Looking for adornments for the Wild West birthdays party of uni friends at the end of September, I chanced upon a fine pair of pearly-handled six-shooters in a toy shop. These should be more than adequate if John Prescott should show his mug plus his unequivocally innocently donated stetson, cowboy boots and belt at the party. The thing about Prezza and cowboys is that he's too big for even himself in one town. Hopefully, though he'll be too busy being entertained unequivocally innocently by other wealthy American businessmen looking to curry favours. Or he may just be lying low (or as low as possible).
While in that same toy shop, I happened to find a board game with Napoleonic-era uniformed officers on the frontispiece. It was called Stratego Original. Turning over to read a precis of the game, some very familiar elements (and a picture) combined to fill me with suspicion. On this occasion when I say very familiar, I mean identical. This concept was no less than the French game L'Attaque under a reworked title. Some things were different, for instance the Spy was no longer a French wino lying sozzled in a ditch (who would suspect him?!?) but a sophisticated Henna-haired female operative, but the traits were the same. So simply what I beheld was a game that used a "ye olde foreigne" word and then called itself Original to suggest the re-release of a classic. What a wheeze. I think I should try my hand at creating Riski Original or Monopolia Original.
Oh, these learned, literary types who come on shows to air their wares and their views. I caught a disturbing snatch of one such professorial woman, as I walked in the kitchen with my parents' Radio 4 Women's Hour on, talking about "little Jane writing this self-defecating poem when she was only nine." The content of the poem was distinctly self-deprecating. So, well done to the kid and incontinence pants all round for the critic.

Target practice

When you see helicopters whizzing overhead, you don't pay much attention, unless it is the highlight of a rather dull Romanian Second Division football match (and there were two on that occasion). But if they return and make several swoops, like today over a public field, you begin to wonder what's happening and this army helicopter was making all these manouevres in keeping in landing in a hostile zone. Could it be that the air wing of the army is making dry runs for Iraq in the badlands of Gillingham?

Job done

Newcastle got into the UEFA Cup proper by drawing with Latvians Ventspils 0-0 on the night (1-0 aggregate) and that playing without any recognised strikers through injury/lack of availability. Not wishing to evict my family from the living room, I listened to it on radio - I would only turf them out of the lounge if/when Newcastle started scoring goals, but that didn't become an issue. Ventspils not once in ninety minutes came anywhere near the Newcastle goal, let alone threaten it and for twenty minutes in the second half I fell asleep, so lacking in edge as the match was. They were expecting a beating and so tried to minimise the damage, to the extent that they were happy to get a draw (despite going out), improving the Latvian league's UEFA rating, so I won't begrudge them that.
Today I send off for my Mongolian visa for my planned two weeks there in September.

Bad photo

Remind me never to use PhotoVision booths again, at least not the one in Woolworths. So staggered was I, that on trying to discuss it with my dad, all I could was utter "rubbish, rubbish," before (after a second or two) delving into greater eloquence to reason my registering of disgruntlement. Contrary to the picture the computer screen showed me for my approval (hurried along by a ten-second time limit), the four photos produced turned my blue shirt to grey and produced a patch of white light on top of my head. Overall, the pictures are crap, compounded four times! And I paid £3.50 for this! If, horror of horrors, I should become irretrievably separated from my passport, I won't be using any of these for a new passport photo. They're (barely) fit for visa applications and nowt else I can see.

Three pieces of good news today. Warning - they're all football-realated.
First off, Newcastle got shot of Jean-Alain Boumsong for as much as could be hoped really (no, not ten pence). A handsome £3.3 million from disgraced Italian giants Juventus is winging its way to Newcastle's accounts as Boumsong heads in the opposite direction. Maybe the more sedate surroundings of Serie B will suit him more than the Premiership.
Liverpool make sure of at least 3 English representatives in the Champions League by wrapping up a nervy aggregate victory over Maccaibi Haifa, by drawing in neutral Kiev. How it might have turned out if the second-leg had been staged in Tel-Aviv (Haifa totally out of the question) is hard to tell with the Israeli team really piling on the pressure after their equaliser. All the same, Liverpool are through.
And some excellent news from the Carling Cup as some undesirable unmentionables add to their moniker of the 'worst team in history' by becoming the worst team in the country. losing not one, but (count 'em) two goals to Bury, who are propping up entire League football at the bottom of League Two. This follows on the back of four defeats out of four in the Championship. Some misguided people might have sympathy; I find it hilarious.

