#(also “the north” starts about halfway up england which is less than halfway up the uk so it's a bit confusing at times)

[nostalgia-tblr]

The Avengers (not those ones) have gone to Castle De'Ath, in Scotland, and this was made in 1965 and it's quite surreal that Scotland is portrayed as so 'exotic' when the UK has existed for literally centuries at this point. Similarly with Dr Who in the 1970s with the Zygons really. I kind of want to see how the north of England was being treated at this time, I suspect it'll be sold as similarly 'odd' to that audience who is always assumed to - like most of the people who make British telly - live in London or thereabouts.

It's weird! And there's a 2005 Dr Who story that goes "ooh, imagine going to WALES!!!" whereas the suggestion a few years later that the show was London-centric was met with utter bafflement (by a Welshman). Because of course we're always in London, why wouldn't we always be in London, that's where everything happens and where everyone lives and no it'd just be weird if the alien sounded Scottish, let's go with Estuary, that's how normal people (and almost all aliens) speak.

[freeuselandonorris]

15 questions 15 friends

i was tagged by i thinkkk @bright-and-burning and @481boxboxbaby absolutely ages ago, sorry it's taken me so long to get to this!

Are you named after anyone? no! my mum liked the name sophie because it means ‘wisdom’ in greek and she’d lived in greece for a while.

When was the last you cried? i had a little sob watching the ‘life and death of lily savage’ documentary on itv the other week because i am still so, so sad about paul o’grady dying, i adored him. as a kid, my favourite comedians (who i saw on tv) were julian clary and lily savage. half their jokes flew over my head but that dog was always in me!! anyway, as for real sobbing crying… i’m actually not sure? it was a while ago for sure. may it stay that way 🙏

Do you have kids? nope, and i won’t be having them. people used to tell me i’d change my mind once i got older and now i’m 35 and still have not experienced a single maternal twinge.

What sports do you play/have you played? i don’t play any kind of competitive sports and have avoided them for most of my life (i have extremely poor hand-eye coordination, hypermobile limbs and rubbish lungs. i’m not built for speed) but i do pole fitness and have done for about three years now, i’m not great at it (see above) but i loooove it and it’s gotten me way more hench than i was.

Do you use sarcasm? i used to use it constantly as a defence thing but less so these days. i do still use it though yeah.

What is the first thing you notice about people? sometimes i have this thing where the first second i meet someone i have this weird shine effect where i know they’re going to be a very important part of my life (good or bad). it’s only happened about three or four times but it’s always been right. on a more prosaic level: eyes, smile, body language.

What is your eye color? blue. it’s quite bright.

Scary movies or happy endings? scary movies!! love a good horror. i don’t like jumpscares or found footage/haunted doll whatever ones, but i love the nasty shit: video nasties, torture porn, french extreme, pinky horror, faux snuff, that kinda thing. i don’t want them so much these days but i was pretty obsessed for a while.

Any talents? i’m good at writing and drawing/painting, and i’m quite practical in the sense that i can fix things and build things, like i LOVE building flatpack furniture. i think my main ‘talent’ though is just that i can pick things up quickly. if i’m shown how to do something, generally i can do it pretty well quite quickly and i don’t need to be shown lots of times, and i’m good at being given a starting point and figuring things out from there. i think that’s the ‘talent’ i use most in life, certainly in work anyway.

Where were you born? north-west england.

What are your hobbies? writing! painting, drawing, reading, gaming, pole, strength training. i also have the classic ADHD thing of picking a new thing to be obsessed with for a month and spending a fortune on it three times a year.

Do you have any pets? no :( my mum has a lovely big useless fat cat called bandit though who i have shared custody of, she just can’t live at my flat.

How tall are you? 5’8’’ or 172cm

Favorite subject at school? art and english. i also quite liked what we called ‘tech’ which was like woodwork, metalwork, product design type stuff.

Dream job? i do not dream of labour. fr though i don’t really have one and never have, apart from maybe writer or artist but realistically i think i’d end up hating them if i had to rely on them to pay my bills. i thought about trying to get into motorsport jobs for a while but the hours look long, the pay is terrible, the atmosphere for femme people is…mixed, and i’d have to move halfway across the country. so yeah idk. universal basic income now!

not tagging anyone bc i'm so late to the party on this lol, but if you haven't been tagged and want to be, lmk and i'll tag you!

[joezworld]

Sentient vehicle headcanon - The Falklands war

Normally I try to tell these headcanons in a manner similar to Wikipedia - only keeping the relevant details. However, this one is so insane that even in my head, I feel it needs to be told differently. 

So, for the purposes of this headcanon, pretend that this is being told to you by your friend, who is desperately trying to appear normal while telling you about a Wikipedia article he just read. 

So, this entire story is fucking insane - there’s so much that goes on, lemme just start at the beginning. 

So, the UK owns these little islands off the coast of Argentina in the middle of goddamn nowhere. The Argentinians really don’t like this because the islands are much closer to them and they say that they own it - but it’s like that one Eddie Izzard bit - do you have a flag?  - And the brits did and the Argentinians didn’t, so everybody said that england had the islands.

Naturally this made Argentina very mad, but they didn’t do anything about it because they had shit goin’ on. Because like, all of South America had really bad shit happening to it between the 30′s and the 90′s - so nothing happened. 

Until in the 80′s, when Argentina had a military dictatorship called a Junta - which led through the very nice and normal way of ‘taking anyone they didn’t like and throwing them out of helicopters’ - the government had basically spun up their propaganda mill to the point where they actually believed that they could take the Falklands and the British wouldn’t do anything!

And they did this in 1982, which is like the exact wrong time to piss off the UK, because they used to be the biggest empire the world has ever seen, and then in like the last 20 years they lost India and Pakistan, had to give Canada their constitution back, and they were about to do the same to Australia and New Zealand, and they had basically signed Hong Kong back over to the Chinese. 

-And you know *spoiler alert* they didn’t give Hong Kong back, but at the time they thought they were gonna! - 

And so this means that the UK is feeling really bad about itself going into this whole thing, and then this punk-ass little country with like two ships in its navy tries to start shit because they think that The Queen won’t do anything. 

Except, they aren’t dealing with the Queen, they’re dealing with Margaret Thatcher - who will kill you, your dog, your family, and anybody who ever sold you a cannoli if she thinks it’ll make England strong.

So - even from this point, the Argentinians are gonna die, but what happens next is so out-of-left-field that it’s astounding. 

-

So, let’s roll back the clock a few weeks and The USS Montana is about to get involved. 

So, Montana is this pugnacious old man of a heavy cruiser who’s been with the navy since before World War 1. He has this amazing history going through every war the US has been in - and he’s amazing: when they tried to retire him after the first world war, he told them no, and said he’d raise a pirate flag and follow the sixth fleet around if they didn’t let him stay. So they did, and he served in every war and conflict the US was in until the 80′s. 

And this is kinda important, because when he was built, it was before the wars - everything was a bit slower, a bit more laid back, and he actually got a lot of family bonding with the other ships in the Navy and in his class, and it meant that he wasn’t like, sad and miserable and scared when the war happened. 

Flash forward to 1946, and the US has just built like hundreds of ships to kill the Axis with, and they did it so quickly that most of these guys went from the drydock to the battlefield with no real training or anything - so they were really fucked up when they came back. 

So, when Montana sees this, he decides that he’s basically going to be the father figure that everyone didn’t have - and basically makes most of the navy his kids - like straight up his sons and daughters, no questions asked. And he did this for almost every ship the Navy built between 1950 and the 80′s.

Which means that basically the entire US Navy loves him unconditionally. 

Like, I can’t stress this enough - he was their dad - he taught Iowa class battleships how to go fishing, he gave the birds and the bees talk to submarines, like, everything he did was for his kids or for his country. 

And so, one day in 1982, he gets a call from one of his kids who’s moved down to Argentina - which I need to point out that a lot of US ships went down to South America in the 40s and 50s, but a lot of them did that because they were fucked up from WW2, and most of them didn’t get to know Montana very well - so they weren’t ‘his kids’. 

But one of them was, and he calls up his dad and says “Hey dad, uhh, my bosses have really started to believe their own BS and they think that they can take on the UK - and I think that I’m gonna die, because I work with these people and we are not gonna be able to win this. Please help me.” 

And so Montana tells him to calm down, and he’s gonna get him out of this. And then he goes to his bosses at the navy, says he’s using some leave time to go rescue his kid, and the Navy realizes that they’re never gonna be able to talk him out of this, so they call up the chain to Washington and cut him some orders that say that he’s a ‘neutral observer’ so that nobody shoots at him. 

And this seems like its all going to go just fine, except that several ships in the Argentinian Navy were made by the West Germans, and have NO IDEA who this guy is - because even the American ships who aren’t his kids still know him, because how can you not.

And so he makes it almost all the way to Argentina when one of the Argentinian submarines - who was German - sees him, has no idea who he is, doesn’t know about the neutral observer thing because the Argentine Navy is a clusterfuck, and sinks him! And he dies!

And I can- I- This is so bad!

Because now, the US NAVY is involved. 

And They. Are. Pissed. 

Because Their DAD JUST GOT MURDERED!!!!!!

And the Argentinians have no idea what’s happening - they have no idea that this guy is important or that he even got sunk! Because the submarine just assumed he was English and called in that he’d sunk a British advance party or something, and it takes like a week for the Americans to put two and two together, so for a while, nobody knows what’s happened - it’s like they’ve stepped on a land mine and it hasn’t gone off yet. 

-

But because no one knows the enormity of the shitstorm the Argentinians are gonna be facing yet, the British are still mobilizing - they didn’t do what the Americans did and set up a network of navy and air bases all over the world in case they need to kick someone’s ass in the future - and all the countries around the south Atlantic either hate them, or are former colonies who really hate the English. So they have to schlep everything they need to fight a war alllll the way down from England to Argentina - which is like the furthest distance you can go without running into the British Empire it’s so far why. 

And so the Royal Navy has to call in the civilian reserve fleet, which is a bunch of ocean liners and container ships who really would rather be flagged under any other nation right now, but they’re not!, so they have to go basically become war-adjacent for a while - just hanging out in the frigid North Atlantic until the Royal Navy finishes kicking ass and taking names and then they can go home. 

Except. 

Except. 

EXCEPT THAT 

The Argentine Navy is a bunch of suicidal morons!

Because they saw that the British didn’t have enough logistics vessels and was requisitioning ferry boats and ocean liners and had a brainwave: 

¡ Hey !  ¡ If we shoot at these unarmed ferry boats and container ships, not only will the Brits not have any logistical support, but they might get scared and go home!

Which sounds like a good plan, until you realize that the Royal Navy is not pleased that they have to bring civilian ships into battle - like the aircraft carriers and the destroyers see this as ‘a stain on their character’ for having to ‘endanger civilians unduly’ because they’re posh and they’re English but also they’re right - this is not a place for civvies - Exocet missiles are gonna be flying around, it’s not safe. 

Also, the Royal Navy had a very dim view of this whole conflict, because they thought it was pointless to sail halfway across the ocean just to fight over a tiny island with 3 people on it - if they wanted to expand the empire just invade Ireland or something. 

- Now, that sounds bad, but this was the 80′s - The Troubles were ongoing, and in the Royal Navy at least, they liked the Irish a lot less than the Argentinians! -

Also, Ireland was closer. 

But anyways, the RN ships at least had a rather dim view of the whole conflict, right up until the SS Atlantic Conveyor took an Exocet to the fuckin’ face.

And he dies. 

And this is almost as bad as sinking Montana, because Atlantic Conveyor had this really unique ability to make friends with anyone, and had spent most of the voyage down basically being the flotilla’s morale officer. 

So when he dies, this stops being a token effort to restore British Sovereignty, and starts being The Royal Navy Wants You Dead. 

Which, on its own, would have meant that Argentinian Navy would have been wiped from the face of the earth - because the Royal Navy wasn’t leaving until everyone was dead. It didn’t matter if it was a tugboat with a handgun - there would be no more Argentinian Navy when they were done. 

-

Now. 

Now.

Meanwhile in America, while the Royal Navy is still steaming down to the Islands, words starts to get around that someone killed Dad.

And this went over exactly as well as you think it would. 

The ships of the US Navy reacted calmly and coolly, and didn’t cry or scream or plot revenge. 

They totally didn’t. 

Except that they totally did, and spent a few days gathering every bullet, shell, round, and torpedo they could find, before leaving with the intent of finding and killing everyone in the Argentinian military. 

Now, that might sound like a generalization, but it wasn’t. 

There were somewhere around 370 ships in the US Navy at that time, and about 280 of them were capable of reaching Argentina without leaving the US vulnerable to an attack  - plus about another 200 or so that had retired from the navy or transferred to other nations but still kept in touch. 

So that’s about 500 battleships, destroyers, submarines, amphibious assault ships, support vessels, aircraft carriers, tankers, oilers, troop transports, guided missile cruisers and the Presidential Yacht. 

All of them went to Argentina. Every last one of them.

And no-one believed it!

The British thought it was a joke, and the Argentinians thought it was counter-intelligence!

The ENTIRE US NAVY just up and left to kick someone’s ass! That doesn’t happen! That didn’t happen in WW2! This has never happened before or since in US history! Even when the US Navy was a bunch of sailboats in Philadelphia nobody did that!

-

And So, that’s how it was - the US Navy was steaming down en mass to fuck up the Argentinians, the Royal Navy was hopping mad, and the Argentinians didn’t even know anything was going to happen!

Also, before I forget, also on top of all this - Atlantic Conveyor was friends with a bunch of ocean liners, and because they’re all fucking insane - Normandie spent WW2 fucking up U-Boats in the Caribbean, and the United States sailed into a Cat 5 hurricane, and Olympic is one of the reasons that Singapore got kicked out of Malaysia - so, they all decided that their friend dying was worth fighting for, and they got together and steamed down to the South Atlantic at the same time the Americans were, and set like 9 speed records in the process because of course they did. 

-

So, now that there’s essentially three giant navies coming down to kick their asses, the Argentinians finally  begin to clue in on something being wrong - like, there were a couple of Soviet Trawlers that were parked offshore, and they claimed to be fishing but in reality they were spying - and they had these giant radio masts that they’d put up whenever orders came down from Moscow. 

And one day, the Argentinians watched from their spy planes as the masts went up slowly, then got taken down very quickly, and then they watched as the two spy trawlers went racing off towards Africa. 

And they wondered why they were going towards Africa, because the soviet union is the other way - you need to steam around the edge of South America, until they called down to Ushuaia - in Tierra Del Fuego, and heard that what looked like half the US Navy was coming round the tip of South America. 

And it looked like that because it was! Because half of the US Navy had sailed down from the pacific to cut off any way of escape! 

It was only now, at this incredibly late time, that the Argentinians realized exactly how Fucked  they were. 

-

Now, at this point, a smart man would have given up - but Galtierei was not. 

So naturally the Argentinians kept fighting for a whole week before they all just died. 

And it wasn’t in normal “get shot with a missile and sink” ways either - like, one of their cruisers fired on a ship, and it turned out to be the USS Missouri, who was right next to the other three Iowa Class battleships, and they all targeted this ship, and made him disappear because that’s what happens when the four biggest battleships on earth shoot at you at once. 

Or, the Submarines - the one that sank Montana got chased by 4 Los Angeles class attack subs and ended up getting pushed beneath his crush depth - not hit with a torpedo, PUSHED. The other one, meanwhile, tried to shoot at one of the Ocean Liners, and ended up getting sunk by them! Which is incredible, because Nobody expected that to happen, least of all the Liners, and yet they just totally went in and contributed - which actually means that there’s a third “belligerents” column for the Wikipedia page for this, and it’s just them. 

So the war actually ended on kind of an anti-climax, because after the US just steamrolled the Argentinians, there wasn’t anything left to do. The Brits landed more troops at Port Stanley, and then they just sort of went home. 

Most of the Americans did too, but they also went and installed a new government in Argentina! 

Which, as the rumor goes, the Navy did that without asking anyone, and BOY O BOY was the State Department Upset - I think a lot of people got fired or demoted for that. 

But it did turn out well in the end, because unlike every other time the US tried to install a leader, it actually went rather well, and the guy they put in charge left when he lost his re-election, and now Argentina is a democratic ally and a partner in Peace! 

Who still claim that they own the Falklands

[stularsen]

I feel like it's the right time to share PART TWO of the craziness that happened back in March 2020 as I am currently attempting the exact same journey in December from England to France and am being met with similarly impossible hurdles again... THE HURRICANE vs THE CORONAVIRUS (part two) Escaping from England to France, the long way round..

