Hold the front page!

Comes to something when a goalkeeping fumble is the headline news. Sense of perspective please?

Future imperfect.

Just finished watching an American series called "Flashforward" - bit on the silly side, but its basic premise is that of predestination. That's to say that our future is already settled. So is it? Well there are two basic ideas about this - one is that we are simply acting out a script that has already been written by some Supreme Being for some ineffable purpose or other. The other rather more practical one is that what will happen in the next instant is a direct and inevitable result of what is happening now - cause and effect. And then what will happen in the instant following that is the direct and inevitable result of what will happen next, and so on and so on. So we are riding on a railway track as it were - we have to go where the rails take us. So when I think I'm making choices, am I really? Makes you think, doesn't it? Perhaps we'll come back to this later.

Gird your loins!

So are you ready for the World Cup - or couldn't you care less? It seems you have to take one position or the other. Just having a passing interest won't do. Most men fall into the first category, and many women into the second. Of course, if England are eliminated, a lot of men will also lose all interest. It's a fascinating study in human psychology - or tribal allegiance you might call it. The Scots and the Welsh - particularly the Scots - are praying for England to fail spectacularly and preferably in disgrace. Me - I'm just hoping to see some good football. I really don't think this English team is that good, and we'll do well to get as far as the semi-finals, but of course in knock-out football anything can happen. In most of the World Cups I have watched (and the first I remember was in 1954) there has been an outstanding team in terms of skill and often that team has failed to come out as the winner - it just takes one off-day, or one piece of bad luck, and you're out. What was it Kipling said about triumph and disaster...?

Sod's Law?

Isn't it funny that whenever you cut your fingernails, you are almost bound within 24 hours or so to come across a job for which you need long fingernails?

Beware, the time is coming, the end is nigh...

If you're going to have to do something which you know people are not going to like, one well-tried approach is to circulate rumours - or even positive statements - that what's going to happen is much worse than what is actually going to happen, so that when it does happen, people will say "Phew, well that's not as bad as I feared". Was this what the Prime Minister was doing in his latest "doom and gloom" speech the other day? We can only hope so!

Ha ha.

The UN recently conducted a world-wide survey, asking the question -
"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortages in the rest of the world?"
The survey was a failure for the following reasons -
In Eastern Europe, they didn't know what "honest" meant.
In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortages" meant.
In Africa, they didn't know what "food" meant.
In China, they didn't know what "opinion" meant.
In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant.
In South America they didn't know what "please" meant.
And in the USA they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant.

Last of Last of....

So the Beeb have finally decided to pension off "Last of the Summer Wine" which has been running since 1973, would you believe. I don't think it ever really recovered from the enforced death of Compo Simmonite (as a result of the real-life death of Bill Owen, who played him), although it made valiant attempts to. And then losing Nora Batty (Kathy Staff) really tore the heart out of it. Question is, where now for that band of aging sit-com actors, who all seemed to gravitate sooner or later to the show. Thank goodness the earlier episodes keep cropping up on the "nostalgia channels" and long may they continue to do so. And I really like the author's description of the show as "Just William in long trousers". Spot on.

The right to stop and search at sea?

My understanding of international law (inasmuch as such a concept exists) is that boarding a vessel by force on the high seas is an act of piracy, unless the two countries involved are at war. Israel has been very careful not to declare war on Gaza because that would mean, among other things, that they would have to comply with the various rules and conventions which govern the conduct of warring parties. So what Israel did was piracy, pure and simple. Why didn't they just wait until the ships were within the twelve mile limit before boarding them? They could then at least have made some sort of a case for saying that they were within Israeli territorial waters. Is this just another example of their macho posturing - "We did it because we could"? And did nine people have to die to prove their point?

BHX = Bloody Hell, X-rated!

I've had occasion in the past to comment on the way that - as I see it - Birmingham Airport have little or no time for those unfortunate enough to have to pass through it. It's just over four years now since my last experience and - however bad it was then - I was gob-smacked to see how things have deteriorated. Firstly, you now have to pay to drop people off or pick them up, secondly going through security is now a nightmare - I reckon it must be something like going to visit a prisoner in a category-A jail and just about as much fun. Thirdly, they no longer call the flights - it's now up to you to watch the boards (of which there seem to be much fewer than there used to be) so as to know which gate to go to and when. And then the final insult, you now have to pay to get a luggage trolley. What a pleasure it was to come back through Arrecife, where they still know how to treat you like a human being.

The wanderer returns

Well, I'm back. It wor 'arf 'ot Mum!! Mid afternoon temperatures in the high 30s - low 40s. Bit too hot for me but the sun-worshiping family loved it. Nice villa in Puerto del Carmen with own pool. I've been there before several times, which was a sort of plus and minus. Plus because I was familiar with the place, minus (sort of) because it was full of memories of happier times. But then, really I think for the first time, I was able to look back on those memories with fondness rather than sadness - just one wobble, when I so wanted to turn to my wife and say "Well, would you look at that - our favourite restaurant has turned into a Tex-Mex!". But on the whole it went well, and I shall certainly go abroad with them again - if asked that is!