A farewell to arms (and Maria)

Last night was the leaving-do of one of my friends from uni, Maria Tabuo, held in London. And as Blondie sang "Maria, you've got to see her," which is what I did. Going to London also allowed me to take my passport from my grandfather who had kindly collected it from the Chinese embassy the day before where it received a visa stamp (I went for the 2-3 day service). Afterwards I made my journey to Clapham Common where the bash was being held, fortified by a third of a bottle of wine from my time at my granddad's. I was the first to arrive at Restaurant Eco and in my boredom I turned to drink (is this how alcoholism starts?), a cheap but decent Italian beer. Maria wasn't too late; the group was mostly of her church mates - of those I knew beforehand Mims was there and Simon came directly from Eurostar almost, after another round of gallavanting in Europe. Anna and Danni arrived after the meal to find us a suitable bar to go to and indeed it was, where the music volume was no impediment to conversation. Au revoir Maria, but hopefully not farewell.
I don't know why I listen to Any Questions (or watch its TV euivalent). The panel is so constructed that the members either corroborate my existing views or infuriate me with their outrageously unprogressive sentiments and I don't want to get angry, because that is antithetical to happiness. A case in point was Joan Bakewell, comedienne, saying that the '7/7' (a nasty name of reducing tragdey to numbers anyway) bombers were all from Pakistan. Err, three were homegrown Yorkshiremen and the fourth was Jamaican-born. Then she said Pakistan was in South-East Asia. What?!?! Pakistan is in South Asia. That's like saying Britain is a next-door neighbour of Cyprus. Despite getting her facts more twisted than Ken Bate's mum's tits in a mangle, she did manage to say something quite lucid, in that the conflict between Israel and some of those who border her is a result of mutually retrospective injustices. One side does one atrocity, prompting a reciprocal atrocity from the other, which drives the other to respond. History lives in the memory, not just books. The only way out is tolerant forgiveness. If Israel had held its anger in check, Hizbullah were rapidly fading as a force in Lebanon, if Hizbullah had gone through the proper channels they could have effectively highlighted the plight of Lebanese in Israeli prisons and kept the emphasis on Israel's offensive in Gaza. Although adherents of Christianity find it hard to implement (since we are all human), forgiving one's enemies is the greatest sign of compassion and will earn you the greatest amount of praise, something we could all do with.

Yesterday, I did a spot of what is proverbially known as 'organised loafing' - that is, going to see a cricket match. While England were toiling at the Oval, I went down to Hove with my dad to meet up with a friend of his and we indulged in the county cricket side of things. We fuelled up on a big English breakfast in a rather drab cafe-cum-pub with the weirdest toilet doors I've seen since Mongolia. The home team was Sussex and I wasn't going to rock the boat, supporting them over the visitors, Durham. As my dad's friend revealed, Sussex were near the top of the county league, only behind Lancashire and so the standard would be expected to be decent. As I entering the ground at 11.30, I don't know if it was the sea air, the sporific aura of cricket or a full stomach on little sleep, but I immediately felt drowsy, even dropping off for 15 mins (which, of course, had a sudden bout of mass run scoring). Cricket is one of those games, where it's important that they don't score runs from every ball, so that when they do score it perks you up. Sussex rattled up a 530 score (it was the second day of the match) with only five wickets taken and declared over lunch. Cue pub lunch in the rather nice adjoining pub to the ground. I have been missing my free cider-tasting that I had at the Double Locks in Exeter, but this sufficed. Back in, Durham were put out to bat and were promptly blown away for a 150; they had to make it to 150 - 150 away from 530 that is! With the insurmountable task that lay before them, the northern club were caught in two minds between stalling and vainglory and Sussex plundered. The rain virtually held off for the whole match (almost all other matches were rain-affected) and the visitors were thoughtful enough to lose their first innings in time for me and my dad to catch the 17.50 train back to Kent.
Watched last night Dragon's Den. The first series largely passed me by but I'm certainly into this one. Essentially it's another Pop Idol format where hopefuls come and parade their wares under the steely glare of judges. Unlike the catalogue of others, there is no braying audience who boo a judge pantomime-style after a cute put-down and the professionals (the judges) have the ultimate say. The studio is utterly pared down bar for a few curious objects to identify with the oddball entrepreneurs (and most of them are the former). I try to pay close attention so that hopefully some of the common sense of the dragons brushes off on me. However, Evan Davis, while highly personable as a correspondent, flounders somewhat as an anchor. I can predict every word of every sentence he utters when evaluating the situation that it's ridiculous. He needs a better script or that robotic grin of his will widen and widen til it bursts his face, although I would like to see him partnered with Graham Norton (who is wasted with his contemporia output) - it would be a hoot seeing Norton take the piss out of failed contestants.
Followed that up by watching Enemy of the State with Will Smith. It's like a 1970s paranoid conspiracy movie only with a happy ending which it is none the worse for (though austere film critics may beg to differ). The bad guys aren't just vacuous, selfish shells, but have families and loved ones and places the film in a more real context. The finale was good if not up to the standards of John Woo's Hong Kong work. Just makes you remember there were efforts to peel back civil liberties before a certain event 5 years ago in September and authoritarian junky politicians have taken succour from it for all its worth. In reality nothing changed on September 11th, certainly not the world. We just became more aware of what is a largely marginal threat, marginal because if the American forces had been co-operating instead of bickering they could have prevented it. If it had been prevented, we could of gone without the danger posed to our civil liberties as a Federal Judge rules in the USA that government wire-tapping without warrants is illegal. We would not have tolerated the measures because we not recognise them as necessary. The EU proposes 'positive profiling' (the issue being championed by, who else, the UK). Slightly more selective than 'ethnic profiling' and just as ineffective and antagonistic. A few days ago, I was on the underground at the top of the escalators and there was a young Asian man in fron of me. There were two police officers between the up and the down sides and as we passed them they intently focused on the young Asian man's rucksack. At the bottom, the Asian man's white friend said "they were checking you out," a little amused, a little incredulous. There is a threat, but we have always lived in dangerous times - it's the nature of the threat that, we are doom-ladenly told, has changed.

