G'day

Just back from a little jaunt to Sydney where I discovered a few things.
1) Taxi drivers are all millionaires
2) All Australians are fat - except Kylie
3) They don't like convict jokes

Do not fail to check out http://www.budgysmuggler.com.au/

Salad Days

About three months ago a very good friend who supports West Ham subscribed me to The London Review of Books. At first I thought it a little dry and but for the odd Short Story or Poem not really my cup of tea. I was wrong it's a great publication and hardly needs my praise to make it greater. It makes every other journalistic vehicle I read seem rather weak. My cup of tea got stronger. Too strong maybe. One such cup came in the form of a recent article on climate change which has made me rather melancholy. It has managed to pierce through my armour light Kevlar body shell of political indifference and left me feeling full of foreboding and with a slightly sick sense of guilt. I thought I might share my quiet sense panic with my drinking chums. The foreboding is clear, whether climate change is wholly man made or only partially it is highly likely that this is just history now. Our world is about to rapidly change and in the next thirty years of my life all hell's going to kick off. My children are going to be living through the kind of uncertainty that my grandparents and those before them would have known. Where people in my family through no fault of their own are caught up in completely turbulent and probably catastrophic times. I suddenly realise that my parents and I have been born into a quiet and easy little side stream of humanity where life flows smoothly. I came from those that had lived in the torrent trying to keep alive and I now have a feeling that those that come after me will have to live in the same. I know it's a torrent now for millions all over the world but this article has made realise that it's a strong possibility that's it's coming to me and mine. That's the guilt, why was I so lucky. I watched my son playing football with his little team and as I looked at them I thought if the climate does change (it suddenly ear stingingly hailed on us at this point) as rapidly as many say is now likely then these are the last days of Rome and we will slide back into a dog eat dog world of power and protection and these boys, little versions of us, will have their mapped out little lives torn apart, if not now then later. Like those that could see the imminent arrival of the first and second world war we can see the storm coming, harvests failing, sea levels rising millions in Europe on the move and hungry. Our globalisation of the last thirty years will have us with nothing to barter but our advertising and stock broking skills, unable to feed our over populated island. Up will pop our equivalent of Milosevic and before you can say lastminute dot com we'll be on a holiday to inter racial inter community Armageddon. In hundreds of years we will be back on track and it will all seem so obvious a cycle of civilisation and natural catastrophe, named after some dry academic, tracking back to the Egyptians and Mayans. Civilization climbs steadily for a couple of millennia then zooms exponentially for a hundred years right up to the ipod nano and then it crashes back in a sharp and sudden backward step as it over reaches itself in an orgy of self indulgent and ignorantly selfish consumerism. Oh for sure it then climbs again... but back before the crash no one could see it coming .. except me and you and everyone else of course. Not that we did anything about it. No point. Still I/we/they could be wrong at which point we will conveniently forget this little panic and you can put any mad fiddling I do in the next year or two down to a mid life crisis rather than the indulgence of one who thought he was doomed. Makes it hard to tell them to get on with their homework though.... might as well enjoy the Simpsons for a few years yet. Beer anyone?

WNDC TRIUMPH

Despite missing their main striker (Ganey) the WNDC team triumphed in the Copa de Sommerville this evening. The absence of Ganey was deemed to be a blow to the heart of the team, but the controversial inclusion of two girlies(!!) who "played a blinder", means that Ganey's place in the team is now in some doubt.
On learning that he had been dropped to the bench, Ganey, who as I write is ensconced in a European bordello was said to "be gutted". All hopes of a comeback in next month's match now seem to be no more than a dream in the poor man's deluded head. It is rumoured that a move to the U.S.A. WNDC team is now on the cards for an astronomical sum of £1.57.

As for tonight's match, it was a real humdinger - again missing their staunch defender Faggey, who has not appeared since Sunday's 4-3 defeat it was the picture round that clinched the victory.Seigfried Sassoon, Steve Staunton,Stephen Spender & Susan Stranks(got the theme yet?) enabled an easy victory by some 8 clear points.
Pub landlord Paul commented, "hey, you played much better without that tall Crouchy bloke, and the girlies were much better looking"

From your slightly enebriated correspondent. It was truly a game of two halves( and a packet of crisps)