One in a Bellion.

We’re now a full week into the Premier League season. That doesn’t sound like much, but if you happen to be one of the poor souls tethered to a terrible team by an ill-defined sense of filial loyalty, it’s more than enough time to check out entirely. Why did we have the hubris to believe things might be different this time? Einstein’s definition of insanity spring to mind. Fortunately, today we’re more interested in events occurring off the pitch.

There appears to be a sort of arms race taking place in the game, with a litany of teams competing for the title of football’s most fashionable club. Athens Kallithea made a strong case for themselves a couple weeks ago. Venezia are always there or there abouts. Mizuno and Augsburg came out of nowhere. But Parisian club Red Star may have just taken the gateau.

With former Manchester United striker David Bellion at the helm as creative director, Red Star’s kit launch blurs the lines between football, fashion and art. from Degas to Vermeer, the campaign merges contemporary photography with classical paintings and sculptures, and the results are… magnifique. Who ever said football fans have no culture? We raise a Styrofoam cup of piping hot Bovril to you, sir. 5 Red Stars out of 5.

Had a Blinder.

Just as you thought the Olympics had mercifully drawn to a close and you could stop pretending to care about taekwondo… it’s back. Sort of. The end of the Olympics means two things: 1) most of the athletes go back to their day jobs in Dunelm, and 2) the Paralympics is just getting started.

Like the Olympics, the Paralympics is equally a place where athletes accomplish superhumans feats – some of whom do so with superhuman feet. To offer a reminder of this fact, Orange (or as they say in France, ‘Orange’) have just launched a new campaign to show that not only can Paralympians compete with their able-bodied counterparts, but they can actually sometimes smash them to bits.

The ad tracks the record-breaking Rio Paralympics 1,500-meter T13 final in which the top four finishers all beat the winning time from the 1,500-meter Olympic final three weeks earlier. It’s hard not to get behind this. Unless you’re the bloke who won the Olympic final, in which case it’s probably incredibly easy.

Game of Phones.

Afternoon Tea. Cricket. Roast swan. All very British things. But there are few things more quintessentially British than the red telephone box.

Appropriately, the telephone box’s glory years are now in the past, left to wander in the wilderness searching for its place in this Brave New World. Some have been turned into libraries, some house life-saving defibrillators, and some are public toilets (unofficially, but that’s generally how they’re used). Now, a telephone box has become the world’s smallest art gallery.

Lettering artist Seb Lester revealed a new exhibition this week featuring his tiny prints and original artworks on display in a red telephone box in Settle, North Yorkshire. And isn’t it adorable? Hopefully nobody urinates on it.

Green Army.

Art? Fashion? Climate change? What the hell is happening to football?! If Peterborough United suddenly decide to weigh in with their hot take on the situation in the Middle East, we will have officially jumped the shark.

Having achieved sneering notoriety for being the “world’s greenest football club”, Forest Green Rovers will be wearing climate change on their sleeves this season, sporting a bamboo kit featuring data, a graphic from climate scientist Ed Hawkins and a graph from University of Derby professor Miles Richardson.

Do Forest Green seem a bit like a bloke you really don’t want to get stuck talking to at a party? Unquestionably. I’m just trying to enjoy the cake, mate – hadn’t really considered if it has palm oil in it. But are they doing the right thing for the planet? Maybe. Depends which scientists you ask. I prefer my guys who say everything’s fine.

Regardless of who you believe, Forest Green should be commended for running their club with a social conscience. Hopefully this brings them more luck than their decision to implement a strict vegan diet for all their players, which I’m sure had absolutely nothing to do with them finishing rock bottom of League Two last season.

Semi-SKIMSed.

It/brat girl of the moment, Charli XCX, has just been revealed as the new face (as well as most of the rest of her) of SKIMS – because of course she was. You didn’t need to be Nostradamus to predict this one. Even those blokes in the Orange ad saw it coming a mile off.

Just like that, we take one more step on the road towards Kardashian global hegemony. We’re predicting a Kim K presidential run by 2032. Stranger things have happened. Stranger things are happening. Kris just needs to keep everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. They get on for now, but bear in mind that Tsar Nicholas II, Kaiser Wilhelm II and King George V were all cousins.

In a couple generations we’ll have the various offshoots of the Kardashian bloodline in the trenches waging war over eyeliner, shoes and, dunno, Alsace-Lorraine, or something.

AI-didas.

Does anything about this adidas ad seem a bit off to you? It should, because every frame, every sound and every word has been generated by AI. Eek.

Granted… it isn’t very good. It feels a bit like the moon landing footage mixed with that infamous Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad. But it was made in 2 hours. The best thing I’ve ever made in 2 hours was a gumbo, and that was still pretty shit (the roux needs more oil than you’d think). Just imagine what could be done with even a modicum of time, cash and, dare we say it, love. The ad, we mean – not the dry gumbo.

Considering this would have seemed like magic just a couple years ago, quibbling over its artistic brilliance or strategic nous feels in danger of rather missing the point. We could be given a divining rod which could grant us everything we desire, and we would only use it a backscratcher – so let’s not be greedy. But at least everyone gets to keep their jobs. For now.