It wasn't the fairy tale ending. I was banking on a trademark Beckham free kick. But it didn't come. Just goes to show how much I know about the game.
England lost 1-0 to France and it was a good evening with my mate Neil in the Scottish pub watching France outclass our boys.
Lots of work to do before England become world beaters.
It's getting rather precarious. I might go through my entire adult life without seeing England win the world cup...or a major honour.
But at least I saw Chelsea win something big. Ah the glory days of Jose Mourinho. Not so keen on his successor Avram Grant. In fact right off that whole scenario.
But away from running around after a ball which I shall do this Saturday morning. But to more important things like Kultur.
There's an exhibition at the Fondation Cartier all about Patti Smith.
The last time I went to that venue it was to see David Lynch show his artistic prowess. And jolly weird it was too.
I'm slightly intrigued by the Patti Smith thing because really all I know is the song: Because the night belongs to lovers etc etc. I'm sure there's much, much more to her than that.
Likewise England.
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
The Centurion
It's amazing how quickly one call fall behind. More than a week without anything in the blog. Has all life stopped?
Nothing of the sort. Well all life stopped with the MacBook. The mother board went less than a year after buying the thing. But at least it was under warranty and the Apple Care thing.
My only concern was that there was quite a long queue of Apple Mac customers at the repair shop.
Anyway it's back now and working. Rather like David Beckham. He's playing for England after being so openly discarded by Steve McClaren and recalled by said ex trainer.
Well Fabio Capello - known hard man motivator of Italian football and the present England supremo - has handed him his 100th cap for England.
All I can say is well done Becks. You've deserved some of the brickbats and yet not all of the criticism.
It's a game of two halves. And what price a trade mark free kick to launch us on the way to cap 101?
Nothing of the sort. Well all life stopped with the MacBook. The mother board went less than a year after buying the thing. But at least it was under warranty and the Apple Care thing.
My only concern was that there was quite a long queue of Apple Mac customers at the repair shop.
Anyway it's back now and working. Rather like David Beckham. He's playing for England after being so openly discarded by Steve McClaren and recalled by said ex trainer.
Well Fabio Capello - known hard man motivator of Italian football and the present England supremo - has handed him his 100th cap for England.
All I can say is well done Becks. You've deserved some of the brickbats and yet not all of the criticism.
It's a game of two halves. And what price a trade mark free kick to launch us on the way to cap 101?
Sunday, 16 March 2008
The Robbing
There couldn't have been a better return to action. A finely weighted pass to a fellow midfielder as the first touch and a few minutes later following up an attack a simple tap in to send the side 2-1 up.
I turned to celebrate as the opponents all shouted offside. I looked over to the linesman who didn't have his flag raised.
But they all started shouting at him (he was one of their team members) and started railing at the referee. He went over to the linesman who was looking a bit scared.
The referee signalled for offside even though it wasn't. What made it worse was that at half time he said to one of our team members that he hadn't actually seen anything wrong with the goal.
From a technical point of view it was simply that none of their defenders had followed me as I ran from an onside position to meet the cut back from the left.
It was a classic case of attacking the space in the anticipation of the ball being there. It was and the defence wasn't. We wuz robbed.
Particularly hard to take when the final result was 3-2 to the opposition. Oh well.
I said to the missus. Having a perfectly good goal ruled out and losing is tough. But at least I wasn't injured.
I'll have to project onto my sporting heroes now.
Roger Federer plays his second round match at the Indian Wells tournmaent in the United States in something of a crisis. We're three months into the season and he hasn't won a title.
Rafael Nadal could replace him as world number one by the end of the next tournament in Florida.
So maybe this is the year he loses the number one spot and triumphs at Roland Garros.
Would be interesting to know how he'd take that kind of loss/win scenario.
I've sent my accreditation form off to the French tennis federation and I should be there to watch the crunching forehands in late May and early June.
By which time this football season will be a memory.
During Saturday's match one defender asked me how old I was. I told him but didn't pursue the conversation as I thought it better to concentrate on my game rather than my ageing frame.
I don't know if I've actually got the French for: "I'd be feeling a lot younger and dynamic if the ref had given the goal."
I bumped into my mate Zigor on the way home last night and among other things recounted the tale of the disallowed goal. He asked why I didn't get angry too.
"The yoga means I remain quite zen," was my reply.
If I'd got angry too the ref might not have been swayed. And I would have had a goal and we might have won.
