Spider-Noir Cancelled, Plus A Futuristic Hope

I have only just noticed I didn't write a post about the cancellation of Nicolas Cage's Spider-Noir series.

As I wrote earlier this year, the programme was something I had been looking forward to watching as soon as I first became aware it had entered production.

I wasn't disappointed. The Marvel series, with a detective noir take on Spider-Man, more than met my expectations. 

Cage played the role of the hard-boiled detective - Ben Reilly - whose alter-ego, The Spider, works within 1930's New York City,

According to reports, the decision to nix the series after its initial run was due to costs. Some have pointed to the fact the programme was filmed in both colour and black-and-white. I opted to view it in the latter. It made more sense to do it in that fashion because it felt more authentic considering the genre.

Also noted in the news about the cancellation is Amazon/MGM and Sony are exploring other opportunities to put Spider-Man content on the small screen.

I have one idea.

Spider-Man 2099!

Back when I was a teen, I regularly bought the 2099 series of comics produced my Marvel. One of the titles was based on a futuristic version of Spider-Man.

It would fit the theme, too. Viewers were able to see how a Spidey character existed in 1930s America. How about one from the advent of the 22nd Century?

Spider-Man 2099 hasn't been forgotten since the 90s. I've seen the character pop up in the Spider-Verse movies. It would be cool to see him get his own series. A live-action one at that.

Stadia

I woke up early, to watch the highlights of the Lions versus Bills, this morning.

It's one of the Week 2 games I was looking forward to the most because it saw Buffalo host their first regular season game from the new Highmark Stadium.

Bills outscore Lions

The Bills won 41-31. A great start at their new home. The good news: I had them to win in the regular pick 'em contest. The bad: I had the Lions to cover the +4.5 spread in the spread pick 'em! I thought it would have been closer than it ended up being.

Fury .vs. Joshua rumoured for Cardiff

Speaking of sporting venues - it looks like my local, Cardiff's Principality Stadium, will host the Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua fight. The rumour floating around is it'll be on Friday December 11th.

It won't be the first time Cardiff has hosted a fight between two of Britain's biggest names in boxing.

Cardiff's last major fight between two British heavyweights

In 1993, Lennox Lewis defended the WBC Heavyweight Championship against Frank Bruno at Cardiff Arms Park.

The fight - labelled 'The Battle of Britain' - was huge for the Welsh capital. It felt special to my young eyes because it put my home on the sporting map. I'll always remember the buzz around town leading up to the fight. 

I also recall the weather. It was damp on the morning ahead of the fight. I recall watching GMTV before school. They had a reporter there hyping up the bout. Part of the focus was on concern about the rain

Weather fears took a backseat long before the opening bell.

Lewis won in the seventh.

Back to the weather, though. Check out what happened on TAFKA as Twitter last night. Imagine wishing bad weather on a big sporting event. Now imagine doing so for a fight that's set for a roofed stadium!

I hope it really does end up being fought out in Cardiff. Rain, shine or anything in-between.

Devastating

I'm sure I was one of many who were upset yesterday when the news that Noah Woods' body had been found.

The three-year-old had gone missing a day earlier after going out with his grandfather. It was covered across the national news for most of the day.

His community searched high and low. Unfortunately, their efforts were in vain. The child's body was recovered from a lake yesterday.

Devastating. I feel for every single member of his family. 

Reader Of The Purple Sage

During the early 1990s, I went through a phase in which I liked watching the two Young Guns movies. That fascination led to me loaning a Western novel from my local library.

Big time let down.

I cannot recall, for sure, what the title was. However, I know I quit on it. 

Nowadays, I enjoy modern Cowboy programmes like Yellowstone. I also finish books until the end whether I dislike the experience or not.

You know where this is going, right?

Yes - I picked up a cowboy novel over the past few weeks. It came in a collection of eBooks with over one hundred and fifty titles. I believe it only cost me something like 49p. 

Book one in the collection is Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage.  That's where I started. It's likely where I'll end as well.

Cowboy novels are simply not for me. I'm finding it such a chore to finish the book. I know I could quit, but I want to see it out considering how much time I've already invested. Plus, I wanted to give it a chance unlike I gave the book I tried when I was a child.

Wouldn't it be funny if the book I gave up on in the '90s was also Riders of the Purple Sage? That sure would be something.

Pringles' Christmas Flavour For 2026

Do you remember the build up to last Christmas, when I tested Pringles' Santa's Secret Flavour? It resulted in me writing a blog post titled 'Worst. Pringles. Flavour. Ever.' because, well.. because it truly was the worst flavour of Pringles I had ever sampled.

Trust me. I'm a self-proclaimed Pringles connoisseur. They were bad.

