Who knew Boris had such great comedy timing? Definitely in line to replace Mr Bean when he leaves No. 10.

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/history/yorkshire-town-still-part-scotland-19701040

10.30pm – puts on bedside radio with sleep timer, falls asleep during first song.

12am – wake up needing the loo. Familiar, dreaded feeling of wakefulness. Brain has woken up. Trying to drag self down into unconscuousness is like pushing a cork beneath the surface of water.

12.30am – finished reading the interesting parts of the Internet, picks up a random book and stares at some pages hoping eyes will get heavy.

1am – gets peckish and raids the fridge for a glass of milk and some biscuits. Remembers the R Whites lemonade ad, then recalls that Elvis Costello’s Dad wrote the jingle. Useless trivia filling brain.

1.30am – if I fall asleep now I can still get 6 hours of sleep. Why is my right leg aching just above the knee?I haven’t injured it or walked a lot today. Great, something else starting to break down.

2.15am – bollocks. Loo again. Where the hell is all this water coming from? Getting a dull headache from tiredness. Try another podcast to fall asleep.

3.20am – if I fall asleep now I can still get 4 hours sleep. Why is the house making so much noise? Wooden Kiwi houses creak and groan constantly, should have gotten used to that after 15 years.

3.30am – writing blog post about how insomnia sucks on phone. I can forget about getting a full day’s work in tomorrow, I know from experience I will manage to do about 3 hours work then the brain will pack in until I have been for a nap. It will wait until the bin vans and lawn mowers are at peak noise then decide it wants to sleep. The bastard.

Insomnia sucks.

3.30am – right, one more trip to the toilet then I’m putting on a particularly boring podcast. If I fall asleep now I might get zzzzzzz

Sign at the local Vietnamese takeaway that make me smile. So true!

It’s been great getting back into the cinema this week to watch the (non-wombat) butt-kicking spectacular that is Black Widow. Also had chance to watch the final episode of the Disney+ series Loki too.

Marvel seem to do everything so well: casting, choice of directors, honing scripts to balance the drama and humour, building up an interlinked universe (soon to be multiverse).

Having grown up loving John Williams’ scores in the Star Wars trilogy – I would argue Darth Vader’s Imperial March is the greatest classical piece of the 20th Century, closely followed by the Indiana Jones theme – Marvel cleverly recognises the importance of an ear-catching soundtrack for their work.

Here are just a few of my recent favourites :-

Loki Green Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV_76cm2BWU (bombastic)

The Mandalorian Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62x19Bepc5s (those mournful pipes!)

The Avengers Main Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVq4zJ1WbaQ (stirring, quasi-militaristic, heroic)

Who’d have thought that wombats would have such interesting bottoms?

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/wombats

Another little engineering gem for you! An aerial ropeway for transporting shale from quarry to factory without the need for electricity. Clever use of gravity to power the whole thing, and built back in the 1920s, and apparently once commonly used.

Source: b3ta.com

We may not have won the trophy and some of the neanderthal arseholes that call themselves fans showed the worst of humanity, but for a few weeks they did us proud on the pitch and became a young team we can be proud of and build on at the World Cup.

Loving reading the supportive messages to Rashford in response to his post, drowning out the trolls.