But if I hadn't been doing the yoga I wouldn't have had the flexibility to convert the chance that was presented as it had needed a certain amount of fluidity.
I'm locked in a zen vortex.
You don't want to rob yourself of that.
I turned to celebrate as the opponents all shouted offside. I looked over to the linesman who didn't have his flag raised.
But they all started shouting at him (he was one of their team members) and started railing at the referee. He went over to the linesman who was looking a bit scared.
The referee signalled for offside even though it wasn't. What made it worse was that at half time he said to one of our team members that he hadn't actually seen anything wrong with the goal.
From a technical point of view it was simply that none of their defenders had followed me as I ran from an onside position to meet the cut back from the left.
It was a classic case of attacking the space in the anticipation of the ball being there. It was and the defence wasn't. We wuz robbed.
Particularly hard to take when the final result was 3-2 to the opposition. Oh well.
I said to the missus. Having a perfectly good goal ruled out and losing is tough. But at least I wasn't injured.
I'll have to project onto my sporting heroes now.
Roger Federer plays his second round match at the Indian Wells tournmaent in the United States in something of a crisis. We're three months into the season and he hasn't won a title.
Rafael Nadal could replace him as world number one by the end of the next tournament in Florida.
So maybe this is the year he loses the number one spot and triumphs at Roland Garros.
Would be interesting to know how he'd take that kind of loss/win scenario.
I've sent my accreditation form off to the French tennis federation and I should be there to watch the crunching forehands in late May and early June.
By which time this football season will be a memory.
During Saturday's match one defender asked me how old I was. I told him but didn't pursue the conversation as I thought it better to concentrate on my game rather than my ageing frame.
I don't know if I've actually got the French for: "I'd be feeling a lot younger and dynamic if the ref had given the goal."
I bumped into my mate Zigor on the way home last night and among other things recounted the tale of the disallowed goal. He asked why I didn't get angry too.
"The yoga means I remain quite zen," was my reply.
If I'd got angry too the ref might not have been swayed. And I would have had a goal and we might have won.
But if I hadn't been doing the yoga I wouldn't have had the flexibility to convert the chance that was presented as it had needed a certain amount of fluidity.
I'm locked in a zen vortex.
You don't want to rob yourself of that.
Friday, 14 March 2008
The Treasure Hunt II
No video of Monty Python has yet turned up. I'm not resigned to its loss but I'm not just going to tread on it. I haven't gone to a parenting message board for tips quite yet.
I went into the radio station early on Thursday to start working on a feature about a UNICEF scheme called Young Reporters. In the project six young journalists go into schools to retiterate the importance of education to children who aren't exactly convinced that it's relevant.
Before I got down to listening to the hour or so of sounds I collected during a trip to the Street Academy in Accra, I was talking to one of the studio production assistants whose bairn is even months old.
We got chatting about ear infections. I told her that I was well experienced on that issue with the boy. And then I said once they get older they start hiding things from you.
She said a friend had told her that the thing to do is to give the child another video to see if he takes it to the secret hiding place.
A brilliant idea. But it would have to be closely monitored. The last thing you want to do is lose another one. No time as yet to do that kind of thing.
Saturday sees the return to football action after a near two month pause for bagatelles such as the Africa Cup of Nations and school holidays.
It's a home match and 14 have registered their interest to play. I see myself clocking in for the last half hour. I don't want to overdo it now.
I've got to save my strength for the treasure hunt.
I went into the radio station early on Thursday to start working on a feature about a UNICEF scheme called Young Reporters. In the project six young journalists go into schools to retiterate the importance of education to children who aren't exactly convinced that it's relevant.
Before I got down to listening to the hour or so of sounds I collected during a trip to the Street Academy in Accra, I was talking to one of the studio production assistants whose bairn is even months old.
We got chatting about ear infections. I told her that I was well experienced on that issue with the boy. And then I said once they get older they start hiding things from you.
She said a friend had told her that the thing to do is to give the child another video to see if he takes it to the secret hiding place.
A brilliant idea. But it would have to be closely monitored. The last thing you want to do is lose another one. No time as yet to do that kind of thing.
Saturday sees the return to football action after a near two month pause for bagatelles such as the Africa Cup of Nations and school holidays.
It's a home match and 14 have registered their interest to play. I see myself clocking in for the last half hour. I don't want to overdo it now.
I've got to save my strength for the treasure hunt.
