Mr Owl PhD

Robert Young of Primal Scream is 'moving on up': http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29154972

Jaws loses his bite: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29152398

I was surprised to discover it's named for a different Pallas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallas%27s_cat

Pallas's Cats are ace. I recently saw one (well, a mother and kitten) in the wild for the first time. It was the best.

I just got back from my first ever End of the Road Festival. Was generally enjoyable - it's a nice site and the weather was good. Highlights were Woods and Lonnie Holley but Cate Le Bon, Tune-yards, David Thomas Broughton, Samantha Crain, Tiny Ruins and Tinariwen were all enjoyable. Some good comedy and cinema stuff too. The main disappointment was that three of the acts I wanted to see pulled out and I missed a few things because of clashes. Might go again next year, although I have a slight preference for Green Man, which I've been to a few times before and which is maybe slightly better.

Made by the man himself.

To be honest I think your nan could have scored two goals against United tonight.

Man United 'concentrating on the league' this season, I see.

He is but I think has been pretty much constantly injured so hasn't really played, even for the reserves. I think he must still be crocked because he's not on the pre-season tour. I've also heard things like him being the best German striker of his generation.

Yeah, it's good and some of the tunes are belters. I still think maybe Civilian has more great songs on it though. I should be seeing them in a month or so, which I'm looking forward to.

Jim Rockford becomes another cold case: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/james-garner-dead-86-report-article-1.1873583

Added to Lambert, that's 27 Premier League goals from last season for less than they're getting for Borini.

Good money for Borini. I think he's a bit better than average but his days were numbered at Anfield as soon as Sturridge arrived and started banging in the goals. Looks as though Liverpool will buy Loic Remy for quite a bit less than they get for Borini. Just watched Liverpool's friendly against Preston. In a couple of years you will know a lot about Jordan Rossiter. Jordan Ibe also looks like he might breakthrough this season. Liverpool could soon have three Jordans in their team. A 'river' of Jordans, if you will. Amazing times.

It's pretty much expected that Liverpool will buy Lovren and if they don't they'll buy another centre-back. They will also buy a left back, though it's a bit less clear who that will be. They're not being 'gimpshits' they just haven't signed the players yet. Markovic looks very promising - a bit similar to Sterling, though that's not really a bad thing. Very quick and looks a very confident player. I've seen less of Can but he's played quite a bit in the Champions League and is still only 20, so probably not a bad signing for a relatively low fee. We'll see. I'm kind of puzzled by United's transfer policy. There squad clearly needs a big overhaul, particularly in defence and midfield and there's (rightly) a lot of talk of a clear out of up to ten players. As far as I can tell though their strategy seems to be to just bring in a small number of big names for big money rather than looking to build a new squad. Given that a couple of big money signings didn't work that well for them last season they seem to be putting a lot of faith in the same approach this season, along with the 'magic' of van Gaal.

Liverpool's signings so far this summer have mainly been about strengthening the depth of the squad, which is something they needed to do. They're mostly about increasing the range of options, particularly in attack, and I think the signings do that. I'm not totally convinced Lallana was worth the money they spent, but he's a good player and will no doubt contribute. I guess the question for them is whether they'll be able to bring in defenders who can help them improve in that area and whether they can bring in a 'marquee' player in attacking positions. They also seem to be keener than some of the other big clubs to bring in the best young players - Rodgers seems to like developing younger players and has had a lot of success in that area so far. They're working on all these things and have the money to do it, so we'll see who they bring in by the end of the window.

A young Spectacled Owl, from a picture I took myself this spring in Panama.

Boyhood Quietly epic new film by Richard Linklater. I say new film, but it's been filmed over 12 years, following the boyhood of Mason (and the actor Ellar Coltrane) from aged around 6 to 18. I hesitate to say this but it's really a film everyone should try to see, although I don't know that everyone would like it. Apart from a few minor reservations I thought it was pretty astonishing and the fact that you see individual people grow old in 'real time' adds to the power of every scene. As with many Linklater films it's sort of 'anti-dramatic' and focuses more on the minutiae of life. If you need big drama to keep you interested then you might find it drags but my favourite bits were the little incidents that are the sort of things from childhood that it's easy to forgot later but seem like a big deal at the time. It's also a great document of the recent past, with quite a bit of attention to changes in technology. Sometimes this makes it seem like the world's longest Apple commercial but it had the strange effect of making me think 2002 was really quite a long time ago rather than just the other day. You should all check this out.

You've all seen this I guess:

United were being linked with Hummels, though I've not heard so much about that in the last few days. I've also heard De Vrij (and probably every other Dutch defender) being linked with them. I'm surprised more teams aren't interested in De Vrij because he looked really good in the World Cup.

I'm old enough to have been aware of the 1978 finals. I liked football then but the matches were on past my bedtime, so I didn't see much of it. The first ones that I watched a lot of were 1982 and 1986 and they still set the benchmark for me. There were some dull games, but a lot of very epic stuff. I think in an age when we really didn't know much about football from other countries it all seemed incredibly exotic too. I think it's hard to get that sense these days. I was into football so knew about British players but when you saw a team like Brazil in 82 there were suddenly all these totally astonishing players who you'd never heard of. Imagine watching this World Cup and not knowing anything about Messi, Neymar, Rodriguez etc. It was like that. Since then I think 1994, 1998 and 2006 have been mostly good and I certainly enjoyed this one too. There were probably more really tight games in this World Cup than in any other I can remember, so there's been a lot of tension and dramatic finishes.

Colombian Nazi stoner pope says goodbye to the 2014 World Cup.

His beard isn't as good though.

Hey hi, let's die: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/12/tommy-ramone-dies-aged-65

If it helps at all, I got a plumber to do mine and this worked okay.