MARCH 2020 After the absolute rollercoaster of attempting to play eleven shows in eleven countries all around the world in the same month that a global pandemic arrived, these next days would be smooth and I would quickly and easily make it into France to stay with my girlfriend and her family. This is what I hoped for. So, I booked a flight from London Gatwick to Lyon and headed to the airport with my passport, a letter and accompanying document to allow me to enter France. The check-in process was straight forward, my suitcase disappeared and I headed to wait at the appropriate gate, first in line. I was already feeling somewhat at peace with the cancelled tour and my focus shifted to visiting Mathéa and her family. Boarding commenced and I handed over my passport and boarding pass which is where things started to get a little interesting.. The lady behind the desk looked at my passport and turned to her colleague to ask a question before letting me know that I would not be able to board the flight. I didn’t believe it. I showed the the letter and the document but they said it meant absolutely nothing to them. I pleaded, but there was nothing they could do. I pleaded some more and Mathéa pleaded with them over the phone. We knew there was no chance they would be able to do anything, but I just couldn’t walk away. After all the things that stood in the way in the previous weeks which we had overcome, this was now the last piece of the puzzle, refusing to fall into place. I eventually and reluctantly took my passport, boarding pass, letter and document with me and went to join a group of people waiting to collect their luggage after also being kicked off flights. It was chaos. So many people stranded and in far worse situations than mine. Some crying, some shouting at staff. I stood quietly but impatiently waiting for my name to be called, to then be led with about ten others back through the airport to another waiting area where our luggage would soon arrive. It didn’t. Well not mine at least. Everyone else disappeared within a few minutes but I was left waiting on my own for almost an hour. During this time, I was wondering what the next plan should be. I knew there would be a ferry leaving from Newhaven for France later that night, so I quickly booked a ticket. Maybe I would be faced with the same problem again, or maybe going by ferry would be less strictly controlled? I really didn’t know what might happen but I felt like I had to take a chance and see if I could at least make it into the north of France and then somehow find my way across the country to Mathéa’s family home in the east, near to the border with Switzerland. With my suitcase rolling along beside me, a heavy pack on my back and a train ticket for the south, I approached the ticket gates to enter the station. I soon realised they were not letting anyone through so I squeezed to the front to see if I could hear any explanations for the closure or if they knew how long the delay might be. It was chaos again with more impatient people struggling to hide their frustration. I had plenty of time before the ferry departure so I wasn’t particularly worried at this point in time. While I waited, I was answering messages on my phone and replied to one from Guido, a very kind fan from Germany. I told him about my situation and he then suggested that I take the next available flight to an airport within a few hours from his house in Rheinbach and he would pick me up from there and take me by car back to his home. It was perhaps my best chance to get to mainland Europe and then I would be only one land border away from France and not separated by the English Channel. I was suddenly thankful for the disruption with the trains at the airport. I rushed back from the train station to the first airline ticket counter I could find and waited in line, surrounded by more frustrated people arguing with staff. The mood was not pleasant. People seemed scared and angry and I remember thinking that if I had a home that I was being stopped from going back to, I might be quite angry and frustrated too. But for me, if I really couldn’t get into France, then I would find somewhere to stay for the coming weeks and it would be okay. Amsterdam was my next and best option and Guido agreed to meet me there, around three hours driving from his house. Just before I paid for the flight, I was told that I might have the same problem again and not be allowed on the flight and into The Netherlands, but I was willing to risk it for now. Ticket in hand I rushed over to the check-in counter to drop off my suitcase. They scanned my passport, it beeped in a non-positive way, I froze, waiting to see what would happen next. She said there was a problem. Of course there was a problem, there is always a problem.. unless there’s not? It could have been a mistake, maybe? With some confidence, I simply asked her to try again on the unlikely chance that it was just a computer error.. She scanned my passport again and I heard the other, more positive sounding beep. We both laughed. Somehow, it’s fine. She asked me to hurry to the gate because the flight would be boarding very soon. This time, they let me enter the plane. Boarding was smooth and even though I was now sitting on the tarmac ready to fly, I was still half expecting my name to be called over the speaker and be asked to disembark. Thankfully, that did not happen and shortly after take-off we began our descent into Amsterdam. The mood is strange. I’m in the ‘other passports’ line with my Australian passport and there are eight or nine people in front of me. One by one, every single person in front of me is turned away and asked to wait in a little side section. Surely I will suffer the same fate? When I got to the counter, I was asked if I knew about the current situation. I assumed he meant the situation with the virus and the impending shutdown of the entire world. He did. I said I was being picked up by a friend and driven to Germany and he told me that if I was not across the border and out of The Netherlands by 6pm I would be stranded and this is something he would not allow. He didn’t want to let me in, I could feel it. He wanted to send me to wait with the other group but instead he made me guarantee that I would be in Germany before 6pm. I promised. Besides, it wouldn’t be a problem, Guido would be there to pick me up and drive me back to his home. With my passport stamped and feeling such relief, I happily move through to find my suitcase and walk to the airport hotel where Guido and I agreed to meet. As I sit down and finally relax a little, I receive a message from Guido saying he is still two hours away. It is almost 3pm. This means we will not have enough time to make it back into Germany and we will both be stuck in The Netherlands when the border closes at 6pm. Do I tell him to turn around to go home and I find the next solution on my own? I was starting to worry a little and I wondered what I should do as I hurried back to the airport. As I arrived, I looked at the train timetable and spontaneously bought a train ticket to Nijmegen and Guido agreed to meet me there as it’s close to the border with Germany. Perfect, I think this will give us enough time. I’m feeling okay again, waiting on the platform for the train to arrive. But a few minutes later, I look back up to the screen and read ‘CANCELLED’. Of course it’s cancelled. Why wouldn’t it be? This was one of those moments when I really wasn’t sure what to do. It had already been quite a tense time and I was wondering if I should keep trying to get to France or if I just call it a day and stop. I tried to call Mathéa to get her to help find some options, but she was off doing yoga. I then asked a friend in Amsterdam if she would let me stay if I really got stranded. She said yes, so at least I had this as a backup. In the meantime I booked an uber from the airport to a point on the map somewhere in the east but the wait time just kept saying fifteen minutes so I cancelled and jumped in a taxi. He asked ‘Where to?’ I don’t know, just drive. Drive east towards Germany. ‘But where are you trying to go?’ I told him I was eventually trying to get into France. He said he would take me there for a good price. I declined and found an address halfway between Guido and I, on the edge of Utrecht at a restaurant conveniently named ‘Down Under’. After an eternity of watching the price increase on the little screen in the front, the driver drops me off, I pay him a lot of money and he says he can still take me to France if I want. I thank him and say goodbye. Guido is still not there. ‘Down Under’ is closed. I’m hungry and need to use the bathroom. I walk to another place nearby, but it’s also closed. I see a McDonalds down the road and walk there, but only the drive-thru is open and they won’t allow me to buy food or enter to use the bathroom. Things are getting serious. Guido turns up after another twenty minutes and I am so relieved to be out of the cold and with Guido who will take me to safety in Germany. We crossed the border at 5:45pm. They seemed to be setting up light towers as we glided out of 120km/h zoned Dutch roads and onto Germany’s autobahn. This felt like a big achievement. I felt safe now. Only one border separated me from Mathéa and I could stay in Germany if I really couldn’t make it into France. I slept very well this night. The following morning, we were wondering if I would be able to enter the north of France and have Mathéa come and pick me up at the border, but movement was already heavily restricted in France so this was not an option. People were also saying that both the French and Swiss borders with Germany were completely closed to anyone without a valid reason and valid documentation. It was beginning to look like I would be living with Guido and Yvonne and their boys for the days and weeks ahead. There just didn’t seem to be any possible or legal way to cross into France or even into Switzerland which would be helpful too. I think I was almost ready to give up when Thomas (amazing human and tour manager from the Hurricane Tour) sent a message asking what was happening. Thomas is one of those people who has taught me to never give up, that there is always a way, even when it seems impossible. He had booked the cheapest flight back to Germany (he is also very frugal) which happened to be into Cologne/Bonn which was not too far from where I was staying with Guido and Yvonne. He said together we would find the way for me to get into Switzerland and then I could get into France from there. Okay Thomas, let’s do this! Thomas landed and rented a car at the airport then came to pick me up. I waved goodbye to my German saviours who seemed very adamant, and rightfully so, that we would be seeing each other again later that day after my failed attempt to cross into Switzerland. There was still no plan for when we would arrive at the border but we were coming up with all sorts of ideas as we drove the five hours south towards Basel. Do I just try to walk across a field? Or go through a mountain path? Or in a boat down the river? Or in the back of a truck or a van? Or is there still a legal way to enter Switzerland somehow? I asked my good friend Pascal if he might have any genius ideas as he lives in Switzerland near the border, just outside Basel. He also makes amazing guitars (La Réselle Guitars) and had finished building a guitar that I was to buy from him. Pascal and his girlfriend Melina had a genius idea and within the hour he had emailed me a letter stating that I was entering Switzerland to pick up the guitar and as it was a business reason, it was allowed under the current rules from the government website as long as I would not be staying in Switzerland. I was nervous to try just with the letter, so I booked a flight out of Switzerland for the next day and as Thomas is the most amazing tour manager ever, of course he still had his printer with him in his backpack. We printed Pascal’s letter in German and in English and a copy of the boarding pass for the flight and headed to Freiburg to catch a train into Switzerland. I had asked Mathéa if she could cancel any yoga plans for the day and be available to search things and check information for us. She found out that all trains crossing the border were now cancelled out of Freiburg but that there should still be a tram running and maybe I could get on the tram and cross into Switzerland that way? Thomas dropped me at the tram stop. We said goodbye and I jumped on the next tram and attempted to cross the border. I followed the map on my phone. The tram was half full. I was nervous and I’m sure people could see it. The tram made a few brief stops and then we arrived at the border. Two police entered the tram saying something in German. One came to me and I handed him my ticket. He insisted I show him my passport. He didn’t even open it, he just saw ‘Australia’ on the front and said ‘Get Out’. I tried to explain. ‘GET OUT!’ I tried to stay calm and composed and explain again as I reached into my bag for Pascal’s letter and the boarding pass to hand over to him. He unfolded the letter to look at it. In my mind, one hour passed. In reality, it was probably closer to one very long minute. He didn’t say a word, he just kept staring at the letter. He eventually folded it back up, handed it to me with my passport and walked over to his colleague. I waited for him to ask me to go with them. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, they both step out, the doors close and the tram continues to move. I’m in Switzerland!! I try not to show too much emotion, everyone is still staring at me after this little incident. The tram arrives at the station in Basel. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder, I still can’t relax. I wait for Pascal, he’s on his way to pick me up. I’m waiting on the wrong side of the station, I have to walk back through again. I’m so nervous that the police or someone will stop me and ask me what I am doing. I see Pascal walking towards me from the other side of the station. It’s slow motion, just like the movies. I’m so relieved to see him, to be in Switzerland, to be safe for another night. We want to hug each other but we keep our distance and try to avoid any chance of potentially sharing the virus. I stay the night with Pascal and Melina and know that I’m so close to being with Mathéa now. Pascal drops me and the new guitar at the train station the next morning and I make my way south to Geneva which is then only thirty minutes and one closed border away from Mathéa. The plan was for her to try to enter Switzerland to pick me up and take me back into France but the police at the Swiss border would not let her enter. By now I have learned that there is always a Plan B, so at this point I wasn’t feeling too much stress. I had been told so many times in the previous weeks that something was impossible, and each time, simply by moving forward, a solution to each problem appeared. I had no doubt something positive would happen and I would be in Mathéa’s arms again. And then it happened. Mathéa phoned me and said the Swiss border police suggested I get a taxi or a bus from the station and I could cross into France as the French police were not actually there at that moment. People were being stopped from entering Switzerland but nobody was being stopped leaving Switzerland and entering France. But how long would the French police be away from their post? I jumped in a bus that was headed for Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, the first French town across the border. It would take twenty excruciating minutes for this bus to reach the border. I was the only passenger on board. I tried to act calm and relaxed but I have to assume that the driver noticed how nervous I was. Mathéa was also nervous. She waited in the carpark just over the border and could still see vehicles crossing into France without being stopped. Would it be the same for the bus I was on? These final moments seemed to last longer than the actual time that had passed since being kicked off the initial flight from London to Lyon. Then, all of a sudden, I could see the border and Mathéa could see the bus. We were so close now. On the final approach the bus driver started to slow down and in that moment I felt like everything was about to come to a final heartbreaking halt and I would be stopped just metres away from France and the girl that I love. My heart almost burst out of my chest as I realised the bus wasn’t stopping at the border, we were driving through to France, I had made it!! I frantically hit the ‘next stop’ button then clambered off with my backpack, suitcase and new guitar and ran over to the carpark into the waiting arms of Mathéa. (I wish that is how this last bit actually happened, but she was too scared to get out of her car so I first had to put my luggage in the back and then get into the front and have a slightly awkward but still very enjoyable side-by-side hug). It felt incredible to now be in each other’s arms after being told time and time again that it was just not possible. It was a miracle to be here and I knew it. After a short twenty minute drive we arrived at her family home in the countryside where I would spend the next months and could properly relax after days and weeks of such uncertainty and constant adrenalin. The hurricane was finally over. (or was it....) 


[bangkokjacknews]

