At times like these,
my mind often returns to my beloved mountains. The crunch of the crampons, the sneck of the ice-axe, yes, perhaps I shouldn’t take them to the bar at weekends, but for me, out on the Wild, they are my right arm, and feet, obviously.

If you could only come with me and smell the wind blasting down Corrie An Sneachta or feel the sweet soft rain take your face off, why, man it’s so grand I can hardly talk.

Scotland is not like England. Down there, they argue over rights of access to the countryside, and laws of trespass, and get orf moi land type of stuff. In Scotland it would be hard to get hill walkers and the like to even understand the concept of the argument. They’d just look at you.

Scotland is small too, which means you can get out into the wilderness quickly. Mr Gorilla Bananas would be a great hill walker. What a team we’d make. Tramping the glens, eating off the land, a lamb here, a stoat there. Magic.

Just dreams though, just dreams.

Name yer poison.

I’ve always had a moral empathy with the drug cartels in Colombia. Why? I’ll tell you.

The whisky industry in Scotland is huge. We export it all over the world. Our marketing in this area is second to none. We market it as an adjunct to the sophisticated lifestyle. I’ve travelled quite a bit, and no matter what dusty airstrip you arrive at, the first sign you see is Cutty Sark or Vat 69 or Glenfiddoch, long before you see one for Coca Cola or ‘arrivals’ or customs.
For a Scotsman, it’s quite comforting.

Whisky kills more people than cocaine.
But, are we being bombed? Defoliated? Held up to the world as a pariah?
No.
It’s grand to have a scotch or two after dinner or a round of golf with your friends. Have another afore ye go, you can always take the back roads home, so there’s no danger of you ploughing into those school kids waiting for a bus like last time.

Colombia on the other hand grows cocaine which we also want to consume in large amounts.
Oh dear. I don’t think so. Stop it at source.
So what, if our efforts and the huge amounts of money totally destabilises what is a poor developing country? WE shall decide the recreational drugs of choice for the population, not the population.

The same goes for the dirt poor farmers growing poppies or hash.

I tried cocaine a couple of times. Doan liche it. It was maybe mixed with Vim or Ajax or something.

Rant over.

Not quite.

There's also that man that's the new president of Peru or somewhere.

"We've chewed coca leaves for generations and we ain't stopping now." says he, "We prefer it to your gringo Budweisers and Jack Danielses and fine Virginia tobaccos thank you very much Uncle Sam."

He's right!

Rant over.

I TAINT DEAD (YET)

I'm just terribly busy-busykins what with this and that and all that other stuff you don't wanna know about, believe me you don't.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it.


If you wait then your plate I will fill…

As we stumbled dumbstruck from that hellish pinnacle, down those many hundred steps, each rough-hewn from the living rock by the giants of yore when Magnus the Mighty walked the land and held all the north for Thorfinn the Stern against the Pictish king Langstaad the Lame…

With a sigh I put down my book at the calamitous rapping upon the door…

Now then, lessfugginsee.

The updates.
It’s all sort of merging into one endless game now. Always happens at this stage, and you say down the pub;

“….that right back for Costa Rica no, Ivory Coast, Christ, he had a game eh?, lost 3 - 0 right enough, but what a fucking player, WHAT a fucking player, no I’ll just have lager, cheers…………..oh two-one was it? Yeah you’re right, it was,…Holland ARE shit, big Van-Nistleroy’s just a poacher, that’s all he can do, here pet, put a vodka in that would you? Pep it up a bit,…..And that big Crouch, what-the-fuck is he like, eh? Eh?… he’s scoring for them though, fair’s fair, the big lanky bastard can score a goal,….no she’s working tomorrow, just the morning, but, you know,…Yeah that Mexican Manager, he looks a mean hombre!…bit like wee Bobby MacDonnell…If you hate the fucking English clap your hands, if you hate the fucking English clap your ha…oh sorry Denise, Harry, didn’t see you there, no offence…well just the one, better get up the road, it’s nearly 10 o’clock….”


Research:

Tennents Lager, £8 for 20 x 425 ml cans!!! Morrisons.

Here are the two players that Sam The Problem Child Bride FANCIES!!!!!

Hey Sam, Gercha telly looked at!

