Fantasy Football

... Romania!

Iancu (BBLB) on the tv - administrative difficulties shouldn't affect the football team ... erm, like not paying them?

Can you imagine anyone not being paid and being expected to go out and give their all? Well, some charity workers for a good cause, but Iancu is not a good cause!

And idiot Petrescu ... "we gave them a lesson in how to play football" - I thought the idea was to score goals - and what was the score, oh yes, a 1-1 draw. Strange lesson.

But what is really frightening is the way the sports press are allowing these people to get away wit it ... still no reporting of the financial mismanagement, the failure to pay wages, the interference in the team by a man who is supposed to be suspended.

Fat Man Singing

... and the show is not over 'til!

Let me tell you the plot of a soap opera, not too far from reality ...

There is a certain Big Bellied, Little Brained Football-Club "owner" (Romanian) who seems to think the rest of the world is as stupid as he! I suspect Bass but could be an aging tenor.

He is apparently out of money - he is known to owe large amounts to various 'friends' so his personal probity is somewhat suspect.

He tried to recover his loses by selling the club he 'owns' (after loosing 6 points for the season by his idiotic actions) - but doesn't seem to have been successful.

Whilst he was quiet and not involved, the team flourished - 10 national games without a loss. Team spirit goes up, the fans sing a chorus of praise.

The Big Belly's deals fall through and he tries to take over control. Dark strings in the background of celebrations.

First thing he thinks of is the selling of low level players he's purchased after bad advice from the ever accompanying toadies and brown tonguers (got to be tenors with a whine and bass singing falsetto).

To do this he wants them to play in the first team. He sends a list of to be included to the heroic team manager/coach (lyric tenor of a baritone) who refuses to change the team.

Mysteriously, against the odds, the next game is lost ... and there is the suspicion certain players have sold out to the Big Belly! Even more suspicious is the public vilification Big Belly launches against the coach.

The chorus mutters but is too intoxicated to really respond - disaster looms if it doesn't act, but will it see through Big Belly in time?

Team spirit is starting to be rocked - fear of the none payment of wages, the removal of an effective, winning coach, inefficient and poor support staff starts to run an undercurrent of sharps and discordant noise in the newly forged harmonies.

Disaster - a threat from Big Belly, just before an important match - teams spirit is further eroded ... but with an heroic effort the team manage to salvage a draw ...

Big Belly strikes again - wages are not paid ... footballers, who had been giving their all are not given wages, the coach is not paid ... and the press stay quiet! Distracted by Big Belly and his talk of the future, they fail to see through the lies and deceptions ...

What will the final act bring ?

Black Futures

I refuse to get 'upperty' about the degree of ignorance exposed in the world over the black hole issue - what I will say is 'so much for Science education!'

Romanians (I am sure) are no worse than other nations (although the refusal to recognise their backwardness in things educational is spectacular - one teacher in a 'respectable' secondary school not far from where I am typing openly taught a class of 17-18 year olds that the dinosaurs died out because they didn't go into Noah's Arc and dinosaurs and people lived at the same time!), but the emotional outpouring of fear over the CERN experiment is amazing to behold. The strongest reason given so far for such fear and belief in the inevitable end of the world is Nostradamus and his 'predictions - so much for the quality of education.

Thank goodness the Romanian National football team is doing so badly - it is providing a much needed distraction. The headline "major" victory for a 1-0 defeat of the Faeroe Island team I suspect is a little over the top. In case anyone here needs reminding - the population of the islands is less than 50,000!

Mind you, the glorious victory of the English over the Croatians, if population is a factor, doesn't quite hold up to too much inspection.

But Walcott got 3 so I don't care.

Bad Day in Timisoara

There are days and there are – ‘one of those days’!

Yesterday was a distinctly – ONE OF THOSE DAYS!!!!

I should have realised it was gong to be bad when I woke with a headache – never a good sign.

Downloading from the internet site I buy my music from was slow – and a couple of tracks needed reloading. I wrote a great Shakespeare blog – and had trouble posting it.

The walk and sit by the river, on what turned out to be a very hot and uncomfortable afternoon produced nothing but the briefest flash of Kingfisher and a wag of wagtail. Coupled with that was a meeting with one of those people I know – but I’ll be damned if I know who it was or why I knew them (although a name is floating around in the background).

I tried the park and that was no better – too many ambulances and police sirens, heat annoyed drivers and irritating children.

The news was bad – Poli Timisoara no longer exists (that’s the local football team) it has been stripped not only of its name (a noble name) but also of its colours – which I think no bad thing as they are the most awful clash of tastelessness I’ve ever encountered on 22 legs. They have also lost 6 points – which smacks somewhat of insult on top of injury and is distinctly political.

