Fall out

Last Tuesday not only saw the end of the 12 year domination by the GOP of the Congress but hopefully the end of the politicial career of par of the worst double acts to grace the World Stage. Namely Donald Rumsfeld of Dick n Don in Da Pentagon fame.

One hopes that the Democrats prove to be a force for good but I wait to see if they too get caught up by vested interests. I don't beleive that those jobs are coming back from India any time soon. They must also avoid falling into the traps that Clinton set for Gingrich . We shall see.

Sport too has moved on and the NFL is now heading throughNovember . Whilst my beloved Seahawks have suffered injuries, the Superbowl champions, Pittsburgh have just suffered.

Rugby has seen Wales draw with Australia whilst England continue to lose and lose again. Last night saw New Zealand beat France in Lyon. Yesterday was Armistice Day and the All Blacks wore poppies sown into their shirts. In the First World War the French used a phrase at Verdun, "Ils ne passeront pas" they shall not pass and last night no Frenchman crossed the try line.

I also enclose photo's of the united rules series between the Irish Gaelic Footballers and the Australian AFL which was basically a fight from start to end.

Next time more about the trip to Ireland.

As today is Rememberance Sunday, we do not forget all those who died in both World Wars, British, French, American, Commonwealth and Soviet.

The Hooded Man

With the newest version of Robin Hood taking a cuffing from Simon Cowell and "X-Factor" here is a gallery of previous Robin's ...

Autumn .............


Our holidays are over , the next statutory day off is Christmas Day. Thankfully we have a break upcoming in October. Details of which will appear in a later posting. So as Janet Jackson once said "what have you done for me lately".

Summer saw a grand tour of southern England and West Wales which encompassed 982 miles and lasted 10 days. We have also had a mad weekend where i had a day at a firm in St Mellons, as I took my steps in an attempt to repatriate us back to the Land of our Fathers. The Monday saw me have a colonoscopy, which now comes with a wonderdrug which wipes your short term memory, nice.......

We now have the conference season, the TUC have been, the LD's have walked out to the crease and pretty soon it will be Labour followed by the Conservatives. Presumably David Cameron will have stopped apologising by then. We have had the apology for apartheid and the apology for using the scottish nation as lab rats with the Poll Tax. I don't seem to recall the leaderene being at all apologetic at the time. We also have George Osbourne, the M.P for life for Tatton who basically chastised the plebs for wrecking the planet by using cheap flights. Now where did Mr Osbourne make this speach, was it in Knutsford, Wilmslow or in Japan. How did he get to Japan, following the example of the Aussie woman going home to a wedding via the Trans - Siberian Railway followed by a boat. No of course not he got there by two long haul flights. Think about it.

Winter sports are now underway, Rugby Union is up for 3 to 4 games and today saw Arsenal win 1-0 at Manchester United in the Football Premiership. Today also sees week 2 of the NFL.

Engrenages



As previously mentioned this is a detective serial originally broadcast on Canal Plus which has found its way to the uplands of BBC 4. The title was been translated to spiral with the idea that events spiral out of control.

The story of the police inspector and her team, one of whom consorts with hookers and takes industrial amounts of coke. The deputy prosecuter who finds he is having to investigate his best friend following the death of a Romanian girl and the crooked path that this leads with the threats to his wife/ex wife and her father who seem to have an ambivulant attitude to the code civil.

This show is still ongoing and I urge you to catch episode 7 this week with the final episode next week. Hopefully the cult success of this show will lead the BBC to buy more shows from the French channels. Since I wrote those words back in July the show has finished its first series. It has been such a success that the whole thing is being repeated in 3*2 Episodes. I hope to see season 2 soon.

Since my last post much of the good tv has finished, 24 for series 5, the West Wing forever and thanks to the Wonders of NTL, my attempts to tape the last two episodes came to nothing.

Still next time I will tell you about our hols.

Hywl

Reflections

We have arrived at the end of the first stage of the World Cup in Germany and half the teams are gone. From here on it starts to get interesting with a guaranteed result for every game no matter how long it takes or how unsatisfying penalties are.

