Sad to see news of Ian Holm's death today.  For many, he'll be remembered for his role in the Lord of the Rings films, but I think his performance as the sinister android, Ash, in the original Alien film is his most memorable one.

By any standard, this one is a true icon.

Dame Vera Lynn passes away, aged 103.

In the middle of Coronavirus, "We'll Meet Again" has been a well-used phrase, most notably by the Queen.

Time to do the annual bump back to the surface and start thinking about the new D-League season.

First order of business is to double check who's still in from the usual crowd.  Drop a line in the thread so that I can start the planning process.

I'm assuming the NFL will kick off as scheduled, unless Trump tries to shut it down because every player will take a knee for the anthem.

Intrigued as to which one of you will try to pick up Kaepernick on the sly too

Someone I went to school with, and who I'm friends with on social media, lost their Dad overnight to COVID-19.  It's the first time I've seen anyone impacted who I knew personally, which makes it feel much closer to home now.

It was probably inevitable that this would be the case, as we're still at the relatively early stages of this.  Sadly, I fear there's much more of this to come in the short-term.

Just finished watching Avenue 5, the recent Sky series with Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad (voice of Olaf, from Frozen).

It's a comedy series based on a space cruiser being stranded in space.  Naturally it has elements of Red Dwarf in it but, as you'd expect from Armando Ianucci, it has the deadpan style of humour of The Thick Of It within it too.  I enjoyed it far more than I expected to.  There are one or two genius comedic moments within it, most notably around the effects of gravity as the series develops.

Worth a watch, and I'm hoping that it returns for a second series at some point.  It's the sort of thing that you'll know whether you'll like it or not from the first episode, so not something that you'll have to spend a lot of time on if you're in the "or not" category.

Dropped Sophie of at Nottingham City Hospital at 7.15.
Sat in my car for the next 3 hours as I wasn't allowed on the ward.
10.30 met Sophie in the reception area and went through to theater.
11.20 they started and at 11.23 Frank Bertie Hopkin was born weighing 7lb and 15oz.
12.15 through to recovery and 13.00 they moved Sophie back to the ward so I had to leave.

Quite surreal but the majority of the staff were superb as always and everyone is healthy and should be home tomorrow.

Somethings cant be stopped in a lockdown. 

Massive congratulations to you both.

Missing my weekly parkrun fix, as much for the community as for the actual runs.

Abandonment of the football season would appear to be the best hope of Barnsley playing Championship football next year, and this season has been painful to endure, so I'm not missing football in the slightest at the moment.

From a spectator perspective, I love the Olympics, so that's the one that I'll miss watching on TV this year.

If anyone wants cheering up, this article starts well with the headline, but the entire thing reads like a comedy script.  If it had been posted two days later, it would have looked too obvious as an April Fool spoof.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/30/astrophysicist-gets-magnets-stuck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device?fbclid=IwAR204RcD0EBXH1E9gs4xZow6r69Oynu185gLYGfXDuoSbup8fQKR7PuI14c

One example of the sort of avoidable attitude people are taking to this is with regard to parkrun, which have all been cancelled worldwide with effect from this Saturday (the UK and a few other countries had runs last weekend).

Despite requests not to organise unofficial versions of the same events, there seem to be quite a number of ill-considered social media posts along the lines of meeting up at the usual place and running on Saturday.  Some of them have become abusive to the parkrun staff and volunteers requesting them not to do this.

There's no reason for anyone to stop running in the short-term, if that's their interest, but the social distancing applies equally to this too, so surely it's not difficult for people to do solo runs for the time being.  Large scale, unofficial gatherings to replace parkrun events that have been cancelled at the same time/place fundamentally misses the point of why they've been cancelled in the first place.

Mercifully, the reports emerging now suggest he's in intensive care in hospital, albeit 'fighting for his life'.  Here's hoping he pulls through.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/cardiff-city-icon-peter-whittingham-17941629

Lots of stuff on Twitter suggesting he was in intensive care after a fall down the stairs.

There now seems to be a lot posts suggesting he's died, although nothing by the way of official confirmation at this stage.  I'm starting to suspect it's accurate information, as I've seen one post from a Welsh Assembly member within them.

Shocking news, if accurate as reported.

Arsenal players self isolating cant see them playing next 2 weekends atleasst

They've timed it from the date of the contact with the Forest owner, which was almost two weeks ago, so are expected to resume training on Friday, it seems.

Max Von Sydow - aged 90.

Too many movies to list, but some memorable ones from my childhood.  Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon, and the Nazi officer in Escape To Victory spring to mind.

Acting-wise, they were his more trivial roles, but his performances were always memorable whenever he appeared.

Re-arranged for next Wednesday (19th), so still within the original gameweek for FPL.

https://twitter.com/ManCity/status/1227261010974633986

I am Spartacus

RIP Kirk Douglas

I think I'm one of the few people who will remember him most fondly for his portrayal of Cactus Jack, which was a film I saw, aged 5, at the cinema as the pre-movie to a late 70s Spiderman film.  It was infinitely better than the main feature (essentially a live action version of a Wile E Coyote / Road Runner film with a very young Arnold Schwarzenegger in it).

I hunted down a 'rare' copy of it on DVD a couple of years ago, and the kids loved it too.

103 isn't a bad old innings, by any standards.  RIP Cactus Jack Slade.