Pleeeeeez!!?

When I was a young lad and the hormones were raging, I always had this idea that my perfect job would be a bra-fitter.  But now, as a result of a Wimbledon edict, there is the opportunity for an even better one - ladies' underwear checker!!

How to start the day?

I have no particular views on the worthiness - or otherwise - of Jean-Claude Juncker as head of the European Commission, but what on earth is wrong with having cognac for breakfast, as he is said to do?  It's pretty common (or used to be) in Spain and Italy to start the day with a carajillo (coffee with a slug of Spanish brandy) or caffè corretto (the slug in Italy being grappa).  Just because we have this "not until the sun's over the yardarm" approach here, doesn't make it wrong for others to have a different attitude as to the appropriate time to have a drink. And Churchill by all accounts was over the limit most of the time.  Rather think those who aren't keen on Juncker in that post are frantically scrabbling around for negative things to say about him.

World Cup

So we're now down to the final 16 and it's time to ask yourself if you think you've seen the winner, and if you are so inclined, to put your money where your mouth is.  Brazil understandably are favourites, but the best you can get on them is 7/2 which I don't think represents value for money. I'm not sure that Germany at 4s is any better.  Holland at 8s is much more attractive and if you want a real punt how about Costa Rica at 50/1?  Or you can do as I do and keep your money in your pocket - at least for the time being.

The Lazy Cook

Mentioned scrambled eggs to my daughter-on-law (of Punjabi heritage) the other day "Oh, you really want to try Indian eggs" she said,  So here's her recipe -
Beat your eggs and put them to one side to rest.
In your frying pan, or wok, put a small handful of cumin seeds and dry-fry them until they start to crackle and pop
Add some crushed garlic, crushed ginger, chopped onions and green chillies
Sauté until the onions start to colour
Add some chopped tomatoes and cook until they have gone into a mush
Now add a little butter (ghee if you want to be authentic) and the eggs and stir until scrambled
And there you are - like most Indian home recipes the quantities are left to you, particularly when it come to spices - you may for instance wish to consider whether to de-seed the chillies.

But Doctor....

As someone well into his 70s - indeed closer to 80 - I was gobsmacked (there's a good oldfashioned word) to find that my doctor can throw me off his list (de-register is the official expression) even though I have done nothing wrong - indeed done nothing, full stop.  Not that I have any reason to think he will do any such thing, but apparently there are those like me around the country who are being de-registered simply because their doctor has too many patients.  Of course the immediate reaction is that if a doctor cannot cope with any more patients, should he or she simply stop taking any new patients on, rather than getting rid of existing ones? The cynic in me wonders if this is about time and money - are older, probably less healthy patients more demanding and expensive?  Touch wood, I am in reasonably good health, but it does make you think, doesn't it?

One law for them...

Can I add my name to the list of those expressing annoyance (or even anger) at the fact that a Headmaster of a primary school in Leicester has taken a fortnight off in term time - apparently so he can go to Brazil and watch the World Cup.  Given that he seems to be a good Head, and assuming that appropriate arrangements were made to cover his absence, you might think that there's little wrong with that, but of course the negative emotions arise from the fact that parents are now forbidden from taking their children out of school to go on holiday - indeed for any reason - on pain of being heavily fined.  So it's "Do as I say, not do as I do"?

Get thee behind me...

I see the Church of England is set to simplify the service of Baptism by removing references to the devil.  Depending on which particular order of service is being used, parents and godparents are presently asked whether, on behalf of the child, they "renounce the devil and all his works" or some similar wording, and it is felt that this can put people off.  Reading this, I was reminded of the (probably apocryphal) story of a man on his deathbed (usually given as Voltaire) who was asked by his priest to renounce Satan, and is said to have replied something like "Oh, come now, this is no time to be making new enemies".

Strewth!!

Cressida Dick, who is apparently our "anti-terrorism chief" has gone on record warning about the threat to this country arising out of Islamic extremism in Syria and Iraq.  Now remind me - isn't this the same Cressida Dick who was in charge of the bungled operation which led to the death (oh, come on, let's call it what it was - execution) of Jean Charles de Menezes back in 2005?  I don't know whether I find that ironic, or just very, very worrying!

I can see your knickers!

A headmaster at a school in the Isle of Wight has sent some 200-odd girls home for having skirts which were too short.  He maintains that he was merely enforcing the school's uniform code.  Now I know that schoolchildren - boys as well as girls - will "push the envelope" on uniforms and vie with each other to see what they can get away with, but there's another aspect to this, which is that children have this annoying habit of growing, and what was a skirt which fell well below the knee at the start of the school year, may well have crept above the knee by year-end, and most parents wait until the long summer holiday to re-kit their children for the new school year.  Given that we're just coming up to the six-week holiday, did the Head take this into account?

World Cup postmortem

How could the same starting eleven players who played so well against Italy (albeit they lost) play so dismally against Uruguay?  I know very little about the technicalities of football and I have no answer, but against Italy we looked (for the first time in ages) like a team, like we knew what we were doing, like we had a plan, and like we were capable of scoring goals.  Yet against Uruguay we were back to looking clueless, disjointed, and lacking any sort of penetration.  And it doesn't take a footballing genius to point out that three (and you could argue all four) of the goals scored against us were the result of basic defensive errors, so perhaps that's where we should be concentrating our efforts to improve.  Anyway, that's it for another couple of years. Hope springs eternal!