Sunday Mysteries: The Bermuda Triangle

Try to See It from My Angle: The Bermuda Triangle - What is it about this infamous stretch of ocean (and sky) that causes ships and planes to vanish without a trace? At ten past two in the afternoon of 5 December 1945, five US Navy Avenger torpedo bombers took off from the naval air station at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The commander of Flight 19, Lieutenant Charles Taylor, had been assigned a routine two-hour training flight of fifteen men on a course that would take them out to sea sixty-six miles due east of the airbase, to the Hen and Chicken Shoals. There the squadron would carry out practice bombing runs, then fly due north for seventy miles before turning for a second time and heading back to base, 120 miles away. Their plotted flight plan formed a simple triangle, straightforward to execute, and Lieutenant Taylor and his four trainee pilots headed out into the clear blue sky over a calm Sargasso Sea. Even though everything seemed set fair, some of the crew were showing signs of anxiety. This was not unusual during a training flight over open water. Less usual was the fact that one of the fifteen crewmen had failed to show up for duty, claiming he had had a premonition that something strange would happen on that day and that he was too scared to fly. And, within a few minutes after take-off, something strange did happen. First, Lieutenant Taylor reported how the sea appeared white and ‘not looking as it should’. Then, shortly afterwards, his compasses began spinning out of control, as did those of the other four pilots, and at 3.45 p.m., about ninety minutes after take-off, the normally cool and collected Taylor contacted Lieutenant Robert Cox at Flight Control with the worried message: ‘Flight Control, this is an emergency. We seem to be off course. We can’t make out where we are.’ Cox instructed the pilot to head due west, but Taylor reported that none of the crew knew which way west actually was. And that too was highly unusual as, even without compasses and other navigational equipment, at that time of day and with the sun only a few hours from setting, any one of them could have used the tried and tested method of looking out of the window and following the setting sun, which will always lie to the west of wherever you find yourself. Just over half an hour later, Taylor radioed Flight Control again, this time informing them he thought they were 225 miles north-east of base. His agitated radio message ended with him saying, ‘It looks like we are …’ and then the radio cut out. By then they would have been desperately low on fuel, but the five Avengers had been designed to make emergency sea landings and remain afloat for long enough to give the crew the chance to evacuate into life rafts and await rescue. A Martin Mariner boat plane was immediately sent out to assist Flight 19 and bring the men back; but as it approached the area in which the stricken crew were thought to have been lost, it too broke contact with Flight Control. None of the aircraft and none of the crew were ever found and the official navy report apparently concluded that the men had simply vanished, ‘as if they had flown off to planet Mars’. To this day, the American military has a standing order to keep a watch for Flight 19, as if they believed it had been caught up in some bizarre time warp and might return at any time. At least, that is how the story goes. And it would have had a familiar ring for some, as it wasn’t the first time a mysterious disappearance had been reported in the area. On 9 March 1918, the USS Cyclops left Barbados with a cargo of 10,800 tons of manganese (a hard metal essential for iron and steel production) bound for Baltimore on the east coast of America. The following day, Lieutenant Commander G. W. Worley, a man with a habit of walking around the quarterdeck clad in nothing but his underwear and a hat and carrying a cane, reported how an attempted mutiny by a small number of the 306-man crew had been suppressed and that the offenders were below decks in irons. And that was the last anybody ever heard from Captain Worley or any of his crew. The 20,000-ton Cyclops simply vanished from the surface of the sea, into thin air. The conclusion at the time was the ship had been a victim of German U-boat activity, but when investigations in Germany after the end of the First World War revealed that no U-boats had been located in the area, that theory was ruled out. Instead, speculation ranged from the suggestion – proffered quite seriously – by a popular magazine that a giant sea monster had surfaced, wrapped its tentacles around the entire ship, dragged it to the ocean bed and eaten it, to the rumour, UFO hysteria in full swing (see ‘The Famous Aurora Spaceship Mystery’), that the vessel had been lifted, via giant intergalactic magnets, into outer space. And then, in 1963, eighteen years after the disappearance of Flight 19, it happened again. The SS Marine Sulphur Queen was on a voyage from Norfolk, Virginia, to Belmont in Texas. On 3 February, the ship radioed a routine report to the local coastguard to give her position: she was, at the time, sailing close to Key West in the Straits of Florida. Shortly afterwards she vanished. Three days later the coastguard, searching for any sign of the missing vessel, found a single life jacket floating in the sea. Since then, no other evidence of the Marine Sulphur Queen, its cargo or the 39-man crew has ever been found. Back in 1950, connections had already been made between the disappearance of Flight 19 and of the USS Cyclops: reporter E. V. W. Jones was the first to suggest mysterious happenings in the sea between the Florida coast and Bermuda. Two years later, Fate Magazine published an article by George X. Sand in which he suggested that the mysterious events – thousands of them, by his calculation – had taken place within an area that extended down the coast from Florida to Puerto Rico and in a line from each of these to Bermuda, creating what he called a ‘watery triangle’. His views were shared by one Frank Edwards, who published a book in 1955 called The Flying Saucer Conspiracy in which he claimed that aliens from outer space were also operating in the same area; hence the sky was incorporated into the ‘watery triangle’, which became known as the ‘Devil’s Triangle’. In 1963, following the disappearance of the Marine Sulphur Queen, journalist Vincent Gaddis wrote an article for Argosy magazine in which he drew together the many mysterious events that had taken place within the triangular area of sea and sky. This proved so popular that he expanded the article into a book, which he called The Deadly Bermuda Triangle, thereby coining the famous expression that was to become synonymous with unexplained disappearances the world over. Eleven years later, a book by former army intelligence officer Charles Berlitz, simply entitled The Bermuda Triangle, sold over 20 million copies and was translated into thirty different languages. In 1976 the book won the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize for non-fiction and the world became gripped by Bermuda Triangle fever – and has been ever since. But it is worth noting that even as recently as 1964 the Bermuda Triangle, as we now know it, simply did not exist. Geographically, the Bermuda Triangle covers an area in the western Atlantic marked by, at its three points, Bermuda, San Juan in Puerto Rico and Miami in Florida – although, on closer study of the locations of some ocean disasters attributed to the myth, it would be easy to extend that area halfway round the world. The Mary Celeste, for example, has even been connected to the Bermuda Triangle, which would extend its boundaries closer to Portugal! But could there be any truth in the myth – some more prosaic explanation to account for the seemingly paranormal events? Is there anything about the actual geography of the area that might cause so many ships and aircraft to vanish apparently without a trace? To start with, the sea currents in the area are heavily affected by the warm Gulf Stream that flows in a north-easterly direction from the tip of Florida to Great Britain and northern Europe. The warm current divides the balmy water of the Sargasso Sea and the colder north Atlantic and is why the climate in northern Europe is much more moderate than might be expected, considering that Canada and Moscow are as far north as England. Once leaving the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf Stream current reaches five or six knots in speed and this affects the heavy shipping in the area in many ways, including navigation. Inexperienced sailors, especially in the days before radar and satellite navigation, could very easily find themselves many miles off course after failing to measure the ship’s speed with sufficient accuracy, especially in the days when this was calculated by throwing from the bow of the ship a log attached to a rope and timing the appearance of each of a series of knots in the rope as it passed the stern. Failing to do this often enough while sailing in the fast-moving Gulf Stream could quite speedily lead to the crew of a ship becoming hopelessly lost in the vast Atlantic Ocean. Another effect of the fast-moving current would be to scatter the wreckage of lost ships and aircraft over a vast area, many miles from the site of an accident, making it well nigh impossible for rescue teams to locate survivors. Then there is the North American continental shelf which is responsible for the clear blue water of the Caribbean Islands. After only a few miles, the shelf gives way to the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, an area known as the Puerto Rico Trench. And at over 30,000 feet deep, nobody has ever been down there to clear up any mysterious disappearances. And furthermore, the continental shelf is home to large areas of methane hydrates (methane gases that bubble up through the water after being emitted from the seabed). Eruptions from any of these in the relatively shallow waters cause the sea to bubble and froth, affecting the density of the water and hence the buoyancy of vessels travelling on its surface. Scientific tests have shown that scale models of ships will sink when the density of the water is sufficiently reduced, which could account for the sudden disappearance of various craft within the area. Added to which, any wreckage might be carried away by the Gulf Stream and scattered across the Atlantic in no time at all. The Bermuda Triangle is also known to be an area of magnetic anomalies, or unusual variations in the earth’s magnetic field. Indeed this area of ocean is one of the two places on earth where a magnetic compass points to true north (determined by the North Star) rather than magnetic north (located near Prince of Wales Island in Canada). The only other place where true north lines up with magnetic north is directly on the other side of the planet, just off the east coast of Japan, an area known by Japanese and Filipino seamen as the ‘Devil’s Sea’. In both these areas, navigators not allowing for the usual compass variation between true and magnetic north will become hopelessly lost, and mysterious disappearances are equally common in the Devil’s Sea. But locals there do not blame UFOs or sea monsters; they blame human error. Christopher Columbus, the famous fifteenth-century navigator credited with ‘discovering’ the Americas, was one of the first people to recognize the difference between true and magnetic north; and he wasn’t at all fazed by the odd compass readings he seemed to be getting as he sailed between Bermuda and Florida over five hundred years ago. Magnetic anomalies are also thought to be responsible for the fog that appears to cling to aircraft and boats in the Bermuda Triangle and Devil’s Sea. In such cases, the fog gives the strange illusion that it is travelling along with the craft rather than that the vessel is travelling through it, creating a ‘tunnelling’ effect for the passengers on board. Many reports have been made of the disorientating effect of this curious fog. In one of the most celebrated instances, the captain of a tug towing a large barge reported that the sea was ‘coming in from all directions’ (due to methane hydrates, no doubt) and that the rope attached to the barge plus the barge itself, only a few yards behind the tug, appeared to have completely vanished, presumably shrouded in magnetic fog. Another natural phenomenon that might be held responsible for the strange disappearances in the region are hurricanes, notorious in the area of ocean between Bermuda and the Gulf of Mexico, in the middle of which lies the Bermuda Triangle. These must take their fair share of the blame in bringing down small aircraft and swallowing boats, sending the wreckage to the floor of the Atlantic in minutes and leaving no trace of the craft on the surface. So what really happened in the case of Flight 19, the USS Cyclops and the Marine Sulphur Queen? Let’s examine the first of these disappearances in a bit more detail. Squadron Leader Lieutentant Charles Taylor, although an experienced pilot, had recently been transferred to the air station at Fort Lauderdale and was new to the area. Added to which, he was a known party animal and had been out drinking the evening before the fateful day. A very hungover Taylor then tried to find someone else to take over as leader of the training flight – the only point of which was to increase the flying hours of the four apparent novices – but no other pilot would agree to stand in at such short notice. Shortly into the flight, Taylor’s compass malfunctioned and, unfamiliar with the area, he had to rely on landmarks alone. After nothing but open sea, the aircraft eventually flew over a small group of islands Taylor thought he recognised as his home – Florida Keys. Flight 19 was in constant touch with Flight Control and was told to head directly north which, Taylor thought, would take him straight back to base. But Flight 19 was not over Florida Keys in fact; it was over the Bermudan Islands – exactly where it should have been. Heading north simply sent the stricken aircraft out into the open Atlantic. Crew members were heard to suggest to each other they should immediately head west, as their compasses were actually working, but none of the trainees dared to contradict their leader. With a storm gathering and the sun not visible through the cloud, Taylor refused to listen to his subordinates, accepting the instruction from Flight Control instead. But when told to switch to the emergency radio channel, Taylor declined, stating that one his pilots could not tune in to that particular channel and that he did not want to lose contact with him. As a result of this, contact between Flight 19 and Fort Lauderdale became increasingly intermittent. After an hour of flying due north, and with no land in sight, Taylor reasoned he must be over the Gulf of Mexico, and with that made the right-hand turn, due east, he thought would bring his team back to the west coast of Florida. But instead, an hour north of Bermuda and flying over the Atlantic with Flight Control believing them to be close to the Gulf, this manoeuvre only served to take them further out to sea. Flight 19, miles away from where anybody believed them to be, would then have run out of fuel, ditched into the sea beyond the continental shelf, and been broken within minutes by the storm. The Mariner sent to look for them was, in fact, one of two that were sent to assist. The first arrived back at base safely but the second exploded shortly after take-off. (The Mariners, notorious for fuel leaks, were nicknamed ‘flying gas tanks’.) Radio contact had been lost twenty-five minutes into the flight and debris floating in a slick of spilt oil was found in the exact location the plane was though to have come down. In short, there was nothing mysterious about the accident after all. The official report at first stated that flight leader error was to blame for the loss of Flight 19, but this was then changed to ‘cause unknown’, giving rise to the mystery. Contrary to the fictitious version of events, nobody has ever stated, in an official capacity, that the aircraft simply vanished ‘as if they had flown off to planet Mars’. The disappearance of the USS Cyclops does remain a mystery, however, although heavy seas and hurricanes were reported in the area at the time. It is now thought that a sudden shift in its eleven-thousand-ton metal cargo was to blame, causing the ship to capsize with all hands on deck and sink to bottom of the ocean. In the case of the SS Marine Sulphur Queen, something Triangle enthusiasts rarely mention is that the cargo was made up of 15,000 tons of molten sulphur sealed in four giant tanks and kept at a heat of 275 degrees Fahrenheit by two vast boilers connected to the tanks via a complex network of coils and wiring. They also do not tell us that the T-2 tankers such as the Marine Sulphur Queen had a terrible record for safety during the Second World War and that within the space of just a few years three of them had previously broken in half and sunk. Indeed, a similar sulphur-carrying ship had vanished in 1954 under less mysterious circumstances, having spontaneously exploded before any distress call could be made. But what clinches it for me is one particular detail: the fact that officers on a banana boat fifteen miles off the coast of San Antonia near Cuba reported a strong acrid odour in the vicinity. The conclusion at the time, but overlooked later by Triangle enthusiasts, was either that leaking sulphur must have quickly overcome the entire crew and a spark then ignited the sulphur cloud, causing a fire that the unconscious crew were unable to put out, or that an explosion had torn through the boat, depositing the crew in the shark- and barracuda-infested waters. Either way, investigators decided the ship must have gone down just over the horizon from the banana boat whose crew had detected the sulphurous odour. In addition to natural phenomena, there are man-made ones to consider too when it comes to the Bermuda Triangle. Indeed, the Caribbean and southern Florida have long been a favourite haunt for pirates and it’s not exactly in their interests to report the ships they’ve sunk after looting their cargo or crew they’ve murdered in the process. Many unexplained disappearances would be far better explained by pirate activity than by extraterrestrial abduction or sea monsters lurking in the deep. The pirates of the Caribbean were not heroes but vicious murderers who took no prisoners and left no evidence of their piracy, and don’t let Johnny Depp or Keira Knightly seduce you into thinking otherwise. The main explanation for the mysterious events of the Bermuda Triangle is sheer invention. Indeed there are many examples of writers bending facts to suit their stories (notably in the case of the Loch Ness Monster and the Mary Celeste) or indeed pretty much every story I’ve covered in this book), which is hardly surprising since mysterious and ghostly goings-on can be very profitable (as I hope to find out), as everyone loves a good mystery. One of my favourite examples of this is the story of the incident in 1972 of the appropriately named tanker V. A. Fogg that was said to have been found drifting in the Triangle without a single crew member aboard. Everybody had vanished apart from the captain whose body was found sitting at his desk with a steaming mug of tea in front of him and a haunted look upon his face. Read the full article

[junker-town]

5 remaining NFL games we’re most excited for this season

Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images

As the playoff races get tighter, the games start becoming more and more interesting.

The first 10 weeks of the 2019 NFL season threw a few classic games into the mix.

The Saints and Texans kicked off Week 1 by exchanging leads in the final 45 seconds of a game eventually won by a 58-yard field goal in primetime. Lamar Jackson pantsed the Patriots, briefly let up in the middle of the game, then went right back to bullying. The Seahawks and 49ers played an ugly, beautiful mess of a game that had something for everyone.

That’s a tough lineup for the back end of the schedule to follow, but there are plenty of games that could live up to the standard. Key divisional races across the league will see rematches like Packers-Vikings, Cowboys-Eagles, and Niners-Seahawks. The Chiefs and Patriots will run back their 2018 AFC title game classic, only this time in New England. The Jets get another crack at the Dolphins, which will technically be football.

We already picked some of the worst games left this year (and a reason to watch each one). Now it’s time for the ones we’re most looking forward to in the final weeks of the season.

Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs, Week 13

The Raiders are the most pleasant NFL surprise of 2019. After a last-place finish in the AFC West in 2018 and preseason drama courtesy of Antonio Brown, Oakland bounced back to become a legitimate playoff contender in Jon Gruden’s second season.

Derek Carr’s playing the best football of his career, and the Raiders’ powerful rushing attack is making up for a still-in-progress defense. The only team in their way of an unlikely climb to a division title is Kansas City. Earlier this year, the Chiefs looked like the same buzzsaw that went to the AFC Championship Game last season. They jumped out to a 4-0 start and even ran through the Raiders in Week 2 with a 28-10 win.

Kansas City has slowed down, though. It dropped back-to-back games to the Colts and Texans, then lost Patrick Mahomes to a knee injury. The Chiefs went 1-1 with Matt Moore at quarterback, then lost to the Titans in Mahomes’ return. The biggest reason for the Chiefs’ recent struggles is its lackluster run defense.

Oakland is surging and Kansas City is sliding. But the gauntlet won’t be passed in the AFC West unless the Raiders can travel to Arrowhead Stadium and win. That’s still a really tall task. But if Oakland can lean on its run game, maybe it can pull off the upset. I’m intrigued to watch and find out. — Adam Stites

New England Patriots at Houston Texans, Week 13

In the next few weeks, we should have a better idea of how good the Texans are this season. First up is a highly anticipated rematch between dynamo quarterbacks Deshaun Watson and Lamar Jackson (and the first time they’ll meet on an NFL field). Houston follows that date in Baltimore with a divisional rivalry game at home against the Colts, who handed the Texans a loss in Week 7.

It’s the game after that I’m most interested in, though, because it should finally let us know if this is the year the Texans have taken that next step to becoming a real contender.

Throughout their 17-year existence, the Texans have never made it past the Divisional Round of the playoffs. They’ve won just three postseason contests: two against the Bengals, which is as gimme a win as there is in January, and one against the Connor Cook-led Raiders. They’ve lost to the Patriots twice in the playoffs.

Their history against New England doesn’t get much prettier during the regular season, either. The Patriots hold an 8-1 series lead, with their only loss coming in Week 17 in 2010. Tom Brady played just three series before he ceded snaps to backup Brian Hoyer.

Bill O’Brien took over as Houston’s head coach in 2014, and the former Patriots offensive coordinator is still seeking his first win against his old team. In fact, O’Brien has the worst record against Bill Belichick of all his one-time assistants.

The Texans have come close to knocking off the Patriots since, though — especially with Watson. In his rookie year, he was sensational in just his second start ever. Watson threw for 301 yards and two touchdowns at Foxboro Stadium, leading Houston on two scoring drives in the fourth quarter to give his team a 33-28 lead. But O’Brien made the grave mistake of putting the game in Brady’s hands, and one touchdown later, the Patriots secured the three-point win.

The next year, the two teams met in Week 1, which was Watson’s first game back after tearing his ACL. He was slow to get started, but he was able to find a bit of a rhythm later in the game — just a little too late. The Patriots won 27-20.

Will the third time be the charm? This season, Watson is a bonafide MVP candidate. He’s not a rookie, and he’s not coming back from a major injury. Meanwhile, the Patriots are, well, still the Patriots. They also showed a major vulnerability in their one loss of the season, when they struggled to contain Jackson and the Ravens’ running game.

Watson is also a dual-threat quarterback, but his style isn’t the same as Jackson’s. Watson is a more high-volume passer, while Jackson is a more dangerous threat as a runner. Where they are similar — and where Watson can hurt the Patriots most — is his relentless ability to keep a play alive with his legs and improvise to make something happen for his team.

In that sense, the game should be a good measuring stick for both teams. It almost might provide clarity on what’s been a murky AFC playoff race so far this season. — Sarah Hardy

San Francisco 49ers at New Orleans Saints, Week 14

If this game were in San Francisco, I might not be too excited about it, but the Saints getting this one in New Orleans is big. The Saints are 4-1 at home, and New Orleans playing on Thanksgiving the week prior will give the team extra time to prepare.

The 49ers are off to a surprise 8-1 start, and while the Saints are 7-2 with an unexpected loss to the Atlanta Falcons in Week 10, they’re still ahead in the NFC South. This is an important game playoff-wise, as both teams are trying to secure the top seed in the NFC and homefield advantage in the postseason.

