#and peter was very useful by suggesting they do a diehard

[marvel-lous-guy]

Tony: okay, so we're all on the same page here?

Peter: yeah, but it's the last page of a book called 'I don't know what the fuck I'm doing'

Tony: Great! We're still all on the same page!

Steve: Let's go fight some Nazis!

[claudia1829things]

"THE GOLDEN BOWL" (2000) Review

"THE GOLDEN BOWL" (2000) Review I have never read any of Henry James' literary works. Never. However, I have seen a few adaptations of his works. Some of them had been adapted by the production team of Ishmail Merchant and James Ivory. Aside from E.M. Forster, they must have been diehard fans of James. They had produced three adaptations of James' novels, including the 2000 film, "THE GOLDEN BOWL".

Based upon James' 1904 novel, "THE GOLDEN BOWL" is a character study of an adulterous affair between an impoverished Italian prince named Amerigo and Charlotte Stant, an equally impoverished American young woman. The movie explores their affair and its impact upon their lives and the lives of their spouses - a father-and-daughter pair named Adam and Maggie Verver. The movie begins with Amerigo's recent engagement to Maggie in London, July 1903. Amerigo and Charlotte, who were past lovers, visit A.R. Jarvis' antique store in order for Charlotte to purchase a wedding gift for Maggie, who is an old school friend. Jarvis shows them an ancient bowl, carved from a single piece of crystal and embroidered with gold, he asserts is flawless. Charlotte is indecisive about buying it, and Jarvis offers to set it aside until she can make up her mind. Although Maggie's aunt, Mrs. Fanny Assingham, is well aware of Amerigo and Charlotte's past relationship, she suggests to Maggie that Charlotte would make the perfect second wife for Adam Verver some two years later. Concerned about her father's possible loneliness, Maggie supports Fanny's idea and eventually, Charlotte becomes her stepmother. Due to their irritation over the unusually close relationship between Maggie and Adam, Charlotte and Amerigo rekindle their affair at a country house party three years later. Although Fanny and her husband Bob Assingham become aware of the affair, they decide to main silence in order to protect Maggie from any personal pain. However, in the end, their efforts prove to be in vain. This adaptation of James' novel was not as well received as the 1972 BBC miniseries. Many critics claimed that the movie was not only inferior to the television production, but not as faithful to James' novel. As I have stated in other reviews, complete faithfulness to a literary source is not needed for a successful film, television or stage adaptation. If the changes help a particular production, then I will have no problems with said changes. The problem with "THE GOLDEN BOWL" is that I have never read James' novel. So, I cannot decide whether any changes made by screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala either improved or worsened James' novel. How do I feel about the movie? Well . . . I rather liked it. Most of it. The older I get, the more I find it difficult to view adultery in fiction with any single-minded disapproval. I have to give credit to Jhabvala for portraying Charlotte and Amerigo's affair with a good deal of maturity and complexity. Jhabvala made sure that audiences understood the couple's passion for each other . . . well, Charlotte's passion. The screenplay also conveyed the couple's irritation with the Ververs' close relationship and tendency to spend more time with each other, instead of their respective spouses. On the other hand, Jhabvala's screenplay does not hesitate to express the negative aspects of the couple's adultery - especially their careless behavior later in the story and the pain it causes Maggie when she becomes aware of it. "THE GOLDEN BOWL" is a very beautiful looking film. I cannot deny this. The movie was filmed in both England and Italy. Tony Pierce-Roberts made good use of the locations, thanks to his sharp and colorful photography. But despite the movie's lush color, I did not walk away feeling dazzled by his work. I believe my feelings stem from Pierce-Roberts' limited use of exterior shots. On the other hand, I felt very impressed by Andrew Sanders' production designs, which ably re-created the upper-class worlds of Edwardian Britain and Italy. He was able to achieve this effect with the help of Lucy Richardson's art direction and Anna Pinnock's set decorations. However, it was John Bright's costume designs that really blew me away:

And yet . . . there are aspects of "THE GOLDEN BOWL" that either did not appeal to me or rubbed me the wrong way. These negative feelings regarding the movie did not pop up until its last 20 to 30 minutes. In the movie, director James Ivory included brief scenes of a turn-of-the-century American city as a visual symbol of the Ververs' hometown, "American City". These brief scenes were also used to reflect Charlotte's distaste for the United States and her fear of returning there. The problem is that I found these scenes very unnecessary and a rather heavy-handed literary device for American living during that period. The look on Uma Thurman's face whenever someone mentioned the idea of her character returning to States seemed enough to me. My real problem with "THE GOLDEN BOWL" is the strong hint of misogyny that seemed to mark the consequences that both Amerigo and Charlotte faced for their infidelity. It was bad enough that Fanny Assingham dumped most of the blame for the affair on Charlotte's shoulders. But apparently, so did Henry James. In the end, Amerigo failed to suffer any consequences for his faithlessness. On the other hand, Charlotte did. She not only lost Amerigo, but Maggie convinced her husband (and Maggie's father) to return to the United States to build his museum, taking Charlotte along, as well. One could say that Amerigo and Charlotte's fates were the result of Maggie's selfish desire to keep her husband. But when Amerigo failed to inform Charlotte that they had been found out and expressed contempt toward her failure to realize that Maggie knew about their affair, I became completely disgusted. Some claim that the latter never happened in James' novel. Actually, it did. And I can never forgive James' for his hypocrisy and obvious sexism. This struck me as a clear case of society blaming the woman for an adulterous affair. "THE GOLDEN BOWL" featured some pretty solid performances and a few that really impressed me. Madeline Potter (an old Merchant-Ivory veteran), Peter Eyre, and Nicholas Day all gave solid performances. Although I would not regard their portrayals of the Assinghams as among their best, both Anjelica Huston and James Fox gave entertaining performances as the pair who seemed aware of the adulterous affair in this story. The chemistry between them struck me as surprisingly effective. Jeremy Northam gave a smooth and complex portrayal of the adulterous Italian prince torn between two American women. And I felt relief that his Italian accent - even if not genuine - did not bordered on the extreme. Kate Beckinsale's handling of an American accent struck me as a little more genuine . . . but just a little. Her performance for most of the film seemed pretty solid. But once her character became aware of the affair, Beckinsale's performance became more nuanced and skillful. Uma Thurman was excellent as the passionate, yet shallow Charlotte Stant Verver. Her Charlotte could have easily dissolved into a one-dimensional villainess. But thanks to Thurman's performance, I saw a passionate woman, whose flaws proved to be her undoing. However, I believe that Nick Nolte gave the best performance in the film as Charlotte's husband and Maggie's father, Adam Verver. Superficially, Nolte portrayed the millionaire as a soft-spoken, yet friendly man with a knack of making people feel at home. But there were times - especially in the movie's second half - in which Nolte kept audiences guessing on whether or not his character knew about the affair between Charlotte and Amerigo. I would not regard "THE GOLDEN BOWL" as one of my favorite Ismail Merchant-James Ivory productions. But unlike some others, I certainly do not regard it as their worst. My one major complaint about the film was the ending of the Amerigo-Charlotte affair, which seemed to smack of sexism. And frankly, I blame Henry James. However, thanks to a first-rate cast, lush visuals and decent direction by Ivory, I thought it was a pretty decent and interesting film.

