I spent a good part of yesterday's dinner conversation telling my nephew how much of a legend Roger Cook was.
The investigative journalist, who recently passed away, was extremely popular in my household back during his peak years. The Cook Report was ground breaking TV, delving into the underbelly of crime.
Cook's exposure of shady characters was stuff of legend. That's why, upon learning of his death, I had to share just how great this guy was at what he did.
Look what just came with today's post.
Yep, the NFL season is on the horizon. This is always the first indicator to me to say 'not long to go'.
I've written it many times over the years, but I'll do so again. I first came across Lindy's Pro Football Previews during the summer of 1995.
I was at a newsagent preparing to get a coach home and browsed the shelves for something to read on the journey. All the wrestling mags I could have chosen were already piled up at home, so I opted for the American football yearbook.
Thanks to the Internet, and even Lindy's bringing out their own British version of the magazine for a period, I've been able to get these annuals on a.. well, on an annual basis.
As you can see on the cover, the publication is celebrating its fortieth season. It has been cool to be a small part of that ride.
You'll also notice the cover is of Seattle's Sam Darnold. We always seem to get the editions with the current Super Bowl Champions gracing the front.
Makes me want to root even more for Indianapolis because I'd like an Colts-themed cover one of these days.
Look what I bought from Iceland today.
I've often entertained the idea of buying a Pringles advent calendar but always end up with my first choices of a National Lottery scratch card and Reese's Cups.
Even though I love Pringles, I cannot justify buying a box of twenty-four mini tubes to eat on the roads to Christmas.
(I can and could change my mind about that. For now, I am sticking with that opinion!)
This box contains five tubes. Two original, one sour cream, one salt and vinegar and then there's Texas barbecue.
They're obviously produced to coincide with this year's World Cup. The packaging looks quite appealing to be fair. Especially with the middle tube representing Mr Pringle in goal.
Once I've finished with the box, I might end up putting the tubes back.
Okay, we're two games into the 2026 World Cup. I'm 1-1 in watching the matches live.
It's downhill from here methinks.
I cannot see myself sticking this tournament out.
With that said, the first game wasn't too bad. We got to see Mexico beat South Africa 2-0 and also caught three, yes THREE, red cards.
It made me wonder what the line was for in an over-under on tournament red cards. If such a market existed for this year's tournament. I couldn't find anything on a search last night, so I'm still in the cold.
Next up is Canada versus Bosnia and Herzegovina. I'm actually keen to see this one, to be fair. The reason why is because Wales would have been against Canada had they qualified.
Following that game is the USA versus Paraguay. Another one I'm interested in... but, it kicks off at 2am. I'm not THAT keen to watch it!
I will switch the Brazil game on at 11pm tomorrow night, though. That's for sure. If you haven't followed along by now - Brazil are my favourite World Cup team ever. I'll go out of my way to watch them whether they're fielded by class stars or nobodies.
For the past fortnight, or so, I've found myself playing Word Wipe again.
It had been quite a while since I played this addictive game that I came across on YouTube.
I first wrote about it in March of last year. It got to the point where, if I was scrolling through the website - and came across Word Wipe - I'd think to myself 'okay, I'll play one round'.
But then I'd continue playing until the game ended!
I'm doing the same thing now. Over one year later. Such a fun game.
I have a strategy in which I use the bomb if I have a few words left on the board in certain levels. You get double points for taking every tile away, so I always make sure to use the bomb in rounds where I sense I've done well with expensive words (points wise).
Anyway, that approach has been less frequent during this current era of playing the game. I find that it's gotten harder to get to the point where I have the amount of tiles to drop the bomb.
I'm planning to go cold turkey soon. It won't be today because I've already played a few rounds before I started my day properly.
I still recommend giving it a go.
On Thursday. I published a post noting I had become aware of a couple of new NFL-inspired flavours of KP's The Real McCoy's ridged crips.
I stated that I was going to keep an eye out for them. Well, the wait ended a couple of days ago. They were at Home Bargains.
I've tried the two flavours - Hot Kick Ketchup and Yellow Mustard.
Going in, I thought I'd prefer the mustard flavour better than the ketchup one. That wasn't how it played out, however.
Yellow Mustard was quite bland, if I'm to be straight up. It wasn't until I was three-quarters into the bag when I finally caught a hint of mustard.
I might have to give the flavour another go sometime in the future.
As for Hot Kick Ketchup - it had a strong tomatoey taste. It was reminiscent of a Polish tomato ketchup I bought from Asda recently.
I'd go go so far as to state that it gives Walker's Tomato Ketchup flavour crisps a good run for its money. That's high praise - trust me.
This could very well be the week when I put the final touches to Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual 2026.
Most of the main part is done. I will now get to editing it (I know!) and then sort out the dimensions of the cover to create that.
The cover design was decided over a year ago. This annual was always going to be at least a two-book thing, so I made sure to have something ready for this year's version.
I wrote 'at least a two-book thing'... I've already have my mind set on what the cover of 2027 could look like!
Anyway, I have to go now. I have a book to finish.
On Thursday afternoon, I was looking through Amazon's 99p deals on Kindle eBooks and came across one titled 'Mania'. Seeing that word made me stop to check whether it was a book about wrestling. I clicked on the cover to get a better look.
Nope. It's an autobiography written by Stuart 'Woody' Wood from the Bay City Rollers.
I browsed on.
Later that night, I was in a name that tune trivia chatroom I play in and one of the people playing music happened to play a Bay City Rollers song for us to guess. I found it quite funny for one of the band's songs to come on a few hours after seeing that book.
