Nuwtfly

3 hours ago, B4’s Sister said:

Well done! I did the 52 book challenge a couple of years ago. I’m glad I did it but I found I wasn’t enjoying read as much as usual by trying to fit so much reading in. I usually read 35-40 books a year. On book 15 for this year at the moment. Thanks for sharing your list

Yes I certainly found I was reading some books just to read them, rather than for pleasure. But it was a great way to try new things!

I'm currently reading A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara) and absolutely loathing it!

1 minute ago, Crewton said:

Amazing - did you take a year off work?!

Just made an effort to get into bed a lot earlier and read! It was a lot easier than you’d think. Give it a go!

25 minutes ago, inter politics said:

I assume you've read The Road by McCarthy?

Unfortunately, yes!

10 minutes ago, inter politics said:

What were your favourites?

The Buried Giant, I think. Though I loved all three of the Cormac McCarthy books.

The Three-Body Problem was the best bit of sci-fi (much better than the Netflix adaptation)

I'd also highly recommend The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Setting Sun and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle!

On 01/03/2024 at 19:49, B4’s Sister said:

I’ve always been a bookworm. I usually get through 30-40 books a year. I’m currently reading Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks. Wasn’t sure what to expect but I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s well written and very easy reading. 
 

I’d love to hear what you’re reading, what your favourite book is, or some recommendations 📚

 

 

I did a 52 book challenge last year. Essentially it was to read a book a week every week. It was an absolutely brilliant way to force yourself to make reading a habit and explore a variety of genres. Here’s the 52:

War Horse (Michael Morpurgo)

All the Horses of Iceland (Sarah Tolmie)

The Three-Body Problem (Cixin Liu)

Storm of Steel (Ernst Jünger)

Cosmos (Carl Sagan)

Behold the Man (Michael Moorcock)

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Yukio Mishima)

Coming Up for Air (George Orwell)

This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar)

Klara and the Sun (Kazuo Ishiguro)

The Man Who Fell to Earth (Walter Tevis)

Leviathan Wakes (James. S. A. Corey)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson) 

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester) 

Annihilation (Jeff Vandermeer) 

Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein)

The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Leo Tolstoy)

Mortal Engines (Stanislaw Lem)

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? (Harold Schechter)

Moby-Dick (Herman Melville)

The Shadow of the Torturer (Gene Wolfe) 

The Buried Giant (Kazuo Ishiguro)

The Hustler (Walter Tevis)

Why I Write (George Orwell)

The Poppy War (R. F. Kuang) 

Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)

A Psalm for the Wild Built (Becky Chambers) 

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)

Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)

Earthlings (Sayaka Murata)

Lapvona (Ottessa Moshfegh)

The Chrysalids (John Wyndham) 

The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones)

The Story of Kullervo (J. R. R. Tolkien)

All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy) 

The Word for World is Forest (Ursula K. Le Guin)

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

South of the Border, West of the Sun (Haruki Murakami)

The City and the Stars (Arthur C. Clarke) 

The Talented Mr Ripley (Patricia Highsmith)

Island (Aldous Huxley)

Tokyo Express (Seicho Matsumoto)

Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)

The Centauri Device (M. John Harrison)

Where the Wild Ladies Are (Matsuda Aoko)

Stardust (Neil Gaiman)

The Crossing (Cormac McCarthy)

Doomsday Clock (Geoff Johns) 

Blind Owl (Sadeq Hedayat)

The Setting Sun (Osamu Dazai)

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami)

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin)

1 hour ago, Anag Ram said:

We’re all fallible but please let’s be more respectful of other opinions. Just as we don’t know much about the players’ private lives, you never know what posters on here are going through and how a casual slur can affect them.
 

I went through this quite a bit when Wayne Rooney was manager. I remember saying something critical of him after a win and a poster replied to me with a gif of someone hanging. Unbeknownst to that poster, that was pretty distressing to me. 

Part of the fun of debating with people on a forum like this is getting to talk to people who don't agree with you. Nobody wants to be in an echo-chamber (or at least I don't). 

But I have found, particularly post-COVID, people are just ruder to people on here, on Twitter, on the internet, than they used to be. 

I read a post in this thread, just a few posts back, that made me stop in my tracks and think: why have you reacted to that person's point so rudely? No need.

My point being that what you're saying is very much worth saying. 

41 minutes ago, Archied said:

Think it also about how a manager treats players and the culture at the club , so much is often about confidence and feeling good about themselves , it can transform players , I certainly think this is an area that some warne detractors got totally wrong about what was going on inside the club when we wernt quite getting the results we all wanted 

You could well be right!

But in fairness I think the moderate “Warne Detractors” were just more concerned with the football being played more than anything else 

1 minute ago, NottsRam77 said:

Great point, i was watching Ipswich the other day and thought exactly this 

players surprise u sometimes. 

There's so many you can name where you watch them play for years and think "he's bang average"

And then he joins a side, plays under a manager whose system just suits him perfectly, and wow! Whole new player.

How many of ours players completely transformed under McClaren? 

I think Ebou just works here. But, as the pundits said on sportscene last night, Ebou needs to have a controller next to him.

Ebou can disrupt the opposition and get us the ball back, but he's going to need someone who can pass the ball and drive forward with it next to him. 

7 hours ago, sage said:

As much as Adams transformed us this season, I'm not convinced he's a star player in a top ten Championship team 

I would have said the same about the likes of Sam Morsy, but he's flying high at the top of with Ipswich!

10 minutes ago, Jourdan said:

If we get recruitment right, Warne will take us into the play-offs next season.

40 minutes ago, Day said:

IIf you actually read what those critical of Warne are saying, promotion wouldn't change the concern they have going forward, so yeah, lose the first 2 or 3 I'm sure we'll be back to the same debate.

