Real Madrid, European champions for the past three years, crashed out of the Champions League on Tuesday with a stunning 1-4 home defeat to Ajax, the climax of a week-long collapse in which the club was also knocked out of the Copa del Rey and fell even further behind in La Liga.
Har!
“…Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm”
❝ J.K. Rowling was thrilled when black actor Noma Dumezweni was cast as adult Hermione Granger back in December, but sadly, many less open-minded people on Twitter weren’t. Several Harry Potter fans were upset that Hermione, who had been played in the films by Emma Watson, was now black in The Cursed Child play, but Rowling hit back, stating, “Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione.”
❝ And with Harry Potter and The Cursed Child set to open in London on Tuesday, Rowling once again threw her support behind Dumezweni and dismissed the critics of the casting as “a bunch of racists.”
“Noma was chosen because she was the best actress for the job,” Rowling said in an interview with The Observer. “I had a bunch of racists telling me that because Hermione ‘turned white’ – that is, lost colour from her face after a shock – that she must be a white woman, which I have a great deal of difficulty with.
“But I decided not to get too agitated about it and simply state quite firmly that Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm,” Rowling said.
❝ The Harry Potter author…was sad to say she was unsurprised by the reaction to Dumezweni’s casting.
“With my experience of social media, I thought that idiots were going to idiot. But what can you say? That’s the way the world is,” Rowling said.
Some of the worst stupid practices of our species will take centuries to lose. Racism, no doubt, is at the head of the list.
Bank of Canada executives have urged Star Trek fans to stop a campaign to deface currency as a tribute to late actor Leonard Nimoy.
A drive was launched in the aftermath of Nimoy’s death on Friday to ink the features of his most famous character, Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, on five dollar bills showing a portrait of Canada’s seventh prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Har!
Thanks, The Big Picture
Football fans the world over are all reasonably crazy. Here’s a Brasil supporter in the stands at today’s match with Mexico at Confederations Cup in the Estádio Plácido Aderaldo Castelo, Fortaleza, Brasil – who made a TV set from a cardboard box to wear in his seat in the crowd.
Bravo!
Galatasaray supporters in a subdued moment after their team’s victory
A section of Galatasaray fans unsuccessfully attempted to dig a tunnel into Schalke’s Veltins Arena ahead of their Champions League last-16 clash on Tuesday.
Undeterred by a full house and tickets on the black market being traded at prices of up to €1,000, the group of desperate supporters tried to burrow their bare hands through frozen ground under a perimeter fence.
Horst Heldt, sporting director of the Royal Blues, confirmed the bizarre incident prior to kick-off, telling reporters: “Yes, that’s right. Some supporters have tried to dig a tunnel with their bare hands.”
A 1-1 draw was played out at the Turk Telecom Arena three weeks ago, but Umut Bulut’s late winner handed Galatasaray a 3-2 second-leg victory and progression into the quarter-finals of Europe’s elite club tournament.
No further comment was made about arrests or at least filling the hole back in! 🙂
spiegel.de
Fenerbahçe fans threw flares into their team’s stadium during yesterday’s Europa League second-leg tie against Belarusian champion BATE Borisov even though the game was being played behind closed doors to a previous UEFA ban.
Five people were detained on suspicion of launching the flares into the ground. Fenerbahçe fans had gathered outside the Şükrü Saraçoğlu Stadium in Kadıköy to support their team despite not being allowed to enter the stadium.
“Those who sent these flares must be idiots,” said UEFA observer Stefano Farina, adding that the incendiary devices resulted in the burning of the Turkish flag and a fine against the team.
Despite the incidents and the lack of crowd support, the Yellow Canaries managed to see off the Belarusian challenge with a 1-0 victory, giving them a 1-0 aggregate victory.
Meanwhile, the club gets to pay fines, lose ticket sales, penalized for the behavior of dipshit hooligans.
A football fan has stolen media attention in Italy after being the only supporter to show up to watch his club play an away game in the top league.
Udinese fan Arrigo Brovedani was the club’s sole supporter in Genoa for a Serie A match against local team Sampdoria…
It was a cold Monday night and Udinese never attracts more than 50 or 60 away fans. “But I went there thinking I’d find five or six other people,” the Udinese fan said. “I went into the stadium while they [Udinese] were warming up. I shouted and said ‘hi’ to the team.
“When I went in the local fans booed me, I felt a bit offended. But in the end they clapped and invited me for coffee and a meal, and the club managers gave me a shirt. They wished me a merry Christmas.”
Genoa is about four hours’ drive from Friuli, where Udinese are based. But Mr Brovedani was in Genoa on business.
“I like the stadium there, it’s very similar to English stadiums,” he said. “I always take my flag and scarf around – they’re always in the car with me.”
Udinese won the match 2-0. The team dedicated their victory to their only fan.
Bravo, Arrigo!
Click for more photos
The gathering celebrated a cornucopia of the most extravagant facial hair from across the UK and around the world – and their fans.
An event I must support – being someone who almost didn’t appear in his high school yearbook until I relented and trimmed my sideburns.
Fortunately, that sort of stupidity has diminished in the job market in this land – over time. I have not been absent a beard since 1979.
Before and After
Music fans who took souvenir T-shirts from a rock festival in Gera, eastern Germany, have discovered they hold a secret message.
The so-called Trojan T-shirts bore a design of a skull and right-wing flags and the words “hardcore rebels”. But, once washed, the design dissolves to reveal a message telling people to break with extremism.
Some 250 T-shirts were donated to organisers, who handed them out at the nationalist rock festival in Gera.
The stunt was organised by a left-wing group called Exit, which seeks to reduce the influence of the right-wing in Germany.
“What your T-shirt can do, so can you – we’ll help you break with right-wing extremism,” the message reads, and provides a contact number for the group.
On its website, Exit said it had made contact with the organisers of the Rock For Germany festival, in its ninth year, using a false name and had offered the T-shirts for free.
Har! I wouldn’t be such a nice guy. I’d probably add a message about the wearer being a fool.
Of course, this all requires proto-fascists who wash their clothing – and themselves.
No comment.