[uniquedonutfest]

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Classilla and TenFourFox – ports of the current Firefox web browser, optimized for Mac OS 9 (Classilla) and PowerPC Macs running OS X Tiger (TenFourFox). Get online with your vintage Mac! PrintToPDF – a free utility to create PDF files on classic Macs running System 7 through Mac OS. Jan 26, 2014  Support Communities / Mac OS & System Software / Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question. Online shopping from a great selection at Software Store. Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4) is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29, 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.Some of the new features included a fast searching system called Spotlight, a new version of the Safari web browser. Apr 07, 2016  The typical reason that many users stay on Tiger (or Leopard) is that they have a PPC processor, which can't go beyond 10.5.8 (Leopard), where TenFourFox would be a good choice - and close to up-to-date for many uses. However, TenFourFox can't run on Intel processors, which is what you have. But, you CAN update the OS X system.

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Back when Ars Senior Products Editor Andrew Cunningham was forced to work in Mac OS 9 by his colleagues in September 2014, he quickly hit a productivity wall. He couldn't log in to his Ars e-mail or do much of anything online, which meant—as someone who writes about new technology for an online-only publication—he couldn't do his work. All Cunningham could do was play old games and marvel at the difference 15 years makes in operating system design.

But as hard as it may be to believe in light of yet another OS X macOS update, there are some who still use Apple's long-abandoned system. OS 9 diehards may hold on due to one important task they just can't replicate on a newer computer, or perhaps they simply prefer it as a daily driver. It only takes a quick trip to the world of subreddits and Facebook groups to verify these users exist.

Certain that they can't all be maniacs, I went searching for these people. I trawled forums and asked around, and I even spent more time with my own classic Macs. And to my surprise, I found that most of the people who cling staunchly to Mac OS 9 (or earlier) as a key component of their daily—or at least regular—workflow actually have good reason for doing so.

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The reasons some Mac lovers stick with OS 9 are practically as numerous as Apple operating systems themselves. There are some OS 9 subscribers who hold out for cost reasons. Computers are prohibitively expensive where they live, and these people would also need to spend thousands on new software licenses and updated hardware (on top of the cost of a new Mac). But many more speak of a genuine preference for OS 9. These users stick around purely because they can and because they think classic Mac OS offers a more pleasant experience than OS X. Creatives in particular speak about some of OS 9's biggest technical shortcomings in favorable terms. They aren't in love with the way one app crashing would bring down an entire system, but rather the design elements that can unfortunately lead to that scenario often better suit creative work.

I'm alluding here specifically to the way OS 9 handles multitasking. Starting at System 5, classic Mac OS used cooperative multitasking, which differs from the preemptive multitasking of modern Windows and OS X and Linux. With classic Mac OS multitasking, when you want to change apps it's up to the active program to relinquish control. This focuses the CPU on just one or two things, which means it's terrible for today's typical litany of active processes. As I write this sentence I have 16 apps open on my iMac, some of which are running multiple processes and threads, and that's in addition to background syncing on four cloud services.

By only allowing a couple of active programs, classic Mac OS streamlines your workflow to closer resemble the way people think (until endless notifications and frequent app switching cause our brains to rewire). In this sense, OS 9 is a kind of middle ground between modern distraction-heavy computing and going analog with pen and paper or typewriter.

These justifications represent just a few large Mac OS 9 user archetypes. What follows is the testimony of several classic Mac holdouts on how and why they—along with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people around the world—continue to burn the candle for the classic Macintosh operating system. And given some of the community-led developments this devotion has inspired, OS 9 might just tempt a few more would-be users back from the future.

Programmatic hangers-on

Remembering how the comments on Cunningham's article were littered with stories of people who still make (or made, until only a short time beforehand) regular use of OS 9 for getting things done, I first posed the question on the Ars forums. Who regularly uses Mac OS 9 or earlier for work purposes? Reader Kefkafloyd said it's been rare among his customers over the past several years, but a few of them keep an OS 9 machine around because they need it for various bits of aging prepress software. Old versions of the better-known programs of this sort—Quark, PageMaker, FrameMaker—usually run in OS X's Classic mode (which itself was removed after 10.4 Tiger), though, so that slims down the pack of OS 9 holdouts in the publishing business even further.

Wudbaer's story of his workplace's dedication to an even older Mac OS version suggests there could be more classic Mac holdouts around the world than even the OS 9ers. These users are incentivized to stick with a preferred OS as long as possible so they can use an obscure but expensive program that's useful enough (to them) to justify the effort. In Wudbaer's case, it's the very specific needs of custom DNA synthesis standing in the way of an upgrade.

'The geniuses who wrote the software we have to use to interface the machines with our lab management software used a network library that only supports 16-bit machines,' he wrote. This means Wudbaer and colleagues need to control certain DNA synthesizers in the lab with a 68k Mac via the 30-year-old LocalTalk technology. The last 68k Macintosh models, the Performa 580CD and the PowerBook 190, were introduced in mid-1995. (They ran System 7.5.)

This DNA synthesis lab has two LC III Macs and one Quadra 950 running continuously—24 hours a day, seven days a week—plus lots of spare parts and a few standby machines that are ready to go as and when needed. The synthesizers cost around 30,000-40,000 Euros each back in 2002 (equivalent to roughly $35-50k in 2015 terms), so they want to get their money's worth. The lab also has newer DNA synthesizers that interface with newer computers and can chemically generate many more oligonucleotides (short synthetic DNA molecules) at once. This higher throughput comes with a tradeoff, however. Whereas the old synthesizers can synthesize oligonucleotides independently of each other (thereby allowing easy modifications and additional couplings), the new ones do them all in one bulk parallel process, meaning the extra stuff has to wait until afterward. More work means more time, and as Wudbaer says, 'time is money.'

Lutra's package does not use the bash script and launches QGIS directly. Qgis for mac os sierra. If anybody is interested i could supplement giovanni's feedback with a homebrew install + new profile + no plugins on mojave 10.14.1 mbp 13' with intel iris graphics 550. Author Name: Peter Petrik I am not able to replicate the issue on my computer, but I made some research on QFileDialog issues.For the launch from terminal vs launch from Launch Services: Homebrew QGIS package uses the bash script to launch QGIS.app.

