Fitba - approximately 7.45 pm June 20 Th. 07 and I'm watching a penalty shoot out through my fingers between England and Holland under 21's the tension is unbearable, what's it like for the teams ?
This was the classic battle between the puncher ( England ) and the boxer ( Holland ) the English lads were outclassed by the Dutch lads and made up for that with a fantastic display of strength, stamina and courage to get to the 90 Th. minute with a one goal lead, Holland are attacking, a defender heads clear and goes down heavily, clearly injured, Holland have the ball on the edge of the area, what would you do ? the Dutch did what IMO we would all do and crossed the ball. This led to an equalizer and extra time and grumbles from the stupid English commentator.
England survived heroically in extra time with this injured lad playing on, all subs had been used, on to penalties, can it get any more dramatic ? you bet it can. England tried to excuse the injured player from taking his penalty and the Dutch objected, the boy took the kick and scored, both keepers scored, 30 kicks were taken and five were missed the Dutch went through.
The rule states that every player who finishes the game must take a kick if required so the Dutch were right but, I thought in my fevered mind what if a player were to pull a ham string in his approach to the ball at a penalty and fall over without reaching the ball, what then ?
Football is the greatest game in the history of the planet !
Fish - the best thing on TV IMO at the moment is 'Trawlermen' at 7pm each evening, I can link it to Fitba, a young centre half with Dundee Utd. called John Clark fell out with Jim McLean over training, he walked out saying f*** you and fitba I can allways go back to the family trawler business.
A month later he was back loving the training, the harder the better, McLean was asked by the press how the dispute was resolved and said " he found out the fishing wasn't for him" watch tonight and see why.
These guys are filmed gutting fish on the trawler and laughing and joking like any other work place except the boat is being hammered by 40 ft. waves and everybody is being thrown around like rag dolls, you surely have to be born to this. The characters on board are incredible, the work is hard and very dangerous but they just get on with it, desperate conditions to work in.
There's a big brawny Irish guy called Kevin who is a natural on TV, nothing fazes him and he can be hilarious, check him out, he could easily be a stand up comic, a brilliant show and thought provoking - the price of fish ?
Roll up, Roll up, come see the freak show presented by 'Bound and Gagged Comedy' it's the 'Tommy Sheridan Chat Show' at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, here's how they are selling it, honestly.
'From political fringe to Festival Fringe' 'Scotland's own Sunbed Socialist' 'Sunbed Sheridan entertains the Capital' 'come and see Tommy, bring your own sun cream'
The fringe programme carries a photo of Tommy sitting on a sun bed. How does this make you feel ? some will say he deserves the ridicule, he's no friend of mine and I think that he and the rest of them like the SSP are a hindrance to Socialism but this just makes me sad.
Like Terry Molloy he could have been a contender.
Falklands - It was 25 yrs ago and it is now being celebrated as a source of pride, the evil Thatcher shows up driveling and blubbering about how national pride was preserved, now there's a war criminal for you. This was her war, fought for her personal reasons it saved her political skin which is what it was designed to do.
225 British soldiers died and many more were injured, they did their duty and no criticism can be made of them and none is intended. Today's local paper carries a story about a casualty from Paisley brought up in an orphanage and then into the army and dead at 24 yrs old in the Falklands, the truth has to be told to stop this from happening isn't the young soldier's background rather familiar, 'when will they ever learn'
300 suicides among our troops who survived, Argentinian conscripts the same and she survived and went on to a long career where she inflicted misery on millions.
The Archbishop of Canterbury who was carrying out the remembrance service at the end of the conflict had to defy her over the order of service, he insisted on praying for the Argentinian dead and she wanted any references to the Argentinians removed, he won with his dignified honourable stance, a concept alien to Thatcher.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was Robert Runcie holder of the Military Cross for bravery as a tank commander in Normandy.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
The above is the title of a song referred to as the 'real' American anthem, sung all over that great country in schools, community halls and on picket lines, written by a guy called Woody Guthrie.
The song, along with many others is frowned on by the establishment because Guthrie was a communist and union organiser who agitated throughout the forties and fifties through the medium of music, to great effect. A true American hero, someone who would have been hated by Bush and the crooks who now run the USA, while watching Bush the other night telling us how great America was and how they were bringing peace and democracy to other lands I wondered what Woody Guthrie would have thought now, today, about his beloved country America.