After taking one bite, I knew it was not for me. I handed the tube away, hoping to never see one again. 

Well, look what was at Tesco last week.

Yes, the folks at the Pringles UK have launched a similar promotion for Christmas 2026. I had to buy a tube. Will some wrongs from 2025 be righted this festive period (even though it's only September)? Find out below.

Sampling Pringles' Santa's Secret Flavour for Christmas 2026

Well, well, well.... this flavour is miles better than what I experienced last year. The bar was set below zero, however!

Pringles have indeed righted the wrong from Christmas '25.

What was Santa's Secret Flavour of Christmas 2025?

Pringles revealed that Santa's Secret Flavour from last year was truffle and butter. I came close because 'truffle' was one of my guesses last November. I also suggested 'Beef Wellington' and 'Garlic Mushrooms', though.

Guessing Santa's Secret Flavour for Christmas 2026

This year's flavour has a garlicy taste to it. Initially. I thought it could be 'Garlic Bread', but - as I munched on (something I didn't do in 2025!) - I feel it might stick to a festive theme and is 'stuffing' or some sort of seasoning.

Week 1 NFL Survivor Sinking And Look Ahead To Week 2

One of the new things I added to the this year's edition of Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual was to spotlight one team for each week of the 2026 NFL season as a 'Survivor Lean'.

Each selection was picked because it either had stats, trends or angles working in their favour for that particular week. The intent was to place that particular side up for consideration in survivor contests.

What's a survivor contest?

For those who don't know, a survivor contest is a season-long elimination competition in which participants select one team to win straight up each week. Once a team is picked, they cannot be used as a play later in the contest. If that team wins for their picker, the person continues to the subsequent week of games. If not, they're eliminated.

My survivor pick for Week 1

I chose the Los Angeles Chargers as the team to consider for Week 1. I also added it to the ESPN survivor game I entered ahead of the season.

My reasoning initially focused on the Chargers having a 6-4 (60%) overall straight up record over the Cardinals in games dating back to 1995. Narrowing it down, I pointed out the Chargers were 4-1 (80%) from five home games in this period.

That's not all.

Another stat I highlighted was that the Los Angles Chargers' head coach had a perfect record in winning Week 1 games as a HC.

Jim Harbaugh had gone 4-0 (100%) straight up in Week 1 games while in charge of the San Francisco 49ers between 2011 and 2014. He was also 2-0 (100%) straight up from his first couple of week one fixtures on the Chargers' sideline. 6-0 (100%) was a great stat. If I said so myself.

Harbaugh's run crashed out, along with my Survivor entry, yesterday following the Cardinals' 26-14 shocking win.

As well as winning outright, Arizona covered as closing +8.5 road dogs. They had been backed down from the +11.5 punters would have found them in Las Vegas following the release of the 2026 NFL schedule earlier this year.

A look at Las Vegas' elimination results following the Chargers loss

The LA Chargers' loss wiped out a lot of contestants from two marquee eliminator contests last night.

Circa Sports' survivor contest, which has a $1,000 buy-in, saw 7,585 players ousted because they sided with Harbaugh and his Chargers. That was 30.3% of the field.

As you'll see below, the Chargers were the second-best picked team from Week 1's entries. At the top of the list were the Jacksonville Jaguars. The 8,127 players who backed the Jags progress to Week 2 following the Florida-based team obliterating the Browns 34-10.

Circa also hosts a high roller elimination tournament which demands a $100,000 buy-in. The Los Angeles Chargers selection was the top pick in the Grandissimo, with 28 backers. The result wiped out 36.4% of the field.

Twenty-four players had Jacksonville. The ten who opted for the Lions must have wiped sweat from their brows after the Saints missed a two-point attempt in the closing play of overtime to give Detroit a 31-30 win.

The Week 2 survivor lean is also controversial

Ever since the opening game of the season, I had concerns over the second survivor lean in Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual.

That's because I have the Seattle Seahawks to win their Week 2 meeting with the... Cardinals!

Seattle's quarterback - Sam Darnold - was injured early in Wednesday's season kick off. Despite that, the Super Bowl Champions eked out a 13-10 victory over the Patriots. 

174 Circa Survivor players had Seattle to win.

What I wrote about the Seattle versus Arizona game for Week 2

Here's an extract from the chapter for Week 2 in Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual 2026.

...there’s a collision of betting strategies for Arizona’s home game against the Seattle Seahawks.

First – with the Cardinals playing the Super Bowl Champions, they automatically become the team to consider on that fact alone.