Three Lions, four goals

Englan did well, just finishing their game against Greece, with a 4-0 victory. Greece were all over the place in the first half, but came out for the second like European Champions, albeit of the Greek variety. England took their foot off the accelerator for the last 45 minutes, but McClaren will be happy enough as will his new assistant Terry Venables. At the start of the second half, the cameras showed us Venable running along the touchline to the dugout while glancing over his shoulder - maybe he saw a bunch of Palace fans. One of the commentators, Jonathan Greening, kept saying "no cricket" and for a while I thought he was referring to high-minded ideas regarding fair play (it's just not cricket), but I gained access into his accent shortly and he was actually saying "no free-kick." Wonderful things, dialects.
John Reid continues to be a pilchard in his tenure as Home Secretary. It's all very well for a minister who gets taken around in private jets and chauffeur-driven cars to say airline passengers must put up with extra endurance, but when was the last time he had to wait around for hours or had his flight cancelled. Saying that delays and cancellations are preferable to death is correct but glib, offering no insight into if the government even cares about anything else over than covering it's own back. Death is not preferable, but that doesn't deal with passenger concerns here and now, considering the latest incident seems now to have been blown open. It sums up the entire government attitude to transport. So, "the terrorist threat is evolving"; does that mean passengers have to evolve too to cope with new levels of endurance? Highly likely. There has been a whole raft of new measures that have been introduced gradually to forestall passenger revolt. It seems there will be a whole load more. Apart from for ministers, that is.

