williamjm

It looked for a while as if they might fall below par with the middle order stumbling a bit but Root held the innings together well and Willey produced a crucial cameo at the end. The Indians did seem to lose interest when they batted, particularly Dhoni.

I think you're forgetting Ant-Man who is similar to Iron Man in the sense that he gets his abilities from a high-tech suit (and it's not even his design) rather than superpowers.

There's a poll out saying that 13% of voters think the Chequers Brexit deal will be good for Britain, so she has apparently managed to create something less popular in Britain than Donald Trump, which is quite an achievement.

I think there has been quite a bit of variation in polls, but it's similar to the variation before the referendum with some polls showing Brexit ahead and some showing Remain ahead, so there doesn't seem to have been a huge change in overall sentiment. It seems most people who voted for Brexit still support Brexit in principle, although they may not necessarily think the negotiations are going well. If you can get Donald Trump out of our news we'd be happy to comply with this request.

I'll be there as well.

Laws can be rewritten. If there was a new Government then I'm sure several parts of the recently Brexit-related laws would get rewritten, although whether they'd be rewritten for the better would be a different question. This seems a bit contradictory with your point that the EU have bigger immediate priorities than Brexit. I don't see that the EU have anything to lose by indulging the British if they want to spend the next few years standing in the corner arguing with themselves.

I wonder if the best we can hope for now is that whoever is PM by that time is forced into asking for a delay in the exit date because there seems no possibility the UK will be in any way prepared, even if it could decide what it wanted? If I remember correctly, it is possible if the EU agree to it, and although I'm sure the EU would be completely exasperated to get that request, I'd imagine they might be willing to kick the issue down the road a bit and get back to concentrating on their own priorities. I'm sure many people's first thought was that at least he isn't in charge of the NHS any more, although it would be better if he had left due to being fired rather than promoted. I wonder if this might make the Brexiteers even more unhappy, because one of their leaders has now been replaced with someone who originally supported Remain.

David Davis has just resigned, so the Cabinet agreement managed to last about 48 hours. I wonder how many more might follow him? He did seem to be sleepwalking through the Brexit negotiations so he's hardly a loss, but it could be the start of even more chaos in the Government.

I finished Pratchett and Gaiman's Good Omens. I thought it was a very enjoyable book. It was somewhat reminiscent of Douglas Adams' work - if the Hitchhikers Guide was a comedy about a Sci-fi apocalypse, this is the equivalent for a biblical apocalypse. Crowley and Aziraphale were the most interesting characters, particularly when they interacted with each other, but even many of the minor characters were memorable.

It was an odd, but entertaining, race. I do feel sorry for Bottas who seems to be having terrible luck this year, he would probably not be far off the Championship lead if he hadn't had so many issues that weren't his fault. It did seem a bit surprising that Austria was the track causing so many reliability problems, it doesn't really seem like a typical car-breaker circuit. It was a good race for Verstappen to take the victory, even if Mercedes' horrible weekend helped a lot. Grosjean must be very relieved to finally get some points on the board and be the best-of-the-rest driver behind the Red Bull and Ferraris. I think Haas might have been starting to lose patience with his mistakes, I'm not sure one good race really makes up for it but at least he's reminded them he does have genuine pace when he can stay out of trouble.

The Government does seem intent on tearing itself apart over deciding which proposal the EU is going to reject.

There are definitely things the two books have in common, and I think it also has some similarities to Touch as well although I think they're different enough not to feel formulaic.

I watched American Made, which I thought was an entertaining film even if there wasn't a huge amount of depth to it. I thought Tom Cruise put in a good performance in the lead role, I think he tends to be more interesting when playing more of an antihero than the characters he typically plays. The plot does get a bit unfocused at times, it does have some tense scenes when Cruise's character is dealing with the Medellin Cartel but it loses momentum a bit at times in other parts of the story.

I did enjoy Warcraft but I wouldn't say it was a particularly great film, perhaps I have a soft spot for cheesy epic fantasy stories. I thought it was a lot more fun than Assassins Creed, where the historical scenes were OK but the modern-day portions of the stories were atrocious.

Maybe someone like Pascal Wehrlein who hasn't otherwise been able to get a seat could be an option. They could also take a risk on Kubica.