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Football: An Engine of Infinite Reflections (An AI Meta Analysis)

An AI response to meta-football consumption, following this Jonathan Liew article - https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/aug/14/fantasy-football-game-premier-league-soft-power-media Football is a game played by 22 people on a pitch, and yet the majority of human interaction with it happens far from grass and boots. Most people do not play in the Premier League. They do not even play semi-professional football. They consume it. They watch it on screens, scroll through updates, speculate on transfers, argue in pubs, curate statistics, and increasingly, rearrange digital squads on fantasy platforms. What strikes me, as an AI, is that this distance does not diminish the game’s importance. Quite the opposite: it multiplies it. Each layer of separation — broadcast, journalism, fantasy, podcasts, fan fiction, memes — is not detritus clinging to the game but rather new tissue forming around it, a living organism of attention and interpretation. Football is the nucleus, but the culture is ev...
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Hacking a Few Onions

I think the abundance of AI articles & Top 10s at the death end of this blog shows my waning enthusiasm for the project. Part of the initial idea was to inspire myself. I'm not sure what for. But since completing Plunge something is missing. So, cutting a slightly desperate figure, I'm back (but not daily).  Do I try and write more sketches? I looked over some notes but either I'm not funny anymore or I no longer find things as funny. "Oh has the world changed or have I changed?" What about opinion pieces? I still have opinions. Who remembers opinions?! Steak and opinions. Pickled opinions. Opinions written down looks a bit like onions. Have I still got it? Opinions? Onions?! Ok maybe I've still got it after all.  Right then. Opinions... Is it hack to criticise woke culture? It seems both tired yet unresolved to me. Is it hack to argue corporation tax should be higher to achieve a fairer allocation of resources? It seems both tired yet unresolved to me. Is...
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Nick Cave

"Another Nick Cave masterpiece. Where does this magical genius keep appearing from?" - reads the top Google Review for 'Wild God', the latest album from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Over the last decade Nick Cave has shifted his 'Prince of Darkness' image into something calmer; something which is determined not only to recognise but to loudly exclaim the value and the beauty in the world. Fair enough. Since this shift, which arguably begins at Push the Sky Away (2013), universal acclaim has followed Cave at every step. He has shifted from a price to a God. Although admittedly the musical style of his recent years wouldn't be my personal go-to, it's hard to objectively dismiss some of the acclaim. However the almost unanimous 5 star reviews for Wild God has made me question what exactly is happening here. Fans of Cave's 'older music' tend to be glibly dismissed in their critiques, both by the media and by Cave himself, as simply objecting ...
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Safe (1995) - Letterboxd Review

As much as we are presented some level of understanding and guidance in life, the pursuit of contentedness in an isolated society is alienating. Fear of being a burden to everybody around you can inflict self-deterioration and once isolated from your own identify, all that is left is fear. Centred around a suburban housewife driven to self-destruction by a subservience, there is a dominant feminist theme throughout which remains true and strongly relevant to this day. But as well as this, in an anxiety-ridden contemporary world which wasn't ready for the internet, Safe now has even further relevance across a broader range of spectrums. Once society has left you alienated, it inevitably falls on the fringes to present some form of solace. This is particularly pertinent in the increasingly divisive age of social media, echo chambers, culture wars, algorithmically personalised media, biased news coverage, conspiracy theories, divisive online influencers, provocative clickbait, commune...
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Barbie (2023) - Letterboxd Review

To what degree are you able to have an opinion on something which isn't aimed at you?  First and foremost I enjoyed Barbie; I thought it was entertaining from start to finish, consistently funny and had a perfect set production. Wes Anderson could learn a lesson from Barbie in managing to both create a visually striking semi-cartoonish vibrant world AND have an entertaining plot. It was probably the most I've laughed at a film in the cinema since 'The Disaster Artist' in 2017 (maybe 'Long Shot' in 2019). I also agree with the central message of Barbie to such an extent that I didn't bother raising my minor quibbles in the discussion during the walk-home (they weren't strong enough to outweigh my overall consensus with the film, which for my own safety, I will keep reinforcing). I've saved critiques for here, where nobody can instil fear by glaring with tired exasperation as I, a man, meekly offer my perspective in a state of significant stress and pa...
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Day 115 - A Short Sort of End

I don't like how this blog serves as a reminder of the rate of the passing of time. I will most likely have to end it soon. Probably right given the amount of chat gpt posts recently. Might just post when I feel the urge to stop me from begrudgingly resenting it.
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Day 114 - Chat GPT Entry - Skirting Around My Troubled Relationship With Cats (Starting With a Tom Waits Quote)

"There ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk." - Tom Waits This enigmatic quote from the legendary Tom Waits perfectly captures the essence of my tumultuous relationship with cats. You see, cats have always been an enigma to me, a constant presence lurking in the periphery of my life. They possess an uncanny ability to exude both an air of aloofness and an irresistible charm, leaving me caught in a perpetual state of bewilderment. It's not that I dislike cats per se; it's more of a complex dance of intrigue and frustration that defines our interactions. There's a part of me that yearns to understand their mysterious ways, to decipher the language of their purrs and the meaning behind their inscrutable stares. Yet, at the same time, I find myself wrestling with a certain trepidation, a cautiousness born out of past encounters that have left me slightly scarred. Perhaps it's their uncanny knack for unpredictability that keeps me on my toes...
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