The Punch-up - really, really up

 

source: BBC website

 

What the BBC do not know is that we have secured access to the black box.

Relevant part of recording begins:

Female voice "Encore un café, messieurs?"
Male, identified as Captain Dubois "Merci, Charlene. Tu est très sexy aujordhui"
Charlene "Merci"
Male, identified as First Officer Blanchet "Hein, Dubois, Charlene est avec moi ce soir"
Dubois "Vous pensez, huh?"
ATC "Flight AF 32, turn right 275 and ascend to twenty two thousand feet, take flight path VH to Lyons Outer"
Blanchet "Turn right 275 and ascend to twenty thousand"
Dubois "He said twenty two. What are you, deaf this morning?"
Blanchet "I said twenty two. And you asked for 30, 000. Tell him you want 30, 000, or are you too scared?
Dubois "You tell him yourself, it's time you did some work around here instead of ogling the cabin crew"
ATC "AF 32 please confirm route guidance"
Dubois "He's made a mistake but he won't admit it"
Blanchet "If I wasn't choking on the pong of your cheap pomade, maybe I could think more clearly"
Dubois "At least I don't reek of a Montmartre whore's boudoir"
Blanchet "Then move your wife out of Montmartre"
ATC "AF 32 urgent, confirm your route"
Blanchet "Alors, mon 'capitaine'"
Dubois "It's not my turn"
Blanchet "It certainly is not mine. You tell him
ATC "I'm not getting involved. Sort it out"
Dubois "Oooh, hark at him. As if I could 'sort" anything with this ape
Blanchet "ATC, Capitaine Dubois est un cochon grand, n'est-ces pas?
Dubois "You take that back"
Blanchet "Who is going to make me? You and whose grande armée?
Dubois "Moi. Seul"
Blanchet "Oui? Viens ici si tu penses que tu es assez dur

the recording becomes too indistinct after this

On Top

 It won't last. It can't last. Nobody assumes for a second that we will even be in the top 10 at the end of the season. But right now, after five games played, Wealdstone FC are top of the National League.

I am putting this magic moment on to the internet to be preserved for as long as my good friends at Google maintain the Blogger website. Further down the table are heavyweights like Chesterfield, Notts County and Wrexham. But what of them? No Stones fan tonight could give a toss.

For the record, the Stones beat Bromley, lost to Eastleigh (on the hottest day of the year), then demolished Oldham, Halifax and today Gateshead. They have the smallest playing budget in the league and are the only team to be part-time.

The last time this club were in a similar position was in 1985 when they won the predecessor to the National League, the Alliance. But the National is a very different league. Then, all the teams were part-time. All had only experienced non-league football. Today, with automatic promotion / relegation for two teams each season, at least half of the league have experience of the Football League, and have grounds, facilities and budgets to match. In reality, this is the best position that Wealdstone have ever been in their 120 year history. So you may forgive me a little bit of gloating. 

Rain, Glorious Rain

 As promised in my piece last time, here is an update on the heatwave / drought / flash flood situation. There was decent rain last night for the first time in many weeks and we stood at the front door and marvelled at the sight of water running down the street, and soaked up the smells suddenly released from the parched ground.

Today however it got serious. A major front moved north from France bringing lightning and, in parts of the UK, torrential rain that caused flooding. Here, in beautiful Ruislip, all was quiet until mid afternoon, despite an ominous build up of black cloud, and Mrs C and I even dared to pop out to a furniture warehouse. No sooner inside than a fierce drumming on the roof heralded the arrival of the storm.  Here is how it was at the start:

That red dot is us. The storm moved over our heads and then stayed there for about three hours, giving us some 20mm of rain. We had driven down a fairly placid A40 on the outward journey but coming back everything was at a near-standstill with pools of water at the side of the road and huge gouts of spray from the trucks. HS2 roadworks at Ruislip Gardens gave us another ten minutes of gridlock. 

I'm not complaining. We have desperately needed it. Some of our normally green and vibrant plants are bleached almost white, and the "lawn" at the front of our house looks like a desert scrubland. Let us see if the cacti bloom.

Back to Normal?

 Sorry for all the weather-related stuff recently. An entire week of unpleasantness is coming to a close with temperatures having topped 30c every day and no rain, not even cloud cover until this afternoon. It may or may not rain a bit in the next few days, but we need a great deal to top up the reservoirs, fill the rivers and percolate into the topsoil.  

It has been worse in Europe. Photographs of the River Loire show it dry - a staggering prospect in the one of the loveliest valleys of France.  They - and we - are facing a drought.

Mrs C and I volunteer at our local heritage centre, Manor Farm. We were there today but after 90 minutes with precisely no visitors and nobody bothering to look round the site - usually bustling and a haven of peaceful green space in the heart of old Ruislip - we packed it in. 

Supposedly temperatures will begin returning to normal this week. There will of course be updates on this channel. Historians looking back from the far future can have a laugh about it.

That Big, Yellow Thing is Back

 Just for the record, I present the BBC's forecast of the weather for the next few days.

The odd day of really hot sunshine we can take. But day after day of it is not what our houses or towns were designed for. I think we will be bunkering down with the curtains drawn and fans running, doing as little as possible. Summer used to be the time for getting out and about and revelling in decent weather. Or looking up at grey skies and ensuring that an umbrella was at hand. 

Looking back through my own musings on this topic, it seems that July was the month for the temperature-topping days and August much more temperate, as this typical post suggests.Oh well, let us hope for a traditional Bank Holiday end to this unwanted taste of the Sahara.

