error, won't the debate just switch to whether the toenail was within the margin of error line or not, rather than whether it was ahead or behind the last defender?  Whatever criterion is used, whether it's offside by any amount, margin or error or 'clear daylight' between the players, the decision will often come down to judgement calls based on millimetres. 
I'd be happy to bin VAR altogether and go back to best guess by the officials.  At least then people could go back to celebrating goals naturally when they occur.  

Currently watching 'Kin', sort-of a Dublin version of 'Peaky Blinders;.
Reminds me very much of some of the characters I used to know in Fagan's pub in Drumcondra. It just needs Bertie Ahern to walk in with Bill Clinton (actually happened when I was in the bar) and I would have been transported back to December 2000.

I appreciate that some think VAR is a step in the right direction the above is the argument in a nutshell for me. Is the 'correct by a toenail' forensic approach worth it when it is seemingly so flawed/ambiguous on tight decisions anyway ? The original explanation/justification was that VAR was essentially there to correct big errors and injustices. I'm just not convinced 'drawing lines' on a screen and spending sometimes several minutes making at best dubiously 'accurate' decisions on the tightest of tight calls, is really addressing the problem.

The crushing of the spontaneity of goal celebrations for frankly impossible to call decisions in a fast moving and highly emotional spectator sport is (IMHO) simply not worth the sacrifice as a spectacle, though I appreciate that many wouldn't agree.

Yeah you can never be sure if the action has been stopped at precisely the right moment or not.  But if you introduce a margin of error, won't the debate just switch to whether the toenail was within the margin of error line or not, rather than whether it was ahead or behind the last defender?  Whatever criterion is used, whether it's offside by any amount, margin or error or 'clear daylight' between the players, the decision will often come down to judgement calls based on millimetres. 
I'd be happy to bin VAR altogether and go back to best guess by the officials.  At least then people could go back to celebrating goals naturally when they occur.  

Yeah you can never be sure if the action has been stopped at precisely the right moment or not.  But if you introduce a margin of error, won't the debate just switch to whether the toenail was within the margin of error line or not, rather than whether it was ahead or behind the last defender?  Whatever criterion is used, whether it's offside by any amount, margin or error or 'clear daylight' between the players, the decision will often come down to judgement calls based on millimetres. 
I'd be happy to bin VAR altogether and go back to best guess by the officials.  At least then people could go back to celebrating goals naturally when they occur.  

You're right I'm just shifting the goalposts. As has been said many times, the only way to make VAR work is to have it on the big screen while officials discuss the decision with the fans listening to the conversation. If they're not even prepared to do that, we're much better off ditching it. 

Yeah you can never be sure if the action has been stopped at precisely the right moment or not.  But if you introduce a margin of error, won't the debate just switch to whether the toenail was within the margin of error line or not, rather than whether it was ahead or behind the last defender?  Whatever criterion is used, whether it's offside by any amount, margin or error or 'clear daylight' between the players, the decision will often come down to judgement calls based on millimetres. 
I'd be happy to bin VAR altogether and go back to best guess by the officials.  At least then people could go back to celebrating goals naturally when they occur.  

I really hope that we get promoted on Saturday but I’m not sure that I want to ever go back to the premier league. Never being able to properly celebrate a goal until all checks are complete is not what football is about (for me, anyway). 

I've no idea how much of an issue Iranian oil is for the US these days, but I'm sure the current US president wishes the whole Israel/Gaza/Iran problem wouldn't have exploded like it did in an election year. 

Hopefully the damage done isn't too significant, Israel will feel it's proved its point that it can strike Iran whenever and wherever it wishes while Iran won't feel it necessary to launch another retaliatory attack.  That may de-escalate things between the two countries for now.

Iran have played it down so far, presumably for PR purposes to emphasise to their population and the outside world that Israel can't damage them, so it'll be interesting to see if that's an end to the direct tit-for-tat or not.
I expect exchanges of attacks between Israel and Iranian proxies will continue unabated.

Yeah, nothing to disagree with here.  Seems perfectly plausible to me that the Iranian regime is trying not to look weak in response to Israeli aggression while at the same time it wants to suppress any dissenting voices regarding it's policies among it's own population.  Those two points don't seem like a contradiction to me. 
I don't think anyone needs any convincing on how awful the regime in Iran is and how unfortunate Iranians are to have to suffer through it. 

One for the Metallica fans amongst us

Even away from politics, on subjects like football, people just post pure engagement bait, because more comments and interaction means more revenue. The decision to give posters revenue may have been made with good intentions, but it’s made the app worse overall imo. 

I think to discuss him in any depth would bring us into areas prohibited by the forum.  He was only mentioned here because of his direct comments related to Palestine. 

I'm not sure it was a political own goal.  I think the main reason for this attack was to so the Iranian government could maintain credibility with the Iranian population.  After Israel's attack on the embassy in Syria, or the consulate building next to the embassy I should say, the Iranian regime would have lost all credibility at home had it done nothing.  So it launched this very publicized attack on Israel, and despite most missiles being shot down it did manage to hit the very military base from which Israel launched the attack on the embassy/consulate.  
News reports in Iran are, as you'd expect, exaggerating the damage caused in Israel enormously, suggesting the base has been completely destroyed and so on.  So far, as a domestic PR operation, it seems to have been a success and the Iranian regime are saying they are satisfied with what occurred and their retaliation is complete. 
Unfortunately despite most of the world urging Israel to do nothing in response..... it's likely that there is a very serious response coming Iran's way.  

Difficult not to look at the crazy comments sometimes though, I'm sure a lot of people are falling into the same trap. 
Like the orange fella over at Truth Social, love him or hate him the nonsense he spouts is very hard to ignore.  
I suppose that's the model that X and other social media platforms are running with, promote the crazy, the controversial and the confrontational and people will pay attention. 

He seemed fine on X factor. 

Normal bloke

What's the alleged conspiracy that you are objecting to?  
Also who have I ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist? 

No apology required mate, I think you're just vocalising some of the same concerns many of us share. When you look at the 'tactics' employed by the IDF one might think that the raising of Gaza was done with the specific intention of making any return as challenging as possible. As it is, it's a bloody mess, quite literally.
That said, I'm not sure I share your view about calls for a Palestinian state being poorly timed. For me, it's now or never. Pressure must be brought to bear IMO. Likewise, irrespective of how enormous the task might seem to us, I doubt the Palestinians themselves view it that way, but before any of these notions become salient, we need to see a lasting truce and I concede that this may yet prove a massive hurdle.
On a brighter note, Blighty has at least played a minor role in the purportedly largest aid airdrop to date. Bombing the Yemen one week, aid work the next. Life in the RAF is nothing if not diverse 😑