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.