Monday, November 23, 2009
Varying the diet
For once in the while, not usually noticing sporting affairs but having noticed the business of the Thierry handball, read an article on same in the Guardian. Maybe half a page's worth, that is to say a lot of words. Which apart from running on about the iniquity of handballs did not tell me all that much at all. Not even the score in the match involved which I thought a bit odd. So yesterday I thought to pursue the matter at TB, that well known nest of mainly Chelsea supporters, and as a result was thoroughly briefed on the whole matter. It seems that the Guardian piece was very slack indeed, unless, of course, it was only a follow up and I had missed episode 1. Item 1, the handball was not a reflexive action. It was a professional foul of an entirely ordinary character. Item 2, no-one expected Thierry to own up to the foul at the time. He is expected to play hard to win, within the limits only of what he can get away with. Item 3, the competition in question is manipulated by a seeding system which allows the filthy corrupt FIFA bureaucrats to manipulate the competition for their own fiendish (that is to say continental rather than insular) ends. Item 4, Ireland stands to lose £100m as a result of being dumped from the competition at this point while France, a much richer country which does not need the dosh so badly, stands to gain £1.1b by staying in. All a matter of their relative sizes. France can generate a lot more bums on seats and sofas than Ireland can. I had not realised so much money was at stake. Maybe the French should simply have bunged Ireland to lose the match. Then everybody would have been a winner. After about half an hour of this, the discussion moved off onto territory where I was completely at sea. Left to muse on why it was that the Guardian article was so feeble.
Continuing the variation, had a peek on return at the news part of the Sunday Times. Something that was read avidly, along with the Observer, in my youth in those far off days when Sunday newspapers counted for something other than motoring sections. Now very rarely read a Sunday newspaper, getting quite enough motoring sections (and the television guide) on Saturday. One only has so many shoes to clean on the things. Be that as it may, was amused to read on the front page that the Prince of Darkness (aka Principle First Secretary of State aka Lord Mandelson) is really keen to be Foreign Secretary in the dying days of our Labour administration. How is it that he is so keen to grab this fag end of a job? But the amusement mainly stems from the fact that his grandfather was, for a short while, one of the worst foreign secretaries we ever had. I recall that Atlee was quoted as saying it was the worst appointment he ever made. I had previously come across him as being particularly bad at the time when the Persians (as the Iranians we then known) decided that maybe they ought to own their own oil, despite what is now BP having spent a lot of money getting it onto the boil. See 15th July, 2009.
Slightly depressing how our politics - certainly the new labour variety - seem to have come to be dominated by family concerns. Bad enough political power passing from father to son, or from mother to daughter but I particularly dislike having husband and wife teams in the cabinet. Are we really so short of talent?
All this possibly brought on by our plucking up courage to try the absinthe which we acquired a month or so ago, at about the same time as the arrival of the freedom pass. Advisers with internet enabled mobile phones at TB had been able to explain what to do with the stuff. Acquire special absinthe spoon, a sort of complicated looking tea strainer, some sugar cubes and some ice. If you get really keen you can buy elaborate silver ewers with little taps at the bottom for dispensing the iced water. Take 10cc of absinthe. Drip through some sugar cubes into a glass holding at least 100cc. Add ice and water to at least 70cc, the stuff being 70% by volume and not to be knocked back too quick. The product is a delicate green watery looking drink, well up to its sobriquet of green fairy. I had expected it to be cloudy, as when you add water to Pernod or Ouzo, but no. Quite clear. Taste rather bitter - I guess this is to be expected. People do talk about gall and wormwood in much the same breath - but you get quite a hit considering the fairly modest amount of alcohol involved (on this occasion). Tempting to carry on but given the rather dubious reputation of the stuff thought than one was enough to be going on with. Was it the dubious reputation generating the hit rather than the alcohol? Later on there were aches in odd parts of the head, happily not of long duration.
# posted by Jim @ 1:16 AM 