Fast forward to yesterday morning
I received another free horse racing bet from Paddy Power. I could use the £1 to wager on any horse running at Epsom Downs on the Saturday card.
I did what I usually do with the free bets: I pick the first horse with a name which stands out to me. I have nothing to lose by doing that.
I looked through one race. Nada. I then clicked on the 2:40pm and one name caught my eye.
Bay City Roller!
After the coincidence of Thursday, it was a shoe-in. Four horseshoes-in at that.
I placed the bet and then went about my day.
Oh, and I also told everybody at home about what I had done because I have been very fluky with these free bets lately.
By the afternoon, I had forgotten all about the bet. I came downstairs and my dad told me 'you're a lucky bugger'.
Bay City Roller had won.
Earlier today, I read that Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs' tight end - Travis Kelce - are planning to get married at Madison Square Garden.
Interesting choice. That was my first thought.
My second:
I've actually seen a wedding from MSG!
Yep - us wrestling fans witnessed the nuptials of 'Macho Man' Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth in the main event of SummerSlam 1991.
Shortly before the wedding, Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior had beaten The Triangle of Terror (Sgt. Slaughter, General Adnan and Colonel Mustafa) in a handicap match refereed by Sid Justice. The bout was billed 'A Match Made in Hell'. Its counter - the wedding - was classed as 'A Match Made in Heaven'.
Everything went off without a hitch. Savage and Elizabeth were kayfabed married (they were a real-life husband and wife before the event). However, in the days which followed, WWF TV aired footage from the wedding reception. It was gate-crashed by Jake 'The Snake' Roberts and The Undertaker with the former having hidden a snake inside one of the presents Elizabeth opened.
Hopefully, if this MSG marriage does go ahead (and isn't tabloid gossip!), the couple will take care when opening their gifts.
It's hard to believe that, this time next week, the 2026 World Cup would have started.
Over the past few days, I've thought about the last one. From late 2022. It genuinely seems like only a couple of years ago.
As I've written previous to today, I am unsure if I'm going to end up being all-in on the tournament this time. Some of the kick off times don't appeal to me at all. I feel like if I have to be invested, I need to watch everything I can. Those late games are simply not good for my body clock!
(And yes, that last sentence was written by somebody who stays up late to watch WWE and NFL).
The good sign - I am writing about the World Cup with six days to kick off. I'm invested. Slightly.
My friend showed me a photo of a couple of new NFL-themed The Real McCoy's crisps that are apparently on store shelves right now.
I've had a look on the KP website to get a promotional photo for this post, but I couldn't find anything other than that.
All I have seen is the person's photo holding two multipacks. One is a 'Yellow Mustard' flavour. The second is 'Hot Kick Ketchup'.
As you can likely tell, I'm intrigued. I've still found myself purchasing the two NFL-inspired flavours the company brought out last season - Buffalo Chicken Wings and Secret Burger Sauce - every now again.
KP is currently in the latter part of a three-year deal with the National Football League to be the 'Official Snack Partner of the UK and Ireland'. Last season, customers had a chance of winning tickets to Super Bowl as part of a promotion.
I'm going to keep a look out for the new flavours and will post an update once - if? - I do.
It's Oreo's unofficial birthday today. He turned 4.
We chose June 2nd because it's one month after mine and is in a perfect spot ahead of other family members' birthdays. We have my nephew's later this month, my dad's in July and then mum's is a month after that.
Works out well, if I say so myself. I think I've written enough about how much enjoyment it has been for me to have Oreo (And Squeak!) since they came here. He has kept me on my toes (in a good way!).
Before I fell asleep last night, I tuned into the Neighbours 24/7 stream on YouTube to see which storylines were going on.
I surmise it was 1990 or so (the feed keeps going so far before starting back in 1989ish). Anyway, to cut a long story short, the scene I caught had Kerry and Toby Mangel watching Kerry's wedding to Joe Mangel on a video cassette.
The TV was playing actual clips of the episode. We didn't see much. Kerry commented to Toby something along the lines of 'look how nice you looked in your suit'.
It made me laugh out loud because it felt like an inside joke because the actor portraying Toby in those current scenes was not the actor who played him at the wedding.
I had to make sure, so checked out a video of the wedding immediately after watching that scene.
It turned out to be a good guess on my part.
The earlier version of Toby Mangel was played by Finn Greentree-Keane. He was in the role between 1988 and 1990. His replacement, Ben Guerens, took over in '90 and remained on the cast for three years.
I always recall seeing the then new Toby on a Children's BBC show. The programme (I cannot recall what it was exactly) was in Australia on the Neighbours set and they showed some of the actors filming their scenes. One of the things being filmed was had Joe and Toby Mangel in their kitchen and it more or less gave away that a new Toby was on the horizon.
At the time, there was a huge gap between the Australian and UK screenings. I believe it was something like eighteen months at one point. If not more.
Other than last night's dip into the stream, I'm more or less done watching the feed. It's difficult to stick with it knowing that everything will repeat within a week or so.
It was fun while it lasted.
To make up for missing the FA Cup Final post, I'm going to share with you the team I'd like to win the Champions League later today.
The game will see Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal battle it out for the trophy. I've had a look at the odds and, unsurprisingly, PSG are 7/5 favourites. Their opponents are 2/1 and the draw, in 90 minutes, is 23/10.
To be fair, if I had a gun to my head and was forced to pick one of those three, I'd go 'Draw'.
I have just watched a video of WWE wrestler - Rhea Ripley - opening a packet of Topps WWE cards.
She managed to find a rare, signed, Roman Reigns cards in the promotional clip plugged by the trading card firm.
What are the odds?! And for it to be caught on camera nonetheless.
Who's working who here?