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On the Facebook group Mac OS 9 - it's still alive!, people trade more of these OS 9 endurance stories. Some prefer it for writing environment. Others keep it around for bits and pieces of work that require expensive software such as Adobe's creative suite or a CAD package or Pro Tools or specifically to open old files created with this software. Most use it for old Mac games, of which there are far more than the Mac's game-shy reputation would suggest—but that's a story for another day. A scant, brave few not only struggle through OS 9 for these sorts of offline tasks, but they also rely on it as a Web browsing platform.

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[torentialtribute]

THE GREAT VAR DEBATE: Tech said Sterling was 2.4cm offside but allowed 13cm margin for error

Doubts about the accuracy of VAR when deciding on offside calls are now increased because The Mail can find findings on Sunday reveal flaws in the technology that currently fluctuates football.

Referee bosses insist that the technology used provides almost 100 percent certainty in tight offside decisions – but we can reveal that this simply isn't the case. And that, according to former English international Danny Murphy, is another reason to thoroughly revise the entire system.

The 5-0 victory of Manchester City at West Ham was overshadowed during the opening weekend by two highly controversial offside attacks that VAR diehards claimed to be tight – and rightly so .

Raheem Sterling felt the power of VAR at the opening of Premier League vs West Ham

However, the technology was used to try to determine when a ball was passed and when a run was not actually advanced enough – with an error margin that could be as large as 38.8 cm (14) inches). It offers more ammunition to critics of the scheme, such as the Mail column The Mail on Sunday, Murphy, who wants to see the system demolished until it is fit for purpose.

& Football is becoming obsessed with striving for perfection through VAR, Murphy said today in his column. "It's unreachable and meanwhile they destroy the joy of our game.

"My preference would be for VAR to be scrapped in all cases except goalline technology. I just don't believe in the clear and definitive & # 39; yes or no & # 39; that the references claim to be. & # 39;

VAR already has a number made big phone calls and signed the goals of City against West Ham

There was more controversial VAR on Saturday when City had ruled an injury time goal in a 2-2 draw against Tottenham for handball.

& # 39; It does not matter whether it is an offside offside, offside offside. & # 39; Alan Shearer says the words with so much conviction in the VAR-explaining video of the Premier League that is hard not to believe him.

And why wouldn't you? Fans have sold the idea that decisions like offside are black and white. It is objective, no doubt. An attacker is on the side or he is offside. There is no gray area.

Offside, we are told, is an exact science. Former referee Peter Walton even compared it with goal line technology. "By the end of the season, people will think the same way about VAR and offside," he said. "It is a factual decision without a subjective judgment."

That is why the VAR sticklers shrug their shoulders and grin in the face of complaints that the decision to exclude a Gabriel Jesus goal in the Manchester City victory over West Ham in the opening weekend of the season because the armpit hair of Raheem Sterling was offside of the soul of football.

& # 39; Maybe the intensity and passion go away & # 39 ;, said Pep Guardiola. Hopefully it doesn't make a mistake. If it is offside, it is offside. & # 39;

Even Pep can be a bit calmer knowing that the decision was certainly, infallibly correct.

That's exactly what it is. That's not it. To begin with, the offside line drawn on the screen becomes the most advanced & # 39; active & # 39; part of the attacker, plotted by the video operator in accordance with the VAR. A human eye as a guide that pulls up from the armpit to find the shoulder. No calibrated machine such as target line technology.

It was deja vu for City after their extra time winner was excluded for a handball for

But that is not even the most important problem. The available technology means that VARs, if they are as marginal as the Sterling decision, simply cannot know for certain that a player is offside.

the first contact point when the ball is played. The technology is not advanced enough to know when that is.

Cameras used by VAR operate at 50 frames per second. Take one photo every 0.02 second. To the human eye it looks like a moving image.

For offside, VAR must choose the frame that shows that the ball has been categorically touched. If frame A shows the boot an inch from the ball, VAR must take the next one in which the ball is certainly played.

In reality, however, the first point of contact will lie somewhere in between. And as The Mail calculated on Sunday, for decisions as tight as those of Sterling, the player can move fast enough to go from onside to offside. And that is crucial. This means that there is a margin of error. And that margin varies depending on how fast attackers and defenders run.

The mathematics is explained in the panel above. But with the help of the highest speed recorded in the Premier League last season – 21.75 mph (35 km / h) – that margin of error can be as large as 38.8 cm. More than 1ft 3in.

It comes down to this: if the attacking player is less offside than the margin of error, the VAR cannot be sure whether he was offside or the ball was not played at the exact moment. Offsides are not black and white as a target line technology. Why should they be treated as such?

But what about the earth? Lost your VAR? That will not happen. It shouldn't happen either. Generally it is a good thing. Will you stick with it? Grin and wear it, do you accept this imperfect perfectionism? Or are you changing it?

The Premier League did not want to comment, but reports last week claimed that lawmakers should discuss whether offside a & # 39; clear and obvious & # 39; had to undergo a test. That feels more intuitive. You are not looking for a way to refuse a big goal, you are just trying to judge whether the assistant could reasonably have seen it.

But how could that actually work? What is clear and clear? Allow a margin of error when it is shown that the margin of error changes depending on the players and the situation. No two are ever the same. Suddenly offside games become an even more vague decision of right and wrong.

Pep Guardiola was stunned by the touchline, and argued his case with Mauricio Pochettino

You could change the laws. Some have suggested that if a part of the body is on the side, it is on the side. But it doesn't just shift to where you draw the line. Instead of moving under the armpit, it moves somewhere to the back of the heel. The same problem occurs.

Where do you draw the line? In every sense. At the very least, VAR cannot continue to refuse goals through minute margins using a method that is declared to be perfect but that is not.

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[nothingman]

The “new atheist” movement emerged shortly after the 9/11 attacks with a best-selling book by Sam Harris called “The End of Faith.” This was followed by engaging tomes authored by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens, among others. Avowing to champion the values of science and reason, the movement offered a growing number of unbelievers — tired of faith-based foolishness mucking up society for the rest of us — some hope for the future. For many years I was among the new atheism movement’s greatest allies.

From the start, though, the movement had some curious quirks. Although many atheists are liberals and empirical studies link higher IQs to both liberalism and atheism, Hitchens gradually abandoned his Trotskyist political affiliations for what could, in my view, be best described as a neoconservative outlook. Indeed, he explicitly endorsed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, now widely seen as perhaps the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history.

