Don’t Look At Me…He’s To Blame…

The current furore over Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension is Britain at its most idiotic and prurient. I really can’t abide this government much longer, resorting to the politics of shame and embarrassment to get this idiot to renounce his contract because, basically speaking, the only way they can cut this guy’s pension entitlement through force is to break the sanctity of contract. It is unedifying to watch a government in its death throes lashing out at others for their culpability in the current economic travails, while completely denying their own part in the monstrous shenanigans taking place in our names now.

 

Gordon Brown is a total disaster. His shouting and hollering at Goodwin, and the pretty stupid threats to him, are the politics of the mob. They have no basis in the rule of law, the sort of thing that separates us from the Zimbabwe’s of this world (and from my seat, that difference is getting narrower), and for you to threaten to revoke a lawfully made contract under the aegis of a public outcry you fanned (and got the press lackeys to get on board to, the lickspittle twats) debases this country.

 

I hold no candles for Sir Fred Goodwin, who ruined a bank, and cost the taxpayers of this country a fortune. By edging him off stage left with a pay-off, because they did not have the balls to sack him, they allowed him this pension. You can’t say in retrospect that you didn’t like it then and we’ll sue you. You can’t do as that buffoon Prescott said, “take it away, and let him sue for it back” because that is the law of the dictator and not of the people. In my opinion, anyone without any respect for the sanctity of contract is not fit to be in Parliament.

 

I hat-tip a site I really enjoy reading, Devil’s Kitchen, for a quote from Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons.. it is unbelievably apt.

 

“What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? … And when the law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?

This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s, and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”

 

It is a cheap point, but one that still needs to be made. If we are on about clawing money back for the mistakes of the past, what are Brown, Darling, Smith, Straw, Harperson et al giving up “voluntarily”? Given how so many are making hay on the Parliamentary Expense Account racket, I’d say by their actions they should be judged. For them, Sir Fred is a godsend. A pantomime villain in need, indeed.

And the Daily Mash just plain out nails it…

Another Up Against The Wall

This time it is Robert Peston.

Who?

Yes, for those of you who have followed the economic collapse with all the excitement that you would follow the latest developments in root canal surgery, one of the biggest beneficiaries is a BBC reporter/expert/ tosser called Robert Peston. Courtesy of someone leaking from one of the finance departments (Treasury or FSA), which I call the benefits of sneakery, this man has become the leading talking head on what is happening in our economy. I don’t need a sneering prick to tell me we’re fucked, but it sure as well helps let out some well-deserved rage.

When your claim to fame is benefiting from someone grassing,  you had better be eloquent. This toffee nosed patroniser couldn’t communicate if he tried. His delivery is full of pompous sneers, more erm and ahs than a Steven Gerrard soliloquy, and at the end, I just want to chuck a shoe at his head – not because of the bad news on some bank he’s been tipped off about, but because he is an aggravating ponce.

I will add more to this particular missive as and when, because quite appropriately, the BBC website is currently down.

The Decline of the WindyBricks

Three games to report back on since last we talked about the performance of the boys from Chilly Gust Road. Surrounding Gambia Farmland for ever!

Against the dog chains, the WindyBricks huffed and puffed, and even had good chances which as usual they failed to take. They had Jasmin OdelayDagenham in quixotic form with two goals and an elbow to our own Dagenham Dave, which “premier league” referee Alan Prick with one L (he is a premier league ref, Alan the Athletics Commentator kept telling us he was) missed. Thank f*ck we had a top ref in the house. Quite why Fusewire, who has played well when I’ve seen him, was banished to the wing while Dartford Dave on the other was having such fun was beyond me. Kenny Overcoat is making some baffling decisions these days.

And so to the shipping home of Oxo, and a 2-0 lead was not enough. Ally’s lazy useless army was really shaking things up with a brace – one a scrambled effort, the other a penalty, but a non-premier league ref sent off Dartford Dave for a couple of reckless challenges (while apparantly missing a stamp by one of their’s) and WindyBrick’s legendary ability to perform without one of their number came to fruition as the Oxo Shippers got two goals to send us home with a point. As they are just outside the play-off zone, that chucking away of a couple of points could prove vital.

And so to last Tuesday, and our game against Julian Wilson and the Magic Roundabouters. Wee Willie Carson may have snaffled a derby or two in a heist, especially on Erhaab I seem to recall, but this mob had one shot/header on target that I recall and that was the goal. Eve’s Rock headed straight at the keeper early on in the piece (“I refuse to clap people fucking up” was my retort as others greeted an effort on target as if Angelina Jolie had threatened to take her kit off) and another Explosive Axeman cross was headed by the man Kinnear would call Agadoo in a much better effort, which was met with an excellent save.

WindyBricks conceded a goal from a non-free kick, and the Red Sox’s ancient relief pitcher, taking time out from Fort Myers, swung over a cross headed in by the decorator. In the second half the WindyBricks huffed and puffed, saw the snatcher limp off in a depressed mope, saw the Old Jos ex-fast bowling hippy go off with gutsache, and laughed as Ally’s Lazy Wizzy Army played like a prick. And as ZS texted me to lament the quality of Nasser Insane’s interview with Sarwan, and I crafted a response, I saw a ball lace into the top corner of Julian Wilson’s Magic Roundabouter’s net. Alas, I’d missed what is known in the craft as a “wonder goal”, scored by Hooray Not Thierry, on loan from a shithole. He has bandy legs too. A near miss by Kinnear would call him Agadoo completed proceedings as WindyBricks endured another dreadful evening game – this time a late goal securing a draw rather than a win.

On to Saturday and a game with the Pebble Shitting birds from the Illuminating Coast. I can’t wait. And neither can anyone else. Cue FatBoy Slim who has never had an original fucking thought in his head. Happy Hour again!

To Hell With It….

One of those days, I’m afraid…

It happens when you have a persistent pain in the foot and you have just paid for a travelcard meaning you won’t drive to work.

It happens when work gives you the raging hump for nothing other than being just concerned with how you look rather than what you do. Never got that. Covering one’s arse is for the meek and timid.

It happens when petty annoyances aren’t settled and allowed to fester.

It happens when you go out of your way to go to others “big days” but come yours, a number pull up the shutters.

Insecurity it may be, but at the end of the day, I try my best and if that ain’t good enough, well…..

The Most Expensive Roider In History…

A-Roid, as he should now be known for time eternal, is coming clean in stages about his use of steroids in some period earlier this decade. For years American sport sat on its high horse, getting all upset with East German and Russia athletes doping at will and not getting caught, and now it is coming home to roost, big time. Baseball has its icon in the sights of a voracious media, and he’s going to take the bullet. Whether it is fatal depends on the thickness of A-Roid’s skin, or whether he confesses all to a grand jury or congressional hearing. Right now, from where I am, the line to take from A-Roid is to say I did it when I was a Texas Ranger but I’d never besmirch the Yankees in taking such stuff there. I don’t think it passes any smell test, but I don’t have an opinion that counts.

 

True, A-Roid has Hobson’s Choice here. No-one is going to ever believe everything he says, and much of what he has to say is down to memory – we can all get those facts wrong every now and again, even on important issues. But the story about a mystery cousin getting the stuff, injecting him and him not knowing it was wrong, is all a bit naff. Come clean, ho ho ho, and say why you used them. You wanted to be better than you already were, you knew steroids did this, and you were prepared to take that chance. It is the only reason anyone does it – it isn’t naivety, or stupidity, or being young. You want to take advantage of what is out there to help you become famous / make more money. Be honest.

 

I read the book Game of Shadows, and the bit in that that was most frightening (and I may not have it 100% accurate, but the spirit is in this), in its own way, is where they ask whether Tim Montgomery would trade winning the 100m Olympic final on drugs for dropping dead straight after – and the answer was in the affirmative as he would have achieved something in sport that he was so driven for. That’s why these people cheat – and please spare me the line that steroids weren’t forbidden in baseball at the time, because everyone who watched sport knew that taking this sort of stuff was morally, if not legally wrong.

 

What is next? The beloved is bleating on about how unfair it is for A-Roid’s name to be in the public domain and the other 103 aren’t. Sure, as a Red Sox fan the opportunity to rub things in is there, but that is not the point. Is it wrong that A-Roid is out there, all alone, with the other 103 shrouded in the anonymity he was promised? Yes. However, is it right for someone with his contract to have benefitted from enhanced performance which absolutely meant his contract value increased? I think that deserves to be highlighted. Yankee fans shouting out David Ortiz are really off the mark. Even if Ortiz did it, and there is absolutely nothing in the public domain to say that he has, what the hell has that got to do with the biggest earner in the sport being tagged for doing something wrong. No, it isn’t a Yankee thing, as the witch hunt over Barry Bonds proves, but if you put yourself up as the moral guardian of the game at the same time as spending the house to buy everything with a statistical superiority, you are not entitled to moan when someone shines a light on your house.

 

To point at unproven misdemeanours by others is not what should be going on. Defending A-Roid is always going to be done by Yankee fans, and hell, I understand it, but to put it mildly there is a body of work building in the Bronx and the messages have to be uncomfortable – Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and now Alex Rodriguez. This isn’t the muppet show here, but top-line baseball megastars. That not one of the Red Sox “megastars” has yet been shown up is down to anti-Yankee bias in their eyes. But it misses the point – maybe, just maybe, none of Boston, or Chicago, or Philadelphia’s “megastars” got caught. The Yankees did. Don’t point at your neighbour when your finger got caught in the cookie jar.

 

A Boston star may well be next in line, as these stories have a habit of growing more legs as the days go by. At that time the Yankees will be gleeful as they have their point made for them. And on opening day in April, they’ll line up at the new Yankee stadium and forget all about what has happened within a couple of months. That’s the way of sport, and the way of fandom. We are quick to forgive, as long as the man delivers. It is all too preposterous to take that seriously anyway.

 

I would just like to know how a professional sportsman, a multi-millionaire, would allow someone to inject something into him that he thought “might work” and not do the proper research and analysis of what he was doing to himself in so doing. An idiot getting injected on 70 odd occasions and yet he pretends he really didn’t know what he was doing? Please God.

 

 

 

The Double Ton

How odd – just brought up the century on the cricket blog, and we make 200 on the Seven and Seven Eighths insight into Dmitri’s life….

 

It all started in the beloved’s guest house in Cape of the Fifth Month, in the more up to date Channel Island, on 10 September. I had been on the road the preceding week as the beloved and I travelled up to Massachusetts and Vermont before returning to her lovely coastal town. It was in Burlington, Vermont that the name of the blog struck me, and the moniker by which I would choose to be known on here were set.

 

Seven and Seven Eighths and Dmitri Old.

 

I am really pleased with the results and I love the layout and scope wordpress gives this amateur blogger who always wanted to keep a diary but didn’t want to scribe it. I now can do all I want on here save name the football team I most like due to the idiocy that preceded this blog. I may tend towards introspection and the things I like, but as I’ve always said, and what some people can’t get their heads around, I do this for me. I love looking back at where I was right, where I was wrong, and how cantankerous ZS is – my own Stadler and Waldorf rolled into one.

 

So there’s lighthouses, coastal scenes, rants, climate change, national anthems.

 

At 200 posts the top five most popular have been…

 

1.             http://sevenandseven.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/global-warming-sorry-climate-change-spin/

 

This was purely because I got an automatic generated link on a site that gets a million hits a month – wattsupwiththat.com – and my unscientific ramblings would not have interested those more technically minded.

 

2.             http://sevenandseven.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/oh-the-comic-genius/

 

The Brand / Ross episode generated a good deal of acrimony from your’s truly as I got the hump with the idiots who perpetrated the nonsense and then found that I loathed the Daily Mail’s agenda more. I generated some traffic from a site called Obsolete, as well.

 

3.             http://sevenandseven.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/roatan-island-my-experience/

 

Third up is my experience on honeymoon of one of the Bay Islands off Honduras. It is fair to say the island did not live up to its billing, and it was interesting to see Sky Travel sell a cruise itinerary on a Carnival super-liner, and skip over a visit here. I also produced some photos for your delectation

 

4.             http://sevenandseven.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/patti-labelle-someone-has-posted-it/

 

Patti Labelle’s demolition of the US National Anthem was a wonder to behold. Some loved it, many more loathed it. I was in the latter camp.

 

5.             http://sevenandseven.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/a-brilliant-advert-for-the-nfl/

 

My comments on the Cardinals / Eagles game drew some interest. Surprising really.

 

I haven’t generated the responses of my previous home, but I enjoy this a lot more, as the ability to upload media is so much better here. I am running two blogs and that takes up some time, so apologies the original home has not been as busy as usual, but with over 2300 hits, and that does not include me, I am happy with the way it is going so far. I don’t do it for the hits, but it is nice to see I am read by my mates and if anyone stumbles in here, they are more than welcome. Except for WindyBrick trolls.

Can Anything Be Much More Laughable Than Chelsea

I’ll ramble on about this if time allows, but who is actually hiring and firing at this club, because it appears the lunatics are in charge of the asylum. I’ve seen more coherence from ZS after a skinful.

Chelsea are going downhill, but who have they bought? Deco has never been my cup of tea and look how Barca have performed now he’s gone. Bosingwa’s been a plus, but anyone wondering why second rate stars like Quaresma are turning up when bigger fish are out there? Is Roman closing his wallet in tune with the Russian economy’s slide?

Oh, hiring Scolari was by-the-numbers stuff. When they got Mourinho they picked the man who won the Champions League. When they picked Scolari they had a World Cup winner. If I were Chelsea I’d go for Martin O’Neill. If I were Martin O’Neill, I’d run a mile.

World Sport Stadia – The 4th Part….

The only baseball venue I’ve been to twice – Citizen’s Bank Park, Philadelphia. This was for a June 2007 game – Philadelphia Phillies v San Francisco Giants.

The statue, as you can tell, is outside the stadium. It was a hot day, ended by a thunderstorm. The Giants won 13-0.

Irony

I can’t be bothered that much with the mock outrage engineered by the thought police over Jeremy Clarkson calling Gordon Brown a “One-eyed Scottish Idiot”.

However, am I the only one amused that the rent-a-mouth MP they have got the “unforgivable” quote from was Gordon Banks.

No, not that one… http://www.ifhof.com/hof/banks.asp who had to retire due to……

But this no mark I’d never heard of… http://www.gordonbanksmp.co.uk/

Journalists are Sick. Or thick and rang him up thinking it was England’s finest ever goalkeeper……

Green Adair

Obviously his time as the captain of British Industry has left this idiot a bit punch drunk, for him to dribble out with this load of old nonsense… (with all due health warnings over the source)

I would be intrigued to note how this piece of totalitarian ruling will actually be implemented, whether it applies to people regardless of income, job, status or religion – sorry Mohammed, you can’t go to Mecca this year, but if your papers are in order, and you don’t take a holiday for the next two years, we might let you go. I wonder how Arsenal would get to Donetsk for the Champions League fixture, whether Carlos Tevez will not be allowed to play for Argentina, or whether KP should e-mail Bangalore and tell them Green Adair’s scheme and he won’t be able to sign his contract.

When idiots like this are allowed to pontificate, my freedoms get curbed. Stop being Nazis. As many sites I read say, 1984 was a work of fiction, not an instruction manual.

Elephants Don’t Ice Skate

A line I use whenever my work colleagues want me to go to Somerset House or some other ice involved nonsense. However, the line is much more appropriate for my walk to the local station this morning. Note to council people. It is now two full days since the snow stopped. Are there reasons why we can’t actually make pavements safe now? I nearly fell arse over tit three times this morning on sheet ice on a major walkway to the station. It is a joke. The hill in those pictures below could easily be skiied down, and yet few people actually seem to be doing anything.

Just spellbindingly dreadful. Oh, that’s right. We’re not Moscow.

Number 3 In The Stadium Series..

Rest in Pieces…..

More Coastal Stuff From A Warm Climate…

Welcome to Accra Beach in Rockley, Barbados. Really tough place to visit. This first one was taken in the early morning in October 2005.

Yo! VIP. Let’s Kick It….ICE ICE BABY…

It would be remiss of me not to moan about this bloody weather.

 

It is the usual story, but yet again so true. How comes this city can’t cope, and I don’t buy the “we aren’t Moscow” line that has been trotted out this winter. On the posting below you will see a picture of the hill I live at the bottom of. The north face of the Eiger it is not. In days gone by, located on the left hand side of the photo, there used to be a container of salt / grit so that even if the council forget us again, at least the residents would be able to take some action to get us out of the estate. That container has disappeared, and so has our ability to salt 100 metres of road to let cars get up the hill and on to the gritted main road. F*ck Moscow like infrastructure, all we want is common sense. Why has this been taken away?

 

Second, at least when snow fell in the past, we only had to wait a day for action. Now into the second day and the pavements are like sheets of ice. Some stations have not been cleared of snow (Mottingham this morning was a joke). The DLR, which is not, as far as I am aware, staffed much at each station had all their platforms clear. Are Southeastern just a bunch of lazy bastards? Has Robert Blackbird got them on a go-slow for elfin safety?

 

Then there was my train journey. All trains were Mumbai commuter packed, but my particularly lovely experience of being wedged onto a train was augmented by the 15 minute stop at Hither Green. What a joy that was! I trundled up to work a mere 30 minutes late – but grateful to have made it. South East London obviously living up to its reputation as the dark side of the moon.

 

Even where I work has seen little in the way of removal of ice skating rinks. Are they really hoping we all break our wrists on this stuff?

 

I shall be setting out for the wild blue yonder soon, and hope to make it home in time for my next birthday. WindyBricks are no go tonight, so it’s a night in with the beloved and Fox News reporting back even more on those crazeeeee Americans.

 

It’s snow joke.

Coastal Scenery – More From A Warm Climate on a Cold Day

Back to Barbados, and the northern point of that beautiful island…

On the  map below, these pictures are from North Point.

A couple more from Bathsheba on the East Coast….

Bathsheba was one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to. Wild, untamed and spectacular..

More Winter

From the latest venture out

Cheap Shot

It would be a cheap point to raise on this day, the worst snow for 18 years at least, to remark about how stupid that global warming guff really seems.

I note no stories on this today. They’ll regroup, say its evidence because it is yet another extreme event, blah blah blah.

More globally warmed London for you…

Casa Dmitri In Winter Wonderland…

London has snow, Dmitri has a new cameraphone. Result….

Second World Stadia Photo….

More a racetrack, actually….

Garrison Savannah wasn’t just the name of a Gold Cup winner, but also a race track in Barbados just outside Bridgetown..

Small Things…

I know, I shouldn’t laugh, but…..

With all due nods in the way of a site called Devil’s Kitchen….