Tuesday [16 till close of play]

(1723) Evening all. Productive day, back to the blogging.

 

20. Father adores his daughter … what’s not to like?


19. Brunel


18. Folic acid again


17. Lord T, via email


16. Steve on football, but not as we know it

The Champions Who Forgot to Play Football!

Here is a statistic to frame above your fireplace and show your grandchildren: Argentina’s first shot of any kind in Sunday’s World Cup final arrived in the 115th minute, a record of futility for a World Cup. Spain finished with 20 shots to Argentina’s two, twelve on target to none. Not one. In a final. ESPN called it arguably the worst World Cup final in living memory, and that was the polite version.

NBC Sports put it plainly: Argentina were more concerned with fouling and fighting than playing football, and the way several players behaved was a disgrace that tarnished their legacy.

According to Football365, Scaloni’s men committed more first-half fouls than they completed passes into the attacking third. Their 12.29 fouls per game was, per NBC, far and away the highest of any semifinalist.

The punditry class reached for the thesaurus. “It’s a disgrace,” said Gary Neville on ITV. Alan Shearer told the BBC that Leandro Paredes “threw two or three haymakers into someone’s face” in the post-whistle brawl that earned him a red card after the final had ended. Joe Hart called it “disgusting.” Lee Dixon called it “anti-football.” Wayne Rooney simply shrugged: we’ve seen this from Argentina before.

And where was the captain? Sitting on the turf, weeping, while his teammates disgraced the shirt he made famous. Sorry, but no. A captain’s job in that moment is not to cry. It is to get up, wade into the scrum, grab the idiots by the collar and order them to behave like gentlemen. Messi shook every Spanish hand, as Hart noted, and fair play. But leadership was required, and leadership stayed seated.

Consider the route, too: a group of Algeria, Austria and Jordan, then Cape Verde in the round of 32. All the jeopardy of a heated driveway.

Spain were everything football should be. One goal conceded in eight matches, the fewest ever for a champion. Rodri took the Golden Ball, Ferran Torres the trophy. As Norwegian commentator Trond Johannessen put it: mighty scenes, but the right outcome. The victory bandits were finally caught.

Wherever Argentina play next, anywhere on Earth, they will walk out to a wall of boos. They earned every decibel.

……

Spanish footballer, Ferran Torres, wore a “Make Spain Great Again” cap at their World Cup celebration The far-left Spanish government does NOT represent the people! 🇪🇸

Tue Mat

 

As mentioned yesterday, I’ve restarted scouring through Unherdables for films, even as far back as Sep 2024. What I’ve found is most films over a year old on the site have gone. However, there was this …

HERE

… and as an A lister, it might be worth the effort to go back to that post and watch it there.

Tuesday [11 to 15]

(0859) Our Toodles has a post up at Orphans plus Jstack … check it out. Next post is a film at elevenses here. (0859)

 

15. Sheer gall


14. Rough sleeper “quotas”


13. Burnham and the Post Office scandal


12. Particularly bad for me in my state of health


11. Soetoro

Tuesday [6 to 10]

(0759) Next post 0900. (0759)

 

10. Moo corner


9. If stores start playing games with you at the till


As this sort of thing is coming up at some stage today for us, our policy needs deciding now. And it is to leave items there on the counter and walk out if they start playing games.

8. More NetZero insanity


7. Russian oil and EU


6. MftWC at 1444

  • Trump Exposes National Academy of Sciences for Publishing Fraudulent, Biased Climate Manuals Used by Federal Judges
  • How the Massive Michigan Democratic Voter Registration Fraud Operation Was Ignored, Buried, and Shut Down by Unscrupulous Biden FBI and DOJ Hacks
  • Nigerian Christians Report Increasing Coordination Across Fulani Attack
  • Pickaxe Mountain Is About To A Get A Smackdown From B-2 Bombers plus Iranian Strikes Hit US Warplanes In Jordan, Kuwait
  • When MPs had the chance to keep child rapists behind bars, Labour MPs from towns infested with rape gangs voted it down; now they’re expressing outrage at Ahmed’s early release…
  • Who or what is the Council of 33?
  • A 1957 book by Ayn Rand describes the plan to declare war on “fossil fuels”
  • Much more.

The Treaty of Versailles

 

Continuing our attempts to keep up to date, up to speed, with latest developments, enjoy.

Quick housekeeping … MftWC is at 0800, our time, then blank time and space until 0900, when Tues 11 to 15 will appear, then blank time and space until1100, when the film goes up in a manner of speaking, then more blank time and space until I can get back into harness later.

Tuesday [1 to 5]

(0550) Morning all. This is one of those broken days for me where I do have a series of commitments outside as well as visitors earlier and later. That wreaks havoc with blogging and Xing, as well as requiring my legendary beautifying process before heading out. The ones who will not understand, as I’ll not explain it, is that those “not quite so close” are still expecting a visit on X, also adding AKH and Roob (see Scriblerus roll). I’ll do the best I can today.

 

5. Lord Toby this morning

… just checking in (url in blogrolls, middle column).