The ‘Beat the Champs’ chapter suggests that it would take a brave gambler to back Arizona under these conditions because they currently hold 2-7 (22%) straight up and 4-5 (44%) against the spread numbers from all games against current titleholders. Those numbers surprisingly worsen at home with 1-5 (17%) SU and 2-4 (33%) ATS.

Also working against the Cardinals is the schedule.

Arizona would have played at the Chargers, on Sunday afternoon, while the Seahawks had a four-day headstart due to playing the season opener on Wednesday 9^th September.

The Cardinals are already in a hole against the Seahawks before a ball is even kicked. That’s because Seattle swept them once more in 2025 moving the Seahawks to 9-0 (100%) straight up and 8-1 (89%) against the spread from the last nine meetings between these NFC West division rivals.

The Super Bowl Champions are currently 31-18-1 (62%) straight up and 27-21-2 (56%) ATS overall from the fifty times they’ve met since 1995. On the road against the Cardinals, Seattle are 15-9-1 (60%) straight up and 13-10-2 (57%) to the spread.

This current series has seen the Over-Under go 24-26 (52% to the Under). The O-U is 14-11 (56% to the Over) from Arizona.

SIDE NOTE: Seattle won 35-6, as nine-point favourites, when they last visited Arizona as Super Bowl Champions.

The game, from Week 16 of the 2014 regular season, went Over its total of 37.

Oddsmakers installed the Seahawks as ten-point favourites in their early lines for 2026. The total opened at 44.5.

Spread for Seattle @ Arizona in Week 2

With the benefit of Week 1's results, and everything mixed in, I am even more curious to see the result of the Cardinals versus Seahawks.

For what it's worth, the Cardinals are currently +4.5 home dogs for the visit from the Super Bowl winners. That's a huge drop from May's +10.

I'll be watching.

Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual 2026 can be ordered from these bookshops

2Pac 30

I have been listening to a lot of music by Tupac Shakur this weekend. I'm doing so to honour the thirtieth anniversary of his passing.

As I have written countless times on this blog over the past twenty-plus years, I was a 2Pac fan at the time of his death. His music has carried with me ever since.

I first began following Shakur in 1994. It was from two of his tracks - Loyal to the Game and Pain - appearing on the single of Warren G and Nate Dogg's Regulate.

Not long after that time, I read about Shakur being sent to prison. I actually recall the exact place I was when I read that news bit. It was in the South Wales Echo as I was delivering them one evening. 

2Pac's music appeared on MTV a lot while he was serving time. Dear Mama and Temptations are the ones I recall seeing the most. 

Those two songs appear on 2Pac's Me Against the World album. The title track brings back another memory of mine - a lad who was in my year at school arrived to pick up his GCSE results in a car blasting that tune out of it as my friends and I were leaving.

Every time I've listened to Me Against the World since that day,  I find myself landed back to that final walk down towards the school gates with my results in hand.

A few months after that, 2Pac was bailed out and signed to Death Row Records. That's when my interest in Shakur's music intensified. Death Row, at that time in my life, was my favourite record label. It was a perfect fit.

I have so many fond memories from the Death Row content. My parents bought me Pac's double album - All Eyez On me - for my birthday that year. Drunkenly dancing to California Love when they played it at the nightclub we used to go to (which - I must add - never played West Coast Rap!). 

Quite a few friendships I made at sixth form stemmed from being a Death Row and 2Pac fan. 

Another thing I've written a lot over the years is where I was when I found out Pac had died.

One of my best friends at the time, who I introduced to 2Pac's music earlier that year, told me about the Las Vegas shooting shortly after it had happened. I foolishly thought 2Pac would pull through because he had escaped death two years earlier, when he was shot in New York. 

On Saturday 14th September, I was on a hunt for a WWF Raw magazine that had sold out of the two shops I would find it. I took a chance on it being at a petrol station. As I walked across the forecourt, that very same friend - who was on his lunch break from his job in that area - came out. The news was broken to me at that point.

It's one of those 'Where Were You?' moments I'll never experience again due to how fast news works in this current age we live in.

My memories from the weeks, and months, following the news are just as vivid. 

The best one is seeing that 2Pac's first posthumous album had been released. If I recall correctly, I bought it on November 5th. I know it was from Spillers Records in Cardiff.

That album, which was released under 2Pac's Makaveli alias, became my favourite 2Pac record. In fact, depending on my mood, it could arguably be my favourite album from any artist.

The Seven Day Theory is gritty. I legitimately get goosebumps every time I listen. I make sure to have it on at least once a year. I listened to a few tracks last night and I'm certain to remind myself to play it when the thirtieth anniversary of its release.

I plan to listen to some more music across the day.

Seeing as I mentioned them early in this post, I'm going to play Loyal to the Game and Pain next...