Milestone

Well, I've reached one hundred posts. Such a prospect was always in the distant future when I started last June and I'm glad I haven't flagged (too often), as so many blogs fall by the wayside as their authors lose interest.
I've become quite a dab hand at winning the quiz recently. Last night the competition wasn't so fierce as there were only two teams, one team composed of regular quiz winners, the other by a bunch of visiting Americans. I was on the 'home' side, called 'Them' (although the other rather unsportingly did not call their team 'Us'). Suffice to say we trampled all over them despite picking up only just under half the points available (not helped by an obscure table round consisting of the official names of countries - I should have been up with the Co-operative Republic of Guyana).
Every time I've turned up at the quiz, I've been on the winning team. I'm no talisman, but I put in my fair worth. There's no 'I' in teamwork (though there is in 'win'). I put it down to ending up in the right teams by chance.
Last night's quiz wasn't quite a bare-knuckle ride, more of a sedate journey to victory. Other quiz nights have been more heightened, such as when one Aussie woman said she would only get topless for a charity fund-raiser, if someone put up 300,000 tugrugs (142 quid). So this guy, who was showing around a half-fake, half real 100 dollar bill he'd been conned into swapping for equivalent tugrugs (the dividing line held together by cellotape), got out his wallet and counted out 300,000 tugrugs onto a table and asked the Aussie to perform her side of the bargain, which she obliged upon. Quiz nights cab get quite raucous.

What's this about UEFA planing to give major cup winners a place in the Champions League? Cup competitions need rejuvenation, but I thought that specific idea had been laid to bed when Millwall reached the FA Cup Final (without playing a single top-flight side) and so qualified mercifully only for the UEFA Cup. Can you imagine Millwall in the Champions League - it's absurd. It's faintly weird when second-tier sides are in the UEFA Cup, but to give them a chance of playing in Europe's premier competition beggars belief. Why not give Champions League Places to the winners of the Premiership, the FA Cup, the League Cup and the LDV Vans Trophy, with a UEFA space for the FA Vase? The best sides in each top-flight league should compete against each other in top European competition, their league position proving that they have the best, most effective football. Revitalise the FA Cup, but not this way.