Native Americans ( Indians ) have a life expectancy which is 8 yrs less than the average, 90 thousand are homeless or in terrible housing conditions, unemployment for them ( the real Americans ) stands at 46 % and up to 65 % in places, drug addiction, alcoholism and suicide are rife, this is the land of the free !
It ain't beer and skittles for some others either, 37 million below the poverty line ( up 5 million under the crook Dubya) 25% of blacks and 22% of Hispanics live below the poverty line, for whites it's 8.6% - 46 million have no health insurance - 82,000 homeless in L.A. alone - 18,000 children under 5 yrs homeless in New York alone.
America is now the world's number one jailer - 565 out of 100,000 in prison over 2 million in total - black males 8 times more likely to be in prison - 1 in 10 black males in jail or probation or on parole.
Is this the America that poor people want to get to ? or is it this America ? The town of Rancho Santa Fe California, average income $100,000 per yr. average house price $1.7million and, somewhere in America there are 269 billionaires.
People still ask me why I'm a socialist and why for instance I believe that Cuba is a better more decent society and I ask again, why is America so afraid of Cuba, the above facts should give a clue.
The song, along with many others is frowned on by the establishment because Guthrie was a communist and union organiser who agitated throughout the forties and fifties through the medium of music, to great effect. A true American hero, someone who would have been hated by Bush and the crooks who now run the USA, while watching Bush the other night telling us how great America was and how they were bringing peace and democracy to other lands I wondered what Woody Guthrie would have thought now, today, about his beloved country America.
Native Americans ( Indians ) have a life expectancy which is 8 yrs less than the average, 90 thousand are homeless or in terrible housing conditions, unemployment for them ( the real Americans ) stands at 46 % and up to 65 % in places, drug addiction, alcoholism and suicide are rife, this is the land of the free !
It ain't beer and skittles for some others either, 37 million below the poverty line ( up 5 million under the crook Dubya) 25% of blacks and 22% of Hispanics live below the poverty line, for whites it's 8.6% - 46 million have no health insurance - 82,000 homeless in L.A. alone - 18,000 children under 5 yrs homeless in New York alone.
America is now the world's number one jailer - 565 out of 100,000 in prison over 2 million in total - black males 8 times more likely to be in prison - 1 in 10 black males in jail or probation or on parole.
Is this the America that poor people want to get to ? or is it this America ? The town of Rancho Santa Fe California, average income $100,000 per yr. average house price $1.7million and, somewhere in America there are 269 billionaires.
People still ask me why I'm a socialist and why for instance I believe that Cuba is a better more decent society and I ask again, why is America so afraid of Cuba, the above facts should give a clue.
Friday, June 08, 2007
PALESTINE - 40 YRS. ON
I was 18 yrs old when the 6 day war took place in the Middle East 40 yrs. ago, I thought then that Israel was a heroic place and that Palestinians were the bad guys, I now know different.
My sympathy was with the Jews after their suffering during the war, this was only approx. 20 yrs since the horrors of Auschwitz and my views on the Arabs were formed by a media which was vehemently pro Israel and anti Arab, it took me years to eventually take a proper interest and now it never goes away.
The territory occupied in the war is still occupied now and the Palestinian people are suffering and dying, I began to ask myself 'how could the Jewish people do this to another people after what they had suffered' 1.4 million now live in Gazza with no hope, the worlds biggest prison. 5 million Palestinian refugees in the middle East, A massive fence has been built to imprison Arabs and steal more land, an Aparthied Fence, who would have thought that Jewish people could do something like that ? Remember, this is being done by Israel, Palestinians are now left with 12% of what was once their homeland.
The International community led by America allows this to happen - this a war crime and Israel is committing it, the image which the world sees is a Palestinian child throwing a stone at an Israeli tank, when will it end ? when will the Arabs get justice ?
When Israel was created and the Palestinian people lost their homes, farms and villages, Israel's first prime minister the Zionist thug Ben Gurion said about the plight of the Palestinians "the old will die and the young will forget" he's not the first victorious brute to be wrong as the young people of Palestine continue to prove.
The old do indeed die but the young continue to remember, and so it will continue until justice is done by the -Palestinians, this is Israel's shame.
My sympathy was with the Jews after their suffering during the war, this was only approx. 20 yrs since the horrors of Auschwitz and my views on the Arabs were formed by a media which was vehemently pro Israel and anti Arab, it took me years to eventually take a proper interest and now it never goes away.
