That note of caution aside, Red Joan turns out to be a quiet rumination on the attraction of treason in the face of mutually assured detsruction. It stars the brilliant Judi Dench. It is a sombre little film but, in its terms, not badly done. 62/100.
If you want to hear a torrent of well-meaning guff, just tune-in to TalkSport and listen to deluded football fans trumpeting their 'victory' in seeing off the unlovely and hubristic European Super League. Be afraid, be very afraid - well, actually no, the time for being afraid for the soul of this sport passed years ago.
Here are the facts. Football is a game owned, at its top level, by stupendously rich men. They are not in it for the glory of the thing - that may have motivated them at some distant point in the past but they now find themselves with a cash cow that they fear may have been milked to death. Here's the thing: the business model for football is unsustainable unless it is constantly patched together by eye-watering injections of television money. The inconvenient thing about that model is the very jeopardy that makes sport compelling. So what do you do if that jeopardy (let us call it 'relegation' - ah you get the picture) bothers you? Easy, you invent a lucrative competition from which you can never be relegated, no matter how shit you might become. The hubris in this movemnet is in no part better exemplified than in the ESL membership of Tottenham Hotspur - by whose definition precisely is this one of Europe's great clubs?
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| Badges of shame |
And my own sport, rugby union football, cannot rest easy - the franchise model is what the top clubs want. Jeopardy is no part of their agenda.
Mind you, what do I know? I'm a West Bromwich Albion fan. Why aren't we in the ESL? Immunity from relegation would suit us nicely.
I have a drawer designated for my use in the Groupie's kitchen - it's to discourage me from my lawyer's habit of filing things in plain sight ie. just left lying around. Anyway, I decided to have one of my too-irregular clear-outs. These things are cathartic once you have steeled yourself to do it.
In amongst the bills for filing (I had at least paid them all) I found an old encrypted (my own weird code) list of passwords for gambling sites. These days I favour the good people at Coral with my paltry trade and I had thought that I had emptied the various other accounts usually opened to take advantage of free offers. Still you never do know, do you. Lo and behold I located fifty-odd of your English quids in my Paddy Power account. At some point I must have had a winner. This is refreshing to learn because winners have been few and far between of late. I am going to spend it wisely - more gambling.
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| Dignified |
It might seem an odd thing for a manic depressive to believe in serendipity, but this one does, and the last few days have strengthened that belief.
On Monday I was playing golf at Pype Hayes and had clawed my way back to respectability after an inept front nine. On the eighteenth I waited an age for the group in front to get out of range. Too long - as ever the Pig was overestimating his strength. He forgets he is sixty. So it goes. Anyway, after all that time waiting and thinking about the shot, the Pig took a measured swipe with his driver and calmy sliced the ball way left (the Pig is left-handed). The Pig's mood was gloomy as he searched for the ball in the long grass, in the ditch, in all the bad places. His mates helped him and the pessimistic Pig was ready to call the search off when, serendipity, AK found the ball for him, sitting up like a coconut, fully twenty yards nearer to the green than the Pig had anticipated. So it goes.
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| A left-handed Pig |
The gloomy mood returns but the Pig decides he will retrieve the ball from the bush - after all they're expensive. But, serendipity, on his way to said bush, the Pig finds the ball in the rough, two yards short of the bush. He has an impossible shot to the flag - it would be a lob off a bare lie, with no green to play with. The Pig knows his limits, so plugs in his imagination and designs a low running shot that will take advantage of a slope at the front of the green and, at best, pull up, say, ten feet from the pin. That is the plan - in reality the Pig takes a nervy jab at it and sends the ball tearing over the slope so that it comes to rest forty feet from the hole. Then he sinks the putt. A par. So it goes.
And that's not all folks. This week the governments of England and Wales have deigned to allow the Pig to travel to Plas Piggy, which he duly did. All was well at the country estate, or at least so it seemed. The Pig took a stroll round to Red Wharf Bay in unabashed sunshine. God was in his Heaven etc etc. All good things must come to an end and the Pig was making his tour of inspection before setting off home to Casa Piggy. Absent-mindedly he lifted the drain cover to see that all was well, and what he saw was - I'm sorry dear reader, what he saw was a load of shit, a right load of old shit. Given that the Piggy family had been absent for half a year, the only thing we can be sure of is that this was not pig shit. No matter, regular readers will recall that there is nothing like a pig in shit. The Pig gets a remarkable sense of well-being out of using his drain rods - he keeps a set both at Casa Piggy and at Plas Piggy. But could he shift the malodorous obstruction? Could he bollocks. Now you might be wondering where serendipity comes into this situation. Well, here's how it goes - in asking neighbours if I could lift their drain covers I was advised that there have been previous blockages and that Welsh Water have cleared them, free and gratis. Now this surprised me because I had always understood our shared sewers to be private - that's certainly what the deeds say. No matter, armed with the telephone number given to me by NH next door I called up the water company. Brilliant - efficient and courteous on the phone and with me within two hours. Again, courteous and cheerful. Drains duly jetted and clear within a further half hour. Serendipity? Well, if I hadn't lifted that drain cover the shit would have continued to back up and on my next visit I would have been up to my arms in the stuff - as things stood, I got no deeper than my wrists. So it goes.
Finally, I chose the scenic route home, which meant I was treated to the priceless sight of snow capping the sunlit peaks of Snowdonia. Sometimes, just sometimes, so it goes.
Sports coverage on Sky has, on balance, been a boon. The technical horizons have expanded. Unfortunately the quality of some commentary has gone backwards. I'm thinking particularly of golf and viewing the Masters this past weekend reinforced my view. Am I just getting old and grumpy - it was better in my day etc?
First up I'll tell you who I exempt from criticism: Ewan Murray - he sets the standard; Richard Boxall - why was he not on duty for the Masters?; Andrew Coltart - not brilliant but at least unobtrusive; Paul McGinley - an astute analyst. But I'll tell you who gets on my nerves: Nick Dougherty - a simpering clown; Wayne Riley - is a bit of a 'character', unfortunately someone has told him this and he feels compelled to force his humour; worst of all (by a country mile) is Butch Harmon - clearly a highly successful instructor but his style of commentary lacks any humility.
It was all getting me down on Saturday evening so I switched over to the football and waited for the BBC highlights of the golf. And here was a surprise - there is life after the sublime Peter Alliss (now sadly deceased but who should have been pensioned off a few years ago - he had become the embarrassing old uncle of television). The commentary was subdued, sane and unobtrusive. Mark James and Ken Brown are both ex-players but also natural broadcasters.
One last thing from the angry old man - when did pine needles officially become 'pine straw'? This is an Americanism we surely can do without.
Alright it was only a small flurry of snow, but yes I was out there yesterday morning with BH, MS and CC treading the fairways of Boldmere Golf Club. It was perishing but I am pleased to report that the mildly encouraging start to my season continued. There were odd aberrations but in the main I struck the ball quite well. Putting was errant but we can retrieve that (famous last words?). I hadn't been to Boldmere for an age (I suspect as much as thirty-five years) and it is better than I had remembered. Yes it is triflingly short and there are some tiny par threes crammed in to fill up the quota, but on the credit side, there are some seriously challenging long par threes. In an earlier age I would have spent Easter Monday doing some serious drinking with these same good men - rugby tours are largely a thing of the past but, boy, we had some fun at Easter back in the day.