There were also instances in which critiques of religion, most notably Islam, went beyond what was both intellectually warranted and strategically desirable. For example, Harris wrote in a 2004 Washington Times op-ed that “We are at war with Islam.” He added a modicum of nuance in subsequent sentences, but I know of no experts on Islamic terrorism who would ever suggest that uttering such a categorical statement in a public forum is judicious. As the terrorism scholar Will McCant noted in an interview that I conducted with him last year, there are circumstances in which certain phrases — even if true — are best not uttered, since they are unnecessarily incendiary. In what situation would claiming that the West is engaged in a civilizational clash with an entire religion actually improve the expected outcome?

Despite these peccadilloes, if that’s what they are, new atheism still had much to offer. Yet the gaffes kept on coming, to the point that no rational person could simply dismiss them as noise in the signal. For example, Harris said in 2014 that new atheism was dominated by men because it lacks the “nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.”

This resulted in an exodus of women from the movement who decided that the “new atheist” label was no longer for them. (I know of many diehard atheist women who wanted nothing to do with “new atheism,” which is a real shame.) Harris’ attempted self-exoneration didn’t help, either — it merely revealed a moral scotoma in his understanding of gender, sexism and related issues. What he should have done is, quite simply, said “I’m sorry.” These words, I have come to realize, are nowhere to be found in the new atheist lexicon.

Subsequent statements about profiling at airports, serious allegations of rape at atheist conferences, and tweets from major leaders that (oops!) linked to white supremacist websites further alienated women, people of color and folks that one could perhaps describe as “morally normal.” Yet some of us — mostly white men like myself — persisted in our conviction that, overall, the new atheist movement was still a force for good in the world. It is an extraordinary personal embarrassment that I maintained this view until the present year.

For me, it was a series of recent events that pushed me over the edge. As a philosopher — someone who cares deeply about intellectual honesty, verifiable evidence, critical thinking and moral thoughtfulness — I now find myself in direct opposition with many new atheist leaders. That is, I see my own advocacy for science, critical thought and basic morality as standing in direct opposition to their positions. 

Just consider a recent tweet from one of the most prominent new atheist luminaries, Peter Boghossian: “Why is it that nearly every male who’s a 3rd wave intersectional feminist is physically feeble & has terrible body habitus?” If this is what it means to be a “reasonable person,” then who would want to be that? Except for the vocabulary, that looks like something you’d find in Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. The same goes for another of Boghossian’s deep thoughts: “I’ve never understood how someone could be proud of being gay. How can one be proud of something one didn’t work for?” It’s hard to know where to even begin dissecting this bundle of shameful ignorance.

More recently, Boghossian and his sidekick James Lindsay published a “hoax” academic paper in a “gender studies” journal (except that it wasn’t) in an attempt to embarrass the field of gender studies, which they — having no expertise in the field — believe is dominated by a radical feminist ideology that sees the penis as the root of all evil. I’ve explained twice why this “hoax” actually just revealed a marked lack of skepticism among skeptics themselves, so I won’t go further into the details here. Suffice it to say that while bemoaning the sloppy scholarship of gender studies scholars, Boghossian and Lindsay’s explanation of the hoax in a Skeptic article contained philosophical mistakes that a second-year undergraduate could detect. Even more, their argument for how the hoax paper exposes gender studies as a fraud contains a demonstrable fatal error — that is, it gets a crucial fact wrong, thus rendering their argument unsound.

The point is this: One would expect skeptics, of all people, who claim to be “responsive to the evidence,” to acknowledge this factual error. Yet not a single leader of the new atheist movement has publicly mentioned the factual problems with the “hoax.” Had someone (or preferably all of them) done this, it would have affirmed the new atheist commitment to intellectual honesty, to putting truth before pride and epistemology before ideology, thereby restoring its damaged credibility.

Even worse, Boghossian and Lindsay explicitly argue, in response to some critics, that they don’t “need to know the field of gender studies to criticize it.” This is, properly contextualized, about as anti-intellectual as one can get. Sure, it is a fallacy to immediately dismiss someone’s criticisms of a topic simply because that person doesn’t have a degree on the topic. Doing this is called the “Courtier’s Reply.” But it decidedly isn’t a fallacy to criticize someone for being incredibly ignorant — and even ignorant of their own ignorance — regarding an issue they’re making strong, confident-sounding claims about. Kids, listen to me: Knowledge is a good thing, despite what Boghossian and Lindsay suggest, and you should always work hard to understand a position before you level harsh criticisms at it. Otherwise you’ll end up looking like a fool to those “in the know.”

Along these lines, the new atheist movement has flirted with misogyny for years. Harris’ “estrogen vibe” statement — which yielded a defense rather than a gracious apology — was only the tip of the iceberg. As mentioned above, there have been numerous allegations of sexual assault, and atheist conferences have pretty consistently been male-dominated — resulting in something like a “gender Matthew effect.”

Many leading figures have recently allied themselves with small-time television personality Dave Rubin, a guy who has repeatedly given Milo Yiannopoulos — the professional right-wing troll who once said that little boys would stop complaining about being raped by Catholic priests if the priests were as good-looking as he is — a platform on his show. In a tweet from last May, Rubin said “I’d like a signed copy, please” in response to a picture that reads: “Ah. Peace and quiet. #ADayWithoutAWoman.” If, say, Paul Ryan were asked, he’d describe this as “sort of like the textbook definition of a misogynistic comment.” Did any new atheist leaders complain about this tweet? Of course not, much to the frustration of critical thinkers like myself who actually care about how women are treated in society.

In fact, the magazine Skeptic just published a glowing review of Yiannopoulos’ recent book, “Dangerous.” The great irony of this intellectual misstep is that Yiannopoulos embodies the opposite of nearly every trend of moral progress that Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic, identifies in his book “The Moral Arc.”

Yiannopoulos is a radical anti-intellectual, often ignoring facts or simply lying about issues; he uses hyperbolic rhetoric (e.g., “feminism is cancer”) that stymies rather than promotes rational discussion; he holds some outright racist views; he professes nonsensical views, such as the idea that birth control makes women “unattractive and crazy”; he uses hate speech, which indicates that he’s not a very nice person; he once publicly called out a transgender student by name during a talk; and he supports Donald Trump, who has essentially led a society-wide campaign against the Enlightenment. Oh, and need I mention that Yiannopoulos once said that if it weren’t for his own experience of abuse by a Catholic priest, he never would have learned to give “such good head“? The merger between the alt-right and the new atheist movement continues to solidify.

