Best comparison – Bale
Gareth Bale produced another dazzling display for Tottenham Hotspur, with his two goals leading his team to a 2-1 victory over Newcastle United, prompting manager Andre Villas-Boas to eulogise about the Welsh winger's quality.
Villas-Boas said it would be a "disaster" if Spurs lost Bale. Not quite true, earthquakes and tsunamis are disasters, Spurs without Bale would just make them a poorer football team.
But the Tottenham manager got one thing right, in comparing his star man with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. It's hard to analyse Bale against the world's two best players, but his stock is rising, and there are few players in the Premier League, and even world football, who can turn a game the way he can.
The fear for Spurs fans is that it will not be long until comparisons with Ronaldo and Messi are legitimate – because Bale is playing alongside one of them for Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Best let off – Benitez
Rafa Benitez was rumoured to be facing the famous Roman Abramovich chop if his Chelsea side lost to Wigan Athletic.
And Chelsea fans, given their reaction to his appointment only two and a half months ago, would probably have been happy with him to go. But one emphatic 4-1 victory at home to Wigan Athletic later and the Spaniard is still in a job.
The irony of football is that, as up and down as Chelsea's season has been, their next league game is away at Manchester City.
Win at Etihad Stadium, and the European champions will only be a point away from second place in the table.
Worst pep talk – Mancini
Manchester City's defeat at Southampton was a major setback to their title ambitions, leading to them dropping 12 points behind leaders Manchester United.
You might expect their manager to try to deflect some attention from a poor performance, blame the referee, or the pitch. Something to lift his players' morale. Not Roberto Mancini. He let rip with venom at his team.
"It was worse than poor," said the Italian. "We didn't play, it was 11 against two so it's difficult. I think this is the worst game in the last two or three years. The players played really bad - without strength, without personality. We conceded a goal that I have never seen in my life.
"I was really disappointed with my players. When we perform like today, I'm very angry."
Let's hope his squad have thick skins, or the title race may be completely over.
Worst run – Norwich City
There is always one team who begin the season like a house on fire, then suddenly hit the wall. Look at Hull City in 2008/09.
They were joint top with Chelsea and Liverpool after nine games, but won just twice again that season and avoided relegation on the final day.
This season's Hull could well be Norwich City. Chris Hughton's side were seventh at the start of December, having beaten Arsenal and Manchester United at home. They now haven't won in nine matches, have scored once in five league games, including Saturday's dismal 0-0 draw at home to Fulham.
They better hope they aren't facing relegation on the final day – their last match of the season is away at Manchester City.
Best own goal – Westwood
No not the worst own goal, that belonged to Gareth Barry in Manchester City's aforementioned defeat at Southampton when he passed the ball into his own net. This peach from Ashley Westwood would have been an absolute cracker, if it had been at the right end.
The Aston Villa defender got his head in the way of a West Ham shot and the ball looped into the top corner from 20 yards out.
Beauty.
And, unlike Barry's strike, this didn't matter as much for Westwood, despite dented pride, as his team ran out 2-1 winners.
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Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More by Adrian Harte
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In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Three ways to limit your social media use
Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.
1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.
2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information.
3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.
The drill
Recharge as needed, says Mat Dryden: “We try to make it a rule that every two to three months, even if it’s for four days, we get away, get some time together, recharge, refresh.” The couple take an hour a day to check into their businesses and that’s it.
Stick to the schedule, says Mike Addo: “We have an entire wall known as ‘The Lab,’ covered with colour-coded Post-it notes dedicated to our joint weekly planner, content board, marketing strategy, trends, ideas and upcoming meetings.”
Be a team, suggests Addo: “When training together, you have to trust in each other’s abilities. Otherwise working out together very quickly becomes one person training the other.”
Pull your weight, says Thuymi Do: “To do what we do, there definitely can be no lazy member of the team.”
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The chef's advice
Troy Payne, head chef at Abu Dhabi’s newest healthy eatery Sanderson’s in Al Seef Resort & Spa, says singles need to change their mindset about how they approach the supermarket.
“They feel like they can’t buy one cucumber,” he says. “But I can walk into a shop – I feed two people at home – and I’ll walk into a shop and I buy one cucumber, I’ll buy one onion.”
Mr Payne asks for the sticker to be placed directly on each item, rather than face the temptation of filling one of the two-kilogram capacity plastic bags on offer.
The chef also advises singletons not get too hung up on “organic”, particularly high-priced varieties that have been flown in from far-flung locales. Local produce is often grown sustainably, and far cheaper, he says.
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
