I see no one mentioned Tommy "The Duke" Morrison passing away aged 44, after losing his battle with AIDS. Most people will remember him as Tommy Gunn in Rocky V. On his day he was a powerhouse fighter with a ferocious left-hook, let down by that glass jaw of his. Otherwise I think he could've posed Tyson a challenge had they ever stepped into the ring together. Too bad he ruined his career, and his life, because he couldn't keep it in his trousers.

Never got into the GTA series. Just not my bag, I suppose. Anyway, Tales of Xillia has just arrived in t'post.

Psssssh.

Does the Samba one count?

Osasuna 0 Villarreal 3. Three games, three wins, top of La Liga (for now). Happy days.

Yellow Submarine come back from behind to beat Real Valladolid 2-1. Cani with an absolute cracker.

Drogba has always been a tart of the highest order. That's why he never got his due from the pundits here, despite being one of the PL's greatest strikers.

May he rest in peace.

Always sad to hear of a fellow Rover passing on. RIP.

It's a season ticket, so I assume so? Just heard from a Brighton fan that they're a bigger club than Villarreal because we were in the second div last season. Unlike Brighton who are currently...

http://english.villarrealcf.es/noticias/noticias-destacadas-en-portada/item/399-villarreal-is-revolutionising-spanish-football-management A La Liga season ticket from as little as 100€ (£84.99), and free season tickets for the unemployed. And you thought Rovers were going the extra mile.

Villarreal are playing Brighton in a pre-season friendly at the Amex on July 27. Life is good to me sometimes.

Bite me.

Villarreal beat Almeria 1-0 this evening to seal promotion back to La Liga at the first attempt!

It's pretty obvious if you're read the books.

In the books Tyrion is made to go last in the rape and gives her a golden coin at the end, as "Lannister's are worth more". This was omitted from the show. Exactly. He's made plenty of idle threats and none of them have implied the rape and beating of his own nephew! Not that Tyrion would've wanted that to happen, but it's still a shade of darkness to him that is noticeably absent in the show's shining paragon. I never said it was intended to kill her. He dopes her up so she cannot interfere with his plans. Pretty sneaky, sis! But we can't have HBO's Tyrion doing such an underhanded trick. Oh no. Damn, they can't even get Tyrion & Cersei's relationship right from episode to episode. One minute they'll be hating on each other, and then the next minute they're having cosy little heart-to-hearts. It still shows that Tyrion has no qualms about ordering a man to his death who's going to blow the lid on his secret affair. Something they could have easily portrayed on screen if it didn't conflict with their idealized version of the character. So, in summary, you've conceded that all of those misdeeds committed by Tyrion which paint him as quite the morally ambiguous character have been cut from the show with nothing comparable to replace them. Tyrion's a wholly more sympathetic guy in this adaptation. Hell, we even have people telling Sansa that he's not such a bad catch! In the books the guy's just about despised by everyone. The same can also be said of Cersei when it comes to the whitewashing. A lot of her crimes in the books, such as ordering the deaths of Robert's @#/?s, have all been dumped on Joffrey in the show, since he's such an easy scapegoat. Those all happen while Jon's first acclimatizing to life on the Wall, not when he takes to the field. They weren't due to Jon being a dolt and purposefully putting himself in danger, like getting clumped for spying on Craster, and the following reprimand by Mormont for it. Jon was much smarter than that in the books... and he's about five years younger too! In the books he just lets her escape, as he's incapable of killing her. Whereas in the show he bungles her execution, has a game of cat and mouse, and then takes her as a hostage, suffering puns about his virginity and his penor along the way. What was the plan here? Take her back to the Halfhand? As far as Jon knew in the show, he wanted her dead, and since he doesn't want to kill her, what sense would that make? It all makes Jon look like a complete putz. If by 'tremendous trauma' you mean being Tywin's personal cupbearer and getting to sit in the warmth and eat his food while they trade campfire stories, then yeah. And what about when she took part in the infamous "Weasal soup" scene and helped murder several Harrenhal guards? Or the guard she kills upon her escape? Arya in the books has a far greater head count than the television version, who's a widdle pussycat by comparison. It will be interesting to see what HBO does with the "Tickler" scene... or the equivalent, since the Tickler was killed off in S2. That's the typical strawman reply to any reader who finds fault with the show. These aren't nitpicks. They're deviations that alter the whole complexion of the characters. I have no problem with enforced changes due to budgetary and time constraints, that's to be expected, but it's neither here nor there in regards to my argument. Season 1 was a masterpiece for the fact it followed the story faithfully and didn't take too many liberties, and anything new they did invent was well-written and fleshed out peripheral characters. I'm not sure how they could get it so wrong with everything afterwards.