Although for me, if you give the manager the summer, got to give them until Christmas then barring any complete and utter disaster situation which we saw under Pearson.

All in my opinion of course. 

I've made it quite clear that I haven't enjoyed the way we've played this season and I'm not totally sold on Warne being the one. He's proven himself to be, as John Percy described him today, The King of League One. How good he is in the Championship remains to be seen but the evidence we have to go on so far suggests he isn't too great there.

With all that being said, he has absolutely 100% earned the right to lead us into this campaign. He's 100% earned the right to sign 8/9 players and shape this squad how he wants it. And he should 100% be given the time to have a decent crack at this division with that squad (so for me that's Christmas).

I can't promise I won't be groaning on here if we serve up some of the same football we have this season. But I won't be calling for him to go unless something utterly disastrous happens. And that's from someone who isn't sold on Warne.

When you draw out a starting XI, and write down only the names of the players you think are good enough to do a season in the Championship, how many gaps are there? (How many players do we need to sign?)

I get 7, so you're probably looking at needing 8-9 signing in total this summer. Here's how I came to that conclusion using a 3-4-3 formation:

GK: ? (Wildsmith leaving I think)

RWB: Wilson

CB: Nelson

CB: ?

CB: Cashin

LWB: ?

CM: ? (Adams back please)

CM: ? 

RW: Mendez-Laing

ST: ?

LW: ?

32 minutes ago, Animal is a Ram said:

Nixon describing Adams as a 'live one, apparently' 👀

I'm so ready for another George Thorne summer saga

Comfortably safe with an improvement in the quality of the football - too much to ask or realistic?

I certainly think we should be casting an eye on it more often as far as recruitment is concerned. Perhaps something we've not done enough in the past! Suspect Warne will do a good job of this.

[deleted]

Not sure if I am alone in this today but I feel an overwhelming sense of closure after yesterday’s achievement. What a relief to be back in the Championship. But it’s more than that.

It feels like all the hurt over the last couple of years: the administration, the points deductions, the financial turmoil, the humiliation, the relegation; it feels like we can finally turn the page on that sordid chapter of our history. Like we can move on. 

I’m not sure why I’m sharing this, but it feels even more personal for me than that, too. In the summer of our relegation, I lost my grandmother to cancer. She was the major connection to Derby for me. My whole ritual of going to the matches involved staying with her for the weekend. For some reason Derby County, the city of Derby, the supporters bus that would pick my Grandad and I up from outside The Gate in Swanwick, the cone of chips before the game, all just seemed to have disappeared.

I know it sounds strange but I feel like I lost my connection to the club in so many ways that summer. 

Yesterday, watching everyone celebrating and the tears and David Clowes and Ed Dawe’s’ tears, just felt like closure. The end of the trauma and the start of something new. It felt like moving on.

Thank you, Mr Clowes, for all of that 🐏

7 minutes ago, DB83 said:

They will be calling for him to be sacked if we lose our first two games of next season.

Just enjoy your day, they don’t come around often 

Feels like we can finally move on from all that trauma of the points deduction, the finances, the ruin 

Back up and back to normal! 🐏 

Good luck everyone - see you on the other side!

3 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

I suspect he was told what the first team budget was and how much of that was taken up by his own wages. It was in the beat interests of all parties to part ways imo.

He went as soon as he realised his mates weren’t going to be able to buy the club

Best of luck to him in his managerial career but I’d take Paul Warne over him and his crew any day. 

On 24/04/2024 at 10:47, Day said:

It’s time to change my username. There is only one David round here and it ain’t me.

David

Break that into 2, Day vid

Keep it short, Day

Why not Dave? I hate it.

Hope that explains that.

The Artist Formerly Known as David

8 hours ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

 

Agree with ram59. The assumption that he can’t do any better with us than he did with Rotherham is lazy, because our financial situation is completely different. Yes, he hasn’t yet done amazingly well in the Championship, but he’s not really been below par either.

Hope I'm wrong but I wouldn't be surprised if our financial situation is actually much more similar to that Rotherham side's than we might want to admit...

I agree with the notion that it's unfair to compare because, at the end of the day, they're totally different squads in very different looking divisions. But if you're looking for an indicator of his quality in the Championship then it's about all you've got to go on isn't it?

When he left Rotherham for us, I'm pretty sure they were in the top 6 or something, so maybe he's going to take us straight up anyway!

16 minutes ago, Animal is a Ram said:

It's a way down my list of priorities for going.

And that's fine, by the way! I'm not saying it's not. It's just your own personal philosophy. For me its high up the list.

16 minutes ago, Animal is a Ram said:

I just said, I don't expect to be entertained. Mostly because, especially this season, there's always a team doing their damndest to stop that.

Yes, sport is entertainment, but only really for a neutral. In my opinion.

So the bit in bold is essentially where I'm disagreeing with you and with others. You might not expect to be, but surely you hope to be?

I've got plenty of sympathy for Warne re: all the reasons that we've played the way we have. Budget, injuries, quality of the players, the nature of the division, etc etc.

But surely we have to eventually strive for better?

I would imagine that if you asked Paul Warne himself he would even say that he would like us to be playing better football than this.

He deserves to be given the opportunity to do that, and I hope the club back him to do so, but you can understand why some supporters don't have much faith that Warne can deliver better football than this based on a) his time with Rotherham and b) his time so far with us!!

8 minutes ago, Srg said:

Competition in which you’re trying to win. 

If that was the most effective way to win a game of snooker, then yeah. Again, it’s sport, you go to support someone winning. 

And what is it about that competition that you enjoy? It’s entertaining, right?

You’re telling me you go to watch sport to just be supportive of someone and not because it’s for your own entertainment? Do you watch the postman go up and down the road and then boo when he puts a letter through the wrong box? 😂