General – Page 19 – Boadicea's Chariot

As the saying goes, it’s not cricket

This is a non-controversial blog about cricket. As Pete Such It won’t appeal (not out) to female readers. Take a tea break ladies, Gareth battily, we do it all the time.

I’m Alan Knott trying to get rid of you. I love women. In all shape, form, substance, architecture, model, embodiment, chassis or any other taughtalotgicals. I’m not a misogynist ( big word for me and I know what it means). I respect women’s professional tennis and strong female singers like Cristina Scabbia and Floor Jansen. This is about dull old cricket and won’t interest you. Continue reading “As the saying goes, it’s not cricket”

Harrumph

I really can’t moan about life in Dorset. People are nice to me and I’ve been accepted into the community. The locals find me to be endearing, a bit like one of those dogs that’s so ugly that it’s almost cute and madder than a box of frogs as an added bonus. Or, at worst, I’ve been accepted like a bad harvest or a squall the night before the biggest night of fishing. In relatively short order I was given a part-time position with enough hours to pay for my daily expenses — including my Waitrose and hand roasted coffee/hand blended tea tendencies. The landlady has made me her substitute innkeeper. She lets out rooms. In her absence, I will manage the house and sort out the housekeeping.

The only thing that sometimes gets to me is the same thing that gets to many people here. It’s bloody boring. Not to worry. I will go to Japan in October with Viking-type chum. That will be interesting. In a country where everything is said in allusion and euphemism, I will have to mind someone from a country where anything short of the most brutal honesty is considered a major character flaw. Before then, I will fly to Liverpool for a long weekend. Having taken our OZ’s recommendations into serious consideration, I’ve booked a room in L4 within minutes of the Sanctum Sanctorum.

You’ll See Us

From the reviews.

“This is like an immortal dog. It is unputdownable.” (London Review of Books)

“You’ll See Us outjoyces Joyce, checkmates Chekov, Guy Fawkesy du Maupassant and shakes the Speare.” (Times Literary supplement)

“To read this you can’t be in your right mind. For wrong-minded readers only.” (Glaswegian Gallus Gazette)

Occasionally, they let me out. Having been a good boy and jested less than usual the asylum gave me a free day pass, yet told me I could only stay out for one. Doesn’t add up. Continue reading “You’ll See Us”

Decay

I’ve long been fascinated by gradual decline and decay. Being in possession of a melancholic temperament myself, it’s had its distinct appeal. It’s why I like ghost towns, and places that, while not quite there, are shadows of their former selves. The USA has a number of places like that. Continue reading “Decay”

A Squalid Month in Statecraft

May 2018 has been a squalid month in statecraft. No, not because Trump tweeted something even more asinine than usual. In fact, this has nothing to do with Trump, North Korea, Malcolm Turnbull (At least directly) or even Alex Salmond. Continue reading “A Squalid Month in Statecraft”

Slimeball’s book

Missed. Missed. Missed.

It was a catalogue of misses. No wonder Scotland are tripe at football when youngsters are messing about with a football throwing it at a basketball net. Missed. And from an easy distance, no one would shoot from downtown. Missed again. Just don’t get American sports at all. Too many “Hail Mary’s” in them for my liking.

The problem, as I could see it, was that the boys were not statuesque or Sipuesque. They were too short to be stormhoopers. They needed to be the size of the mountainous, non-basketball playing, ex-FBI chief, James Comey. I wanted to shout “Chief, just jump up, and put it in the basket.”

American politics aren’t my bag of tricks either. Nonetheless, the repercussions from the firing of the FBI boss by Donald Trump is still reverberating around DC so I bought the Comey book (half price at WH…a bargain) and found it an easy read. The big guy has been promoting it stateside. I watched his performance on the BBC’s America This Week last week. Refreshingly, he answered a lot of questions the way I answer them. “I don’t know” cropped up frequently.

There is one funny incident in the early part of his biography where he describes spilling gallons of milk while working in a grocery. Apart from this Fools and Horses moment the book is rather drab. The details of the Clinton E-mail investigation and Trump Russia connections are sketchy and unfulfilling. His one on one joust with the President of the USA is an ongoing game. Which one will, ultimately, put it in the basket?

In Praise of Cooked Food, Knives and Forks

I returned from a trip of 18 days in Japan last Friday. I don’t think I will return.

In that time, I lost around 4 kg of, admittedly, unwanted weight. It wasn’t entirely due to the extra miles / kilometres that I walked – but was definitely down to the fact that my system and, more importantly, my taste buds simply rebelled at raw tuna, prawns, crab and other stuff that, normally, I thoroughly enjoy…
Continue reading “In Praise of Cooked Food, Knives and Forks”

Hypocrisy and Filthy Lucre

I am a cynic. I’ve seen too much ugliness and been around too many people who have experienced infinitely worse than I ever will to be anything but. I am also well past the illusion that “my side” is somehow more virtuous. Continue reading “Hypocrisy and Filthy Lucre”

Wrong Priorities

I’ve often heard that those under about 35 will be the first generation to be poorer than their parents. This, my, generation will be “generation rent” — those who cannot afford to buy a house, will struggle to live to the same standards as their parents. This, it is said, is proof of a broader societal failure. Continue reading “Wrong Priorities”