Newcastle beat their Latvian Intertoto opponents, FK Ventspils, last night thanks to a bullet header from Titus Bramble, still much of an enigma as a player, even though he's 25. The man who crossed the ball from the corner, Emre, had to go off after getting a boot in the thigh, but probably as a result of being so short, since most footballers have shinpads in place at that height off the pitch. However, much of the match was little to write home about and infront of a raucous home crowd, taking home a 1-0 away win seems a good result. The most interesting moments of the match actually came from the commentary of John Helm and John Barnes. They were meant to be joined by famous misogynist manager Joe Royle, but he was sandbagged by the airport kerfuffle and couldn't make it (showing the perils of coming out on the same day as the match, instead of exploring the host city; it's not as if he has a crowded schedule, being made unemployed by Ipswich and all). But the commentary was a class apart indeed - apart from top-class, that is. The first frissons was John Barnes questioning John Helm's sexuality, after Helm said Latvia's capital Riga is a beautiful city with very beautiful people. JB jibed "which ones, men or women, you just said 'people'" Helm refused to dignify that with a decent response and so stuttered one instead. I have to agree though that on the architecture and the women front (I didn't pay attention to the men) Riga blows you away, the women I would rate as the hottest in the world in one area, making Latvia number one followed by Moldova at number two and Mongolia at number three.
But back to the football. Noting that one of the players for FK Ventspils had joined from FC Vladivostok, Helm said "it's not often you get to talk about a player from Vladivostok on the pitch" (unless you live in Vladivostok) before proceeding not to talk about him further, while John Barnes amused himself (and no-one else), joking that they drink a lot of vodka in Vladivostok. Ouch! Not for the misbegotten butts of JB's humour, but for myself.
John Helm proved he is not of the calibre of his Motosn namesake with a string of unco-ordinated facts and in the wrong tone. Saying of Venstpils as if it was still a fact on the ground, it's "had German rule, Polish rule, Russian rule. Favourite drink- hot toddy" (rule?). The sudden burst left me disorientated trying to figure out how favourite drinks, hot toddy and overlordship fit together as I was expecting him to announce some homespun tale about the Latvians of the Courland peninsula heartwarmingly getting their independence as part of the Latvian nation as a whole. No such luck.
The approach of a Paris Hilton album is an event happening for critics. Her new release is relished by them as something succulent to sink their teeth into. Reading The Guardian today, I was enthralled by Alexis Petridis's account, like the dripping of liquid nitrogen onto a plastic rose. There are many scimitar slashings at 'Paris Hilton' (the name of the album), with a middle section acknowledging the professionalism, before returning to the scything. I can see critics the world over getting out their broadswords to hack this album down. The music industry supremos who did the 11 song set as their penance have marshalled top producers and writers to show at least they tried, which is commended by Petridis amidst his acid lines. At one point, he imagines them saying "a reggae song would be a good fit here." To mix this, they hire Shep Solomon who Petridis says is "famed for mashing up Kingston dancehalls with militant Rastafarian collective S Club 7". Dig that reggae jive.
Today was the last of the two consecutive days that there has been a French market in Gillingham. Selling their wares on the pedestrian precinct where the usual stallholders do their business on Saturdays and Mondays, it was refreshing to have some cultural exchange with our neighbours from across the Channel. Top French chefs maybe losing out to more refined Italian and Spanish cuisine masters for quality, but the smells emanating from the market today show that the ordinary French population hasn't lost that knack to cook well.

Silver lining

If, like there the Kelis hit song, you have been 'caught out there' - there being innumerable British airports - by Islamic extremists today and your non-refundable ticket might as well become a mini bonfire, spare a thought for me as you chug back on your baby's milk bottle proving it's not highly inflammable liquid. The share prices of airlines may have gone down but that's largely a result of lost future earnings as people decide actually Skegness-on-Sea is preferable to Benidorm (and when is it not). Fewer people travelling by air means lower prices to lure them back and hopefully this means a reduced rate for when I book my trip back from Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia for September. But not right now. Oh no. Give them a couple of days to adjust their tariffs. I could not delay on booking my Beijing flight, scheduled as I had for the 4th September but coming back three weeks later should be cheaper. There - no, not innumerable British airports - I hope that makes you feel better.

