Category: Uncategorized

The US stil hasn’t really grasped the enormity of their achievement against what was admittedly a lacklustre Portugese side the other day. Unfortunately that’s probably all down to the time the games start – that one started at 5am on the east coast and 2am on the west.The Koreasn match is no better – 2.30am ET & 11.30pm on a Sunday night on the west coast.

But this is still a relatively shallow football culture compared to Europe and South America. But I think it’s less to do with th sport, as it is the most popular sport for kids below the age of 16. It’s more to do with the lack of international competition in anything aside from the Olympics every four years and the intervening two for the Winter version.

There are not intervening international baseball, hockey or basketball tournaments, or if there are, they are deemed so obscure and subordinate to MLB, NHL & NBA. There is a feeling of “why bother?” when it comes to international competition, thoguh some plucky journalists are trying to stir up passion.

Britain will pay back the last of its World War Two debt to the US by the end of 2006, reports the Telegraph.

There is apparently £346m left of the $4.3bn which Britain borrowed back in 1945 following the end of the Lend-Lease program when the war ended. That amount is about $102bn in today’s money.

The irony is that much of the money had been spent within the first two years by Clement Attlee’s government on the distinctly socialist notions of nationalization of the railways, and the coal and steel industries – things that probably did not go down too well with President Truman’s administration.

Most other countries had paid their debts back to the US a while back, but they didn’t incur the sort of costs that Britain did during the war. Nor did they nave such a large Empire to try and maintain.

So the “award-winning” New York Times Magazine has succeeded where no amount of macho posturing by ex-NFL players could in setting back the cause of football – sorry, soccer – in the US for many years. In case you’re wondering why, it’s apparently because it’s seen as the game played by teenaged boys and girls in the suburbs and therefore is a safe alternative to American Football and other dangerous games, like, err athletics.

This past Sunday’s magazine had a feature on Clint Mathis, an overview of why the rest of the world watches football in a different way to Americans (seemingly the only type of feature that is getting written in the US media about the World Cup prior to its start) and then a highly bizarre photo shoot called the “Boys of Soccer.”

It featured the aforementioned Mathis, Landon Donovan in a compromising position with a water fountain and Brian McBride in tight, paisley cotton Prada pants. The accompanying text was something to behold, e.g. ” Originally from Argentina, Pablo Mastroeni plays defense but not in his Roberto Cavalli turquoise-studded shirt, $1,138, and linen pants, $350. At Roberto Cavalli boutiques.”

Miles had his first trip (of many) to Fire Island over the Memorial Day weekend and you can see what he thought of the beach in pictures.

They perhaps do not quite capture his initial hysterically happy reaction when we first took him down to the beach, but they’re pretty close. He loved being in a place where a large bird might fly down in front of you and you can scream your head off without fear of annoying anybody!

There’s also a few pictures there of Miles hanging out with our friend’s child Alex, who is about six weeks older than him.

You have to love Tony Adams of Arsenal. After all he’s been through with the booze, which he would admit was all entirely self-inflicted, his turnaround has been spectacular. After his testimonial game Monday night, he is waiting a scan on his knee to see if he can continue for another year, but his reaction was, “if not, it’s thank you very much and I’m off to play my piano.”

How many players, especially English center halves, would have said such a thing, even a few years ago? And how he managed to hold down an international football career while consuming as much alcohol as he did through the 1990s is mind-boggling.

Ugh! Two years at QPR awaits us as the small-minded, but influential clowns that live around Fulham somehow managed to persuade a judge to reverse all previous decision and give them leave to appeal. The problem with these NIMBYs (not in my back yard, in case you didn’t know) is that it was already in the back yard, and had been since 1905. I guess hey assumed we would continue failing and quietly go out of business, which is the fate that awaits many of the current lowly football league clubs, unfortunately.

Still, I fear for Fulham too as Al Fayed is not getting any younger, his taste in shirts continues to deteriorate and the Inland Revenue are no doubt getting more and more interested in his financial affairs. All very worrying.

An early blog entry featured cucumber, so to maintain the salad theme as we hit an early summer here in NYC, here is an update from the Guardian about Sunday’s celery-throwing incident at the Fulham v Chelsea FA Cup Semi-Final, which we so frustratingly lost. It appears you can throw celery at someone in England, as long as you have the legal authority to do so.

Of course I’d agree that The Smiths were the most influential band in the last 50 years, but then I would also be described as a typical Smiths fan and NME reader when I was a lad etc etc. Anyway, that’s also the view of the current crop of lads & lasses that read the NME, apparently. It doesn’t seem as if their readership demographic has shifted one iota in 15-plus years. But The Strokes at No.17? That’s one short attention span.

Now this month’s pictures, I think you’ll agree are pretty darn good. He’s almost sitting up on his own (but not quite), his first tooth came through yesterday and we even let him sit on some grass the other day! (Where he lives, that’s not really possible.) Anyway, April’s pictures so far are here.

Christopher Hitchens turns his attention to the Queen Mother in quite the best summing up of what it’s all about in The Guardian.