Perhaps the most alarming instance of irrationality in recent memory, though, is Sam Harris’ recent claim that black people are less intelligent than white people. This emerged from a conversation that Harris had with Charles Murray, co-author of “The Bell Curve” and a monetary recipient of the racist Pioneer Fund. There are two issues worth dwelling upon here. The first is scientific: Despite what Harris asserts, science does not support the conclusion that there are gene-based IQ differences between the races. To confirm this, I emailed the leading psychologist Howard Gardner, who told me that “The ‘racial difference’ speculations of Herrnstein and Murray remain very controversial,” as well as James Flynn (world-renowned for the Flynn effect), who responded that, “Taking into account the range of evidence, I believe that black and white Americans are not distinguished by genes for IQ. However, the debate is ongoing.”

The point is simply this: Scottish philosopher David Hume famously declared that the wise person always proportions her beliefs to the evidence. It follows that when a community of experts is divided on an issue, it behooves the rational non-expert to hold her opinion in abeyance. In direct opposition of this epistemic principle, Harris takes a firm stand on race and intelligence — even receiving adulation for doing this from other white men in the new atheist community. A more thoughtful public intellectual would have said: “Look, this is a very complicated issue that leading psychologists disagree about. A minority say there is a genetically based correlation between race and IQ while many others claim just the opposite, with perhaps the largest group holding that we simply don’t know enough right now. Since I am rational, I too will say that we simply don’t know.”

The second issue is ethical: Is it right, wise or justified to publicly declare that one race is genetically inferior to another, given the immense societal consequences this could have? Not only could this claim empower white supremacists — individuals who wouldn’t be sympathetic with Harris’ follow-up claim that generalizations about a race of people don’t warrant discriminating against individual members of that race — but science tells us that such information can have direct and appreciable negative consequences for members of the targeted race. For example, “stereotype threat” describes how the mere mention that one’s racial class is inferior can have measurable detrimental effects on one’s cognitive performance. Similarly, “teacher expectancy effects” refer to this; if teachers are told that some students are smart and others are dumb, where the “smart” and “dumb” labels are randomly assigned, the “smart” students will statistically do better in class than the “dumb” ones.

To broadcast a scientifically questionable meme that could have serious bad effects for people already struggling in a society that was founded upon racism and is still struggling to overcome it is, I would argue, the height of intellectual irresponsibility.

Although the new atheist movement once filled me with a great sense of optimism about the future of humanity, this is no longer the case. Movements always rise and fall — they have a life cycle, of sorts — but the fall of this movement has been especially poignant for me. The new atheists of today would rather complain about “trigger warnings” in classrooms than eliminate rape on campuses. They’d rather whine about “safe spaces” than help transgender people feel accepted by society. They loudly claim to support free speech and yet routinely ban dissenters from social media, blogs and websites.

They say they care about facts, yet refuse to change their beliefs when inconvenient data are presented. They decry people who make strong assertions outside of their field and yet feel perfectly entitled to make fist-poundingly confident claims about issues they know little about. And they apparently don’t give a damn about alienating women and people of color, a truly huge demographic of potential allies in the battle against religious absurdity.

On a personal note, a recent experience further cemented my view that the new atheists are guilty of false advertising. A podcaster named Lalo Dagach saw that I had criticized Harris’ understanding of Islamic terrorism, which I believe lacks scholarly rigor. In response, he introduced me to his Twitter audience of 31,000 people as follows: “Phil Torres (@xriskology) everyone. Mourns the loss of ISIS and celebrates attacks on atheists.” Below this tweet was a screenshot of the last two articles I had written for Salon — one about the importance of listening to the experts on terrorism, and the other about how the apocalyptic ideology of the Islamic extremists of ISIS is more likely to evolve into new forms than go extinct.

First of all, Dagach’s tweet was overtly defamatory. I wrote him asking for a public apology and heard nothing back, although he quietly deleted the tweet. But even that did not happen until I had received a hailstorm of disturbing responses to Dagach’s false statements, responses in the form of internet trolls aggressively defending Harris by asking me to kill myself and proposing new nicknames like “Phil Hitler Torres” (seriously!). This is the new atheist movement today, by and large. The great enemy of critical thinking and epistemological integrity, namely tribalism, has become the social glue of the community.

I should still be the new atheist movement’s greatest ally, yet today I want nothing whatsoever to do with it. From censoring people online while claiming to support free speech to endorsing scientifically unfounded claims about race and intelligence to asserting, as Harris once did, that the profoundly ignorant Ben Carson would make a better president than the profoundly knowledgeable Noam Chomsky, the movement has repeatedly shown itself to lack precisely the values it once avowed to uphold. Words that now come to mind when I think of new atheism are “un-nuanced,” “heavy-handed,” “unjustifiably confident” and “resistant to evidence” — not to mention, on the whole, “misogynist” and “racist.”

And while there are real and immensely important issues to focus on in the world, such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, food production, ocean acidification, the sixth mass extinction and so on, even the most cursory glance at any leading new atheist’s social-media feed reveals a bizarre obsession with what they call the “regressive left.” This is heartbreaking, because humanity needs thoughtful, careful, nuanced, scientifically minded thinkers more now than ever before.

via Salon: in-depth news, politics, business, technology & culture Salon

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Max Lord: 15 Truths About DC’s Biggest Liar

Hopefully you are reading Josh Williamson’s new “Rebirth” mini series, “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad.” If not, let us be the first to tell you that the insidious Maxwell Lord is back in a major way! This opportunistic businessman turned cold-hearted villain seems to be up to his old antics, but this time he has “the original Suicide Squad” under his control.

RELATED: Evil Geniuses: The 15 Smartest Supervillains In Comics

His look in his “New 52” debut appearance, in “OMAC” #2, eschewed his trademark business suit and Checkmate looks, for a very sci-fi, Jack Kirby-influenced redesign. So, his arrival at the end of “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad” #1 in his classic Black King duds seems to infer this may be the pre-New 52 version of Max. Whichever Max it is, we thought it was a good time to give you the lowdown on this powerful mind-controlling baddie, and explain why he’s such a huge creep.

HE ESTABLISHED THE JLI

The version of the League that becomes Justice League International is initially brought together by Doctor Fate after the 1987 “Legends” miniseries. Fate believed that there was always need of a Justice League, but it is Maxwell Lord who gets them the United Nations charter, encouraging a more global membership, setting up embassies worldwide and renaming the team to reflect its global reach. Lord quickly goes from liaison to team leader in the first tentative displays of his manipulative powers (even if, at this point, they weren’t “super” in nature).

While Lord’s public persona is that of a business mogul who lacks ethics, he is actually much worse. In “Justice League” #1 (1987), he hires low-level criminals to fake a terrorist attack on the UN to bring the newly formed Justice League closer together. He continues manipulating the JLI for years, even going so far as to start a Justice League Antarctica branch staffed by former Injustice League members and headed up by knucklehead Green Lantern, G’Nort.