Ready and Waiting

 Sky Sports, who have for some years secured the rights to broadcast football matches, have put up posters to publicise this well-worn tit-bit of useless information. Useless, because if you are the sort of person who pays to watch sports broadcasts then you already know, and if not, you don't care. But be that as it may, they have clearly fired their Head of Creative Thinking and appointed some bloke that the personnel manager met down the pub. For the slogan on the poster is

"We're ready. Are you?"

Call me a mad, wild-eyed, clutcher at straws if you must (and I know some of you are keen to have the chance) but I had assumed that a company that has spent many millions of pounds in securing its exclusive deals and which has huge experience in broadcasting and streaming sports content, would actually be ready for the start of a new football season. This is what they do. This is how they earn their money. Several weeks ago their planners would have opened up their diaries and carefully pencilled in the dates of the first matches. Then they would have written them on to the big wall-chart hanging up at the back of the office, next to the flyer about the annual outing to Canvey Island and the note begging people to kindly not take the last of the milk without replacing it, thank you very much.  Then they would have compiled a list of things to remember:

1. Cameras
2. Warm clothes in case it gets cold at night
3. Spare batteries for lights
4. Thermos flask
5. Notebook to write down names of scorers and people sent off
6. Return rail ticket
7. 500m of high-duty 600w power cable
8. Folding canvas chair
9. Sandwiches

and with that, they could go out for a long lunch in the knowledge of a job well done.  They were ready!

 That completes the first half, as it were. After the break we shall be back for all the action as we examine the second part of the slogan. Stay with us!

-&-&-&-&-&

We're back with all the action in what should be a blistering second half of excoriating invective. The question that must be faced is our state of preparation. They are ready. Are we?

I dunno. I mean, it's not really anything to do with me. Every year the football season begins more or less at this time. One has gotten used to it. But am I ready for Sky Sports being ready? No. I shall never be ready. I don't even know what they mean in this context. If I were not ready, what would be different? They will broadcast matches. I, being a non-subscriber, will not watch them and will do so in the blissful knowledge that I wouldn't watch them even if they were free. I don't want to watch their content. 

However, they have posed the question so do they expect an answer? Should I phone them, wait for the inevitable recorded message about going on their website and how important my call is etc etc before some salesperson answers:

Salesperson: "Hello, sorry to keep you waiting, how can I help

Me: Gasping a little, a catch in my throat "I'm not ready. I'm so sorry. I meant to be. I tried. But I am not. You are, you told me so, you went to the trouble of putting up a poster by the station where I had to see it. I feel I've let you down, let everybody down, I'm so miserable and I just want to kick the cat, only I haven't got one, you see how unprepared I am, help me, help me please"

Salesperson: Can I interest you in 240 channels of unspeakable tat for just £250 plus VAT a month and only £600 to pay if we are unable to provide the service and you cancel?

No, I can't go through with it. I shall remain unready. Ethelred didn't pay to watch the Northumbrians beating the hell out of the Picts and I shall follow his example.

Special Selection

 Posters advertising Coca-Cola have appeared in the streets of beautiful (and once more, extremely warm) Ruislip. Rather than extol the thirst-quenching values of this beverage, assuming there are any, they feature a large photo of a radiant Kate Moss¹ and some strap-line about a competition featuring 000's of prizes selected by Ms Moss herself.

It's hard to believe that a wealthy lady, whose partner is one Nikolai von Bismarck², would be arsed to visit the offices of the Coca-Cola company (even though they are in Uxbridge, just a few short stops on the Met from Ruislip), rather than loll about on the terrace of her chateau, watching her soul-mate drawing lines on a map of Europe and pondering alliances, but there it is. We are now forced to imagine the scene.

Scene: The marketing department at Coca-Cola HQ, Uxbridge. A manager is dusting off the flipchart and practising buzz-phrases.

Manager to herself: 'Imaginate the unperplexible'. 'Ground-breaking enterprise paradigm-shift'. 'Pro-active synergistic customer-facing synergy'. Oh, God, that last one's wrong. Think, Nigella, think. What the hell is is it? '

Door opens. A radiant Ms Moss is ushered in by an overwhelmed intern

Taz³: In here, Ms Moss. Gosh, may I say how much I loved your heroin chic look, I'm definitely going to do heroin just as soon as I've earned enough to buy a box

Moss: Awfully sweet of you, young man.

Manager: Kate, lovely to see you

Moss: Wonderful to see you darling thinks 'Who is she again?'

They air kiss, several times.

Manager: Can I offer you a drink?

Moss: Cor, I could murder a cuppa tea and a custard cream.

Manager: Ah, not one of our ice-cold, super refreshing, real thing, carbonated and made with a secret recipe that definitely does not include cocaine, not any more, any way, tins? 

Moss: Do me a favour

Manager: Cup of tea for Ms Moss, Taz

Taz: Right away. I'll nip down to the cafe by the station. Shouldn't take more than about ten minutes. exits

Manager: Now we won't keep you long, I know you're leaving to do a tour of the Maginot Line with Nicky. It's just a matter of your personal selection of the prizes.

Moss: I've given it a lot of thought in the last two minutes. You say I need to select 000's?"

Manager: Not really. There'll be 500 of each. So just four selections will satisfy the Advertising Standards people. 

Moss: Jolly good. One yellow mug, one green one, one blue one and one red one.

Manager: Thank you so much Ms Moss and the cheque's in the post.

Moss: Bleedin' better be, darling.

Footnote

1. Ms Moss, b 1974, is a model who, according to Google, rose to fame in the 1990s as part of the "heroin chic" fashion trend. Speaking as one who was once famed for being part of the "aspirin ponce" fashion trend, I recognise her as one of my peers.

2. Yes, really, if Google is to be believed.

3.  He certainly gets around.