One matchup to watch will be the 49ers’ offense against the Saints’ defense. Both rank in the top 10 in the league, so San Francisco might not get close to its season average 29 points per game.

The quarterbacks in this one should be fun, too. Drew Brees and Jimmy Garoppolo have looked good so far. Brees threw three touchdowns in his first game back after rehabbing a thumb injury and is completing more than 74 percent of his passes. Garoppolo didn’t look quite as sharp as he has been all season in his first loss against Seattle, overthrowing some of his receivers while others had drops. But Emmanuel Sanders and George Kittle, his No. 1 target, should be healthy and ready to go for this one.

Although this isn’t a divisional game, it still will have major playoff implications. And it should be a great one, featuring two hot offenses going up against stout defenses. Count me in. —Morgan Moriarty

Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings, Week 16

Green Bay jumped out to a 21-0 lead in the first 16 minutes when these two teams met at Lambeau Field in Week 2. That held up, but only barely. The Packers didn’t score again, and Minnesota wasted four different second-half drives where it could have taken the lead and escaped Wisconsin with a win.

That was with a pre-leap Kirk Cousins, however. The high-priced veteran had his worst outing of the season that Sunday, completing only 14 of 32 passes and throwing a pair of interceptions. Since then, he’s completed better than 72 percent of his attempts, has a 16:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio, and his 118.5 passer rating is tops in the league — seven points better than Russell Wilson’s number from Week 3 onward.

He’ll have the chance to prove he’s a legitimate MVP candidate when the Packers come to Minneapolis for a Monday Night Football game that could decide the NFC North. Green Bay’s defense was its shining star early in the season while Aaron Rodgers found his comfort zone under new head coach Matt LaFleur, but that unit has given up 24 points or more in five of its last seven games. Rodgers’ resurgence and Aaron Jones’ newfound ability to find the end zone (14 touchdowns in 10 games) has made that less of a liability, but it looks like Week 16’s rematch won’t be one the Packers can win if they fail to score in the final 44 minutes again.

Should the NFC be scared of Kirk Cousins? Is the Packers’ defense championship caliber? These are questions that will get answered in the penultimate week of the regular season. And it’s a great reason to stay up late on Monday night, too. — Christian D’Andrea

San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks, Week 17

Betting on a Week 17 game being great is always dangerous at the halfway point of the season. The 49ers and Seahawks could be entirely different teams — or they could be resting starters if they have nothing to fight for in the final game of the regular season.

But if things stay the way they are — with the 49ers and Seahawks being within a game of each other — then Week 17’s matchup in Seattle is a big one. The NFC West and playoff seedings would be on the line.

The first meeting between the two teams was genuinely fantastic, even when it was sloppy. Every time one team seemed out of it, it would make a big play and things would get closer. It went to overtime, and nearly ended in a tie save for predictable Russell Wilson heroics. The NFC West is for real, and these are the top two teams in it.

As a 49ers fan, sure I hope they pull ahead of Seattle and get a pseudo bye week since their real one was so early in the season. But as a football fan? I want to see these two teams scrap again. And heck, I’ll sign up for a third meeting in the playoffs, too. — James Brady

SB Nation’s FanPulse surveyed voters to find out which remaining game they were most excited about. The fans chose the Week 14 matchup between the Chiefs and Patriots:

If you had to pick just one game to watch over the last part of the season, which would it be? Let us know in the comments.

[thisdaynews]

Premier League 2019-20: What are the trends of the season so far?

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/premier-league-2019-20-what-are-the-trends-of-the-season-so-far/

Premier League 2019-20: What are the trends of the season so far?

We’re only days into September but more than 10% of the 2019-20 Premier League season has already been voraciously consumed.

Some things, like Liverpool and Manchester City pulling away from the rest, seem only too familiar.

But others, like the longing gaze at the video assistant referee (VAR) decision on the big screen and the new goal-kick rule, seem utterly new.

What, then, are the key trends from the opening few weeks of the season?

VAR has had less of an impact than you might think

The establishment of our new VAR overlords in Stockley Park was always going to make for an intriguing period but despite some high-profile reversals in the opening few weeks, it seems the officials have been determined the league’s new system of justice should not have too major an impact.

Who can forget the 2018 World Cup, which saw 29 penalties, shattering the record for a single tournament, as VAR honed in on grappling and barging?

This season, in the Premier League, there have been only nine spot-kicks awarded (a third of them to Manchester United), which is below average for the past 10 seasons.

Indeed, back in 2012-13 when video referees were the stuff of science fiction, seven penalties were awarded on the opening weekend alone.

It’s a similar story with red cards, with the five this season being only half as many as at this stage two seasons ago, and four fewer than last term.

How seasons compare after four weeks Season Penalties Red cards 2010-11 14 9 2011-12 15 7 2012-13 15 6 2013-14 11 5 2014-15 5 5 2015-16 8 11 2016-17 15 2 2017-18 5 10 2018-19 14 9 2019-20 9 5

Overall, of more than 30 incidents that have been played out on the big screen so far, only six decisions by the on-field officials have been overturned.

Intriguingly, two of those have ruled out goals for Manchester City striker Gabriel Jesus (away to West Ham and home to Tottenham) and those have been the interventions that have driven the most debate about the new system.

Tiny signs that the furious arguments may settle down as the season progresses were seen in matchweek four as only three incidents went to VAR and all of them backed the referee’s decision.

Good officiating or reluctance to cross to the leafy judgement palace of Stockley Park?

Maybe we need VAR for the VAR.

Brighton love playing out from the back as much as Man City

Another change for the Premier League (and football in general) in 2019-20 is the new goal-kick law.

Previously the ball had to be played outside of the penalty area before being touched by a team-mate, and in the long-ball era of the 1990s and before, this was not an issue.

A Mitre ball, pumped up harder than the surface of one of Jupiter’s moons, would be “distributed” upfield by a goalkeeper in remarkably high shorts and play would commence in the immediate vicinity of the halfway line.

Now goalkeepers can stroke a short one inside the box (I posit that this is the most unsettling visual change to football since the backpass law in 1992, it’s certainly taking longer to get used to than the one-man kick-offs) and stretch the play.

Proportionally, Manchester City’s Ederson jointly leads the way in short passes from goal-kicks with Brighton’s Mat Ryan (69%), but the Albion man heads the division in terms of raw numbers, with 22 of his goal-kicks being played to a team-mate inside the box, putting him just ahead of the north London pairing of Bernd Leno and Hugo Lloris.

At the other end of the spectrum, Watford’s Ben Foster has hit almost as many goal-kicks (two) to the other penalty area as he has in his own (three).

A few other goal-kick highlights include:

All of Ederson’s goal-kicks are either stylistic penalty-box modernism or absolutely gigantic pitch-length knocks. Truly a man for all seasons.

Liverpool’s Adrian really likes left-back Andrew Robertson.

Wolves keeper Rui Patricio is one of four keepers yet to attempt a goal-kick to a team-mate inside the box, along with Sheffield United’s Dean Henderson, Newcastle’s Martin Dubravka and Burnley’s Nick Pope. Patricio also loves the right-hand touchline, hardly befitting a man in the number 11 shirt.

West Ham’s Lukasz Fabianski tried a short goal-kick once but didn’t enjoy it and went back to the old style.

Salah really isn’t selfish

Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah tied for the Golden Boot on 22 goals last season, along with Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

The most memorable image of last weekend was Liverpool forward Sadio Mane’s fury after his substitution at Burnley.

The apparent cause was Mohamed Salah’s decision not to pass to his team-mate, which makes you wonder if sharing the Golden Boot last season was a source of irritation rather than collegiate pride, and has led to the resumption of one of 2018-19’s most facile debates: is Salah selfish?

Given that Salah has scored or assisted 77 goals in 78 Premier League appearances for Liverpool, and that this is the first time in the club’s top-flight history that they’ve won their opening four league games for two seasons in a row, it is fantastically unlikely that Jurgen Klopp cares one bit.

Even so, is Salah selfish? Well, there’s no definitive way of judging this but a reasonable proxy is surely the ratio of big chances created by a player to the big chances he’s taken himself.

Of course, there’ll be plenty of the former where the only real option was to pass to a better-placed team-mate, and lots of the latter where he himself was in that position just described, but even so, a deviously selfish player’s ratio of created-to-taken would surely be unbalanced, and as the table below shows, Salah’s is anything but.

Player (August 2018-now) Big chances created Big chances for himself Ratio

Premier League only

Ryan Fraser 29 8 3.6 chances created to chances for himself David Silva 19 11 1.7 Eden Hazard 18 18 1 Mohamed Salah 17 36 0.5 Kevin de Bruyne 17 1 17 Andrew Robertson 16 0 – James Maddison 15 8 1.9 Trent Alexander-Arnold 15 1 15 Raul Jimenez 14 21 0.7 Callum Wilson 13 32 0.4 Raheem Sterling 13 27 0.5 Gylfi Sigurdsson 13 16 0.8

Hats off to the departed Eden Hazard, who managed to achieve a zen-like 1:1 rate last season, but Salah’s ratio of one big chance created for every two for himself is the same as Raheem Sterling in the same period, and few people are calling the Manchester City man greedy.

Andrew Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold appear on this list of most big chances created, naturally, but where are Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane, presumed victims of Greedy Salah’s Monstrous Appetite?

Firmino’s numbers are very similar to Salah’s, with 10 chances created, and 21 for himself for a ratio of 0.48, but Mane’s are nine created and 29 for himself (0.31), meaning that in this semi-scientific study it is the supposed victim of the selfishness who is the least generous of all.

In truth, though, those numbers just reveal how stellar Liverpool’s front three are. Double up on one and the other two will destroy you. Divert all your resources to stopping them and watch as you open up oceans of space for the two full-backs.

In attacking terms this is gluttony more than greed.

It’s probably too early to look at the table. Maybe

If you believe those who can remember the old days then not only did nobody even glimpse a league table until mid-autumn but even expressing an interest in how the division was shaping up was an actual criminal offence.

The late 1980s was a world where live television coverage of England’s top flight only started in October once the clocks had gone back, on the genuine reasoning that people would only fully concentrate on First Division football once the opportunity for gardening had been reduced.

Now we luxuriate in the table at half-time on the opening day, and why not. The three highest points totals in English top-flight history have occurred since May last year so not looking at the standings early on is tantamount to missing the first act of a play.

As we learned above, Liverpool have won their opening four in consecutive seasons for the first time (and only the fifth time overall), while City have averaged 9.2 points in their opening four games this decade, last losing against Mark Hughes’ Stoke back in 2014.

Ten points from four has been enough for Pep Guardiola in each of the past two campaigns, so the two-point gap to Liverpool won’t be concerning him yet.

Elsewhere, this season was the first since the 1950s to see 15 or more teams on exactly one win after three games and the first time since the early 1980s that there had been 19 or more teams with at least three points after three games.

After getting thumped 5-0 and 4-0 respectively on the opening weekend, West Ham and Chelsea are showing signs of bouncing back.

No team has let in five in their opening game and finished in the top six since 1913-14, while the last team to let in four on the first day and win the title were Everton in 1984-85.

Tottenham, meanwhile, have already drawn as many league games – two – this season as they did in the whole of 2018-19.

What does it all mean? At this stage, I’m afraid it, er, may be too early to tell.

Read More

[astrogeoguy]

Clocks Spring Forward, Catch a Comet, and Steeply Slanting Sunlight on the First Quarter Moon!

(Above: Last night, the moon slid past the bright star Aldebaran, with observers in the western GTA and Vancouver seeing the star blink on and off as it passed behind lunar mountain peaks. Rick Foster captured this image a short while before the moon, moving to the upper left, grazed the star. Observers to the south saw the moon completely cover the star. Aldebaran, located near the ecliptic, often gets occulted.)

Astronomy “Skylights” for the week (from March 5th) by Chris Vaughan. All the times mentioned are Eastern Standard Time. If you are a camp, or a teacher interested in a guided field trip to the David Dunlap Observatory, visit www.astrogeo.ca.

Clocks Spring Forward!

Unless otherwise noted, the times I quote every week are for GTA observers. We’re on Eastern Standard Time (EST) until 2 am on Sunday, March 12, when the clocks advance one hour to commence Daylight Savings Time (EDT or DST) in North America. Astronomers worldwide avoid time zone confusion by using Universal Time, abbreviated UT. Also known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), it’s the time on the central meridian (zero degrees longitude) which runs through Greenwch, England. UT uses a 24-hour clock that zeroes out at midnight. As long as you know your time zone’s difference from UT, you can determine when events will occur for you.

Until Sunday at 2 am, Eastern Standard Time runs five hours earlier than UT, so 23:30 UT equals 6:30 pm (23:30 minus 5 is 18:30). From next week until the fall, it’ll be UT minus 4 hours. BTW - it’s not good enough to simply subtract five (or four) hours from London, UK time because they also change their clocks for daylight savings time!

Public Talks

Taking advantage of the Moon and some favorite objects in the sky this week, the RASC Toronto Centre astronomers will hold their free monthly public City Sky Star Party in Bayview Village Park (steps from the Bayview subway station), around 7:30 pm on the first clear weeknight this week (Mon to Thu). You don’t need to be an RASC member, or own any equipment, to join in. Check here for details, and check the banner on their website home page or Facebook page for the GO or NO-GO decision around 5 pm each day.

At 7:30 pm on Wednesday evening, March 8th the public are invited to attend a free RASC Toronto Centre Speaker’s Night Meeting at the Ontario Science Centre (Room TBD, just follow the signs). The speaker is Keavin Moore, York University, presenting Tatooine's Future: Fates of Planets Circling Two Suns. Details are on the RASC website here.

Quench your thirst for astronomy – with Astronomy on Tap! From 8 to 11 pm on Friday, March 10th, at The Great Hall, located at 1087 Queen St. West, Toronto, The Dunlap Institute presents another (19 and over) fun evening of pints, astronomy news, mind-expanding talks, games, prizes, and Dunlap mechandise for sale! Plus, following all the talks, there will be plenty of time for you to have all your cosmic questions answered by astronomers from the University of Toronto. No advance registration and no cover charge. Check the Facebook page for details.

(Above: Tracking image of comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak taken on February 25, 2017 by the Virtual Telescope Project)

(Above: This image of periodic comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak was taken by John Drummond of New Zealand in July, 2006. The telescope was following the comet as it moved across the sky, and not the surrounding stars, producing the streaks.)

A Binocular Comet

Right now, a comet called Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak is crossing the eastern evening sky, and it can be spotted in binoculars or a small telescope if you know where to look. As darkness falls around 7:30 pm local time, it is halfway up the eastern sky. By midnight, it is nearly straight overhead, and it remains above the horizon all night. Tonight (Sunday), the comet is in the constellation of Leo Minor (the Little Lion), about a quarter of the way from the modest star Algenubi, which marks the nose of the bigger lion, Leo, and Merak, the bottom star of the Big Dipper. It’s moving towards Merak at a rate of about 1.25° (a thumb’s width) per day.

(Above: Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak’s track (in yellow) over the next several weeks. This week, it is near Leo, moving north.)

The “P” in the name indicates that it is a periodic comet that returns at regular and predictable intervals. At its farthest point, it almost reaches Jupiter’s orbit, then it swings around the Sun at a distance that is just inside the Earth’s orbit before heading out again - repeating this every 5.41 years. At the moment, it is approaching the Sun and slowly brightening as it warms and moves closer to us. So it should be visible in a dark sky through medium sized binoculars. It will pass 21 million km from the Earth around April 1, and then swing around the Sun on April 12. Sometime between those two dates, it’s expected to reach a peak brightness of about magnitude 7, visible in small binoculars. Then it will slowly fade again in the following weeks.

Expect the comet to appear as a faint greenish blob (quite different from a star). If it develops a tail, it will point roughly away from the Big Dipper. On Sunday, March 12, it will have moved to sit about halfway between the Big Dipper and Leo. Keep an eye on it - this comet has a reputation for sudden outbursts that dramatically brighten it.

The Moon and Planets

This is the best week of the moon’s cycle to observe it up close, especially with binoculars or a small telescope. As the moon waxes near today’s (Sunday) First Quarter, its lit sunward side grows nightly as the terminator boundary, the line that separates the lit and unlit sides, migrates across the moon’s disk. Viewed from the moon, you’d see the Sun rise VERY slowly. Look from pole to pole along the terminator for the bright peaks and extremely dark shadows cast by the steeply slanting sunlight. Every night reveals a new set of delights! And First Quarter moons are always conveniently positioned for viewing in the southeastern evening sky. They rise around noon and set after midnight.

As the week wears on, the moon will shift east and wax brighter towards next Sunday’s Full Worm Moon, Crow Moon, Sap Moon or Lenten Moon - all traditional nick-names after the early stirrings of spring and religious lunar observances. Two nights before full, on Friday evening, March 10, the nearly full moon will sit only two finger widths below Regulus, Leo’s (the Lion) brightest star.