But taking a step back, the long and winding European Rugby Union season concludes today with Ireland playing in Australia and France in South Africa. The French Championship ended a few weeks ago with B.O beating Stade Toulouse at Stade De France. Which is the excuse for the nudity at the top of this blog post.

The Basketball and the Ice Hockey in the US reached their natural conclusion. I apologise for confusing the Mavericks with the Cowboys. But they lost and Shaq and the boys won in 6 games.
As for the NHL, The Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup, the Hurricanes used to be the Hartford Whalers, that is one thing about US sports which I really don't get. In the U.K teams tend not to move, Wimbledon moved from London to Milton Keynes and have been relegated twice. Gretna which is close to the Scottish/English moved from the English Uni Bond League into the main stream Scottish Leagues and next season will paly in the Uefa Cup. Then again the US doesn't have relegation so a team like Accrington Stanley back in the Football League after 44 years couldn't come back. Though I know the Raiders went back to Oakland !!!!!!!!

In the U.K we are getting to the point where most of our good shows are either over or coming to a conclusion. Dr Who has three episodes of the second run to play. Last week's episode with Peter Kay seemed to have divided fan opinion between the old guard who hated it and the new fans who loved it. Given that Sky One and now Sky Three are showing Battlestar Galactica, I would reiterate my point that Dr Who is not the Best SF show out there just the best mass market SF show. I can't see ITV having the balls to show Battlestar Galactica at 8pm Saturday Night, even if they could buy the rights. 24 is three episodes from the end of season 5, whilst House finishes its second run next week. We still have lost admittedly with the really annoying 118118 sponser ads.

The French show i dwelt on last time is called "Engrenages" which has been translated as Spiral. Which of course is not an accurate translation as the french word translates to cog like, like the workings of a clock. Still we have 5 more weeks and I am looking forward to that. We also got to see the first part of Election Day on West Wing and show keeps getting better, shame it is nearly over.

More stuff in a few weeks.....

Sex, Lies & No Advertising

Since my last post we have had the local elections in England, which depending on which paper you read were an absolute disaster for the Labour Government or just an ordinary disaster.

The Tories did very well in parts of the South East and Midlands with the occasional spot in the North of England like Chorley. I do have to tell you that the two guys I quiz with ask me two things - remember they live in Manchester but the same applies for most of the urban centres of the North of England. The question "What is a Tory Councillor". Well I could tell them to come to Stockport where we still have 10 of the Blighters, that is as against 15 Labour and far too many Liberals. In my area the Tory got re-elected, both his vote and the vote of the Labour candidate went down. In Stockport, Labour had an overall net gain of 1, bite on that Mr Cameron.

There has been a great deal of criticism of John Prescott, his affair with a diary secretary was stupid and an abuse of power. But at the end of the day who has he let down, no one but his wife.
There have been problems with the Home Office, yes it is a mess but perhaps Civil servants should start paying with their jobs for their incompetance.

I would ask people to consider this, Labour has been in power for 9 years so far there hasn't been an Archer or an Aitken or a Milligan !!

I appreciate that the Enron executives will appeal against the verdicts. Their naked greed did not just destroy the pensions and share schemes of their fellow employees, it did n't just destroy the lives of their fellow employees it trashed them and worse than that it took away their hope.

In the U.K, we finally have a system in place called the Pensions Protection Fund which will provide a little hope and a little comfort, to employees whose scheme qualifies when the employer goes into receivership. When I say a little, I mean a little. The PPF provides for revaluation at the lesser of 5% or RPI from the period of acceptance through to Normal Retirement Date. Pensions in payment increase at the lesser of RPI or 2.5% on Post 97 pension. However there are those men and women up and down the country whose pensions have been limited to the Guaranteed Minimum Pension and my thoughts are with them .

I would like to bring out more about L'affaire Clearchannel but the British Press has been extremely limited but I will read up on my mails from Le Point and this blog provides access to Liberation.fr. Right now it is French politics which provides some excitement as both my hopes for the US. Clinton and McCain consort with people whom you would n't want a beer with.

Moving on, the NBA finals have reached that stage where we get a finals game each night and congrats are due to Detroit for showing that where there is life there is hope. At present they trail Miami 1-2 but Miami will now that they won't win until the buzzer goes on game 5 at the very earliest if then. Congrats to the Cowboys for shaking off the San Antone Monkey. In Europe some of sporting season has come to an end and Rugby Union has awarded trophies to Ulster, Munster and to Sale Sharks. Rugby League is now a summer sport and continues a pace.