HE WAS MANIPULATED BY ALIEN A.I.

The cover of “Justice League International” #12 (1988) by Kevin Maguire famously shows Lord as half human, half robot, and the issue reveals his secret origin. It turns out his machinations to establish the Justice League as a UN sanctioned team were not his own. In a very convoluted bit of continuity, Lord finds an alien techno intelligence while spelunking, which immediately starts influencing his actions. The being was named Kilg%re and like all good computers, it was chiefly concerned with world domination. It was Kilg%re who suggested Lord ingratiate himself with the Justice League.

Further, the more global approach Lord encouraged once he had gained their trust was also just a part of the alien intelligence’s grand scheme. Eventually, Lord broke free of the techno life form when he destroyed the computer that housed it… or so he thought. This weirdness was all taken a step further when Lord gets brain cancer and the long-thought dead Kilg%re pops back up to transfer Lord’s consciousness into an android. This is a somewhat despised part of Max Lord’s history, to say the least.

HE WAS SHOT

The 1987, the company-wide “Millennium” crossover that was spearheaded by Steve Englehart told the story of a Guardian of the Universe (aka, Green Lantern’s bosses) and a member of their sister race, a Zamaron, who were visiting Earth to grant a chosen few accelerated evolution. The plan was for this group of 10 men and women to become the new Guardians of the Universe. As is often the case when the Guardians are involved, their own creations came back to bite them in their little blue butts. The Manhunters had infiltrated Earth’s superhero community and were ready to strike when the purpose of the ancient aliens’ visit to Earth was revealed.

Rocket Red #7 of the Justice League International turned out to be one of these overzealous robots, as did Max Lord’s secretary at the time, Mrs. Wootenhoffer. The Manhunter shoots Max four times before his computer (which we don’t know is Kilg%re at this point) neutralizes the threat. He survives the sustained injuries, but he suffered. And at least you can’t say that Max never took one for the team!

HE WAS POSSESSED BY… DORMAMMU?

To keep it simple, the best way to describe Dreamslayer’s group of super villains, The Extremists, is to say that they are analogues for Marvel’s greatest villains, like Doctor Octopus (Gorgon), Magneto (Doctor Diehard) and Doctor Doom (Lord Havok). Dreamslayer is the DC version of Doctor Strange villain Dormammu. These super-powered terrorists were denizens of an alternate dimension and hailed from a planet called Angor. When Dreamslayer discovered a way to get to Earth, he immediately launched an attack with robotic versions of the Extremists. His actual teammates had died in the nuclear holocaust they had caused on Angor.

While that may seem like a lot of backstory to tell you that Dreamslayer possessed Max Lord at one point, the “why” and “how” would be impossible to explain otherwise. When the fiery-headed troublemaker and his replicate Extremists were thwarted on Earth, Deamslayer’s body was destroyed and his spirit returned to his own dimension. However, from there, he was able to possess Max Lord, who he used to mind control The Flash, who then retrieved the powered-down Extremist robots for him. Circuitous, perhaps, but even Max would have to appreciate the lengths to which Dreamslayer was willing to go to manipulate the situation.

HE WAS CREATED BY GIANTS

The names Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis should be familiar to any comic reader worth their weight in long boxes. Giffen is the writer/artist behind such cult favorite characters as Lobo, Ambush Bug, L.E.G.I.O.N. and DC new A-lister Jamie Reyes (aka Blue Beetle III). He also wrote the recently adapted “Invasion!” mini series. DeMatteis, meanwhile, is a writer who started with DC in the late ‘70s on pulpy titles like “Weird War Tales” and “House of Mystery.”

Together, the two created the Justice League International, Justice League Europe, Justice League Antarctica and had a critically acclaimed run on “JLI.” They came up with droves of fun new characters to populate their books including Ice, Rocket Red #7, G’Nort, The Extremists, and, of course, Maxwell Lord IV. The upcoming comedy “Powerless” seems like it must be influenced by Giffen and DeMatteis’ work, as both superheroes that have been revealed so far, Crimson Fox and Jack O’Lantern (II), are their creations.

HE RAN A GLOBAL SPY AGENCY (TWICE)

During the “Countdown To Infinite Crisis” (2005) and “Infinite Crisis” (2005) events, Maxwell Lord assumed full control of the spy agency known as Checkmate. While their organizational structure based on Chess (Black King / Queen, White King / Queen) still existed, the balance of power it was supposed to represent was all but gone. Max also took over Batman’s AI satellite, Brother Eye, and secured the OMAC technology under this agency’s banner.

To say Checkmate’s authority was at an all time high under Lord would be an understatement. When The Black Queen, White Queen and White King conspired to kill Lord, he used his powers to control the Black Queen’s Bishop, Jessica Midnight, and had her shoot all three of them on the spot. Max’s reign of terror as The Black King ended when he got on the wrong side of Wonder Woman, but that’s a whole other entry. During the “Brightest Day” event, it was revealed in “Justice League: Generation Lost” that he was secretly back in control of Checkmate.

HE DEFEATED BROTHER EYE

Max Lord had controlled Brother Eye in the DCnU, similar to how things had played out before “Flashpoint” changed everything. Although, in the New 52 relaunch of “O.M.A.C.” (2011), Brother Eye escaped and sent his O.M.A.C. (a powerful cyborg designed to fight and destroy metahumans) on the offensive against Project Cadmus and Checkmate to maintain their freedom.

In the DCnU, Lord is yet again in control of Checkmate, and Cadmus is under the Checkmate umbrella. So, in response to Brother Eye and O.M.A.C.’s actions, Lord sends in his Checkmate Elite, including Sarge Steel, Maribel and Little Knipper to take the One-Machine Attack Construct down. When they fail, Lord recruits the Cadmus scientist Mokkari to do the job with his Build-A-Friend creations. This attempt is also unsuccessful and finally Checkmate’s sister agency, S.H.A.D.E., is contacted and its top operative Frankenstein manages to stop O.M.A.C. in his tracks. However, it is only when Lord defeats Brother Eye, that he deems the O.M.A.C. as no longer a threat.

HE FOUGHT IN INVASION!

Keith Giffen’s epic crossover, “Invasion!” (1989), was about alien races teaming up to stop the threat from Earth; that is to say, humanity. Well, mostly metahumans, but humanity in general, too. The event featured a plethora of DC Comics’ most popular heroes alongside its cult-favorite second stringers. All of the publisher’s top government official characters and their organizations got involved, too, including Amanda Waller with the Suicide Squad, General Eiling with the military and Max Lord with Justice League International.