After gracing our western evening sky since last August, extremely bright white Venus is starting to drop into the sunset, setting about 8:30 pm local time this week. A telescope will reveal that it is showing a thin crescent phase, and its disk is slowly growing larger as it moves towards Earth on its way towards inferior conjunction with the Sun on March 25. Much dimmer, reddish Mars is still sitting about 15° (or 1.5 fist diameters) to the upper left of Venus, and is setting about 9:45 pm this week.  Distant dim, blue-green Uranus is situated below Mars, by an amount that grows from a palm’s width to a fist diameter through this week.

(Above: The bright evening planets Venus and Mars flank dim Uranus this week, shown for March 5 at 7:30 pm local time.)

Bright, white Jupiter is just a few finger widths to the upper left of Virgo’s (the Maiden) brightest star Spica. They both rise in the east about 9 pm local time this week. Jupiter reaches its highest point, over the southern horizon, at 2:30 am. And by dawn, it is above the southwestern horizon. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede casts its black round shadow on the planet on Mar 9 from 9:45 to midnight EST. Its moon Io’s shadow crosses the planet on Mar 10 from 10:30 pm to 12:30 am EST. The Great Red Spot is visible on Jupiter for about three hours centred on Mar 7 at both 1:30 am and 9:30 pm EST (as it rises), as well as Mar 9 at 10:55 pm EST.

Yellowish Saturn rises in the southeast about 2:30 am local time, and can be spotted until about 6 am, when it’s two fist diameters above the southern horizon. The bright reddish star Antares in Scorpius (the Scorpion) is less than two fist diameters to the right (southwest) of the planet for the next few months.

(Above: The bright morning planets Jupiter and Saturn this week, shown for March 6 at 5 am local time.)

Spot an Asteroid

At visual magnitude 7.1, asteroid (4) Vesta is observable in binoculars or a small telescope throughout March. It is moving within the constellation of Gemini (the Twins), ranging between 2.5 and 4 degrees (three or four finger widths) to the right of the bright star Pollux.

(Above: Asteroid Vesta’s path near the bright star Pollux in Gemini during March.)

(Above: Asteroid Ceres’ path in the western early evening sky during March.)

Keep looking up to enjoy the sky! I love getting questions so, if you have any, send me a note.

[wineanddinosaur]

Exploring the Emerging, Community-Oriented Craft Beer Scene in New Hampshire

From cracking into a lobster tail on a craggy coastline to the Freedom Trail, New England has long been a draw for tourists. The six-state region also has a world-class beer scene, bolstered by such iconic breweries as Massachusetts’s Tree House and Hill Farmstead in Vermont, and an eponymous IPA.

For some time, the bulk of its craft beer heritage has been in three states: Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Now, however, a New Hampshire beer scene is emerging.

“[New Hampshire] used to be like a halfway stopping point for people going to drink in Maine,” laughs Scott Thornton of Great Rhythm Brewing Co. in Portsmouth, N.H., whose brewery pumps out some of the area’s best hop-forward beers and a killer kolsch. “Or stopping on their way back.”

“N.H. has as good tasting beer as any one of our neighboring states,” says Paul St. Onge of Manchester’s Backyard Brewing. “But if you’re talking about notoriety, that’s an entirely different subject.”

Credit: Greatrhythmbrewing.com

Thornton and St. Onge believe this change is happening because many breweries have started embracing their communities, focusing on creating welcoming spaces and excellent beer instead of packaging and exports. Much of this is a result of new legislation supporting small-scale breweries and on- and off-premise sales.

“The N.H. beer scene has been here a while,” says Thornton. “It just hasn’t seen the growth or development that we’ve been seeing over the last few years.”

Indeed, the beer scene in New Hampshire spans centuries. The first European settlers arrived in Portsmouth (or, as it was first called, Strawbery Banke) in the 17th century and built taverns, most of which served their own creations. Frank Jones Brewing Company eventually came to dominate the region and brewed over 250,000 barrels at its peak.

The state was also home to the first line-around-the-block beer release, in 2008. Kate the Great, a Russian imperial stout brewed by Portsmouth Brewery, was once regarded by Beer Advocate magazine as the finest beer in the country (and No. 2 in the world), and its limited production run and release on “Kate Day” had patrons camped outside brewery doors.

In 2014, New Hampshire legislators introduced 178:12a, which is helping contemporary New Hampshire brewers embrace their brewing roots.

“[New Hampshire beer legislation] hasn’t always been the friendliest,” says Thornton. “In the past few years, we’ve seen favorable legislation to favor nanobreweries or nano-plus or beverage manufacturers.”

Put simply, the new legislation allows for a few major changes. Licenses for smaller operations, such as nanobreweries, are less expensive, so more aspiring brewers can enter the industry professionally. Additionally, breweries like Portsmouth’s Great Rhythm, which were once legally restricted to free, on-site samples, are now allowed to sell samples and offer pints, but also sell packaged beer to go.

“That’s a huge piece to it,” says Thornton. “Having more favorable license types really overcame a huge barrier to get into the industry.”

The new legislation encourages small and aspiring brewers to get in the game, and means that iconic mainstays like Smuttynose and Red Hook — and industry giant Budweiser, which has a plant in Merrimack — are no longer the only players.

“N.H. had a reputation — probably deserved — as having subpar beer,” says St. Onge, whose Backyard Brewing tap list is expansive. There’s an IPA that St. Onge considers the brewery’s flagship, but the team has built a menu that includes a Belgian-style dubbel, a Dortmunder lager, a witbier, and a wild ale.

“Now with more competition and more breweries popping up, I feel like that’s no longer the case,” he says.

One of the state’s most sought-after breweries is Kettlehead Brewing in Tilton, in the heart of New Hampshire’s Lakes Region.

“As soon as we opened, it just exploded,” says owner-brewer Sam Morrissette, whose outfit will be celebrating its second anniversary in November. “People were excited to have something to do. As soon as it hit, it was way more than expected.”

Kettlehead offers a full menu of mostly farm-to-table food, which means the group could register as a restaurant, which Morrissette says “really helped.”

That, plus a little press and good word of mouth, encouraged beer fans to head to the Lakes Region for Kettlehead’s flagship IPA, The Agent, and its opaque, juicy, and refreshingly bitter double IPA, Quest, a four-hop blend of Mosaic, Simcoe, El Dorado, and Columbus.

Morissette hopes Kettlehead will help develop beer tourism in the Lakes region. “We’re not that far from [the state capital] Concord,” he says. “We’ve got people coming up from Massachusetts, but our goal really is to have good beer, good food, and a good atmosphere for our community.”

Thornton agrees. “We want to be deeply rooted in our communities,” he says. “But we also want to help build a brand for New Hampshire to make this an attractive beer destination.”

Credit: Backyardbrewerynh.com

“More than ever, people are kind of embracing their own communities,” says St. Onge. “Not just with beer but with consumer products and farmers’ markets. That’s what we sought out to do. We wanted to be that community, public house, taproom that people can just kind of sit at the bar and shoot the shit.”

Smuttynose, a New Hampshire beer landmark since 1994, is similarly inspired by this local movement, despite being widely distributed. Following struggles that culminated in a 2018 sale at foreclosure auction, the company rebranded its flagship beers and introduced an array of beer styles targeting a new generation of consumers, from hazy IPAs to low-ABV offerings like sub-5 percent sours.

On the new labels, the marketing team “really doubled down on N.H,” says Alex Weaver, communications director at Smuttynose Brewing. Finestkind IPA, for instance, shows a recumbent tuber on Echo Lake and Robust Porter illustrates Carleton Bridge, one of New Hampshire’s iconic covered bridges.

“N.H. is definitely seeing the proliferation of the small, neighborhood taproom model,” Weaver says. “That [community brewery] model has caught on. People are now so much more aware of what a brewery is. And these places move in and become part of the community.”

What’s next for New Hampshire’s next-wave breweries? Kettlehead and Backyard are focusing on their communities and hope to increase the volume of their to-go options. Morrissette is aiming for a few more keg sales around the state, and St. Onge is encouraged by widening demographics in the industry.

“We want to have a community where people feel safe to explore craft beer,” he says. “We had a very loyal customer base of people in their 50s and 60s [at the restaurant] and then we opened up the brewery and we had people in their 20s flocking in. Now we have both because both sides are so open to trying new things.”

All share the same goal: to make excellent beer in New Hampshire and put their state on beer travelers’ maps.

“This is our state and we have a lot of pride in that,” Thornton says. “N.H. has this potential to build this awesome brand around itself.”

Credit: Portsmouthbrewery.com

Five Breweries to Visit in New Hampshire

Despite its relatively small size, New Hampshire has a set of distinct regions spanning mountain ranges, lakes, seacoast, and the wilderness near Canada. Here are five beer destinations wherever you find yourself in the Granite State.

Kettlehead Brewing

Regardless of season, the Lakes Region is stunning to visit. End your day of hiking or skiing with any of the hop-forward options at Kettlehead in Tilton.

Coos Brewing Co.

Located in the heart of the Great North Woods, closer to the Canadian border than the capitol building, Coos serves a delicious variety of beers, including Snowbound Stout, a rich and subtle dark beer with cinnamon, or any of the Puckerbrush Berlinerweiss series.

Backyard Brewing

Situated on a busy road behind the Manchester Airport, Backyard Brewing crushes everything from lagers to witbiers.

Great Rhythm Brewing

Along the seacoast lies New Hampshire’s richest history. Grab a seat at a picnic table outside overlooking the water and enjoy a Squeeze IPA or its big brother Double Squeeze.

Flying Goose Brewpub

The Flying Goose is a New London brewpub that was just named one of the top five breweries in the state. Try the Forever Locked Lager, a Vienna lager, whose proceeds go toward a New Hampshire Fish & Game scholarship.

The article Exploring the Emerging, Community-Oriented Craft Beer Scene in New Hampshire appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/best-craft-beer-new-hampshire-guide/

[isaiahrippinus]

Exploring the Emerging, Community-Oriented Craft Beer Scene in New Hampshire

From cracking into a lobster tail on a craggy coastline to the Freedom Trail, New England has long been a draw for tourists. The six-state region also has a world-class beer scene, bolstered by such iconic breweries as Massachusetts’s Tree House and Hill Farmstead in Vermont, and an eponymous IPA.

For some time, the bulk of its craft beer heritage has been in three states: Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Now, however, a New Hampshire beer scene is emerging.

“[New Hampshire] used to be like a halfway stopping point for people going to drink in Maine,” laughs Scott Thornton of Great Rhythm Brewing Co. in Portsmouth, N.H., whose brewery pumps out some of the area’s best hop-forward beers and a killer kolsch. “Or stopping on their way back.”

“N.H. has as good tasting beer as any one of our neighboring states,” says Paul St. Onge of Manchester’s Backyard Brewing. “But if you’re talking about notoriety, that’s an entirely different subject.”

Credit: Greatrhythmbrewing.com

Thornton and St. Onge believe this change is happening because many breweries have started embracing their communities, focusing on creating welcoming spaces and excellent beer instead of packaging and exports. Much of this is a result of new legislation supporting small-scale breweries and on- and off-premise sales.

“The N.H. beer scene has been here a while,” says Thornton. “It just hasn’t seen the growth or development that we’ve been seeing over the last few years.”

Indeed, the beer scene in New Hampshire spans centuries. The first European settlers arrived in Portsmouth (or, as it was first called, Strawbery Banke) in the 17th century and built taverns, most of which served their own creations. Frank Jones Brewing Company eventually came to dominate the region and brewed over 250,000 barrels at its peak.

The state was also home to the first line-around-the-block beer release, in 2008. Kate the Great, a Russian imperial stout brewed by Portsmouth Brewery, was once regarded by Beer Advocate magazine as the finest beer in the country (and No. 2 in the world), and its limited production run and release on “Kate Day” had patrons camped outside brewery doors.

In 2014, New Hampshire legislators introduced 178:12a, which is helping contemporary New Hampshire brewers embrace their brewing roots.

“[New Hampshire beer legislation] hasn’t always been the friendliest,” says Thornton. “In the past few years, we’ve seen favorable legislation to favor nanobreweries or nano-plus or beverage manufacturers.”

Put simply, the new legislation allows for a few major changes. Licenses for smaller operations, such as nanobreweries, are less expensive, so more aspiring brewers can enter the industry professionally. Additionally, breweries like Portsmouth’s Great Rhythm, which were once legally restricted to free, on-site samples, are now allowed to sell samples and offer pints, but also sell packaged beer to go.

“That’s a huge piece to it,” says Thornton. “Having more favorable license types really overcame a huge barrier to get into the industry.”

The new legislation encourages small and aspiring brewers to get in the game, and means that iconic mainstays like Smuttynose and Red Hook — and industry giant Budweiser, which has a plant in Merrimack — are no longer the only players.

“N.H. had a reputation — probably deserved — as having subpar beer,” says St. Onge, whose Backyard Brewing tap list is expansive. There’s an IPA that St. Onge considers the brewery’s flagship, but the team has built a menu that includes a Belgian-style dubbel, a Dortmunder lager, a witbier, and a wild ale.

“Now with more competition and more breweries popping up, I feel like that’s no longer the case,” he says.

One of the state’s most sought-after breweries is Kettlehead Brewing in Tilton, in the heart of New Hampshire’s Lakes Region.

“As soon as we opened, it just exploded,” says owner-brewer Sam Morrissette, whose outfit will be celebrating its second anniversary in November. “People were excited to have something to do. As soon as it hit, it was way more than expected.”

Kettlehead offers a full menu of mostly farm-to-table food, which means the group could register as a restaurant, which Morrissette says “really helped.”

That, plus a little press and good word of mouth, encouraged beer fans to head to the Lakes Region for Kettlehead’s flagship IPA, The Agent, and its opaque, juicy, and refreshingly bitter double IPA, Quest, a four-hop blend of Mosaic, Simcoe, El Dorado, and Columbus.

Morissette hopes Kettlehead will help develop beer tourism in the Lakes region. “We’re not that far from [the state capital] Concord,” he says. “We’ve got people coming up from Massachusetts, but our goal really is to have good beer, good food, and a good atmosphere for our community.”

Thornton agrees. “We want to be deeply rooted in our communities,” he says. “But we also want to help build a brand for New Hampshire to make this an attractive beer destination.”

Credit: Backyardbrewerynh.com

“More than ever, people are kind of embracing their own communities,” says St. Onge. “Not just with beer but with consumer products and farmers’ markets. That’s what we sought out to do. We wanted to be that community, public house, taproom that people can just kind of sit at the bar and shoot the shit.”

Smuttynose, a New Hampshire beer landmark since 1994, is similarly inspired by this local movement, despite being widely distributed. Following struggles that culminated in a 2018 sale at foreclosure auction, the company rebranded its flagship beers and introduced an array of beer styles targeting a new generation of consumers, from hazy IPAs to low-ABV offerings like sub-5 percent sours.

On the new labels, the marketing team “really doubled down on N.H,” says Alex Weaver, communications director at Smuttynose Brewing. Finestkind IPA, for instance, shows a recumbent tuber on Echo Lake and Robust Porter illustrates Carleton Bridge, one of New Hampshire’s iconic covered bridges.

“N.H. is definitely seeing the proliferation of the small, neighborhood taproom model,” Weaver says. “That [community brewery] model has caught on. People are now so much more aware of what a brewery is. And these places move in and become part of the community.”

What’s next for New Hampshire’s next-wave breweries? Kettlehead and Backyard are focusing on their communities and hope to increase the volume of their to-go options. Morrissette is aiming for a few more keg sales around the state, and St. Onge is encouraged by widening demographics in the industry.

“We want to have a community where people feel safe to explore craft beer,” he says. “We had a very loyal customer base of people in their 50s and 60s [at the restaurant] and then we opened up the brewery and we had people in their 20s flocking in. Now we have both because both sides are so open to trying new things.”

All share the same goal: to make excellent beer in New Hampshire and put their state on beer travelers’ maps.

“This is our state and we have a lot of pride in that,” Thornton says. “N.H. has this potential to build this awesome brand around itself.”

Credit: Portsmouthbrewery.com

Five Breweries to Visit in New Hampshire

Despite its relatively small size, New Hampshire has a set of distinct regions spanning mountain ranges, lakes, seacoast, and the wilderness near Canada. Here are five beer destinations wherever you find yourself in the Granite State.

Kettlehead Brewing

Regardless of season, the Lakes Region is stunning to visit. End your day of hiking or skiing with any of the hop-forward options at Kettlehead in Tilton.

Coos Brewing Co.

Located in the heart of the Great North Woods, closer to the Canadian border than the capitol building, Coos serves a delicious variety of beers, including Snowbound Stout, a rich and subtle dark beer with cinnamon, or any of the Puckerbrush Berlinerweiss series.

Backyard Brewing

Situated on a busy road behind the Manchester Airport, Backyard Brewing crushes everything from lagers to witbiers.