4. SadButMadLad double

He’s one of our main troopers with us as you’ll gather.


3. The situation at truckstops


2. On IYE’s drop

The question, in the light of Monday’s last post, comments section below, is how the landlord/editor should handle “sensitive material”. Methought that if I went through my thought process on it, whether my editing decision be right or as others might point out … wrong … that was how I was thinking.

First thought was post at NOWP and let it expand. First check on that thought is that NOWP is under the hammer of late. Second thought was to expand here. Third and the decisive thought was leave it right where it was and write about the item in Tues 2. Ultimately has a similar effect.

1. DAD at 1444

a) France. Euthanasia: The President of the Republic may invoke the second paragraph of Article 10 of the Constitution to request a new deliberation. Monseigneur the Count of Paris notes with regret the National Assembly’s adoption of the bill regarding aid in dying….

b) Burnham has said that his first policy will be to end rough sleeping:

“I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction: to end rough sleeping in our country.”

…But he failed in Manchester.

c) UK Ministry of Justice appeals order to publish convictions by nationality Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy accused Labour of withholding information on politically sensitive crimes.

d) Europe’s latest Law has Christians asking: “Where can we pray now?” [Although it is a Catholic produced video, it applies to all Christians.]

Monday [16 till close of play]

(1619) Almost evening all.

 

19. An op ed at a strange time for me

Just been looking at Mon 18 below, sent my text and url to Sarah in Alberta … what the heck am I even doing awake again, having said goodnight to various close people and with obligations awaiting all day Tuesday? Her electricity supply was down by the way in her community.

Answer is that I must do this. Against that is the old saying that one of the first signs of madness is the feeling that one’s work is of immense importance to all. Work? I’m just putting things up using soc-med to maybe 3000 maximum, though if all outlets are used, that becomes around 20k, including X impressions. Drop in the ocean of horrors. Horrors … hyperbole? Well I have a report about a truck stop in Brooklyn, Iowa where, of 40 drivers, 5 speak English.

I was sent a bowel cancer kit, never asked for it, have said over and over I’m having no exploratories as that part of me is in good nick … well let us just probe around they say … why? Tend people who are sick for goodness sake. Besides, what chance encountering a well trained western doc? Plus my chances of being genuinely sick are hugely increased … and so on.

All right, without letting on ages … in the last century, near the end, my mother died, my father decades earlier. Was I aware that it was the end of an era? Nope. I thought my life was just getting into gear in fact, gallivanting around the world with m’best gal by m’side. Irresponsible? No sense of end dates? Of consequences? Maybe.

And now here am I nearing their terminal ages and what am I doing? Attempting to give some sort of moral support to as many as I can get round to. Stop, stop … why? Who the heck am I? Why am I not in a rocking chair, with a nurse feeding me meds? D’you see what I’m leading to here? Andy is now vice-chairman of a sports club. Steve’s just run his first nightly MftWC since his return. Why? Why run Mon 18 for example? Just whom can it reach and even then, what can they do? Back to the Agatha Christie quote:


And is our function to affect policy which is causing the destruction of western society? Or might it also be that at least there is some sort of haven still about, some sort of tavern, with some deluded eccentric as the landlord? And further … almost no readers know the three or four people I just dropped in on … one at the end of her tether, I’m thinking genuinely so.

I’m getting on for about two and a half decades now quite irrelevant in this new world … I never saw it happening. Suddenly, still compos mentis (we can argue that point) and not physically bad as long as I can escape interferers … suddenly I’m thinking … what should I actually be doing right at this moment? Sleeping? Did it help those four people at all? Only they can answer that.

I mean, this could get a bit religious now, could it not? What is my function in this disintegrating society? Euthanasia? To be murdered as another useless eater? Stuff that and stuff those evil muvvas. No, my task is to offer what little I can … at least I think it is my task. What else? Sit twiddling my thumbs?

I am currently in a comfortably bourgeois situation against all odds – salmon dins, fridge bulging with food … for how long? Here it gets religious again. I believe if I ditch this mission and go full-hedonist, the sustaining protection stops. Anyway, it’s an effective mindset to have. It’s 00:27, early morn … heaps of time, with a five hour sleep ahead … I can still be ready for DAD’s drop around 0530 … plenty of time.

Night night, readers. Sleep well, fellow cavemen and women.

18. Bill C9 in Canada passed

What has that to do with us? Why have I woken from my sleep, knowing there’s a list of commitments tomorrow which I must be awake for and I’ve already said goodnight to my close people? And her voice is at a difficult pitch? Yet all of us in western nations really must see the sort of thing Burnham and Milliband et al have in mind? Really have in mind?

One of the most iniquitous bills in western parliamentsry history:

17. Military ballots for Biden


16. Russia and Europe

Monday [11 to 15]

(1253) Afternoon all. (1308)

 

15. Ireland


14. Lucy Powell, Labour scumbag


13. The wheel’s still spinning but the hamster is dead


12. Criminal subterfuge


11. Steve

Spotlight on the older male – I’d hold a door open for either of these two ladies..

Problem with the second is she seems to prefer ladies, Steve.