However, even after the Alien Alliance had taken over Australia, the US president didn’t want to take action. So, he tells Lord that the JLI are to stand down and to contact Waller directly to stop her from doing anything rash. Eventually it’s all hands on deck though. “Invasion!” is the storyline that was just recently adapted for a monumental crossover that included all four of The CW’s DC shows. However, as good as the four nights of television were, it seems like a missed opportunity that the Arrowverse’s Max Lord (played by Peter Facinelli in “Supergirl” Season 1) wasn’t involved.

HE GOT MENTAL POWERS FROM A GENE BOMB

The alien race The Dominators were the masterminds behind the attack on Earth in “Invasion!” and their ultimate weapon was the Gene Bomb. They had studied human evolution and the emergence of metahumans, and then engineered a device to neutralize metahuman abilities. At the end of the crossover, when the Alien Alliance had come apart and The Dominators had all but lost, they set it off. We see the explosion from many perspectives, as well as what happens to a number of superheroes. What is unexpected is the bomb’s effect on humans with latent metahuman genes.

For some, like Maxwell Lord, it gives them powers. Did the most manipulative man in the DC universe really need the power to control minds? Probably not, but it did make him exponentially more dangerous, and more exciting to see show up in your favorite titles. When Lord collapses shortly after the Gene Bomb is detonated, he is taken to hospital. Though they seem to be sworn enemies, Amanda Waller comes to visit. In a rare moment of emotion, she reveals that she respects Lord and thinks he is (and we quote) “the best” while he is unconscious.

HE BLEEDS POWER (LITERALLY)

Super powers are a lot more interesting when they have a drawback, or a “tell” even. In Max Lord’s case, he gets a nose bleed any time he utilizes his psionic abilities. It’s kind of an awesome plot device because he can’t lie about if he is using his powers or not. When he is trying to control a powerful being, more than one person or creating psionic hallucinations, he may also experience more substantial bleeding from his eyes, ears and mouth, which adds a creepy, even horrific visual layer to his abilities. He’s also usually pretty happy about “pushing” people’s minds, as he calls it, and is often grinning ear-to-ear while hemorrhaging blood from his various orifices.

Perhaps the most gratuitous version of this physical manifestation of his powers was seen in “Brightest Day,” when he manages to mind wipe the entire planet! Even though he takes all the necessary precautions (basically, just multiple blood transfusions), he almost dies from blood loss.

UNRELATED FUN FACT: Aquaman can also get nosebleeds if he pushes his powers to the extreme. It tends to happen when he tries to command gargantuan sea creatures or whole schools of sea life.

BLACKEST NIGHT WAS HIS BRIGHTEST DAY

If you are writing an A-list hero’s next arc or a company-wide crossover and need a conniver pulling the strings behind the scenes, Max is a go-to sociopath. So, when this puppet master showed up in “Blackest Night,” it wasn’t too surprising. Being dead at the time, he was back as a Black Lantern, and his only mission was too get revenge on the one who had taken his life. His death is one of the top entries on this list though, so as to not reveal his murderer, let’s just say he is successful in thoroughly tormenting her.

His manipulations and flat-out mind control of superheroes and politicians alike puts him on par with DC’s worst villains, and unlike contemporaries like Amanda Waller and General Eiling, he seems truly unhinged. So, when he came back yet again in “Brightest Day,” and wiped all of humanity’s memories of him away, it wasn’t looking good for metahumans. However, before he could play his endgame, he is granted a White Lantern ring and told by The Entity to “Stop the war before it starts.” This involves Magog, Captain Atom and a future timeline where Lord has won his war against metas — for many, the darkest timeline.

BOOSTER GOLD SAVED HIS ANCESTOR

In 2007, Booster Gold got a solo series that spun out of the ambitious “52” event. The ongoing title was written by Geoff Johns and followed Booster as he was recruited by Rip Hunter (who just happens to be his son), to be a “time cop” and stop chronal anomalies. During his first mission, he saves one of his and Rip’s ancestors, therefore avoiding them being wiped from history. He also gets to drop in on pivotal moments for various other major DC heroes and villains.

In an ironic turn of events, he is thrown into World War I Germany and ends up saving an American soldier by the name of Cyrus Lord… who turns out to be the grand-pappy of Max Lord, the man who killed is best friend, Ted Kord. Interestingly, this storyline is very similar to the synopsis for “Legends of Tomorrow” Season 2. Not surprisingly, many fans had guessed Patrick J. Adams was playing Booster when his casting was announced.

JUSTICE LEAGUE VS. SUICIDE SQUAD: PART 1

The recent “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad” mini series is not the first time these two teams have faced each other down in a crossover. In fact, it’s not even the second or third time. Back in 1988, there was a two-part “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad” story that started in “Justice League International” #13 and concluded in “Suicide Squad” #13″ The plot involved the Squad going on an unauthorized mission to rescue one of their own from a Russian prison. “Unauthorized” meant they didn’t get the okay from Amanda Waller, who has the president call in the JLI to stop the Squad and avoid an international incident.

The only problem was that Max Lord saw this as the prefect opportunity to expose the Suicide Squad to benefit his JLI, stating that “it would help our standing tremendously with the foreign governments that don’t yet fully trust us.” However, things don’t go according to either Waller or Lord’s plans and their stand-off ends in a stalemate. At this point, Max is still in the hospital recovering from being shot in the “Millennium” event.

HE MURDERED BLUE BEETLE

The most important facts about Maxwell Lord are which major Justice League member he murdered in cold blood, and which of DC’s Big 3 ended up compromising their morals by breaking his neck. But let’s start with Lord’s most famous murder, which broke the hearts of DC fans worldwide. When his former cohort Blue Beetle figures out his nefarious intention to eliminate metahumans in “The O.M.A.C. Project” (2005), he tries to explain himself.

Lord admits his fears about super-powered heroes and villains, and says he had wanted to bring Beetle in on the plan to neutralize this threat for years. In response, Ted clocks him square in the jaw and tries to escape. However, he doesn’t get far before getting jumped by Sasha Bordeaux, followed by a pummelling at the hands of an O.M.A.C. Lord makes him an offer to join Checkmate, but his curt answer of “Rot in hell” prompts Lord to shoot him in the head at point blank range, leaving one of the most lasting images ever in DC comics.

HE WAS MURDERED BY WONDER WOMAN

Max Lord is a master manipulator on the level of Lex Luthor and Amanda Waller, with the big difference between them being that he has powers. Because of his abilities and machinations, he was one of the main villains of the “Countdown To Infinite Crisis” and “Infinite Crisis” events. In “The O.M.A.C. Project” (2005), he utilized Brother I (aka Brother Eye) to catalogue the world’s metahuman population, with plans to eventually wipe them out with scores of O.M.A.C.s. Another aspect of this conspiracy involved him using his mind pushing abilities to control Superman to murder his JL colleagues.

