Apparently this was printed in Yesterday’s Independent. The guy was outside the Ireland Vs. England game on Saturday.

Oh, the irony of it all.

I’ve been a little busy these last few days so this is going up later than I had hoped. Still, it’ll be here for ye to laugh at in the morning.

The 79th Academy Awards take place tonight - well Monday morning if I’m being precise - at about 01:00. It will be shown live on Sky Movies 1 and there will be highlights on both Sky One and RTÉ tomorrow night.

Here are my predictions. I’ve put them in order with the winner first and the next most likely after that.

Best Picture
The Departed
Babel
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
Letters From Iwo Jima

Best Director
Martin Scorsese - The Departed
Clint Eastwood - Letters From Iwo Jima
Paul Greengrass - United 93
Alejandro González Iñárritu – Babel
Stephen Frears - The Queen

Best Actor
Forest Whitaker - The Last King Of Scotland
Peter O’Toole - Venus
Will Smith - The Pursuit Of Happyness
Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson

Best Actress
Helen Mirren - The Queen
Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet - Little Children
Penélope Cruz - Volver
Judi Dench - Notes On A Scandal

Best Supporting Actor
Eddie Murphy - Dreamgirls
Alan Arkin - Little Miss Sunshine
Mark Wahlberg - The Departed
Jackie Earle Haley - Little Children
Djimon Hounsou - Blood Diamond

Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls
Cate Blanchett - Notes On A Scandal
Abigail Breslin - Little Miss Sunshine
Adriana Barraza - Babel
Rinko Kikuchi- Babel

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Departed
Children Of Men
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Notes On A Scandal
Little Children

Best Original Screenplay
Little Miss Sunshine
Babel
Letters From Iwo Jima
The Queen
Pan’s Labyrinth

Best Cinematography
Children Of Men
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Illusionsit
The Black Dahlia
The Prestige

Best Art Direction
Pan’s Labyrinth
Dreamgirls
The Prestige
The Good Shepherd
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Best Original Song
Listen - Dreamgirls
Love You I Do - Dreamgirls
Patience - Dreamgirls
I Need To Wake Up - An Inconvenient Truth
Our Town - Cars

Best Original Score
Notes On A Scandal
Babel
The Good German
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Queen

Best Editing
Babel
The Departed
Children Of Men
United 93
Blood Diamond

Best Documentary Feature
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq In Fragments
Deliver Us From Evil
My Country, My Country
Jesus Camp

Best Documentary Short
Recycled Life
Rehearsing a Dream
Two Hands
The Blood Of Yingzhou District

Best Foreign Language Film
Pan’s Labyrinth
Water
The Lives Of Others
Days Of Glory
After the Wedding

Best Animated Short
The Little Matchgirl
The Danish Poet
Lifted
Maestro
No Time For Nuts

Best Live Action Short
The Saviour
Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)
Éramos Pocos (One Too Many)
Helmer & Son
West Bank Story

Best Sound Editing
Blood Diamond
Flags Of Our Fathers
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Letters From Iwo Jima
Apocalypto

Best Sound Mixing
Dreamgirls
Blood Diamond
Flags Of Our Fathers
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Apocalypto

Best Animated Feature Film
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House

Best Visual Effects
Superman Returns
Pirates Of The Caribbean - Dead Man’s Chest
Poseidon

Best Make-Up
Pan’s Labyrinth
Apocalypto
Click

Best Costume Design
The Queen
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devil Wears Prada
Marie Antoinette
Dreamgirls

The Champion’s League is back with us again. Last night’s action gave us plenty of incident and it’s clear the Lille Vs. Manchester United game will give the media plenty to talk about for the next two weeks.

The one goal lead Man United take back to Old Trafford with them should be enough after seeing Lille struggle in the final third of the pitch last night. Lille deserved more out of the game, but United were clearly the better team. I’d expect Man United to win the second leg too and be in the draw for the Quarter-Finals and Semi-Finals on the 9th of March.

Real Madrid’s 3-2 home victory over Bayern Munich won’t be enough to see them through. The 2 away goals and home advantage give Bayern a great chance of going through but neither team are as good as they should be at the moment.

For Arsenal, loosing away to PSV was a bad blow but they are more than good enough to turn the tie around. You never know what you’re going to get from Arsenal, but on their day they are one of the best footballing sides in the World. 1-0 is not a major disaster and the return leg is poised to be the most entertaining game of the round. This one could well need extra-time.

Celtic have to pleased with the 0-0 home draw they secured last night. When you’re playing AC Milan you’d take a draw in the first leg. Any goal Celtic can score in the second leg will be an away goal so a score draw will do them. It’s still hard to see them knocking Milan out though.

Tonight’s fixtures promise plenty more talking points with Jose Mourinho taking his Chelsea side back to Porto, in a tie that shouldn’t pose Chelsea many problems; Inter Milan hosting Valencia, in an evenly matched tie that I feel the Spaniards will edge; Lyon going to Roma to show Europe that they are a force to be reckoned with this season; and in the tie of the round Barcelona host Liverpool.

The visit of Liverpool to Barcelona has already filled many column inches. Both clubs have had problems with their players; Samuel Eto’o refusing to come on as a substitute in a recent game, and a few of the Liverpool players enjoying a lively boys night out during a training camp visit to Portugal last week.

To add to the similarities both teams come into this game on the back of league defeats, and lets not forget that it’s the 2006 winners against the 2005 Champions!

Since the draw was first announced people have been very quick to write off Liverpool’s chances. The statistics however, suggest otherwise…

In three visits to the Nou Camp Liverpool are yet to concede a goal. They won 1-0 in 1976 on their way to winning the UEFA Cup, drew 0-0 in the UEFA Cup during their trebble winning campaign of 2001, and again in the Champion’s League group stage of 2002. Rafael Benitez also has an excellent track record there winning twice and drawing once in his time as Valencia manager. With defensive linchpin, Jamie Carragher, going for a hat-trick of shut outs tonight it’s hard to see any result other than 0-0. That would set up another memorable European night in Anfield on the 6th of March.

The official Barcelona squad is Valdés, Jorquera, Belletti, Oleguer, Puyol, Thuram, Márquez, Gio, Zambrotta, Motta, Xavi, Deco, Iniesta, Gudjohnsen, Saviola, Ronaldinho, Messi, Giuly.

Liverpool have traveled over with Reina, Dudek, Finnan, Arbeloa, Carragher, Agger, Hyypia, Riise, Pennant, Gerrard, Alonso, Sissoko, Mascherano, Gonzalez, Zenden, Crouch, Kuyt, Bellamy and Fowler.

I expect that Barca will play their usual 4-3-3 and Liverpool with revert back to the 4-5-1 that helped win so many vital games in Europe in 2005.

I was walking home the other night and saw the above poster on a billboard. Having seen it I felt the need to answer it - yes, out loud. I found myself telling said billboard that I didn’t want a political party that cared about my happiness but that I wanted one that would be prepared to make the tough decisions needed to make this country better. The kinds of decisions that generally lead to unhappiness in the direction of such a party.

Maybe it was because I was angry when I saw it? Maybe it’s because the advertisement is stupid?

[Edit - It turns out the picture below is a fake. With the WB logo and all I fell for it. Apologies to all and thanks to Al for spotting it. Hopefully the real images will be as good though!]

I’m not sure that this should be a separate post but I’m so impressed with this picture that I had to make a whole new post for it.

Not sure how it got under my radar until now, but it’s here now.

Ladies and gentlemen…may I present to you…The Joker!