The Middle East continues to cause great anxiety in many quarters. But what I find most bemusing are the attitudes of Mr Gillerman, Israel's representative to the United Nations, whose profile has greatly risen during the current conflict. He is a great Orwellian character, much prone to double think. Take his utterances today. He said that if Hezbollah struck Tel-Aviv then Israel would be fully free to attack Tehran. His logic is that because Tehran 'controls' Hezbollah (and, admittedly, it does have great influence) and is a source of weapons for the militants, then any strike by Hezbollah on Tel-Aviv is an attack by Iran. Let alone plunging the whole Middle East into flames, that same logic would justify Hezbollah attacking the USA, because essentially the USA 'controls' Israel and is a source of weapons for the rogue army, I mean, Israeli Defence Force, so any strike on Beirut by Israel (I've lost count) would leave Hezbollah fully free to start bombing Washington D. C. Furthermore, doesn't that logic say that because Hezbollah has attacked Haifa, Israel reserves the right to attack Hom in Iran? It does, but Israel is not saying it will.
Another instance from Gillerman was that this was a war for 'national survival'. Let alone suggesting that the death and destruction in Lebanon, no less than the ruining of a whole state, is the price for Israel's continued survival (a racist connotation that Israeli lives are worth more than than Lebanese stemming from a belief that Israelis are the 'Chosen Ones'), it is also completely false. Hezbollah's stated aim that gets trotted out (which is only one of its stated aims) is that it is committed to the destruction of Israel. Now I could say I am committed to British domination of the whole world. My means to achieve this are meagre though. So what Hezbollah says and what it can do are two different things. Never could it invade Israel the way Israel has invaded Lebanon. It scares Israelis and, from time to time, kills them. Today was the biggest death toll yet in Israel suggesting the military operation has been a failure. But it does not threaten the integrity of Israel the way Israel is doing to its northern neighbour.
One wonderful example from the pompous Gillerman, epitomising double think, was his comment on Kofi Annan's statement that Israel had deliberately targetted a UN bunker, killing four unarmed UN observers. Gillerman was to retort that this was 'unsubstantiated and erroneous'. The first word derives from the notion that although the UN observers complained ten times before being taken out, a report (which will take months when much of the anger will be dissipated) still needs to be compiled to determine what happened. But then, if that is to be the case, for Gillerman to call Annan's complaint erroneous is itself erroneous. To say that the verdict has been drawn before all the facts are in and then to draw your own verdict is the height of fatuousness. Israel is badly losing the PR war with Gillerman spouting off in New York.
One judicious commentator said when embarking on a war of the kind Israel has with Hezbollah/Lebanon (Israel doesn't draw a distinction, why should I?) one must consider was it justified and would it be wise. I agree that Israel was justified in attacking Hezbollah and to a certain extent damaging the south of Lebanon (damaging Beirut is pure folly), although we won't mention Israel's misdeamours towards Lebanese, detention without trial and so on, no, that won't be mentioned. But as can be seen from today, Hezbollah just needs to survive and it will be victorious. As Henry Kissinger said of Vietnam and other such conflicts "the guerrilla wins if he does not lose." And that prospect frightens Israel. Talk of attacking Iran is frustration (Iran itself has played a blinder - this war has distracted the eyes of the world, if not the Security Council of the UN from its nuclear programme, reduces chances of consensus on sanctions for that programme and outrageous statements by the Iranian president are meant to whip up Israeli fury further which subsequently damages Israel in the eyes of the world further). Israel has not been wise. I say Israel as a whole because Israeli commentators said that if Ehud Olmert had negotiated a prisoner exchange as his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, did in 2004 (who'd have thought it, alleged war criminal Sharon - a guarantor of peace), he would have been finished since without military experience he would have looked weak. If that is the case, it not just the government which has been incompetent, but there is something dangerously flawed and incompetent in the Israeli psyche. These snatchings of prisoners were last throws of the dice for militants embattled by their own people. Thankfully for the militants, Israel took the bait. Israel cannot win this war and could never win this war. It's eighteen years in south Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 should have told it that. Ultimately, foolishness has prevailed over calm heads and wisdom.

It's been a while since my last post but then, there really has nothing been nothing new to write about. Lebanon still gets bombed and Israel rocketed, Iraq slides ever further towards civil war, Tony Blair continues to be The Manichaean Candidate. Same old, same old. But last night on Newsnight, the final piece was from Salam Pax, the Blogger of Baghdad, who's been a humourous recent regular on the show. His presentation from yesterday was "Salam Pax's Guide to Having a Good Time in Baghdad." Understandably, his options were limited and, surprise, surprise, better under Saddam's rule when there wasn't a suicide bomber every day. One of his choices was to listen to music but he found very few record shops open, threatened by fundamentalists who have gained the upper hand since the end of the invasion. Pax had a look online to see why there should be some opposed to the record-selling. He found one Candadian-based Sheikh Kutty, who said that Western music was associated with 'diseases of the soul'. Was ever there a better description of Chas & Dave's work rendered? Possibly, no doubt by Germaine Greer or Mark Lawson. I must say, after listening to 'Snooker Loopy' on a loop I did feel a little giddy as if inebriated by tuberculosis. Sometimes, I have felt disappointed and confused in life as when listening to Shania Twain's 'That Don't Impress Me Much' which has a build-up of "so you're a rocket scientist... so you're Brad Pitt... so you've got a car." But why, why? Surely a logical progression would be "so you've got a car... so you're a rocket scientist... so you're Brad Pitt" or switching Brad Pitt and a rocket scientist, because being either of those two must, just must, equate to being a cut above owning a car. So the song ends, instead of climaxing, rather bathetically.
Perhaps this Sheikh Kutty could address his grievances by teaming up with Sean Paul to produce 'Kutty Rock', an album containing such international hits like "We be burning (Baghdad)." Or he could have his own show 'Trust me, I'm a muezzin' and could collaborate with Dr Fox (not a real doctor) of Magic FM radio, he of the words "It's a fact, you can't prove it and there's no scientific evidence, but it's a fact." Kutty doesn't realise the only words associated with 'diseases of the soul' are his own and, having lived in Canada, hasn't it been impossible to quarantine himself from it. What if he was walking down the street and he heard one of J. S. Bach's melodies wafting through an open window? Would that throw him into a paroxysm of fury or lay him low for years with depression? If so, there must be something seriously wrong with him. Salam Pax said, however, that Sheikh Kutty's was just one opinion. Pehaps I could suggest to Kutty the inoculation of Jesus Christ.