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
The Treasure Hunt
Some people strive to be millionaires. Others want to be company director. Me? I want to find my video cassette which has a couple of episodes of Monty Python on it.
The video was recorded many years ago. I couldn't sleep a couple of nights ago and so I delved into the video library and fished it out. Watched it and dropped off on the sofa. Oh joyous early morning.
I left the cassette in the video machine and went to retrieve it tonight but it has gone. The main culprit is the boy since I don't remember taking it out and putting it somewhere without the sleeve.
So the hunt is on for the cassette. Though the flat is not that big, this could be anywhere. The question is what kind of approach do I take to finding this.
Maybe this is a question for one of those parenting messaging boards.
If it can't be found then I'll have to go out and buy the Python stuff on DVD.
Then again the message boards might have some generic suggestions for where two year olds place stuff out of their parents' video players.
Well at least it wasn't one of my old Star Trek videos. I wouldn't be so phlegmatic about one of those being misplaced.
I'd almost get illogical about finding it.
The video was recorded many years ago. I couldn't sleep a couple of nights ago and so I delved into the video library and fished it out. Watched it and dropped off on the sofa. Oh joyous early morning.
I left the cassette in the video machine and went to retrieve it tonight but it has gone. The main culprit is the boy since I don't remember taking it out and putting it somewhere without the sleeve.
So the hunt is on for the cassette. Though the flat is not that big, this could be anywhere. The question is what kind of approach do I take to finding this.
Maybe this is a question for one of those parenting messaging boards.
If it can't be found then I'll have to go out and buy the Python stuff on DVD.
Then again the message boards might have some generic suggestions for where two year olds place stuff out of their parents' video players.
Well at least it wasn't one of my old Star Trek videos. I wouldn't be so phlegmatic about one of those being misplaced.
I'd almost get illogical about finding it.
Monday, 10 March 2008
The Fear
I'm sure there's a line in the film Withnail and I about "the fear". I will have to check it out at some point. Certainly not now.
I have noticed how aches are beginning to multiply about my person. Sadly not those of sexual longing. Merely ones preceding football on Saturday.
Maybe it's psychosomatic. I haven't played for going on two months and I'm starting to anticipate pain. Wow.
I wish I could anticipate a couple of passes.
I signed up this morning for Saturday's encounter. I planned to cycle into the radio station but that scheme went out of the window as I left my keys there on Sunday and then forgot to ask the missus for her key to the bike house.
Oh well since it was blowing up a gale, it was probably the safest thing.
I didn't let that mishap interrupt my high energy day. I went for a swim and was my ever majestic self at the Piscine Pontoise. I felt so regal as I did my breast stroke. Any sign of open water and I went all freestyle.
I have no idea where the team lies in the league. But it's the participation that matters.
In the FA Cup over the weekend all the teams that should have won failed to do so. What marvellous examples Barnsley, Cardiff and Portsmouth set.
Barnsley beating Chelsea was probably the best result of the lot in terms of improbability. I was thinking that the Chelsea owner Roman Abromovich got rid of Jose Mourinho because the self styled 'Special One' was unable to provide his boss with entertaining football despite the millions spent on players.
Jose has gone. Avram Grant has come in. The players have stayed.
The team's entertaining loads of people now.
I have noticed how aches are beginning to multiply about my person. Sadly not those of sexual longing. Merely ones preceding football on Saturday.
Maybe it's psychosomatic. I haven't played for going on two months and I'm starting to anticipate pain. Wow.
I wish I could anticipate a couple of passes.
I signed up this morning for Saturday's encounter. I planned to cycle into the radio station but that scheme went out of the window as I left my keys there on Sunday and then forgot to ask the missus for her key to the bike house.
Oh well since it was blowing up a gale, it was probably the safest thing.
I didn't let that mishap interrupt my high energy day. I went for a swim and was my ever majestic self at the Piscine Pontoise. I felt so regal as I did my breast stroke. Any sign of open water and I went all freestyle.
I have no idea where the team lies in the league. But it's the participation that matters.
In the FA Cup over the weekend all the teams that should have won failed to do so. What marvellous examples Barnsley, Cardiff and Portsmouth set.
Barnsley beating Chelsea was probably the best result of the lot in terms of improbability. I was thinking that the Chelsea owner Roman Abromovich got rid of Jose Mourinho because the self styled 'Special One' was unable to provide his boss with entertaining football despite the millions spent on players.
Jose has gone. Avram Grant has come in. The players have stayed.
The team's entertaining loads of people now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)