Kim Ayres’ hilarious memories of sports days and other miseries at school made me think.
I’ve never had rose tinted specs about my own school days. In general, I found the whole thing mildly unpleasant from start to finish, but only mildly. It’s impossible to pinpoint why.
The kids were fine, and so were the teachers, but the whole thing was somehow less than the sum of its parts. But the Sports Day at primary was a favourite.
I now realise that the parents must have suffered much more than the kids. We had a ball. Our primary school had the best part of 400 pupils so it was very much a production line. You did your run, then your sack, or egg and spoon, or wheelbarrow or three-legged race, then the rest of the afternoon was your own. We all loved it.
The three-legged race was good. If you got into a rhythm, there was no stopping you, but if your partner fell, or started laughing, you were buggered. Same with the sack race, long after the smallest boy had won it by putting his feet in the corners and just sprinting, the rest of us would still be trying to get up having been toppled in a domino chain reaction. The egg and spoon always caused debate among ourselves, as to whether a big spoon or snug close fitting one was best, but once the race was underway, I don’t think any of us gave a flying fig, it was just much better than sitting doing long division, or fractions.
The plain running was always won by the biggest and probably not the bonniest kids (in primary the gap between biggest and smallest is wide) and the novelty races were a complete lottery.
Anyway at the end of the track there was a trestle table with a couple of teachers taking notes and handing out the badges. All cheats were disqualified, which must have mortified the parents, but never bothered us at all. Kids although terribly cruel (allegedly), also have a well developed sense of justice and a 10 minute attention span, and the next event was probably about to start, so it was off to the ice cream van to discuss Jack McLean’s fantastic nosebleed.
All the parents were there of course, but we never mixed. It was two distinct groups. They were there only for money, or handy andys, or to hold your spoon till you were ready for it. There was none of that bonding crap. I think any parent shouting specific encouragement, like “Come on Jennifer, you can do it Jenny” would have stuck out like a sore thumb. You see, back then, SUVs hadn’t been invented.

Of course if I had kids, and they were cheated out of a badge at Sports Day by that smarmy little……………….

World Cup stroke War II

Europe’s ghastly history, usually at the hands of the Germanics, always throws up some tremendous grudge games and venues.

So far we’ve played games in Nuremberg and the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.
Nuremberg, onetime Mecca for swastika flag manufacturers, and Berlin, where the English team gave the Nazi salute* before their game in 1938, and where Herr Hitler walked out in 1936 having seen his Master Race theories rolled up and shoved down his throat by the exploits of American athletes, not least the great Jesse Owens below.

*Sir Stanley Matthews CBE, perhaps the all-time best English player, always bitterly regretted the FA’s decision to force the players to do the old Zeig Heil for the toothbrush moustached maniac, but as he later said in his memoirs;
“…in those days you did what you were told, and we didn’t want to offend them in case they invaded the Sudetenland or something.”

Well it’s all bloodstained water under the bridge too far and in the spirit of Europa, that classical goddess with the one tit showing, plucky Poland once again stands alone, knees knocking, hoping to repel the mighty Deutschland as their World Cup Extravaganza rolls on with the inevitability of a panzer division.

This is blitzkrieg football!


Last night, a desultory Brazil (me no like) did enough to beat Croatia (me no like either) in a prissy ‘we are Brazil’ sort of way.
Well maybe if they concentrated on reducing their foreign debt and tackling poverty and their own rapine police force instead of posing on Copacabana and playing soccer, the world would have more time for them. Just a thought.

Today's other Fixtures.

Tunisia V Saudi Arabia. Jesus! Miss in the penalty shoot-out and say cheerio to your foot.

First though it’s España versus Ukraine.

Who will I support? Let’s see. It’s where all Scots go on holiday at least once a year against a shady republic who have recently fought an “orange revolution”?

E VIVA ESPAÑA! ESPAÑA POR FAVOR!

Maroon's silent World Cup podcast.

Angola v Portugal (Portugal) Portugal 1,0

Australia v Japan (Australia) Oz 3,1 Nakamura [Celtic]

USA v Czech Republic (USA) Czechs 3,0 oh dear!

Claudio Reyna, ex Rangers and now USA Capitan, Booked!
Dirty habits die hard.
You see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?
Is this your homework Danny?
You see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?


Italy v Ghana (Italy) Italy 2,0

Big fat hairy deal. I liked Ghana.


More football news………

Big Roy retires, (at last).

Even as an injury ridden old crock cast off who hardly played a game for his weekly 35 grand, Big Roy was worth every penny.
Why? You all ask in disinterested unison.
I’ll just tell you if you give me a minute.
He did the simple things with a faultless precision.
There is incredible pleasure to be had watching that; something simple executed perfectly. So few players in any league manage it.

South Korea v Togo (Togo)

France v Switzerland (Switzerland)

Brazil v Croatia (Brazil)

FMC has kindly listed all the first round games for us. There seems to be tons of them. The Cup must be bigger this time.