The territory occupied in the war is still occupied now and the Palestinian people are suffering and dying, I began to ask myself 'how could the Jewish people do this to another people after what they had suffered' 1.4 million now live in Gazza with no hope, the worlds biggest prison. 5 million Palestinian refugees in the middle East, A massive fence has been built to imprison Arabs and steal more land, an Aparthied Fence, who would have thought that Jewish people could do something like that ? Remember, this is being done by Israel, Palestinians are now left with 12% of what was once their homeland.
The International community led by America allows this to happen - this a war crime and Israel is committing it, the image which the world sees is a Palestinian child throwing a stone at an Israeli tank, when will it end ? when will the Arabs get justice ?
When Israel was created and the Palestinian people lost their homes, farms and villages, Israel's first prime minister the Zionist thug Ben Gurion said about the plight of the Palestinians "the old will die and the young will forget" he's not the first victorious brute to be wrong as the young people of Palestine continue to prove.
The old do indeed die but the young continue to remember, and so it will continue until justice is done by the -Palestinians, this is Israel's shame.
SPRINGWATCH
I watched again last night and my jaw dropped to hear Bill Oddie come out with a load of stuff about how it was all right to interfere with nature and help chicks in a nest, a spectacular volte - face why then did we film a chick falling from it's nest to it's death.
I doubt if Bill Oddie reads my site so I can't claim the credit for changing his mind, I can only assume that what I was saying was being said by lots of others who were phoning in to tell them what they thought, well done to them, it's a start.
I doubt if Bill Oddie reads my site so I can't claim the credit for changing his mind, I can only assume that what I was saying was being said by lots of others who were phoning in to tell them what they thought, well done to them, it's a start.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
WILDLIFE - presenter makes me wild
'The boay said aw jings, ah love aw things wi wings an he saftened it's breed in a puddle' that's a bit of a daft poem that I learned years ago, a bird struggles with a lump of hard bread and the 'boay' steps in to help, what could be more natural ?
Well, it is in fact unnatural according to the most smug, annoying wee man on the planet Bill Oddie, he appears each night to tell us about birds and other wildlife and he insists that we must not interfere with nature i.e. when a small bird falls out of it's nest it must be left to die, it's nature's way - rubbish - I think these people wrap themselves in this cloak of sensible expertise simply to stand apart from all of us who enjoy wildlife.
If a rare bird or animal is in danger and I can save it I would not hesitate but, wee Bill says we shouldn't, I find this infuriating and, inconsistent. If he wants us to leave well alone why does he encourage us to build nesting boxes and leave out feed in the winter ?
The wee toerag also insists on trying to steal the attention from his fellow presenter who's name escapes me he talks over her constantly and fidgets when she is on screen, her youth and beauty probably annoy him, not that I usually notice that kind of thing. I don't like the wee sod.
The great Attenborough will unfortunately have to be replaced some day and IMO this young woman and the big awkward guy who joins in from the 'Utter Hebrides' would fit the bill, you just can't disguise the kind of enthusiasm that they show.
If only some annoying little attention seeking show off would stand aside and let them get on with it, maybe with a bit of luck he'll get bitten by something serious.
Well, it is in fact unnatural according to the most smug, annoying wee man on the planet Bill Oddie, he appears each night to tell us about birds and other wildlife and he insists that we must not interfere with nature i.e. when a small bird falls out of it's nest it must be left to die, it's nature's way - rubbish - I think these people wrap themselves in this cloak of sensible expertise simply to stand apart from all of us who enjoy wildlife.
If a rare bird or animal is in danger and I can save it I would not hesitate but, wee Bill says we shouldn't, I find this infuriating and, inconsistent. If he wants us to leave well alone why does he encourage us to build nesting boxes and leave out feed in the winter ?
The wee toerag also insists on trying to steal the attention from his fellow presenter who's name escapes me he talks over her constantly and fidgets when she is on screen, her youth and beauty probably annoy him, not that I usually notice that kind of thing. I don't like the wee sod.
The great Attenborough will unfortunately have to be replaced some day and IMO this young woman and the big awkward guy who joins in from the 'Utter Hebrides' would fit the bill, you just can't disguise the kind of enthusiasm that they show.
If only some annoying little attention seeking show off would stand aside and let them get on with it, maybe with a bit of luck he'll get bitten by something serious.
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