Hugo Gordon 🇪🇸
@hugogordon
Dubliner in London. Sports nerd (and general nerd). Views described as "top bilge" by award-winning journalists
How it feels being a Celtic person watching England at this World Cup
For the last few years he's also been a joy to follow on Instagram, where he'd post photos of his farm and various animals (which he'd named after former co-stars). He'd post about progressive causes, indigenous rights, environmental issues. He seemed a thoroughly good egg as well as a great actor.
I don't think I've ever seen Neill give a bad performance (even in some very bad films). He could be heroic, cantankerous, demented or straightforwardly sinister (sometimes, as with Event Horizon, all in the same movie).
I used to do a bit of music writing when I was younger, which I don't do much anymore (I wasn't great at it tbh) but I did write this about Wolf Alice's first album which I think I called pretty correctly.
YouGov polled this earlier this year in fact. Support for looser gun laws stands at 4% in the UK. By contrast 56% want stricter rules or a complete ban.
Four uncapped players in a heavily rotated squad for Japan. Only against USA in 2021 and Georgia in 2025 have we fielded more debutants in a match under Farrell. Frawley gets the starting 10 jersey.
Enjoyed the article but I am genuinely interested in why it's become such an article of faith amongst American fans that Balogun's red was unfair. Marginal call maybe, but red cards for reckless tackles are the norm internationally, even if they're accidental - intent doesn't come into it.
Take this otherwise enjoyable article from Brian Phillips at the Ringer on how Trump's involvement has tainted the otherwise good vibes of the USMNT. He recognises that FIFA's intervention was a farce, but also says incorrectly that intent matters for a red card. It doesn't for dangerous tackles!
Lots of mad things about this embarrassing article, but like...it wasn't even a particularly egregious red card. In fact by the letter of the law it was almost certainly correctly given. At worst you can say it was a marginal call on something that can be inconsistently applied by refs.
Like sorry, this is not a serious argument, and no-one familiar with football or VAR would think it was.
I think a minister making a tongue-in-cheek remark about how its important to go to school/work even in the aftermath of a late night World Cup match is absolutely fine.
How I will sleep tonight because Ireland selflessly avoided qualifying for the World Cup, sparing us from having to watch them at 2am
The first time I saw Wolf Alice play this song was exactly 12 years ago, to a crowd of a few hundred. Tonight it was to 40,000 headlining Finsbury Park. What a brilliant band. Here's to seeing what the next 12 years bring them.
"Is this the worst defensive performance Ireland have put in under Farrell?" Lads, it's not even our worst defensive performance of the last 5 months.
"No no, you see when progressives believe something unpopular they are elites out of touch with the people, whereas when conservatives do it's because we're principled, honest and have a conscience."
This is a wild stat. Had kind of forgotten Spain have actually been a bit useless in World Cups recently
I love Tim Burton movies but now whenever I watch his stuff all I can think of is this @misterabk.bsky.social joke