The full list is here

I’m posting it in chunks, updated in red as we go.

Germany v Costa Rica (Costa Rica) -Germany won. G4, C2

Poland v Ecuador (Ecuador )- Ecuador won E2, P 0

England v Paraguay (England)- Engerland 1, 0 O.G.

Trinidad and Tobago v Sweden (Trinidad and Tobago)- Draw

Argentina v Ivory Coast (Argentina) Argybargies 2, 1

Serbia Mont. v Holland (Holland) Holland 1, 0

Mexico v Iran (Mexico) Mexico 3, 1

Angola v Portugal (Portugal)

Australia v Japan (Australia)

USA v Czech Republic (USA)

Best game so far was T&T versus Sweden last night. What a crackerjack old fashioned end to ender.
Obviously I was hoarse shouting on Trinidad and Tobago. Come on me bredren! They were heroic. Especially when reduced to ten.

Big Shaka was brilliant as was wee Yorkie.
Did anyone see that old tumshie Henrik Larsson get booked for cynically scything down one of the Johns?
He should have been sent back to Sweden in disgrace.
The game can do without that, thank you very much, Mr Dirty Player of the Year!
Keep your hacking Swedish feet to yourself!

Argentina won also and the English. You can’t have everything.

D’ya know what the commentators said after the Trinidad game?

“A fantastic result for England”

They are so partial I could spew.

This is what the fuss is about. 6 .5 kilos of solid gold! And yet the poster says 11 lbs!

Coupe du Monde

World Cup

Copa Mundial

Official FIFA Blog.

David Beckham and Wayne Rooney relax after traning at the England Camp yesterday

Updates…

Germany 4, Costa Rica 2

(For Americans, Germany “beat” Costa Rica. They ‘scored’ more ‘goals’
We say: "they are cheating, German bastards".
Now you. Say it with me, “they are cheating….”
Good! and...…rest.)
Next up,
Poland 0, Ecuador 2

(Again, for my American friends, Ecuador is a small country on the equator, hence the name. Not to be confused with Eriador, which is in Middle Earth.)

Now this is BAD. I don’t like Poland that much but there were two CELTIC players on the field last night, the Poles' inept striker and their goalie.
Sack them NOW Mr. Strachan!!

The Poles' manager is a dick! Why play with a single man up front in the World Cup? This is your only chance! They were there for the taking.

And finally,

Tennents 6+, Skol 0. (slow start)
Stay tuned……………………

Celtic, Scotland and whoever happens to be playing England.
(except Germany)

In that order. It starts tonight. Hooray! Should I buy a Swedish No11 (should be 7) Larsson shirt? It would complete the set. I’ll ponder. They’re all over the shops. That and Trinidad and Tobago jerseys.

I love the World Cup me. It’s got everything. It gives you something to talk about down the pub. Everyone’s an expert. Beer and football. Is there, in this wide world, any better combination? And it lasts a month. At each of the last two, I’ve bought a bigger flatter TV. (not this time) You can even talk about TVs in the bar.

“mine’s better…”
“why don’t you go home and watch it then Maroon?”

Classic. If Larsson scores the winning goal against England, they’ll make him a Knight of the Thistle. Oh wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Sir Henrik Larsson KT

The supermarkets are going mad with beer deals. It just keeps getting better and better. Luckily I am not a beer snob. Tennents is my favourite. Followed by Skol (weak) my other favourite.

What about Paraguay? I’ve supported them for years.

Come on the Guaraníes,

or La Albirroja !

Synchronicity and solipsism.

I had started this update before I had a look at the comments. The whole Blog area is weird for this kind of thing. Here’s what I was saying and was about to post.

“The book’s finished. (unsatisfactory ending). 4 1/2 weeks till the re-write!

SheBah, our very own SexyBeauty as was, was right! She advised a creative writing course. I did the next best thing and got a coupla books out the library.

One was “Write and Publish Your Novel” by Marina Oliver and the other was David Lodge’s crackerjack “The Art of Fiction“.

Justin Barker remarked via Nabokov about fancy prose. I am taking it as a compliment.
Lo Lee Tah.
I recognised the quote from somewhere recent and realised it was also in Lodge’s book! How synchronous is that?
Hummingbird hummingbird hummingbird is another of Barker’s that’s ringing a bell but I can’t think from where.

An advantage of age is that one can fry an egg properly. (one of mine).

It’s rude and dilatory of me not to reply to the comments so I’m going to right now!……”


And when I went to the comments, I found SB’s question!