I am so cut off from regular news and TV from home that I do rather lose touch with things out here. On the political front, this doesn't bother me too much. Has the Queen Mum died, has Tony Blair finally resigned? Do I care?? I don't live in England any more, and am not sure when, if ever, I will again. So, NO, I don't.
However, I do rather regret not being able to keep up with the footie a bit better. I had, for example, completely failed to note that the final batch of European Championship qualifiers was this week, and only found out in passing when I went out for a few jars with The Chairman on Sunday night. After Israel's form-book-overturning win against Russia at the weekend, England now suddenly have a glimmer of a chance of going through after all - but we'll have to get a result against the quite tasty Croatians on Thursday. Big game! Alas, over here, it will be on at 4 in the morning.... and only on satellite TV, which I don't have. So - it will have to be an all-nighter in a bar somewhere.
This is not the sort of indulgence I can often allow myself...... particularly not on a 'school night'!
However..... it just so happens that a work trip this week has necessitated my adjusting my usual part-time schedule, and so...... I'm off on Friday. And, assuming my flight back from Chongqing doesn't get delayed (which is always a dicey thing to assume with Chinese air travel), I should be back on Thursday afternoon. Hmmm, tempting......
The Chairman, on the other hand, has an 8-hr teaching day ahead of him on Friday - starting at 7.30 am. But I think he'll be up for it too.
He is, as I said the other day, incorrigible.
10 comments:
This is ridiculous, Froog.
If England don't managed to get a draw, at home, against a tolerably good Croat team it will be a disgrace.
Croatia are 11/2 to win. That's hardly a glimmer of a hope for England.
And oddly enough, it appears Ladbrokes.com has been hacked as it is appearing in some odd foreign language. Serbo-croat maybe?
Are you sure that wasn't 11-2 on?? I always feared the Croats had the potential to embarrass us, and that - with this current shambles of a side - we'd do well to get a draw with them, having to rely on them being complacent after already securing qualification in first place.
Disgrace, yes.... but not a complete surprise. This is pretty much the usual story with England. They've only played a handful of really good games in our lifetime, Cowboy.
At least it wasn't quite as bad as conceding to San Marino in the opening minute.....
"Do I not like that!"
I thought "Do I not like that" was the Holland game...
"Here, tell your mate he just cost me my job."
Happy days. Swedes 2, Turnips 0.
No, I think"Do I not like that" was the San Marino goal.
I was in a favourite pool pub in London for that one, and their TV was broken..... so they put it on the radio. The commentator was still describing the team strips... then "and San Marino.... have scored...."
You could be right.
That whole disaster is clouded in my mind.
It seems we were both wrong. This suggests it was the fuck up against Poland.
http://www.dangerhere.com/hallofguff/graham_taylor.php
http://www.dangerhere.com/hallofguff/graham_taylor.php
See if that link works - cut off on the first one
God Dammit!
add...
aham_taylor.php
to the end of the link...
Thanks for the link, Cowboy.
Yes, it's an annoying glitch of Blogger that it won't insert line-breaks in continuous strings of text, and won't display the bits that are beyond the limit of the text box. They are, however, still invisibly there; and you can 'copy & paste' the full link, even though you can't see it.
I'm not at all convinced about that attribution of the famous comment to the Poland game. It seems so much more appropriate to the San Marino goal. But perhaps it was a regular phrase of his at the time, not just a one-off, and he was using every time something went snafu. I definitely recall it as being from the San Marino game; but memory's a funny thing. Anyway, Print the legend, I say.
Do you not have that documentary about him on DVD, Cowboy? I wonder if there are some bits of it on YouTube.
I don't. The idea of owning a memorialization of one of the most painful experiences (over an extended time) of my life does not appeal.
More your scene, I would think?
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