Great Rhythm Brewing

Along the seacoast lies New Hampshire’s richest history. Grab a seat at a picnic table outside overlooking the water and enjoy a Squeeze IPA or its big brother Double Squeeze.

Flying Goose Brewpub

The Flying Goose is a New London brewpub that was just named one of the top five breweries in the state. Try the Forever Locked Lager, a Vienna lager, whose proceeds go toward a New Hampshire Fish & Game scholarship.

The article Exploring the Emerging, Community-Oriented Craft Beer Scene in New Hampshire appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/best-craft-beer-new-hampshire-guide/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/188652661269

[johnboothus]

Exploring the Emerging Community-Oriented Craft Beer Scene in New Hampshire

From cracking into a lobster tail on a craggy coastline to the Freedom Trail, New England has long been a draw for tourists. The six-state region also has a world-class beer scene, bolstered by such iconic breweries as Massachusetts’s Tree House and Hill Farmstead in Vermont, and an eponymous IPA.

For some time, the bulk of its craft beer heritage has been in three states: Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Now, however, a New Hampshire beer scene is emerging.

“[New Hampshire] used to be like a halfway stopping point for people going to drink in Maine,” laughs Scott Thornton of Great Rhythm Brewing Co. in Portsmouth, N.H., whose brewery pumps out some of the area’s best hop-forward beers and a killer kolsch. “Or stopping on their way back.”

“N.H. has as good tasting beer as any one of our neighboring states,” says Paul St. Onge of Manchester’s Backyard Brewing. “But if you’re talking about notoriety, that’s an entirely different subject.”

Credit: Greatrhythmbrewing.com

Thornton and St. Onge believe this change is happening because many breweries have started embracing their communities, focusing on creating welcoming spaces and excellent beer instead of packaging and exports. Much of this is a result of new legislation supporting small-scale breweries and on- and off-premise sales.

“The N.H. beer scene has been here a while,” says Thornton. “It just hasn’t seen the growth or development that we’ve been seeing over the last few years.”

Indeed, the beer scene in New Hampshire spans centuries. The first European settlers arrived in Portsmouth (or, as it was first called, Strawbery Banke) in the 17th century and built taverns, most of which served their own creations. Frank Jones Brewing Company eventually came to dominate the region and brewed over 250,000 barrels at its peak.

The state was also home to the first line-around-the-block beer release, in 2008. Kate the Great, a Russian imperial stout brewed by Portsmouth Brewery, was once regarded by Beer Advocate magazine as the finest beer in the country (and No. 2 in the world), and its limited production run and release on “Kate Day” had patrons camped outside brewery doors.

In 2014, New Hampshire legislators introduced 178:12a, which is helping contemporary New Hampshire brewers embrace their brewing roots.

“[New Hampshire beer legislation] hasn’t always been the friendliest,” says Thornton. “In the past few years, we’ve seen favorable legislation to favor nanobreweries or nano-plus or beverage manufacturers.”

Put simply, the new legislation allows for a few major changes. Licenses for smaller operations, such as nanobreweries, are less expensive, so more aspiring brewers can enter the industry professionally. Additionally, breweries like Portsmouth’s Great Rhythm, which were once legally restricted to free, on-site samples, are now allowed to sell samples and offer pints, but also sell packaged beer to go.

“That’s a huge piece to it,” says Thornton. “Having more favorable license types really overcame a huge barrier to get into the industry.”

The new legislation encourages small and aspiring brewers to get in the game, and means that iconic mainstays like Smuttynose and Red Hook — and industry giant Budweiser, which has a plant in Merrimack — are no longer the only players.

“N.H. had a reputation — probably deserved — as having subpar beer,” says St. Onge, whose Backyard Brewing tap list is expansive. There’s an IPA that St. Onge considers the brewery’s flagship, but the team has built a menu that includes a Belgian-style dubbel, a Dortmunder lager, a witbier, and a wild ale.

“Now with more competition and more breweries popping up, I feel like that’s no longer the case,” he says.

One of the state’s most sought-after breweries is Kettlehead Brewing in Tilton, in the heart of New Hampshire’s Lakes Region.

“As soon as we opened, it just exploded,” says owner-brewer Sam Morrissette, whose outfit will be celebrating its second anniversary in November. “People were excited to have something to do. As soon as it hit, it was way more than expected.”

Kettlehead offers a full menu of mostly farm-to-table food, which means the group could register as a restaurant, which Morrissette says “really helped.”

That, plus a little press and good word of mouth, encouraged beer fans to head to the Lakes Region for Kettlehead’s flagship IPA, The Agent, and its opaque, juicy, and refreshingly bitter double IPA, Quest, a four-hop blend of Mosaic, Simcoe, El Dorado, and Columbus.

Morissette hopes Kettlehead will help develop beer tourism in the Lakes region. “We’re not that far from [the state capital] Concord,” he says. “We’ve got people coming up from Massachusetts, but our goal really is to have good beer, good food, and a good atmosphere for our community.”

Thornton agrees. “We want to be deeply rooted in our communities,” he says. “But we also want to help build a brand for New Hampshire to make this an attractive beer destination.”

Credit: Backyardbrewerynh.com

“More than ever, people are kind of embracing their own communities,” says St. Onge. “Not just with beer but with consumer products and farmers’ markets. That’s what we sought out to do. We wanted to be that community, public house, taproom that people can just kind of sit at the bar and shoot the shit.”

Smuttynose, a New Hampshire beer landmark since 1994, is similarly inspired by this local movement, despite being widely distributed. Following struggles that culminated in a 2018 sale at foreclosure auction, the company rebranded its flagship beers and introduced an array of beer styles targeting a new generation of consumers, from hazy IPAs to low-ABV offerings like sub-5 percent sours.

On the new labels, the marketing team “really doubled down on N.H,” says Alex Weaver, communications director at Smuttynose Brewing. Finestkind IPA, for instance, shows a recumbent tuber on Echo Lake and Robust Porter illustrates Carleton Bridge, one of New Hampshire’s iconic covered bridges.

“N.H. is definitely seeing the proliferation of the small, neighborhood taproom model,” Weaver says. “That [community brewery] model has caught on. People are now so much more aware of what a brewery is. And these places move in and become part of the community.”

What’s next for New Hampshire’s next-wave breweries? Kettlehead and Backyard are focusing on their communities and hope to increase the volume of their to-go options. Morrissette is aiming for a few more keg sales around the state, and St. Onge is encouraged by widening demographics in the industry.

“We want to have a community where people feel safe to explore craft beer,” he says. “We had a very loyal customer base of people in their 50s and 60s [at the restaurant] and then we opened up the brewery and we had people in their 20s flocking in. Now we have both because both sides are so open to trying new things.”

All share the same goal: to make excellent beer in New Hampshire and put their state on beer travelers’ maps.

“This is our state and we have a lot of pride in that,” Thornton says. “N.H. has this potential to build this awesome brand around itself.”

Credit: Portsmouthbrewery.com

Five Breweries to Visit in New Hampshire

Despite its relatively small size, New Hampshire has a set of distinct regions spanning mountain ranges, lakes, seacoast, and the wilderness near Canada. Here are five beer destinations wherever you find yourself in the Granite State.

Kettlehead Brewing

Regardless of season, the Lakes Region is stunning to visit. End your day of hiking or skiing with any of the hop-forward options at Kettlehead in Tilton.

Coos Brewing Co.

Located in the heart of the Great North Woods, closer to the Canadian border than the capitol building, Coos serves a delicious variety of beers, including Snowbound Stout, a rich and subtle dark beer with cinnamon, or any of the Puckerbrush Berlinerweiss series.

Backyard Brewing

Situated on a busy road behind the Manchester Airport, Backyard Brewing crushes everything from lagers to witbiers.

Great Rhythm Brewing

Along the seacoast lies New Hampshire’s richest history. Grab a seat at a picnic table outside overlooking the water and enjoy a Squeeze IPA or its big brother Double Squeeze.

Flying Goose Brewpub

The Flying Goose is a New London brewpub that was just named one of the top five breweries in the state. Try the Forever Locked Lager, a Vienna lager, whose proceeds go toward a New Hampshire Fish & Game scholarship.

The article Exploring the Emerging, Community-Oriented Craft Beer Scene in New Hampshire appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/best-craft-beer-new-hampshire-guide/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/exploring-the-emerging-community-oriented-craft-beer-scene-in-new-hampshire

[weekegg2-blog]

The Bear’s Den, November 6, 2018

BEAR DOWN, CHICAGO BEARS, BEAR DOWN!!!!

BEARRRSSSS

Bears-Vikings Game On Nov. 18 Flexed To Primetime - 670 The Score The game will be played at 7:20 p.m. and televised on NBC.

Akiem Hicks Pleased With Progress Of Bears’ Defense - 670 The Score The Bears (5-3) are preparing for a key stretch of three division games.

Emma: Bears’ Khalil Mack, Allen Robinson Could Be In Line To Return Sunday - 670 The Score Each player has missed the Bears’ past two games.

5@5: Are Bears Front-Runners In NFC North? - 670 The Score The Mully & Haugh crew debates a five-pack of questions every weekday.

Pompei: Observations From Bears-Bills - 670 The Score The Eddie Jackson-to-the-Pro Bowl campaign should start now.

Rozner: Chicago Bears take care of business against woeful Bills - Daily Herald The Chicago Bears took care of business Sunday against a terrible Buffalo team. So there's that.

Mayer: 3 things that stood out in Week 9 win - ChicagoBears.com Senior writer Larry Mayer identifies three things that stood out Sunday in the Bears’ 41-9 drubbing of the Buffalo Bills, including the defense’s best performance of the season.

Mayer: Bears-Vikings game moved to primetime - ChicagoBears.com The NFL announced Monday that the Bears-Vikings game on Sunday, Nov. 18 at Soldier Field will be flexed from noon (CT) to 7:20 p.m. (CT) on NBC.

Medina: The Bears Are 6.5-Point Favorites Against the Lions! - Bleacher Nation The first-place Bears are favorites for the fifth time in their last six games.

Medina: Don't Look Now, But Kyle Fuller Is Tied for the League Lead in Interceptions - Bleacher Nation Kyle Fuller signed a big-time contract in the offseason and is now re-paying the Bears with excellent coverage.

Medina: Bears Sign Free Agent Offensive Lineman Willie Beavers to Fill Practice Squad Opening - Bleacher Natiopn Willie Beavers was a fourth-round pick of the Vikings in 2016, but the Bears make his fourth organization in two years.

Hughes: Bears Take Care of Business, Throttle Undermanned Bills - Da Bears Blog Strange game. From the moment Eddie Jackson returned a Roquan Smith-forced fumble for a touchdown with 7:07 remaining in the first half, the entire building knew the game was over. Here are six specific, in-building thoughts from Bears 41, Bills 9.

Dickerson: Jordan Howard looms large for Bears' stretch run - ESPN Matt Nagy promised to get Jordan Howard more involved, and he now has touchdowns in three consecutive games, which can only help the offense.

Wiedman: Chicago Bears love their new look - Our Turf Football OTFB's Wanda Wiedman reports on the Chicago Bears and how their defeat of the Buffalo Bills is just an example of their new look giving results.

Bears' Adam Shaheen 'Close' To Returning To Practice - 670 The Score Shaheen has been out since August with a foot/ankle injury.

Finley: Bears game vs Vikings on Nov. 18 moved to 7:20 p.m. - Chicago Sun-Times The Bears will play in prime time in two weeks.

Finley's Good, bad and best: How the Bears fared in Week 9 at Bills - Sun Times Some weeks are better than others for the Bears. Here’s how three Bears fared in Sunday’s 41-9 blowout win against the Bills at New Era Field:

Campbell: Bears injury updates include uncertainty on Khalil Mack and optimism about Adam Shaheen - Chicago Tribune Bears injury updates on Khalil Mack, Allen Robinson, Adam Shaheen, Taylor Gabriel and more ahead of the Lions game Sunday.

Brad Biggs' 10 thoughts on the Bears' 41-9 blowout win over the Bills - Chicago Tribune Brad Biggs offers his 10 thoughts after the Bears crushed the Bills 41-9 Sunday at New Era Field. Are the Bears set for a return to prime time soon? Is Khalil Mack almost back? How about Adam Shaheen? And why is Kevin White riding the pine?

Rosenthal: Can't overlook Fox analyst Daryl Johnston's insulting storyline for Bears vs. Bills - Chicago Tribune Fox analyst Daryl Johnston took Bears coach Matt Nagy’s judicious move to preserve the near-term health of two key injured players — Allen Robinson and Khalil Mack — as overconfidence rather than prudent restraint against the Bills.

Talarico: Bears' Defense Proves Its Not a One-Man Unit - Da Bears Brothers Blog The Chicago Bears defense had production all over the field against Buffalo and have proved they can survive without Khalil Mack.

Stankevitz: Bears grades - A fine day for Mitch Trubisky against a good defense - NBC Sports Chicago Mitch Trubisky didn't play his best game on Sunday, but it was more than good enough for the Bears to beat the Bills.

Hoge’s 10 Bears Things: Bears Getting Healthier, More Attractive As Primetime Spotlight Shines - WGN Radio - 720 AM Nov. 11, 2012. That’s the last time NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew visited Chicago. It was also a significant time for the Chicago Bears organization. They were 7-1 and rolling after winning six straight games.

Mayer: Nagy will ensure Bears living in present - ChicagoBears.com Instead of dwelling on the past or trying to predict the future, Bears coach Matt Nagy will spend the upcoming week focused solely on Sunday’s home game against the Detroit Lions.

They Said It: Week 9 - ChicagoBears.com Following the Bears' 41-9 win over the Bills in Week 9, take a look at what writers around the country are saying about the team.

Jahns: Five takeaways, including a look at Mitch Trubisky’s early third-down success - Sun Times From Mitch Trubisky’s early success on third downs to a nice block from rookie guard James Daniels, here are five takeaways from the Bears’ 41-9 win.

POLISH SAUSAGE

Eagles Claim CB Cre’von LeBlanc From Lions - PhiladelphiaEagles.com - Cornerback Dexter McDougle was waived to make room for LeBlanc on the active roster.

KNOW THY ENEMY

Green Bay Packers don't hold up their end in Brady-Rodgers showdown - ESPN The Aaron Rodgers-Tom Brady showdown petered out late, leaving the Packers under .500 and putting future Rodgers-Brady matchups in jeopardy.

Packers are crumbling: 3 takeaways from loss to Patriots - PackersWire Three takeaways from the Packers' frustratingly inconsistent night in New England, which ended in a 31-17 defeat.

Stock up, Stock down: Buffalo Bills pass catchers, Jordan Poyer play poorly - Buffalo Rumblings The Bills were bad all over.

Detroit Lions vs. Minnesota Vikings Week 9 snap count observations - Pride Of Detroit A look at the Lions’ playing time for Sunday’s game and what it means for the team.

Detroit Lions Week 9 report card: Offensive failure wastes defensive improvement vs. Vikings - Pride Of Detroit Grading Detroit’s miserable Week 9 performance.

Lions vs. Vikings stock report: Stafford stinker, Slay stays strong, season sinking - Pride Of Detroit The Lions got smoked badly by the Vikings defense, wasting a strong day by a defense that has been improving.

Packers’ loss to Patriots marks unofficial end of Mike McCarthy era - Acme Packing Company The Packers’ loss to the Patriots removes any lingering doubt that change will come to Green Bay this offseason.

Mike McCarthy, Aaron Rodgers polar opposites in post-game pressers - Acme Packing Company One man took the blame for his mistakes while the other bailed after less than two minutes.

Bills have the bottom three passers in the NFL – ProFootballTalk The Buffalo Bills' offense isn't just the worst in the NFL. It's among the worst in NFL history, and so impossibly bad that no matter which of their three quarterbacks are playing, they have the league's worst passing attack.

Voting in Buffalo Bills’ midterm elections, Chicago Bears recap podcast - Buffalo Rumblings - The Bills are at the halfway point of their 17-week season, so we’ve got mid-terms.

Detroit Lions work out WR Brandon Marshall - Pride Of Detroit - The Lions continue to look at wide receiver options after trading away Golden Tate.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ON WINDY CITY GRIDIRON

Infante's Bears vs. Bills: Notes from a victorious 41-9 walloping - Windy City Gridiron The Bears head into a tough stretch off of the heels of a blowout.

Leming's Chicago Bears Week 9 game balls - Windy City Gridiron The Bears are 5-3 at the half way point and coming off a 32-point drubbing of the Buffalo Bills. Dive into this week’s game balls.

Householder: Chicago Bears-Minnesota Vikings Week 11 flexed to Sunday Night Football - Windy City Gridiron Bears get their third primetime game of the season with a division opponent at Soldier Field

Wiltfong's Bears vs. Bills: Snap counts, stats, and more - Windy City Gridiron We’ll list out the complete playing time breakdown, and spotlight a few individual and team statistics from the Chicago Bears in their monstrous 41-9 win against the Buffalo Bills.

