Not really anything to do with England failing to beat the USA, although it didn’t help. Not the quality of the football either, although some of the opening games have been predictably drab and cagey affairs. No, my beef is with the TV coverage, which is reaching the point where I can hardly bear to [...]
Well, it didn’t happen after all. We finished up with a coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Quite an event for us Brits, accustomed as we are to rigid political boundaries and the centuries-old Parliamentary trench warfare of government v opposition, us v them, yah-boo-sucks Punch and Judy politics that passes for debate here. [...]
So here we are, five days on from the General Election and we still don’t have a result. Having spent days cosying up to the Conservatives. the Liberal Democrats are now negotiating with Labour, although it’s being said that these new talks are not going as well as we might have expected given the vast [...]
All this chatter about the first hung Parliament for 36 years, and what is to be done about it, has completely overshadowed a great event. The Green Party now has its first MP, after Caroline Lucas beat Labour into second place in the Brighton Pavilion constituency with a swing of 8.4%. Hearty congratulations to Dr [...]
I’m just about old enough to remember the last U.K. General Election to result in a hung parliament. I was certainly of an age to vote in 1974, but sadly my memory is now too unreliable for me to remember if I actually did. Probably not, as I was still fanning the dying embers of [...]
I’m grateful to Jim Rawles at Survivalblog.com for a link to a recent study which proposes an innovative approach to the calculation and allocation of required emissions reductions. The study, ‘Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among one billion high emitters’ was published on July 6th in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A PDF [...]
I’m feeling a little stronger now. I was stunned into a strange state of despondency after England’s pathetic exit from the World Cup, so it took me a little while to perk up and notice that there were other sporting events taking place. I’d completely missed the entire first week of Wimbledon… no great loss you might say, and frankly with each year that passes I feel more like agreeing with you.
Wimbledon… the home of lawn tennis, the great annual jamboree of grass, gut, logo-riddled sportswear and strawberries ‘n’ cream. A fortnight of sweat, swearing, grunting, bad manners and testosterone-fuelled fist-pumping. And that’s just the women. And Andrew Murray’s mother.
Andrew Murray… now that Wayne ‘Mr Potato Head’ Rooney and his chav mates have embarrassed themselves into oblivion, the mantle of ‘Great British Sporting Hero’ has been wrapped once again round the shoulders of the slack-jawed, charmless Caledonian. As I write, he is playing (and presumably losing to) Rafa Nadal. I won’t be watching. If I have to watch opposing foreigners batter each other into submission for some tacky, meaningless trophy, I’d rather watch Holland v Brazil or Germany v Argentina.
Oh, and I really hope Nadal wins. I have spent too long listening to our Scottish neighbours proudly declaiming that they would support anybody as long as they were playing England. Well, that cuts both ways, Jimmy.
There might be some cricket happening somewhere, I’m sure the Australians are over here at some point this summer. Perhaps I can sit in the garden and listen to it on the wireless…
Sphere: Related ContentPete Smith @ July 2, 2010
