Author: Richard

The World Cup has produced some magic – Cabo Verde took world champions Argentina to extra time and then equalised again before losing out. So after 4 matches they were unbeaten at full time (including their opening match against European Champions Spain, and despite travel restrictions on their fans by the glorious Trump (twat!). So a country with a slightly higher populationcannot always switch their arrangements than Bristol has taken on the World Champions and the European Champions and gave them a fright – MAGIC!

FIFA meanwhile have shown their utter contempt for … basically everyone; players, supporters, our government, our employees and employers, by proposing an earlier kick off.. Firstly the players – at such a level of professionalism it must be wrong to switch KO from a pleasantly warm evening to the raging heat of the day; supporters to suit a new KO time; our government has changed alcohol licensing laws to accomodate a ‘1am kick off (UK time); employees and employers have made commitments to staff this event; And then they back track and say they are not changing it after all. The excuse was the weather predictions – but was more likely due to pressure from media companies in the UK and Europe – projected viewing figures were way down on expectations. So England players will have been asked to adapt to sweltering temperatures – and then told it was back to before. It is going to be difficult to adapt to the altitude, a very partisan crowd and the expectation of a nation anyway (well part of a nation?). On money – resale tickets for the match in Mexico City have been priced at £24000 – fucking ridiculous – too many people with too much money – a fucked up world! Still America is more interested in Taylor Swifts wedding in NY – who gave $26million to various charities , they are estimated to be worth at least a $billion – so by my very poor calculations it would be like a person with £1000 giving 0.2p to a charity! So next time Taylor make a bigger impact on poverty and the environment – do something meaningful that actually makes a difference.

Meanwhile Farage has flown to America again – to suck Trumps ……? He certainly will not be supporting the England team who are in Mexico! America like Britain has a shitty past, most countries cannot look back at their past with unbridled pride, but not many, if any, had genocide as a government policy.

I guess this all has to be about the USA – I will not try to compete when Rebecca Solnit summed it up beautifully in an article headlined ‘The good, the bad and the ugly”. A country founded on genocide with more than a little corruption along the way has also been inventive and creative in a possitive way for humanity. They should get Danny Boyle design a celebration like London 2012 . I think in the past the USA had much to be proud of, and although late comers I would include WW1 &2, but very little at the present. Oh well I will this topic for now. South Africa is facing another spate of murders – not the genocide spouted by Musk and Trump, but black migrants from other African countries. It seems that a person does not have to be white to be a racist twat!

Can the press stop interviewing ‘formerhead of … ‘ It is becoming boring lstening to their whining and right wing comments which have little substance..

World Cup – England have against them 60000 + mexican supporters, altitude, history and expectation – what could go wrong?

Isuppose it was/is inevitable that spending on Defence is going up but in general it seems to be going in the right places, although I am hesitant about nuclear submarines. What is much more sensible is a proposal to limit education trust executive to a max of £174000 – this is still high, but I doubt if any will be resigning or going on strike! Similar provisions could and should be made for all public servants especially Councils where executive salaries are way to high, universities and the NHS Trusts. If they are good enough they can take industrial jobs and boost the economy in that way. This educational initiative comes after a report stated that schools were failing white working class children, and that many children were spending too much time in isolation. Education was a kinder place when I started teaching in 1975. Local authorities provided essential services a head teacher was provided for each school rather than spending time between several? With academies I see no improvements, other than services being privatised – diners at Churchill Academy have certainly plummeted, kids cannot even sit to enjoy their food and friendships – no wonder so many are fucked up!

Trump has gutted the USAID organisation which has resulted in a lack of contact with local NGO’s around the world; so what! It has saved $millions – but there is a catch. The earthquake disaster in Venezuela has left the US Government clueless a govt. spokesperson said aid was going to be big, fast and effective. Well the fast bit is already a lie, it will probably be big in terms of cost (Trump needs to keep his newest friends sweet), but effective needs good contacts with local NGO’s – so that is a no. Iran has revealed that Trumps belief that power is correlated with military might is totally false. Influence is a much more difficult factor to control, and Trump has destroyed much of the goodwill that tempered the brash behaviour of governments in the past. Copious funding may seem to be wasteful, but the alternative posited by Trump is “do as I say or I will bomb you back to the Stone Age”. He and his supporters are all thick as and talk shit!

There are many things wrong with commercialisation of this World Cup – but a positive has been the lack of crowd trouble, I guess charging people a few grand keeps the knuckle draggers at home, I have not heard of any trouble, and maybe at last a positive regarding Brexit. Now we are out of Europe can the EU ask for visa applications – all with a violent past could be banned, or would they use the small boats abandoned by migrants. If the groups were lined up there is no argument of whom wins. And the football has been – good at times and often tedious – especially the universally hated hydration breaks. Scottish fans again were wonderful, Curacao did themselves proud and Cabo Verde through to the last 32 is the stuff of fiction and dreams. That is why football is so lovely, accessible to all, supporters will not be priced out – just move to clubs like United of Manchester, every season starts with fresh hope and desires, when they crumble, inevitably, there is still the occasional flash of light in the tunnel. Whilst many youngsters are swayed by kit or publicity to support one of the top teams, most remain loyal to either their roots or their first loves. I have done so, I wss brought up to a hammer or spur, but at the age of 11 chose Sunderland, never been their or even close- at the age of 14 I was taken to WHU to see them score 8 against a hapless Sunderland. But once selected it is ingrained in the DNA. My son is the same with Everton. Most of the time we can rely on players to perform at their best (if we could only say the same for duplipitous, corrupt MP’s swayed by false importance and arrogantly thinking they are better than the rest of us – a footballer soon gets brought down to earth by the wags in the crowd. Yes they are millionaires but they are playingba game they love and most donate copiously to charity notably Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling.