Category: Sport

Why didn’t I think of that?

Victor Orban, PM of Hungary, wants secondary schools to be equipped with shooting  ranges – to nurture Olympic champions but also to instill patience and concentration – according that is to the Times.

What a wonderful idea! Forget boxing and the martial arts, let’s get military – and why not throw in a few knife-fighting skills too? Then the public school system will be able to make sure all the potential thugs and terrorists have a proper grounding in murder and can succeed in their chosen professions.

I’m surprised the grand old US of A didn’t think of it first (or did they?). It would make a perfect social fit. I can’t wait for Trump’s tweet.

 

A day with friends

As I’ve mentioned before, the Danish royals are on welfare, but undeterred by such inappropriate considerations, they treated their Belgian peers to the best of everything. Sans the Prince  Consort, who has taken his bat home to France after being denied kingship (again). A good time was had by all, especially the Crown Prince who does little else but have a good time, unlike his Tasmanian wife, the fashion queen of Scandinavia.

If you’d like to witness some conspicuous consumption, the Mail has it all:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4358434/Princess-Mary-dazzles-state-banquet-Belgian-royals.html

Spoonerism, anyone?

The only examples we see tend to be vulgar or worse. The Rev himself however is quoted as uttering amusing confusions which did not depend on smut.

So do you know any new ones?

Coincidentally I saw  a real, live footie player today who rejoices in the name of Connor Wickham. So? you ask. Well, when spoonerised he is (yes) Wonnor Cickham! How appropriate, eh? OR he’s a NY chef with limited skills: Cinnor Wockham. Sorry.

So now it’s your turn. People are the best subjects. Laters…..

What is going on?

English football is an enormous business, so why is it incapable of employing top people who have the talent to keep its house in order and control its excesses and self-destructive urges?

I’m afraid the answer lies in the boardrooms of the biggest clubs, which  pull the strings of the FA, ensuring it employs only second-raters who will not threaten their own PR needs.

No FTSE-100 company would have hired Woy or Sam as England manager. The hiring process would have exposed their weaknesses – Woy’s spinelessness, Sam’s cupidity.

So Alan Shearer is correct: English football is a laughing-stock. The corruption is only now beginning to be exposed – and I’ll whisper ‘drugs’, the next scandal to break. Mama mia!

That’s the spirit!

Rio 2016 is not the last word in organisation or commercial savvy – thank goodness! What I’m enjoying is a feeling that the local volunteers and the Olympians are in it together, win or lose. Perhaps the best example is the golf competition. Pooh-poohed by many of the famous pros as small beer, beneath their notice, OL golf has proved to be a crowd-puller, with the skills we all admire but none of the big-money shenanigans. In fact show-boating by the big names in sport has been absent from most of the events I have seen, both on and off the running track. Even the Yanks are subdued. But the performances in general are superb, with hundreds of new, young talents coming to the fore.

So well done, Rio!

Nearly over

Our 2 weeks in Western Iberia are almost done. We came to enjoy the sound of the ocean, the taste of fresh seafood and warm but not oppressive sunshine. And we found all of that and much more: straight-forward, uncomplicated, friendly people; decorative but functional architecture both grand and unassuming; and Sintra! Lord Byron’s ‘glorious Eden’, later a haunt of Hans Christian Andersen, fairy-tale palaces guarded by a Moorish castle atop Sintra’s breezy, wooded mountain.

So thank you, Portugal. You deserve to thrive and we hope you will.