Let's see, for starters: * Tyrion participating in the gang-rape of his wife. * Poisoning Cersei to stop her attending council meetings. * Threatening to harm Tommen if Cersei does anything to a prostitute assumed to be his lover. * Having Symon Silver Tongue killed and turned into a stew. Dinklage plays a more likable but considering less interesting version of Tyrion. He's like the Lannister version of Ned in the show. Just wrong on so many levels. When was Jon repeatedly punked by his elders in the book? Did he get clubbed by Craster in the books and then bitched out by Mormont for being a dumbass? Did he have to ask the Halfhand to tag along in the books or was he personally requested? Did he botch Ygritte's execution and then spend his time leading her around on a wild goose chase. The answer, in case you haven't noticed, is no on all accounts. Ghost is there during the fight with Qhorin Halfhand and afterwards, unlike in S2 when Ghost randomly disappeared because they couldn't be assed to animate him. Jon's warging abilities in the book are actually part of the reason Mance accepts him into the Wildling army. Something completely overlooked in the show. It isn't until the third book that Jon actually sends Ghost back to Castle Black. The two of them had great on-screen chemistry but their scenes were essentially pointless and didn't progress the plot at all. And that's the first time I've ever heard someone compare Arya with Tywin. Tywin isn't a "psychopathic killer". He's a ruthless warlord who employs psychopaths to do his dirty work but he's by no means a hatchet man. And certainly not one to have cosy little chats with some cupbearer. And Arya is no cold-blooded killer. Not at this stage of the books, unless you're counting the stable boy, whom she killed out of pure instinct. She is starting down her own path of darkness but not one comparable to Tywin.

Tyrion is a much greyer character in the books, but in the show they've practically gutted anything morally questionable about Peter Dinklage's role and painted him as a saint. Jon is supposed to be a capable young warrior and a born leader. In S2 he spent most of his time getting punked by his elders for being a moron and ending up the butt of several virgin/wang jokes with Ygritte. And his connection with Ghost is nonexistent. Arya is probably the most accurate of the three, but even a lot of her character development in Harrenhal was toned down. What was supposed to be her personal hell turned into tea and crumpets with her new bff Tywin Lannister.

What do you define as "high literary standard"? Season 1 was outstanding television, because it remained faithful to the books. Everything after it has been a complete mess, but I guess if you haven't read the series you don't know any better.

Stopped watching it awhile back when they decided to write shoddy fanfiction instead of respecting the source material.

You are dead to me.

Thing about Pedersen is that for every underrated performance there is a dozen no-shows. I'm sure we could find someone else capable of that for half the wages.

Goodwillie on the wing... Oooer...

The show has been on the decline since Season Two. Seems like all the nuance & wit of the books is being dropped in favour of more popcorn television. That does raise a valid point: At this rate, GoT is going to end up overtaking the novels (pull your finger outta your ass, George!). Will be curious to see how they handle it. I'm already surprised at how quickly they're rushing through things from book three, what happens when they reach books four & five - where practically nothing happens? Time is not on GoT's side, whatever way you look at it.