Post 308. FOOTBALL FOOTBALL AND MORE FOOTBALL.

TIME AGAIN FOR.

A plethora of professional cheating.
I am running into the penalty box. I am almost in control of the ball: It jiggles about and I can't get set for a shot. There is somebody running alongside me! Please let them try to dispossess me! Please let them put a hand - an arm - a leg - a foot near me! Please let them touch me!
They have! I'm down! I'm poleaxed! I'm rolling about! I'm writhing! I've adopted the 'in agonies' expression! I'm looking to the referee - assistant referee - the public - the cameras to record my Oscar deserving performance - I am looking for a penalty kick!
I think I may have got one!
What? Oh, sod sportsmanship, it's professional cheating and I'm a master of it. Refs love playing God and seldom trust cameras.
I'll be a hero back home.
Next season I'll be in a top club in the English Premier League. There's a fortune to be picked up there. When I retire they'll call me an icon.
Silly bastards!
Footnote:  
FOR THAT NICE AMERICAN READER.
1. For football read soccer.
2. A Video Assisted Referee (VAR) currently videos international matches and acts as arbiter if a refereeing decision appears to require questioning.
This may rapidly fall out of favour now that the use of it has seen World Cup holders Germany knocked out of the 2018 tournament by South Korea. (Cue for uncontrollable English glee.)
Well there's not been much in football for us to smile about since the nineteen sixties.
TELEVISION.
NEXT WEEK IT'S WIMBLEDON.

So more repeat repeats.
Yep, the BBC will go into sports overdrive again for the next fortnight while every loud grunt or shrill scream that nowadays accompanies the striking of a small ball with a tennis racquet for a lot of money supersedes every other television programme previously listed for the delectation of the viewing public.
It would be a little more tolerable if the repeats drafted in to replace cancelled shows were not so often repeat repeats.
Over the years of Wimbledon tournaments I've watched some features so many times I could pass for one of the cast. 
By the same token, I've now taken in so much Scandi noir I hardly need look at the subtitles.

The Bridge has seen me (and lord alone knows how many millions more) caught up (apparently for the last time) in the weird and wonderful world of detective Saga Norén (Sofia Helin), a vintage Porsche driving mix-up of forthright femininity and investigative genius.
Truth is, I took in what was said more than I ever understood what the plot was about.
Enjoyed Saga though.
Great character: beautifully acted.
Enough now.
Enjoy the heat wave.
Watch some more footie.

Post 307. FATHER'S DAY 2018.

LOST ANOTHER DAY OF SCRIBBLING.

It just vanished.

A short while ago the computer lifeboat captain made a fine job of fixing my draft blog post page and it worked a treat for post 306. Dunno what I did to annoy it last Saturday, but on the Sunday, Father's Day, I switched on and found myself faced with a blank page. Every bloggin' thing I had written was gone. What? Oh, I think I saved it – just don't know where it went.
That's me and technology.

Ah well.
Back to page one, which I think started with: WHATEVER HAPPENED

TO SPEAKING YOUR MIND?

The PC Brigade GB has effortlessly become the Corps of Political Correctness and, with the addition of the Fairness to Foreigners Division, is fast transforming into PC National Command.

Whatever happened to speaking your mind?

Time was when expressions like tell the truth and shame the devil were commonplace and the privilege of publicly expressing one's opinion was accepted without question.

Not now.

Now I am reminded again and again that when, back in 2015 - Post 2(32) - I wrote Honesty is not always the best policy. (Ask Gerald Ratner. Ask Brian True-May) I was merely putting forward a token objection to the way in which an individual's entire life could be realigned (even ruined) by the negative input of unwell-wishers. Little did I foresee the army of professional objectors who would gradually take over the UK with all the ruthlessness of ducking parties on archaic witch hunts.

During the past week the author Lionel Shriver has been dropped as a literary judge after she criticised the latest diversity and inclusion policies proposed by Penguin Random House. It seems Ms. Shriver, writing in The Spectator, dared to suggest that Penguin was “drunk on virtue.” 
The editorial director of the magazine Mslexia duly removed her from the judging panel of their annual short story competition for, it would seem, the sin of speaking her mind.

I shan't elaborate. It's all on Google. If you're interested, look it up.

I do despair though.

Know nothing of Lionel Shriver and hold no brief for the magazine that carried her views, but whatever has happened to freedom of speech? And how long before we hang the people who exercise it?

This has become an age of mad intolerance.
TELEVISION.

The Wright Stuff (Chanel 5) But not anymore.

Last Thursday Matthew Wright made his final appearance as presenter of this morning chat show. 

He had been in the chair for the better part of eighteen years and said he wanted to spend more time with his wife. Good for him. I hope she was with him on the evening of the same day when he was welcomed at Cardiff for David Dimbleby's Question Time on BBC 1 despite having bitched about the Beeb throughout his entire tenure on The Wright Stuff.

Clearly not everybody is opposed to freedom of speech, though in this case I think it more likely that nobody from Broadcasting House has even glanced at Chanel 5 for the past eighteen years.

Good luck, Matthew.

That's all, folks.

 

 

Post 306. ALL ABOUT FAMILY.

STARTING WITH

Jess Daisy White MPharm:
Best news of late was that our granddaughter, Jess White, has obtained a Master of Pharmacy degree: a First, too. Currently she is set on a tour of Europe (couple of days Copenhagen etc. etc.) Needless to say we are delighted for her and immensely proud of her. Richly deserved, my lovely, very well done.
So, whilst we are embracing nepotism, let's mention Neil W. Barnden:
The Computer Lifeboat Captain, immersed as he constantly is in a demanding work schedule (don't be fooled, producing computer games is not a doddle), once more turned out the lifeboat to pull me off the treacherous rocks of technology.

In the process he valiantly attempted to impart a smidgin of computer sense (some hopes) into his father's IT resistant brain. Glad to say I did pick up on a bit of it, including the advice that Google would not be bothered by the pictures I print so long as they are not pornographic. Well, they never are. And to quote the late Hylda Baker: “I say that without fear of contraception.” 
Whatever, we have never lived in each other's pockets, so it was good to see our Neil again.
It was good, too, to welcome dear friend
Anne Wilkening for a short stay.
(If I could find a picture I'd publish it)
She came from Cornwall last weekend: sang in Portsmouth Cathedral on the Saturday, lunched out with us on the Sunday, visited Pompey's Mary Rose Museum with us on Monday and, before I could so much as open another bottle, had gone back home. The Mary Rose is a splendidly presented, truly moving, experience and Anne's brief company was, as always, a delight.
Last but by no means least, Roz Barnden:
Our Roz has put her house up for sale. It is a nice three-bedroomed semi with off road parking for two vehicles and a long back garden at the end of which stands a fine summerhouse. Should sell easily enough, but this is the Island. Enough said. We can only hope for her. The dog Buddy will be back with us tomorrow.

And that's it from the personal home front.
The usual mixed bag next time.