I was wrong

Goodbye to Argentina from Stefan Raab…

World Cup news you may have missed

A frustrated Polish fan has taken legal action against Poland coach Pawel Janas claiming $4,000 in damages in the wake of Poland’s disappointing 0-2 loss to Ecuador last Friday… Describing himself as an ardent Poland fan, Zygmunt Jan Pruszynski alleges he experienced a nervous breakdown and extreme frustration after Poland’s stinging defeat. Pruszynski does not rule-out dropping the action should Poland beat Germany.

And I thought Central Europeans liked to suffer…

OK

so my career as a football pundit or gambler is over before it even started. I did get Portugal in the sweepstake at work, so Big Phil is my god at present. Even the offer of free CDs has failed to tempt people to dip their toes in the water of posting comments, so I am no good as a blogger, and my taste in music is clearly awful. No journalism or DJing as a career. Customer service is not one of my strengths, so bookselling is out. What can I do? Advice, please, dear readers… Can one be in crisis professionally?

Good day at work

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bad day at work

As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is our responsibility.

Arnold Toynbee

More Stan

Here are the lyrics – this got to number 15, if my sources are correct:

Oh we’re all going to Germany for the Cup
Oh we’re all going to Germany for the Cup (yee-ha)
Oh we’re all going to Germany, we’re all going to Germany
Oh we’re all going to Germany for the Cup

* Singing ay-yay-yippee-yippee-yay (clap three times)
Singing ay-yay-yippee-yippee-yay (clap three times)
Singing ay-yay-yippee,
the Germans bombed our chippy,
ay-yay-yippee-yippee-yay (clap three times)

Some of us are going on the plane
Others from Dover on the train
A few of us with women
The rest of us are swimming
But we’re all gonna get there just the same

We’ll be drinking German lager in the pubs
we’ll be dancing and singing in the clubs
and there’s forty lads from Huyton
who said they won’t be fighting
so there won’t be any need for boxing gloves

Singing ay-yay-yippee,
the Germans bombed our chippy,
ay-yay-yippee-yippee-yay (clap three times)

Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin
we haven’t got a ticket to get in
so we’ll take a pick and shovel
and dig a massive tunnel
and smuggle through inside a wheelie-bin (hee hee)

Carragher, Rooney and Gerrard
these lads are tough and very hard
and when they’re in a battle
they won’t shake or tattle
and they won’t get a red or yellow card (card?)

we’ll be taking lots of banners and some flags
there’ll be thirty lads with ASBOs wearing tags
and when it’s all over, we’ll be heading back to Dover
so don’t forget the 30, 000 fags

Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf..

Predictions

Argentina v Mexico – Argentina (3-0 obviously)
Germany v Sweden – Germany (already won)
England v Ecuador – England (by the odd goal)
Portugal v Holland – Portugal (on penalties)
Italy v Australia – Australia (2-1)
Switzerland v Ukraine – Ukraine (2-0)
Brazil v Ghana – Brazil (3-1)
Spain v France – Spain (2-1)

Stan Boardman

With the Germans 2-0 up at half time, and with his song in the top twenty in the UK, it is time to revisit the hilarity of Mr Stan Boardman on Des O’Connor Tonight:

O’Connor : “Why do pick on the Germans so much?”

Boardman : “‘Cause my dad was badly wounded by them in the war”

O’Connor : “Really. I didn’t know. What Happened?”

Boardman : “An air raid over his airfield. He was a Spitfire pilot”

O’Connor : “Wow. What happened?”

Boardman : “A squadron of German Fokkers bombed them n only my dad got in the air. He took the entire squadron on single handed and got badly hurt”

O’Connor : “Incredible. Tell us more”

Boardman : “He flew into this squadron of Fokkers n opened fire. There was a Fokker fallin’ here n a Fokker fallin’ there….”

O’Connor : “I’d just better explain to an early evening audience that a Fokker is a make of German aeroplane….just to avoid any misunderstanding”

Boardman : “Yeah, that’s right but these Fokkers were Messerschmidts!”

Russian folklore

Has been filling my thoughts recently. Masses of links of interest here. Or more particularly, how the Soviet regimes employed the tropes of Russian folktales to their own end, both in terms of the creation of new myths (a great deal of Socialist Realist writing has a strong folkloric underpinning), the creation of fakelore, and, most importantly the re-appropriation of folk stories, songs, art, etc by the Soviet propagandists for their own ends. However, as with most things at the moment, it is raising more questions than it answers, and I am now reading Levi-Strauss’s take on the role of myth in societies, as well as the Formalist approach employed by Propp and Meletinksii. Fascinating.

Over a week

since my last post. A number of factors have contributed to this. Firstly being as busy as pants (© BIB) at work. Secondly, my PC at home demanding a complete re-install of Windows due to a corrupt registry entry, which meant I lost everything on it – thousands of songs, all my favourites, and in fact the patch applied to run the Pipex account through the BT router. And I have had two days off.

One of these was spent accompanying my brother’s Tajik friend from Heathrow airport to Tonbridge (whilst trying to find him at the airport, multiple bad 1980’s sitcom scripts ran through my mind – collecting someone you have never seen before from the airport is a truly nerve-wracking experience. I had been told he was Russian/Caucasian looking, but the flight from Bishkek had no noticeable ‘Central Asian-ness about it – the ones from Bangalore and Toronto were easy to pick out. I had visions of him travelling on alone, and me standing at the airport for hours. I also didn’t know that he spoke impeccable English (andRussian, of course), and the number of Shugni speakers in the UK is less than 100, I would imagine, so I had visions of him being trapped (metaphorically, of course) at Heathrow in an echo of that dreadful Tom Hanks film. None of this was helped by the fact he didn’t know I was collecting him, and he had no idea what I looked like either.) Thank the Lord for the wonderfully helpful staff at the information desk.

Yesterday I did housework. Cleaned out the filters on the Dyson, got some compost to re-pot my bamboo, went to M&S. Played golf in the evening after a fruitless search for a driving range in West London – masses of golf courses but nary an open driving range to be found. So we went to the pitch and putt and had a free game as the guy had already gone home.

Today I am working, and tomorrow as well, so I’ll miss the England game. I do get to see Argentina this evening though.

There is also an new 2 CD compilation in the offing – post below to get one sent to you.