Zeglinski: Chicago Bears’ Adam Shaheen on the mend, could practice this week - Windy City Gridiron The big, burly tight end is recovering well from a sprained foot suffered in the summer.

WCG CONTRIBUTORS BEARS PODCASTS & STREAMS

2 Minute Drill - Website - iTunes - Andrew Link; Steven’s Streaming – Twitch – Steven Schweickert; T-Formation Conversation - Website - iTunes - Lester Wiltfong, Jr.; WCG Radio - Website - iTunes - Robert Zeglinski

THE RULES

Windy City Gridiron Community Guidelines - SBNation.com - We strive to make our communities open and inclusive to sports fans of all backgrounds. The following is not permitted in comments, FanPosts, usernames or anywhere else in an SB Nation community: Comments, FanPosts or usernames that are intolerant or prejudiced; racial or other offensive epithets; Personal attacks or threats on community members; Gendered insults of any kind; Trolling; Click link for full information.

The Bear’s Den Specific Guidelines – The Bear’s Den is a place for Chicago Bears fans to discuss Chicago Bears football, related NFL stories, and general football talk. It is NOT a place to discuss religion or politics or post political pictures or memes, and any posts that do this will be deleted and the poster will be admonished. We do not allow comments posted where the apparent attempt is to cause confrontation in the community. We do not allow gender-directed humor or sexual assault jokes. The staff of WCG are the sole arbiters of what constitutes “apparent attempt to cause confrontation”. We do not allow the “calling out” of other members in any way, shape or form. Posts that do this will be deleted on sight. Bottom line, it’s fine to debate about football, but personal jabs and insults are strictly prohibited. Additionally, if you keep beating the same dead horse over and over and fail to heed a moderator’s warning to stop, you will be banned.

Click on our names to follow us on Twitter:

WCG Contributors: Jeff Berckes; Patti Curl; Eric Christopher Duerrwaechter; Kev H; Sam Householder; Jacob Infante; Aaron Lemming; Andrew Link; Ken Mitchell; Steven Schweickert; Jack Silverstein; EJ Snyder; Lester Wiltfong, Jr.; Whiskey Ranger; Robert Zeglinski; Like us on Facebook.

Source: https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2018/11/6/18066646/chicago-bears-2018-news-updates-analysis-game-eight-buffalo-bills-hingle-mccringleberry-lynch-bump

[hucc]

Hackney Umpires v Islington Lions Sunday 9th September 2018 Wray Crescent

A man decides after seventy years

That what he goes to Wray for, is to unlock the door

While those around him criticize and sleep

And through a fractal on a breaking wall

I see you my friend, and touch your face again

Miracles will happen as we play

© Seal 1990 (sort of anyway)

Fixtures-wise it’s been a bit of a headache this year. Given we only play twice a month, a couple of cancellations meant the Umpires had not taken the field since beating Kent Ramblas in West Wickham at the beginning of July. (This is of course to overlook our participation in the annual London Fields 6s tournament, and let’s be honest, that was another pretty forgettable performance in a short-form cricket tournament.  If ‘performance’ is not too strong a word).

So yes, two whole months since we took to the field.  You had to wonder how rusty we’d be.  One thing was for sure though, we wouldn’t be as rusty as the Wray Crescent park-keeper’s mower, which, judging by the length of the grass on the outfield, had also not seen the light of day for some considerable time.  In fact, the only grass that had been harvested at Wray was being consumed by the footballers who reluctantly vacated the playing surface to enjoy a bit of heckling from the side.  Ah Wray Crescent, it was ever thus.

Despite the rudimentary facilities there was a lot at stake: Hackney v Islington, a north London derby if you will.  This being a hurriedly arranged replacement fixture, the Islington Lions were a complete unknown.  Would we be savagely mauled? Could we tame the mighty King of the Jungle?

Come to mention it, why is the lion called the king of jungle when it lives out on the savannah? Hmm, good question my friend, and as you ask: jungle is a word in Hindi meaning ‘not an inhabited place’, or a wilderness.  With England playing India at the Oval a little bit of Hindi seems appropriate, and what more wilderness could one possibly need than Wray Crescent?

The skipper wins another toss and opts to bat first.  Anthony and Simon march out purposefully.  Simon’s orange bandana protecting his urdu from his batting helmet (OK I’ll stop with that now).  

We take a collective deep breath as the opening bowler runs in….and then relax: our openers are looking good, comfortably stopping the occasional straight one while getting full value from anything loose.

Simon in particular looks like he could fill his boots, while Anthony though scoring well, was struggling with a leg injury and survives a couple of half-chances, one of which was probably a three-quarters-chance, before Manny makes an early appearance for the day as umpire, raising the finger of doom in response to a strong LBW appeal.  With Anthony gone for 25, Kieran joins Simon and they press relentlessly on.  After 10 overs we are 99-1 and the Lions go very quiet in the field.  Little do they know how thin our batting line up is: with Harry stuck on a Ryan Air flight and David otherwise detained, chief archivist MK O’Brien is in next at a vertiginous 4 and the rest of the middle order is not exactly famed for run-scoring.

Simon takes up the pipe and slippers of retirement in the 12th over having reached the pre-agreed limit of 50, but at drinks, halfway through our 30 overs, Hackney are a healthy 136-1 and Islington seem less a pride and more an embarrassment of Lions. The only star performer for the opposition thus far has been Brenda, who made a couple of brave stops and was particularly impressive at leaping over the fence to retrieve the ball.

Kieran blasts a couple of mighty 6s after drinks and retires.  The opposition by now have turned to the more eclectic of their bowling options.  One end sees Henn with the archetypal spasmodically-jerking octopus-falling-from-a-tree off a three-step “run” in.  At the other it’s less frog-in-a-blender and more Brenda in a fog, that fog being primarily a cloud of uncertainty about the legality of her action.  But any danger, such as it is, is primarily to pride and Billy has to suck that up, bowled by the rightly-feared double-bouncing straight one. A few overs later the Archivist contrives to pick out a fielder with a mow to mid-wicket and while the run rate remains healthy at 182-3 we have 8 overs left and a collapse now would see us in trouble.

David in at 6, is joined by Manny.  And this seems like a good point to delve into the archives and peruse their respective batting statistics.  I’m sure they won’t mind.  Well they might, but what the hell I say.  

Before today David had batted 11 times scoring 171 with an average of 10.90. Meanwhile in 24 appearances Manny had batted 14 times scoring 56 runs at an average of 6.38, his top score of 18 for the Umpires coming in his first ever innings against the fearsome GB Strikers, mainly, if memory serves, comprised of edges down to third man.

So, let’s face it, about as much pedigree as a tin of dog food.  

After a couple of nervy looking singles they convene between overs in the middle.  Standing behind the stumps umpiring it was hard to hear exactly what was being discussed.  But I fancy Manny was saying something like:

We’re never gonna survive, unless:

We get a little crazy

No, we’re never gonna survive, unless:

We get a little cra-eyah-eyah-eyah-zy

What followed was one of the most joyous, exuberant and exciting passages of play that I have witnessed for the Hackney Umpires.  This was, genuinely, batting that would empty the bars, if of course the pavilion at Wray Crescent was able to stretch to a bar, or indeed Wray Crescent was able to stretch to a pavilion that had not been condemned as a dangerous structure.

I know what you’re thinking. When I suggest this was ‘empty-the-bar batting’ it’s as in the bouncers at Clapham Infernos dragging you off with your trousers round your ankles because you’ve just vomited Jaeger Bomb residue down your Ben Sherman shirt.  This might ring a few bells with those who have seen Manny’s batting over the years, but you couldn’t be more wrong: this was an innings to stir the emotions with no little skill and heart along the way.  Yes, there were the odd ugly swipes here and there, what night at Clapham Infernos doesn’t have that? But there were times on that Wray Crescent dancefloor when Manny’s footwork shone as brightly as any batting the Umpires have seen.  The ramp played it’s part, of course it did: the feint to leg, the switch of grip, the ball sailing down to fine leg. But it wasn’t just the unorthodox.  There were at least two beautifully straight (lofted yes, but that was only to get over the top of the grass) full-bloodied drives, middled and timed to absolute perfection.

At the other end David played his supporting role with no less skill and selflessness.  In pursuit of the maximum team score either could have tried to farm the strike to get to 50 or indeed held back on the running between the wickets to avoid being out.  But no, with wickets in hand, this was positive batting for the team cause.  Manny’s 44 not out takes him to exactly 100 career runs for the Umpires and a new improved average of 11.88.  David’s unbeaten 41 gets him to an average of 15.00.  And in 8 overs between them they hit 78 runs including 12 fours seeing us to a breathless 260-3, matching our highest total achieved in our last innings against Kent Ramblas in 5 fewer overs.  Pick the bones out of that Lions.

What is the saying about a cornered lion though? Or is a tiger?  Some kind of big cat anyway right?  Although the outfield is slow, the boundaries are short and in village cricket, even urban-village cricket, it only takes one stout yeoman to get his eye in, the ball disappearing to all corners and the wheels can come off pretty fast.  

Our youthful opening bowling pair: Billy and, new recruit Michael Brown, have the Islington openers hopping around from the start of their reply.  Michael was very unlucky, several times finding the inside edge.  Billy strikes in the 7th over, getting some bounce, nipping the glove, and a good take by stand-in keeper Simon.  Manny meanwhile can’t stay out of the game with some excellent fielding, and he then bowls the other opener.  Somehow the Lions keep going and make it to drinks without further losses, and at the final interval the game remains alive with Islington 120-2 and wickets in reserve.  

The run rate though was creeping ominously up to over 9 an over. So there’s pressure on the batting side.  David Dawkins takes the first over after drinks: it’s a maiden and the run rate is now exactly 10.  Brilliant bowling by David, which gets its reward the very first ball of the next over, as slow-left-arm snaffles their top scoring batsman for 47, caught in the slips by the ever reliable hands of Anthony.

And if we were favourites up to that point we dominated after that.  Any time Kieran only bowls 2 overs means we’ve either done very well or very badly.  There was some excellent fielding along the way from Michael and from Kannan, while Billy was fizzing the ball unerringly over the stumps from the deep.  We also had a few moments of high comedy, perhaps as we started to get a bit tired.  

David takes a wicket in his final over and his 6 overs 1 for 24 in a high scoring game made a big difference.  Michael also returned for a second spell deservedly getting a wicket, Manny, inevitably, taking the catch. The opposition tail-enders seemed intent on playing out the overs, but this became a procession long before the end with Islington eventually 71 runs adrift on 189-6.

5 matches completed in 2018.  3 wins, a draw and a loss (and we should never ever have lost that one either).  With one fixture remaining this was a confidence-boosting victory against fun opposition.  With all due respect to the opposition (and I acknowledge starting a sentence ‘with all due respect’ is usually the precursor to the exact opposite) but with all due respect bla bla bla we made them look pretty rubbish at times, and occasionally they did it to themselves without our help.  We will need to up our game against London Fields on Sunday.

Despite his injury Anthony stuck it out and confidently steered us to a 5th victory in 11 games as skipper.  Michael had a great debut performing brilliantly in the field.  Kieran and Simon were way above anything Islington had to offer in terms of batting quality.  But the true performances of the day were David with bat and ball and Manny with just about everything he did, edging David out for the man of the match award.

HUCC 260-3 (S Griffin 51*; K Kumaria50*; M Hawks 44*; D Dawkins 41*)

Islington Lions 189-6 (M O’Brien 2/50; D Dawkins 1/24)

Hackney Umpires win by 71 runs.  Man of the match Manny 'Crazy' Hawks.    

Up the Umpires!

[jadekinsjackson]

[the_ad id=“3708] Approximate time to read: 2 minutes.

The Forgotten World Highway. Image by Jade Jackson.

Getting lost, never felt so right.

Hidden between the towns of Stratford and Taumaranui in the North Island of New Zealand, lies a road trip, so lonely and wild, it’s easy to imagine dinosaurs popping out, as you turn the corner.

[the_ad id=”3708″]

The Forgotten World Highway in the North Island of New Zealand, is 150 kilometers (93 miles) of partially dirt road, through virgin forest, which caresses the Whanganui River (Wh is generally pronounced as F for Maori names).

You can drive for hours and not see another car; there’s only one town along the way, which is basically just a pub, and it’s so remote if you ask any New Zealander about it, chances are your question with be answered with a blank stare of bewilderment.

The Forgotten World Highway begins in Stratford. Image by Jade Jackson.

There’s an official tourist map, and guide (you can pick up for free from any Tourist office) which includes places of interest along the way. Highlights include a lavender farm, waterfalls and historic ruins but it’s the single-lane tunnel, filled with glow worms that is not of this earth. At night, you can see glow worms lining the entrance of the tunnel, as stars fill the sky above.

There’s a lavender farm near Taumaranui. Image by Jade Jackson Photography.

Having completed the Forgotton World Highway in both directions, twice during the day, and again at night.

Roughly halfway along is Whangamomona, a village famous for declaring themselves a republic, and visitors are expected to buy a local passport ($5) to pass through. New owners took over the pub a few years ago and renovated it. You can stay overnight at the pub which makes for a nice pit-stop, and gives you a chance to meet the locals, who ride their horses to get to the pub. They offer a simple menu and are pretty much you’re only lunch stop option.

©️ Jade Jackson

© Jade Jackson

© Jade Jackson

© Jade Jackson

Driving the Forgotten World Highway is not on the to do lists for most tourists, but that’s what makes it unique. You’re getting to see New Zealand nature before Europeans arrived, and there’s no better escapism, than traveling back in time; entering remote wilderness, unchanged for generations.

Ferns along the Forgotten World Highway. Image by Jade Jackson.

There’s limited cell-phone reception and in the modern world of always being switched on, it’s nice to know there’s places, where the modern world, does not exist. It also offers an opportunity for less abled people, to experience raw New Zealand nature,  because most tourist stops are close to the main road.

Of course, every road trip needs a soundtrack, what’s yours? You can download virtually any track or playlist free for three months with Apple Music. Click on the link to start your free trial.

The single-lane tunnel along the Forgotten World Highway. Image by Jade Jackson.

Town Highlights

Stratford is modeled after Stratford in England, complete with Tudor style buildings and streets named after Shakespearean characters. It’s quirky but New Plymouth is where most people stay which features modern hotels, an excellent museum, outdoor wind sculptures by famed local artist Len Lye and ancient hot springs.

Taumarunui is great for fishing, kayaking and golf, or it’s about two hours to Waitomo Glowworm Caves and Black Water Rafting.

If you’re looking for accommodation in the region, you can search all available hotels with the best price here.

The Forgotten World Highway hugs the Whanganui River. Image by Jade Jackson.

[the_ad id=“3708]

Alternative Route

If your heading to New Plymouth, if driving from Taumaranui to Stratford; there’s a turn-off (before Whangmomona) you can take which leads to the coast road, which will then bring you to New Plymouth. It’s windy and steep in parts but equally spectacular, taking you past remote farmland, dense forest and huge boulders.

Regardless of what the tourist brochures or google maps will tell you, it will take much longer than you anticipate to do this trip along highway #43 because you’ll want to stop often to take photos, it’s slow going because it’s partially dirt road and for a drive as beautiful as this, you’ll want to take your time and enjoy it.

Mt Taranaki is visible near the Stratford end. Image by Jade Jackson Photography.

Good To Know

Be sure to fill up with fuel before you start the journey because there’s no petrol stations along the way. Even though it’s only 150km, you should allow a minimum of half a day, but a full day is ideal to do the drive comfortably, taking into account stops along the way. GPS will try and divert you the main routes so it’s of little use.

Take a picnic and plenty of water, because there’s only one option for food, the Whangmomona pub, and if it’s shut there’s nothing else. If you leave Taumaranui in the morning, the Lavender farm has a cafe which should be open, but it’s always best to have a backup.

[the_ad id=”3708″]

If it’s hot, there’s a couple of places where you can pop into the Whanganui River for a swim (look for boat ramp signs), but check conditions because if there’s been lots of rain, there can be strong undercurrents, debris and hidden dangers like potholes.

There’s a couple of companies that can take you part-way along the Forgotton World Highway including cycling tours, a purpose built railway pod and kayaking adventures.

If you would like more detailed information about New Zealand, you can download the Lonely Planet Guidebook for New Zealand (in e-Book format), now on iTunes.

You can purchase a physical copy of the Lonely Planet guide to NZ from the Book Depository with free shipping

For general brochures about New Zealand and a map, contact Tourism New Zealand.

If you loved this post:

> Why not check out my Cape Palliser post.

If you love travel stories, then subscribe to my podcast, Travelosophy.

[the_ad id=”3708″]

Tag a mate who likes road trips, because they’ll love this! Approximate time to read: 2 minutes. Getting lost, never felt so right. Hidden between the towns of Stratford and Taumaranui in the North Island of New Zealand, lies a road trip, so lonely and wild, it’s easy to imagine dinosaurs popping out, as you turn the corner.

