So last week we headed up to collect Carol’s brother Colin from Lancashire and then headed over, for a few days away, to a little place called Crookham Eastfield up in Northumberland. It’s very close to the River Tweed on the English-Scottish Borders and it’s a lovely, fertile and peaceful part of the world, rich in places to visit.
Long term readers will know I have a penchant for unusual names of all sorts. I love the quirkiness of oddball celebrity names for their kids which I wrote about ages ago in baby names. Things have continued bonkers-wise with Sam Worthingon’s kid Rocket Zot and Uma Thurman’s hardly under-christened daughter Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence. A very early posting covered off some unlikely car naming policy on behalf of the big car companies which continues to this day with the Renault Kadjar and the Skoda Karoq. Krikey! Later I enjoyed recalling some of the more amusing drag names spotted in a publicity sign for a Brighton bar and I then revelled in some names from recent series of Ru Paul’s Drag Race with such classics as Baga Chipz and Bimini Bon Boulash. Now that’s magic. Continue reading
Well Kylie duly appeared in something very skimpy, apart from the head-dress which was HUGE. And she sang her stuff including CGYOOMH just for me (TYK). Then to close the show we had Dougie MacLean. Who? He must be big in Scotland and he sang something folksy but surely, surely it was crying out for the Proclaimers to close it on 500 Miles. Ah that was probably a bit of self-irony too far. So the final scene was the ‘whole cast’ singing Auld Lang Syne. There must have been at least 7 people on the largest stage and landing strip I’ve ever seen. Sigh. Anyway enough of my mocking, it was a great event and showcase for Glasgow, like the TdF was for Yorkshire. It’s been a good summer for highlighting what our great country has to offer beyond London I think.
pp
Well an interesting day in the 6 Nations yesterday. After trouncing Italy, Wales roll on towards a possible Grand Slam. It’s not going to happen again is it? That match again Ireland will be tough, especially because the Irish seem to have found their form following up their storming second half against France with a comprehensive win against Scotland yesterday. The Scots are looking poor this year – they found a try at least yesterday but it could be a lonely soul in the season. I blame their shirts. Ever since they’ve been wearing these barbeque shirts, they’ve played like king prawns –
The Irish one is as bad – a real horror of pea and avocado greens:
Anyway the key point of this posting is to write favourably about England’s performance away to France yesterday. Thankfully the team have stopped Steve McClaren from doing the half-time team talk and they turned in a second half effort to match the first half performance. If only they’d done the same thing against Wales who they absolutely pasted in that first 40 minutes, it would be they looking at a potential Grand Slam now. Ah well.
It’s not been a classic tournament but it’s turning into a good 6 Nations with 4 of the teams aiming and fully capable of winning it. I can’t wait for the next round now.
pp
Don’t know if you’ve heard the World Cup qualifying draw as yet but England have only gone and drawn Croatia again as the no 1 seed in our group, alongside Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and the mighty Andorra. As it’s a 6 team group we even get a chance to qualify as one of the best runners-up. That’s alright. With a proper manager in control, we should reverse the results against Croatia and qualify relatively easily this time. He says…
So the mighty Mc Quiff has gone. Gawd knows how much it really cost the FA to pay him off and tactical/media assistant (ha!) Terry Vegetables and head of positive thinking Brian ‘stephen hawkins’ Beswick and head goal-keeping coach (that’s a f**king laugh) Ray Clemence. I suggested £5m flippantly in a pique last night but I bet it’s not far awry. Today at the press conference SM suggested that all the critical/key questions would be answered not now but in the fullness of time. In FAspeak this means that ‘I’m prevented from saying anything negative under the terms of my multi-million pound pay-out but but once the silence-period has been observed, I’ll reveal all in my revelationary multi-million pound biography’. So the fu**wit walks away with let’s say £4-6M of opportunity before he works again.
Well that was a desperately disappointing set of results tonight. England played well for 70 minutes, really well, but 5 minutes of poor defending cost them the match. It was a game that should have been safe after Rooney scored a belting first goal. Those misses by Gerrard and Richards looked more horrible each time they were replayed. I think everyone agrees it was a clumsy tackle by Rooney that led to the penalty but it was clearly outside the area. What was the point in sticking Lescott in there as a third central defender and expecting Joe Cole/Rooney to cover at left back given how well the Russians played against regular full backs in the second half at Wembley? And is that now the end of Robinson’s time in goal? Is there any hope of Russia dropping points against a disinterested Israel? I wouldn’t bet the house on it. The only saving grace in all this is that McQuiff Moscow now.
I don’t know a lot about the politics of world rugby (even though I was once hauled before the IRB at the end of RWC ’99 – you’ll just have to find the earlier posting) but I do know that Argentina have been a bloody revelation. It would seem that the Tri-Nations don’t want them in their tournament and they’re not exactly well-positioned to compete regularly with Japan and the Pacific Is teams. And playing against the USA and Canada wouldn’t exactly light their fire as an annual competition. So, is it just me but why shouldn’t we invite them to join the 6 Nations?
Pasta Paulie 