In the Southern Hemisphere Canterbury won the Super 14 for the fifth time. One of the pictures from above is from the Blue Bulls web site and I liked the advert. I know the Footy season is underway but would apologise as I haven't had chance to catch it as yet same with the Rugby League State of Origin. Though in England the only topic is the Football World Cup, Cricket is on Sky Sports and with respect Sri Lanka are not Australia. Without wishing to offend any Americans out there it is Football and not Soccer. In "Friends" they even played on a fussball table which is the German word for Football. There is no S in FIFA, the World Governing Body. There are several varients of football.

Association Football.
American Football
Rugby League
Rugby Union
Gaelic Football
Australian Rules Football
Canadian Football.

Well that the World Cup in Germany and Big Brother 7 are the sole topics of conversation right now in the work place !!

As for Cinema, we recently went to see X-men 3 which I really enjoyed, short on plot and it will never win acting oscars but there you go.

As for TV ah well. Dr Who season 2 or is it Season 29, continues to be brilliant. We had the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9 and the Cybermen in an alternative universe story. The season is good and continues to attract high ratings , but it isn't the best thing out there or indeed the best genre thing out there. What it is though is the best prime time thing as much as I would like you will not see the following getting 9m

West Wing Season 7
CSI
CSI : New York
24
Battlestar Galactica.
Lost

I also taped and watched a french language programme which translates as "Spiral" but more on this next time.

Lastly I did look at the option to take adverts on the blog. Then I read the fine print, always read the fine print. No promotion of Alcohol, sorry Google no can do. This weekend from 1st to 3rd June sees the 20th Stockport Beer and Cider Festival at Edgerly Park Stockport, home of Stockport County and Sale Sharks. If you like beer please attend, if you drink lager your taste buds may grow back.

The French Rugby Championship has also yet to be decided but more next time.

How could I also forget Finland winning the 51st Eurovision Song Contest. You won't see Lordi on Xfactor or American Idol and perhaps you should.


Back in June !!!

TV

This weekend saw episode 2 of the new series of Dr Who, which saw Queen Victoria and a band of evil monks and a werewolf. Which many of you may think is the most stange thing you have seen since "Brotherhood of the Wolf", a French language, 18th Century, Martial Arts, Werewolf film. In his third appearance David Tennant as the Doctor comes over well and with the aid of Rose Tyler and Pauline Collins as Queen Victoria saves the day. The Doctor and Rose save the day but are then banished from the Empire. Finally Rose wins her bet that she could get Queen Victoria to say "We are not amused". Whilst her attempts to get Queen Victoria to say these immortal words had become very annoying, they can be seen as light relief against what was otherwise a fairly grim story line of basically a werewolf killing folk, after all it is 7.30 on a Saturday night and you don't want to frighten the children too much !!!!

The impression you are left with is after defeating the Dalek Fleet at the end of the previous season is that the Doctor and Rose think they are untouchable, impregnable and invincible. This may yet come crashing down around their ears. However next week sees the return of Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith a companion from 1973-1976.

Meanwhile "Lost" is set to return to British screens with a bang as the Tuesday after May Day sees two episodes on Channel 4 and one on E4. This has been such a long time coming I have given up going to television without pity.com to see how the story develops.

Sport

This evening I get to see the first NBA playoff game with Phoenix Suns playing Los Angeles Lakers. Which is a bit deja-vu as this was the game that Sky Sports broadcast last Sunday. I regret that my access to NBA is limited as I get Sky Sports as part of my cable package but not NASN, which I'm told gets the lion's share of the NBA. I am looking forward to seeing the Clippers and the Cavs in the play offs and we will see how they get on.

Have a good rest of April

Hi,

This is a new blog which reflects both where I live and the nature of the blog through the welsh/cymraeg word cartref as "home". The blog will be used as a diary and will detail thoughts on politics and sport and other things that interest me such as Cinema, TV, Books, travel etc.

I hope to provide many links which will give anyone who reads this blog an insight into my world view.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Jez Evans