While under Lord’s sway, the Man of Steel served Batman and Wonder Woman severe beat downs. However, Diana managed to get Lord in her Lasso of Truth and when asked how to free Superman from his command, Lord simply answered “Kill me.” She then proceeds to snap his neck in her bid to save the world. As the DC Comics Encyclopedia explains it, “Faced with the choice between saving millions of lives and keeping her oath to never kill, Wonder Woman killed Lord.”

What do you think are Max Lord’s most vile features or moments? Let us know in the comments!

The post Max Lord: 15 Truths About DC’s Biggest Liar appeared first on CBR.com.

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PETER CROUCH: I would love to see Gareth Bale back at Tottenham

Peter Crouch is a columnist for Sportsmail

It should be a formality, shouldn't it? Manchester City, with two trophies in the locker, could blitz Watford by three or four goals.

If they did, it would confirm City as the Premier League's greatest-ever team. They are on the verge of completing a domestic clean sweep – the first time that has been achieved – but, for some reason, it's not dominating conversations and I can't understand why.

I know plenty of diehard City supporters who are in raptures about the football they are seeing – most of my mum's family are Blues – but I get the feeling there are some who are becoming blasé about success.

You can be sure an element of their fans will arrive at Wembley thinking the job has already been done – but being the odds-on favorite in an FA Cup final is one of the most uncomfortable tags you can have in football and I remember my own experience in 2006.

I had waited all my life to play in an FA Cup final. I know the competition has changed over the past decade and it isn't what it used to be but when I got there with Liverpool, it meant the world to me. The FA Cup final was the game in my childhood so it was an honor to start in Cardiff.

Manchester City return to Wembley on Saturday for an FA Cup final against underdogs Watford

We had a great journey to get there. I'd scored three times on the run, including the one that knocked Manchester United out in the fifth round, and when we beat Chelsea in the semi-final at Old Trafford, it was generally assumed we would breeze fit West Ham.

Did that play on our minds? I couldn't say that. What I would say, though, I have never been nervous before or during a match as I was that day, so you can imagine how I felt when West Ham went two-up inside the first 30 minutes.

To make matters worse, I had a goal disallowed for offside.

Steven Gerrard, fortunately, did things that I had never seen before to save us and defied his physical limits to score two equalizers, one that I am sure you will see replayed on Saturday. That Cup final was named after him but it could easily have been West Ham's day. They were fearless.

We needed Steven's heroics plus a penalty shootout to get them after the match finished 3-3.

Watford, I am absolutely certain, will approach things the same way as West Ham. Javi Gracia's side have nothing to lose and they are more than capable of capitalizing if tension or the effects of a long season suddenly start to hinder City.

Steven Gerrard (left) was phenomenal for Liverpool during the 2006 FA Cup final in Cardiff

It really is a game like no other. Nobody gave Wigan a prayer or beating City in 2013, but they defied the odds to make themselves heroes and I'm sure Watford will feel there is some element of fate, given how they managed to come from behind to beat Wolves in the semi-

At the beginning of the season, I questioned where things were going for Watford as I couldn't understand how the constant chopping and changing of managers could bring progression but Gracia has worked wonders and I would love to see them win.

City give the impression that they will win trophies for ever, but this might be Watford's moment in time, the day they just have to grasp. For players such as Troy Deeney it could be the last chance and for Heurelho Gomes it is. That hunger and desire to win makes them extremely dangerous opponents.

Given the season we have, you would be unwise to make assumptions about how this final will go. City's players are creating history and could be immortal come 7pm, as English football's first domestic treble winners.

Expectation, however, brings tension. Watford will have watched Liverpool, Tottenham and Derby come back from seemingly impossible positions in recent weeks and fancy their chances of doing the same. Football never ceases to surprise.

Javi Gracia (left) will be in charge of Watford when they take on Pep Guardiola's City in London

I would love to see Bale back at Spurs

Gareth Bale's position at Real Madrid continues to confuse me and the misuse of such a talented player is ridiculous.

We share the same agent and, as far as I know, it is determined to stick it out in Spain. He is happy living there and wants to force his way back into the team, regardless of speculation that continues to follow him.

But if he is not going to be used regularly next season, I would love to see him return to Spurs. I saw reports earlier this week or him going back to the club on loan, with a £ 10million loan fee suggested. I know how Daniel Levy operates and that certainly wouldn't be the kind of deal he'd like to do!

It would make a lot of sense, however. Could you imagine his searing pace alongside Harry Kane?

He keeps being linked to Manchester United but I just don't see that club suiting him at the minute.

When Gareth is fit and healthy , he is one of the most exciting players in the world. I hate seeing him sitting on the bench, without being appreciated. I'd love to see him back here reminding everyone just how good he is.

Tottenham have been linked with a deal to re-sign Gareth Bale, who left London back in 2013

A few weeks ago, I made reference in my column to have done some filming for a very worthwhile cause and you will see the results on Sunday night.

A Royal Team Talk will be broadcast on BBC One (10.30pm) and it was a pleasure to sit down with Prince William, Gareth Southgate and a number of colleagues, including Danny Rose, to discuss our experiences for Mental Health Awareness Week. I do not suffer with depression, but I still have issues and worries like everyone else, during that discussion, I found it is very good and beneficial to talk about your concerns.

It is not something I have done with any regularity over the years.

It was in the early part of my career that I had my biggest difficulties and the abuse I used to receive from the terraces was unforgiving at times. Frankly, it can be ruthless and being subjected to it over a lengthy period or time can take its toll.

But, as I said, it was good to listen to other people's experiences.

I hope you find the program enjoyable but, more than anything, I hope it can help.

MY WEEK

NEXT UP FOR ME …

Who knows? At the minute, your guess is as good as mine.

WHO'S CAUGHT MY EYE … Mason Mount

I have been watching his progress at Derby County this season and he is a player going places. I thought he was excellent in the win over Leeds United on Wednesday.

WHAT I'M LISTENING TO …

My mate Serge Pizzorno from Kasabian has called a new project The S.L.P. and the first track he has released is called Favorites. I would recommend you give it a listen.

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO. ..

Winding down after the end of the season. I bumped into Gianluca Vialli, my childhood hero, in London earlier this week and had a good chat with him.

I had his Sampdoria shirt when I was a kid – what a legend he is.

I also made an appearance on The Graham Norton Show this week, which was a proper laugh!

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