However, the locals have got revolting – and when the Timisoarian get revolting, governments and systems fall … remember 1989? (If you don’t, it was the start of the Romanian Revolution – the only one where the former communist leaders actually got shot). The afternoon sirens were partly responding to the taking to the streets and throwing things at the police that was going on around the stadium.

When I get home – my computer has collapsed – it refuses to start up and rebooting is not working …

I am now on my old, un-connectible to anything and don’t breath too hard or it’ll stop working and anything you do write will have to be transferred using a memory stick if you are lucky – floppy disc if you are not - laptop bought last millennium.

So – no internet – no nothing: All the work, all the downloads, all the documents and … well, everything, looks lost. That includes all the music I downloaded over the last couple of months too.

Blood is flowing. I’ve been seriously sucked by several insects … a join the dots pattern on my upper arm, bites on the feet, on the hands and one really irritating one in the middle of my back. As I type there is one of those females just waiting on the wall. I’m out of spay.

Other blood has been flowing too.

Around 9pm there was an almighty racket as the mob moved from the stadium and marched – I went out and followed them through to Opera Square – there were several hundreds of them and very well behaved too – mind you, they were being shepherded by riot police (two truck loads if the empty trucks are anything to go by) in full gear. They were also being followed by a large number of horn honking cars. Impressive.

And nothing happened – the local TV stations tried to incite some reaction – hanging flags from the Opera House balcony (where the fans could not get so how did the flags and banners get there without the media assisting?).

There was some mighty fine chanting, for 15 minutes. Then things petered out and quickly everyone drifted away.

When I got home the sports channels were talking – talking – talking: A sure sign that nothing will happen, the Romanians are great talkers.

Then I tried going to bed.

It didn’t work.

Gone two am and heading for three – and I’m messing around here, sipping a second cup of tea, fighting off the female dinners on my red-stuff waiting for some sort of resolution to a really bad ‘one of those days’.

Only a Game

What, with the strange sleeping patterns induced by excess of leisure, I happened to be 'watching the football' - odd language, English.

Romanian (football, and language) I'm afraid (shows how bad the TV choice is over here).

The referee was hit on the head by a flying object in around the 70th minute: There is no doubt of that - several (thousand) repeated showings highlight the fact.

Response of the man who owns the club (Rapid) - a set up.

The repeated showing also show a number of items on the pitch - being moved off by his own players and his own players (well, the foreign ones) waving and shouting at the fans (Rapid) responsible.

“No – NO! a set up” – spies and second-columnist Steaua (opposing team) supporters amongst our loyal fans – the referee was paid to throw the match.

The referee is clearly ‘hit’ – no doubt: Not a single official of the Rapid team has apologised; instead, without exception it seems, they are pleased.

This is Romanian football.

Also telling is the two day storm still blowing – as the owners of the clubs vie for position on the TV – show after show with a range of Rapid owners and others ‘slagging-off’ the referees.

Does no one here see?

So, the referee stopped the game – not straight away, after he goes to start it again and more things are thrown onto the pitch.

Rapid, and its fans are, hopefully, going to loose not only the match, but also the right to a live audience.

The Rapid players, and management and owners physically attacked the referee as he tried to leave the field –

But the referee is to blame.

Interesting to note, over in the UK, managers (including that of the national team) are setting up the conditions for disciplining any player who shows decent!

Sometimes I wonder if I am living on the same planet.

Sporting Madness

I have to say – I am, by no means, ‘Sporty’.

Picture my surprise then at the time I spent watching the damn thing yesterday – a large chunk of a tennis match; almost the whole of one football match and several serious chunks of a second.

Andy Roddick is one of those people you are free to admire – he is not squeaky clean, he needs a shave now and then, and he perspires: He is, however, the perfect ‘English’ gentleman – something he denies occasionally.

Roddick goes out to win, happily demolishing any opponent mercilessly: But you just know he won’t cheat. I can’t think of a single other tennis player I would be so sure of saying such a thing about (although I suspect one or two others might fit the charge).

He won in Dubai yesterday through effort, coming back from a set down, with a steely determination and a glint of charm in his eye. You just want to shake his hand and say, “Well done.”

Not so with the football.

I watched parts of two English cup matches and, although the results were glorious in there unexpectedness, I really can’t say I enjoyed the victories.

The Man Utd game was a disgrace – I didn’t want United to win, but I didn’t want them to loose through such atrocious, unfair refereeing. A hollow victory for Portsmouth. The ‘game’ stops being a game when the rules are abused in such a blatant way – it’s one reason why most Romanian football matches are unwatchable.

Barnsley won – and that is magnificent! The underdogs break through, again; the fairy tale continues.

Saddening is the reaction I feel – more delight in Chelsea loosing than in Barnsley winning.

What a state of affairs when such a spirited and uncompromising effort as the Yorkshire teams takes second place to the defeat of the southerners.