Author: John Mackie

First posted MyT March 8th 2009 – revised and reposted tonight  to pass the time before the Six Nations kicks off. Revised again for displacement activity on 29/11/11

Some time ago,  I had a brilliant idea for how  the English football  team  could win the World Cup, possibly in perpetuity. Being a Scot, I tried to forget it but it kept popping back. I think I should share it with you as it could have the side effect of saving England, which is probably, on balance, a ‘good thing’.

In bowls, there is no nationality rule. You play for the country you live  in. Thus, one of the mainstays of the English bowls team for years was Andy Thomson from Fife who still speaks with an accent that makes Naughtie sound Cockney.  Over in Australia, the former World Number 1, David Gourlay from Ayrshire, walked straight into their team as soon as he emigrated. Continue reading “England’s Rugby Captain and a Modest Proposal for English Football”

We ended up with five entries, well down on previous competitions in terms of quantity, but well up to or above standard in quality, in my opinion.

Continue reading “January CW Competition – Result”

Only a couple of days to go and we have five entries.  You still have time.

A while, ago, one of us suggested that it might be a nice idea to vote on the stories. I’ve been playing around with the poll facility in WordPress and I’m minded to try having a readers’ vote on the entries.  I really like Bearsy’s ‘Packing Room’ prize as a concept and I personally see no harm in everybody else sticking in their oars as well. I could, of course, be wrong.

So, as an experiment, I’m trying to set a poll up. It might go horribly wrong and it won’t matter if it does because I still intend to select the winner myself , whatever the result of said poll.

Rules:

A work of whatever length you wish and in whatever genre you choose  on the theme of looking forward or looking back.

Prescribed words: ‘party’, ‘permanent’ and ‘accident’.

Not essential if you choose not  to work  them into your effort but  I will give serious weight to their creative use in the event of a tie.

Deadline:  12 midnight GMT on 31st January 2011.

Entries to Date – please click on the author’s name to read their entry

• Janus – ‘ A Permanent Reminder’
• Araminta – ‘The Political Wife’
• The Royalist – ‘Canvasses and Mattresses’
• Pseu – ‘Perfect Conkers’
• OZ – ‘Mores! O Mores! (II)’

Readers’ Prize:

This one comes with the time of year. January is the month of the keeper of gates as the year turns yet again. Janus,  the god of the month,  is, as we all know well, a two-faced deity.

So, could we please have a work of whatever length you wish and in whatever genre you choose  on the theme of looking forward or looking back? Continue reading “January Creative Writing Competition”

Warning! This is a cricketing blog so please ignore it if that is not your ‘scene’.

We all know, of course, that the DT is  not as good as it was. I first started reading it in the days when Slightly Grumpy’s dad, TE Utley, was a leader writer. The ‘Peter Simple’ column was unmissable every day and Andrew Alexander’s Parliamentary sketches were brilliant. Every day or so, you were privileged to read the obituary of some ordinary individual who had performed extraordinary feats of valour in their lifetime. ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven’ as the boy Wordsworth opined. Continue reading “In Praise of the ‘Daily Telegraph’”

I will always count myself blessed that I can vividly remember my first snow.

Born in Hamburg and then home aged 6 weeks. Dad’s next foreign posting was to Singapore. No recollection of getting there but the abiding memories started shortly afterwards. Continue reading “The White Stuff”