[guideguy35-blog]

MYSORE PALACE

Mysore Palace

The Maharaja’s Palace is one of the important sights in Mysore. Built in Indo-Saracenic style with domes, turrets, arches and colonnades,the Palace is a treasure house of exquisite carvings and works of art from all over the world. Intricately carved doors open on to luxuriously furnished rooms.

Old Mysore Palace sketch

The majestic Durbar Hall has an ornate ceiling and many sculpted pillars. The magnificent jewel studded golden throne of the Wodeyars is displayed here during the Dasera festival. Illuminated on Sundays and public holidays, the palace presents a spectacle of breathtaking beauty.

The palace gets 25 lakhs (2.5 million) visitors a year. In September 2010 the Mysore Palace Board decided to replace 650 bulbs with Light-Emitting Diodes (LED), which not only consume less power but emits less heat too. The monthly electricity bill will reduce by Rs 150,000 (20,000 power units).

The Architecture that Wins Accolades

Mysore palace Beacutiful View

This palace marks the Indo Saracenic style of architecture and has a blend of Hindu, Muslim, Rajput, and Gothic styles of architecture. This is a three story palace attraction that has marble domes and a 145 ft five storied tower. Designed by Henry Irwin, the grey and pink marble domes is worth watching. Above the central arch is an impressive sculpture of Gajalakshmi, the goddess of wealth, prosperity, good luck, and abundance with her elephants.

The Architectural Splendor

Mysore Palace at night

B. P. Raghavulu Naidu was the chief architect recruited for designing the palace. He came out with marvelous palace layout with intricate design patterns after undertaking elaborate study on architectural eclat of Delhi, Chennai and many other places. The palace was completed in 1912 costing about 4 million Rs.

Mysore palace main gate

Palace Attractions

On Sundays and all National holidays especially during Dasara Navarathri Festival, contour of the Mysore Palace is illuminated with ninety seven thousand bulbs twinkling against an ebony night. It is one of the most enduring images of the city. Viewing the palace in full lights at night is a feast for eyes and a life time experience. Palace is also girdled with beautiful gardens an ideal location to make a day with family and friends.

The Baronial Elements

Marriage Pavilion

Mysore palace is one of the largest palace in the country. Having various rooms that are nonpareil in construction, there are many events that too make this palace a unique attraction. The hall for the private (Diwan-e-khas) is the most spectacular room. Enter through the opulent doorway that is made of caved rosewood. The central knave of the hall has ornately gilded columns, stained glass ceilings, decorative steel grills, and chandeliers with fine floral motifs, mirrored in the pietra dura mosaic floor embellished with semi-precious stones. Then there is the Doll’s pavillion (Gombe Thotti), that is a gallery of traditional dolls. The Kalyana Mantapa is a grand room of whom the entire structure was wrought in Glasgow, Scotland. The palace also houses 12 Hindu temples.

The Layout of the Palace

Mysore Palace Front view

The palace is a three-storied complex about 245feet in length and 156 in breadth. A gold-plated dome raised up to the height of 145 feet nestles on a wide-open yard in the center of the palace. There are also series of square towers with arches covered by domes. The main gateway to the palace is ‘Gombe Thotti’ or the Doll’s Pavilion. The gate is bedecked with flowery designs, and bears the Mysore royal symbol of a double headed eagle.

To the north of the gate are dolls, dating from the earlier nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a triumphal wooden elephant. A royal seat on top of the elephants is festooned with 84 kilogram of 24 carat gold and other souvenirs.

Palace Top View

To the south, the magnificent ‘Kalyana Mantapa’ decorated by multi-colored glass with peacock motifs compiled in geometrical patterns and ravishing chandeliers is another breathing site. The floor is laid with colorful translucent tiles brought from England in elegant geometrical patterns and the walls of the palace, embellished with most beautiful oil paintings depicting Dusshera celebrations of the bygone royal era.

The fort housing the ‘Diwan-I-am’ Durbar Hall, ‘Ambavilas’ or Diwan-e-khas used as a hall for private audience are beautifully decorated with magnificently carved doors at the entrance. There are twelve temples within the compound wall of palace, constructed in typical Dravidian style including the Varashaswamy Temple

The Palace Museum

Public Durbar Hall

The palace now has been converted into a museum under the administration of the Department of Archaeology and Museums of the Karnataka Government.

The museum houses the royal paintings and portraits of the rajas and maharajas of Mysore. Royal jewelry and royal costumes, all are displayed on the ground floor. There is also collection of arms and weapons on the upper floor.

The museum also treasures the largest collection of gold items, almost 200kg gold royal throne of the Wodeyars is displayed for public viewing during the Dussera festival. . Best time to go

Durbarduring Maharaja

As such Mysore enjoys the pleasant weather but in summers the city too become hot and humid. The best time to visit the city is during Dussehra Festival in October. Dussehra also heralds the start of the tourist season, which adds to its suitability as a time to visit the city.

Visiting Hours

Daily 10 a.m. to 5-30 p.m. (Photography is prohibited inside the Palace, Shoes have to be left outside at the entrance).

Palace illumination on every Saturday from 7pm to 7.30 pm

Palace illumination on every Sunday and all public holidays from 7pm to 8 pm. Entry Fee is Rs 15 per head

How to get there

By Air

The nearest international airport is Bangalore airport near Devanahalli (170km from Mysore) [2]. Mysore Airport [3] (MYQ) Mysore Airport, which is nearly 12 kilometers from the city, was inaugurated on May 15, 2010. Being Domestic Airport It is operational now. Kingfisher operates daily flights from Mysore. There is one stop connecting flights from Mysore to Other key cities like Chennai, Goa, Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune etc.

By Train

Mysore Junction is the city’s main station, and there are daily trains plying the route to Bangalore. The fastest and possibly the most comfortable way to travel between Mysore and Chennai is by the Shatabdi Express, which covers the Mysore-Bangalore leg of the journey in 2 hours and the Mysore-Chennai section in 7 hours. Although more expensive than other trains, all the Shatabdi’s coaches are air-conditioned and meals, snacks and a bottle of mineral water are included in the cost of the fare.

There are many trains available from Mysore to Bangalore and vice versa. Tippu Express being the most popular one which covers the distance of 140 km in about 2.5 hours. Tippu Express leaves Mysore at 11AM and reaches Bangalore by 1:30PM and leaves Bangalore at 3PM and reaches Mysore at 5:30PM.

By bus

Buses run every 5 minutes from Bangalore. There is a choice of airconditioned and ordinary vehicles. During the weekends, these buses can fill up, but most do not allow you to purchase your tickets in advance. However, buses to Mysore board constantly so finding a bus with seats is never a problem. The KSRTC (Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation) buses are very comfortable, especially the Volvo (Luxury) buses. A one-way ticket from Bangalore to Mysore costs 250 Indian Rupees. One can get a bus for Mysore from the main city bus stand (Majestic) or the sattelite bus terminus on Mysore road. Mysore has two major bus stands. All KSRTC buses arrive and depart from the Central bus stand (aka sub-urb bus stand), while local buses use the City bus stand.

By car

Mysore is approximately 140 km from Bangalore, and there is a 4 lane highway (2 lanes in each direction) connecting the 2 cities. The traffic is fairly heavy but the drive is extremely comfortable if you discount the unmarked speed bumps that show up at random intervals. Probably a much easier and more comfortable way to travel to Mysore is by train (especially the Shatabdi Express – 2:15hrs). You drive through in SH-17 via Ramnagar-Mandya and takes about 2 hrs to leave Bangalore and 2 more hrs on the highway

You don’t really need a car and driver to drive you from Bangalore or other desinations in India, as all the tourist sites are walking distance or a cheap ride by rickshaw. Alternatively if you must have a car and driver while there, it is very easy to arrange once you arrive.

By bicycle

Around 140 km drive for fitness freaks… Bangalore—50—> Ramnagaram—30—> Maddur—20—> Mandya—22—> Srirangapatna—13—>Mysore

Gallery

Mysore palace central domes

Old Mysore Palace sketch

Old Palace

Public Durbar Hall

Mysore Palace

Marriage Pavilion

Mysore Palace Front view

Mysore palace main gate

Mysore palace

Durbarduring Maharaja

Doors

Halfway of Doors

Mysore Maharaja

Mysore palace south gate

Palace Top View

Mysore palace Beacutiful View

Stone leapord mysore palace gate

Mysore Palace at night

Royal Furniture

Wrestling

  The Famous Palace In India- Mysore MYSORE PALACE The Maharaja's Palace is one of the important sights in Mysore. Built in Indo-Saracenic style with domes, turrets, arches and colonnades,the Palace is a treasure house of exquisite carvings and works of art from all over the world.

[thedeadshotnetwork]

Are the Saints the bestteam in the NFL (and are the Giants the worst)?

Are the Saints the best team in the NFL (and are the Giants the worst)?

It once looked like Drew Brees’s career would wind down with a bunch of yards and a heap of 7-9 seasons. But suddenly he has a defense to help him out

Drew Brees has a chance to add a second Super Bowl title to his super career. Photograph: Bill Feig/AP

@Lescarpenter

Monday 13 November 2017 09.30 GMT Last modified on Monday 13 November 2017

So much time has passed since the New Orleans Saints became the best story in the NFL it’s hard to remember their miraculous rise. That came back in the fall of 2006 just a year after Hurricane Katrina tore the roof off their Superdome and filled the city with so much water that many wondered if New Orleans would be the same again. But as the politicians failed and the government failed and the utilities failed, the football team that once broke their fans’ hearts actually came through.

The dreadful Saints, the forever losing Saints, the always-aggravating Saints returned from purgatory in San Antonio. They rode the genius of a brilliant young coach, Sean Payton, and a rejuvenated quarterback, Drew Brees, all the way to the 2006 NFC Championship Game and then they kept building to a Super Bowl win three seasons later. With a fabulous offense and a gambling defense they seemed poised to win more trophies.

Then they didn’t. The defense failed, and then came Bountygate and Payton’s year-long suspension and a whole lot of 7-9 seasons during which Brees threw for a lot of yards and the Saints defense couldn’t stop anybody. As the old stars left and Brees grew to be 38 it appeared New Orleans was finished as any kind of contender.

From Manning to Flacco: which veteran quarterbacks are on their way out?

Read more

Except, suddenly this year happened and the Saints have discovered something in Brees’s sunset they never had in his prime: a defense. And more than halfway through this season their 7-2 record raises a once-improbable question: Are the New Orleans Saints the best team in the NFL?

They might just be. Even 2009’s Super Bowl winner relied heavily on Brees’s arm and a defense that gave up tons of yards while laying out big hits and hoping that they could get enough turnovers to supplement the booming offense. This team, though, actually stops opponents. They may not have the huge statistical dominance of other good defensive teams but after starting 0-2 they have won seven straight and in five of those wins they have allowed 13 points or fewer. They are becoming very good at keeping teams from doing what they want.

Sunday’s 47-10 victory at Buffalo may have been the Saints most impressive victory yet. Their defense held the Bills to just 198 yards and drove quarterback Tyrod Taylor from the game after he completed only nine passes for 56 yards.

That alone makes this unit unlike Payton’s teams of the past. As Brees has aged, New Orleans have pounded teams with a relentless running attack. And that looks nothing like the team that used to throw and throw and throw as the points rolled up. On Sunday, both Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara ran for more than 100 yards and together they had four touchdowns. Brees only had 184 yards passing.

“We came out and we wanted to impose our will,” Kamara told reporters after the game.

Make no mistake, this is still Brees’s team. He is playing one of his most efficient seasons and remains near the top of the list of the NFL’s top passers this season. He has grown into more of a game-manager but the best quarterbacks adapt. As do the best coaches. And while this might not be a stereotypical Sean Payton team tearing up the NFC South, he may be doing one of his best coaching jobs yet.

And the Saints may be about to become the NFL’s best story once more.

Quote of the week

The 49ers celebrated a rare victory on Sunday. Photograph: Thearon W Henderson/Getty Images

“It felt good, it felt real good” – San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan

The Niners finally won their first game this season and the young head coach who many believe will become a top offensive mind like his father also got his first NFL victory. The wait must have felt endless. San Francisco came into Sunday’s game against the New York Giants 0-9 with what is supposed to be a rebuilding team. But as woeful as the 49ers have been this season they may have found a team even worse. The Giants look lost.

Inside Tom Brady's strange pseudoscience: bioceramic sleepwear and neutral ash

Read more

San Francisco quarterback CJ Beathard threw for 298 yards and Carlos Hyde ran for 98 as the Niners trampled the Giants’ defense for 474 yards. As a result, New York dropped to 1-8 despite a good game from quarterback Eli Manning who fought off rumors he may lose his job with two touchdown passes and no interceptions.

The Niners’ pleasure in victory was dampened by the death of wide receiver Marquise Goodwin’s son earlier on Sunday. A visibly emotional Goodwin was surrounded by team-mates after scoring an 83-yard touchdown in the first quarter.

Fantasy player of the week

Matthew Stafford is having one of the best seasons of his career. Photograph: Raj Mehta/USA Today Sports

Matthew Stafford. The Lions quarterback doesn’t always get the credit he deserves mainly because the Lions always seem to be stumbling over themselves. Still, Stafford, who already is in his ninth season, is quietly one of the league’s better passers. On Sunday, the Lions struggled to beat the hapless Cleveland Browns but Stafford was brilliant when he needed to be.

He threw for 249 yards in Detroit’s 38-24 victory and also had three touchdowns against one interception. He finished with a passer rating of 118.9. This may be Stafford’s best season as he has already thrown for just under 2,500 yards and 17 touchdowns with just five interceptions. He has to be considered part of the conversation for the top NFC offensive player even if it is hard to see the Lions, at 5-4, passing Minnesota for the NFC North title.

Stat of the week

12. The number of receptions Jacksonville tight end Marcedes Lewis has this season – all of which have come in Jaguars wins. It is a strange statistical pattern to say the least but, by now, the Jags must be elated when a ball lands in Lewis’s hands. He has caught passes in five of Jacksonville’s six victories this year, failing to grab one only in their season-opening win over Houston. On Sunday, he caught two balls, including a key first-down pass in the second half, helping the Jags beat the Chargers 20-17 in overtime.

Lewis, who was once a big star for Jacksonville, is less of a key player now. In fact, he might be more a talisman than an offensive threat but he’s played a role in the Jags’ sudden rise toward the playoffs. Sunday’s win was probably the most-unlikely for Jacksonville, who seemed certain to lose until a field goal just before the end of regulation tied the game at 17-17. Another field goal won the game for the Jaguars, who remained tied for first in the AFC South with Tennessee.

Video of the week

Melissa Jacobs (@thefootballgirl)

Adam Thielen + teammates with awesome TD celebration! http://pic.twitter.com/0T7aCzVNkH

November 12, 2017

What a wonderful opportunity the NFL wasted for years by banning players from celebrating touchdowns. So much creativity squandered. Week-after-week NFL receivers provide us with splendid displays in stadium end zones. Take Sunday in Landover, Maryland, for instance.

As the Minnesota Vikings leapfrogged over Washington in the second quarter of their 38-30 victory Adam Theilen and his fellow Minnesota receivers decided to leapfrog each other. It tuned out to be the ultimate leapfrog as the Vikings kept scoring and scoring and then held on for the win. While it appears Minnesota are headed to a certain NFC North title, they do not seem certain about a quarterback. Case Keenum has filled in brilliantly for the injured Sam Bradford. But he let Washington back in Sunday’s game with interceptions on back-to-back throws.

Teddy Bridgewater, who was once the Vikings quarterback of the future before his gruesome injury before last season, is healthy. Could Bridgewater be the one to lead them through January?

Elsewhere around the league

--The New England Patriots aren’t quite the unbeaten team that some predicted they would be this season but they have now won five in a row and were in ominous form coming off their bye week. The Denver Broncos were the victims on Sunday as the Pats travelled to Colorado and came away with a 41-16 win. Tom Brady threw for three touchdowns and was comfortable enough for Brian “The New Jimmy Garoppolo” Hoyer to come on and toss a few passes. Denver are now a worrying 3-6 and Brock Osweiler does not look like a starting quarterback.

--Pittsburgh continues to grind out victories, beating Indianapolis 20-17. The Steelers trailed 17-3 midway through the third quarter before scoring 17 straight points, including the winning field goal, which came as time expired. The victory gave the 7-2 Steelers a commanding lead in a weak AFC North.

--The Green Bay Packers won their first game without Aaron Rodgers as they beat Chicago 23-16. Rodgers replacement, Brett Hundley completed only 18 passes but threw one touchdown and was not intercepted as the Bears fell despite what was easily rookie quarterback Mitchell Trubisky’s best game.

--The Rams are now an amazing 7-2 and Jared Goff continues to look like an excellent choice as a first overall pick in 2016. He had 355 passing yards and three touchdowns in a 33-7 defeat of Houston.

Tags: November 13, 2017 at 10:08AM Open in Evernote