Much ado about nothing

Another Sunday and another day pottering about. Dai and family with us and it's always good to have the grandchildren around. But that's not what I'm going to blog about today.

I thought I ought to mention, rather belatedly, the Gordon Brown/Piers Morgan programme. I watched it whilst we were on holiday. I'm not sure that this would have been the case if we'd been at home. I'm not a fan of Piers Morgan; neither am I are fan of his style of lightweight interviewing. Added to this is the fact that, with the General Election looming, any interview with a leading politician is going to an exercise in PR. So, against this background, what did I think of it? Piers Morgan was a prat who made sure that proceedings were kept at a superficial level. Gordon Brown was not asked any really probing questions and was given the opportunity to to show his 'human face'. Yes, he is a family man; yes, he had a personal tragedy in the loss of a daughter; yes, he has a temper; yes, his wife shed tears and looked lovingly in turns when in camera shot. So, nothing revealing really. What will be the result? Probably not a lot. I don't think that the Great British Public will be swayed by one programme like this and it still leaves Gordon Brown and New Labour with a hard task. Of course, I could be wrong. I hope so because I think a Conservative win is not going to be good for the poor of this country.

Back home again - hooray!

The last week's stay in the cottage near Exmoor scored points for being with our good friends but lost points because of the very poor condition of the cottage. Certainly not the cleanest or best equipped that we've had. We won't be going there again!

It snowed so much yesterday that we could not get out to where we intended to go in the morning. We managed it in the afternoon. This morning it was up, pack and away and, luckily, we managed to leave as the snow came down again. It is nice to be back home in somewhere warm and clean!

I'll try and remember to write about the Brown's Tears episode soon. Maybe also Tiger Wood's apology to the world. But not now.

From a pub car park!

We are away this week staying in a less-than-luxurious cottage on the edge of Exmoor. The weather is variable - at the moment a fair bit of sleet is coming down. Mobile 'phone reception in this part of the world is pretty bad and I'm entering this blog by hacking into the wireless network of the local pub. Such are the wonders of modern technology! I still find it amazing that I can be sitting in my car with a piece of plastic on my lap and communicate with the rest of the world.

This is neither the time nor the place for a lengthy entry as typing in such a limited space is somewhat awkward. I just wanted to enter something because I could and to indulge in marvelling about the fact that I could!

I'm not a slave to blogging.

And that's why there's nothing else from me today.

As I went down to the woods today....

A short walk in Excelsior Woods this afternoon. A crisp, clear day and a pleasure to be out and about, albeit for only an hour or so. And what did I see?

I saw my first frogspawn of the year.

I saw the tunnel of the old Excelsior Mine.

I saw the warning sign and did not go in - not because I obeyed orders but because I did not have my wellies and the water looked deeper than my boots could cope with!

I saw an old wheelpit, probably driven by water coming in at the top. In fact, an overshot waterwheel.
I saw a flooded mineshaft. How deep I could not guess.
I saw that my car was stuck in the mud and I had to wait for a sweet lady to help me out (she put the car in reverse and I pushed..........or was it vice versa?!)

And so ended a very pleasant afternoon.

Some words on reality television shows

Prurient, contrived, trivial, infantile, boring...............'nuff said?

Doesn't that take the biscuit?

In a previous post I wallowed in nostalgia and mentioned Newport County. Out of curiosity I looked at the position of the team in the Football League today. They are now in the Blue Square South League and, surprise, surprise, they are at the top with a lead of some 15 points. Heady stuff indeed. In my days, the team's nickname was 'The Ironsides'. Apparently this came from their association with a steel town. Nowadays, they are known as 'The Exiles', after the fact that they had to play at Moreton-in- the Marsh in Gloucestershire in the aftermath of their ejection from Division 4 back in the late '80s. It would give me no small pleasure to see them promoted and, who knows, work towards regaining full league status.

Whilst looking for the County's table, I noticed that the lowest league is called the Zamaretto League. My heart skipped a beat when I thought I'd stumbled across a new sponsoring strategy - naming leagues after biscuits. I was looking forward to the Garibaldi League or the Chocolate Bourbon League or the Chocolate Hobnob League. Then it occured to me that I was getting confused with the almond flavoured confectionary joy of Italy, amaretti. Zamaretto, or so their website informs the world, is a brand of multi-coloured drinks based on amaretto. Not quite as exciting as being named after a biscuit. I wonder what lead to the sponsors thinking that being linked with such a lowly league was a good commercial ploy?

What I saw from my window today (07/02/2010)

I seem to have spent more time than normal looking out of the window today. There was no particular reason for this as it was an ordinary sort of day: a damp and misty sort of day: a still and early Spring sort of day.
What was interesting about the view was the number of goldfinches and greenfinches I could see. Both birds are regular visitors to the feeders but it was unusual to see so many. There was a flock of about 20 goldfinches and perhaps 4 pairs of greenfinches. The colours of both are surprisingly bright when viewed through the binoculars. They were feeding on the niger seeds which have been there for several months without attracting them in these sorts of numbers. From the birds' point of view, what was different about today? Was the treasure trove a new discovery for them? Has their normal supply of food got scarcer? Did they just fancy a few black seeds for breakfast?

So that's the current rugby season finished

The current 6 Nations Rugby Championship got underway today with a resounding defeat of Wales by England. My interest in the season is now at an end. As long as I can remember, I've always held the view that as long as England gets beaten, the fate of Wales is almost immaterial. A win is great but a defeat can always be rationalised to acceptability. This was the view of everyone in 'my' part of South Wales and some 60 years on I still choose to hold to it.

I'm not a great sports fan and have little time for the professional sports celebrity. I think they are over-paid and over-indulged, particulalry footballers. Consider the antics of John Terry, or rather, let's not consider the antics of John Terry. Let's ignore him completely and pass on to the days when I did actually did enjoy professional football.

When did it all end? When the team I supported, Newport County, was relegated from thefourth division of the Football League. That would be around 1980. Until then, I'd visited Somerton Park on a regular basis and can remember getting vaguely excited at the prospect of watching a match there. A wonderfully basic ground, nestling 'twixt railway line and glue factory. Railway sleepers formed the terrace and the single grandstand was grand in name only. It seems so very old fashioned now. Old fashioned and very nostgalgic.

And this might be the only time I blog about sport!

What's occuring?

I see that I've had a week off from the wonderful world of the Blog. Why? No particular reason. Just ordinary life getting in the way.
So, what's been occuring? The Iraq enquiry rumbles on with Tony Blair and Claire Short both giving evidence. Blair's performance was a masterpiece of self-justification and a demonstration of why people voted for him so many times. A great pity, therefore, that very few people believed what he had to say! Claire Short, on the other hand, was rather shrill and her 'evidence' was equally self-serving. She has the advantage, however, of being very believable. I found myself wondering what Blair would have had to say to get people to believe him. Probably only a full confession along the lines of "I got it all wrong and lied, lied, lied" would have sufficed. There was no prospect of getting that or anything that approached contrition. Were we witness to his final performance at this level? Will his credibility in the UK ever recover?
The next phase of the Haitian disaster is in full swing. Rescue is over and we are now into recovery. It's still a big, big mess and on a scale that is totally beyond my comprehension. Sadly, it is now slipping down the news schedules and, I predict, this time next week it will be barely mentioned.P