26 Russians or Tiger Woods’ face?

Which is more important…the lives of 26 Russians or the smoothness of Tiger Woods’ face?

Well clearly, for me, it is much more important that some advertising employee may have to spend an extra half hour airbrushing Woods’ chiseled mugshot for the next Gillette advert than the fact that loads of families have been devestated by the needless deaths of loved ones in a train crash in Russia.

I was faced with two headlines when I switched on the BBC website yesterday morning.  One read, “Dozens killed in Russian train crash’.  The other read, “Golfer Woods injured in car crash’.  Which one did I automatically click on?  Yes, the Tiger Woods one.

I think this is symptomatic of two things:

1. We live in a celebrity obsessed culture that magnifies small incidents of the chosen few into world changing news items.
2. We give precidence to small ‘disasters’ in English speaking countries high over and above genuine catastrophes in the non-English speaking world.

Two very silly traits.

The broken washing machine and the babysitter

Our washing machine broke about 10 days ago.  Since then we have been able to take our dirty washing to 5 different people’s houses to be washed for us.

Last night Rada and I needed to go out.  James came and babysat* for us.

Life is worth living when you are part of a community.  It is more than just the practical help.  It is knowing that there are people out there who look out for you and think you are worth something.

*Sorry Anya I believe the correct terminology is ‘girlsat’.

What’s in an accent?

It appears that I am slowly being drawn into the league of Yam-Yams.  In Solihull there are usually only subtle variaties of the the West Midlands family of accents, but since I’ve worked in West Brom for the last year or so I am surrounded by people from the Black Country…and the accent is proving contagious.  I used to really dislike the Brummy/Black Country way of speaking but I really quite like it now.  However, what is in an accent?

I’m from Sheffield.  I’ve never had a broad accent but have been fiercely proud of my city and whenever the tones of my speach betrayed my origin I was filled with a warm glow.  At some times I have loathed other accents, considered them inferior, particularly when I lived in London and felt like the only northerner out of 9 million people.

But should an accent be forced?  You see I’m faced with a dilemma now:

a) Do I let nature take its course and allow whatever accent pours forth to do so regardless of what I sound like and who it identifies me as?

b) Do I supress the Brumminess and very carefully and deliberately cling onto and nurture my Sheffield accent?

I believe it would sound better but is it fake to force yourself to speak in a certain way?  Help!  Anybody else ever had similar problems?  I am from Sheffield and will never forget it, it has made me who I am.

South Africa 2010 Draw?

The following is what are likely to be the seedings for the draw for the World Cup on 4th December:

Pot 1:    South Africa, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain, England, France, Argentina

Pot 2:   Portugal, Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, Greece, Denmark, Serbia, Slovakia

Pot 3:   Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Ghana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Algeria

Pot 4:    South Korea, Japan, Australia, North Korea, Mexico, USA, Honduras, New Zealand

What do you reckon would be good, and bad for England?  Can you spot any potentially juicy ties?  What about Spain v Portugal?

I think a fascinating, and historical, group for England would draw us with Portugal, Cameroon and Australia.  What are your thoughts?

Complain to FIFA

Lots of people are VERY angry about the Republic of Ireland being cheated out of the World Cup.  If you are then take five minutes out of your day and go to http://www.fifa.com/contact/form.html and express your feelings to FIFA directly.  If anybody can get an email address for Sepp Blater then let me know!

Here is what I wrote to them this morning:

Subject:  Immoral FIFA

Dear FIFA

I am writing to express my disgust that you, the governing body for the world’s biggest sport are a blatently corrupt and injust organisation.

If you want France to be in the World Cup Finals so much please be honest and come out and say it.  You could have at least given them a free place from the start and not doomed Ireland to having no chance by fixing the play-off draw and then using suspect officials who have ‘missed’ one of the most obvious discrepancies of all time.

The decisions you make have galactical implications right down to the grass roots of society in every country in the world.  As a youth worker, how can I instill positive values into young people when you allow the message to be broadcast loud and clear by one of the world’s most recognised players, ‘you need to cheat to get what you want in life’?

As an organisation you are a disgrace and should make the world a better place by standing against decisions like that which happened on Wednesday night and by not fixing who gets into the World Cup for your own financial gain.

Yours faithfully

Nathan Adams

It would be great to bombard FIFA with emails about this.  Thanks!

Thierry Henry = Maradona

Except the Frenchman is clearly not as skillful.

I just don’t know what to think about last night.  The injustice of it all makes me livid.  There are handballs and then then there are handballs.  Just like Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’, Thierry Henry clearly deliberately controls the ball with his hand, TWICE(!), to set-up William Gallas to score the goal the cheats France into the World Cup Finals and robs the more deserving Irish from their place in South Africa.  Here is a video of it from Irish TV:

I could understand a split second of madness from Henry by using his hands, but as a human being you have to own up to stuff like that but instead he runs off to the security of the adoring French fans and takes with him the lifetime label of being one of football’s great cheats.

Also, is it beyond the realms of possibility that FIFA put pressure on the match officials to help the former World Champions get carried into the World Cup like an inept but corrupt politician frauding his way into power…?

World Cup is a fix

I am really disappointed that FIFA are doing their best to prevent heroic efforts from weaker footballing nations enabling them to qualify for the World Cup.  Instead favouring the under performing giants of Portugal and France.  We are currently in between legs in the play-offs for the Finals in South Africa.

Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republic of Ireland gave a fantastic display in the Group Stages:

• Bosnia finished ahead of Turkey and Belgium with only Spain, arguably the best team in the world, beating them.
• Ireland remained undefeated through the whole campain.

However, once FIFA saw that precious France and Portugal were struggling they decided to seed the play-offs to give them a much better chance of qualifying.  Both giants are now firm favourites following the first legs despite atrocious group performances.  In my opinion neither of these teams deserves to be in the Finals.  They achieved similar results to Ireland and Bosnia despite playing much weaker nations.  I say chuck them and their prima donnas out!

 

Connect

“The connection is so subtle and it’s so fragile in the world we live in. It’s like a bird’s song. All the noises of the world seem to devour that song. Just go out your front door and listen… you hear people shouting, cars driving, radios, TV, the list is endless. You have to first shut all the noises out and you have to listen and became silent… to hear the song. And if you find it, it’s so beautiful!”

I’ve been following this discussion over at Naked Pastor about struggling to ‘connect’ with God.  I mentioned that I often struggle to ‘connect’ with God both at church and away from church.  I am too easily distracted, irritated and far to apathetic.  I asked the question, what does it mean to be ‘connected’ anyway.  This is a theme I’d love to explore but for now I’d just wanted to share the words that are at the top of this post.  They were written by Kaalvoet-Kind.

 

How to worship video

Funny video I stole from annedroid.

Crick in the neck

I am over 24 hours into the worst crick of my life.  I was afflicted with it during yesterday’s morning run.  I was very patient yesterday but waking up with the same restrictions is really annoying me.  I feel like a thunderbird puppet who got his head string tangled up in the looking down position.

It inhibits me from doing all sorts of pleasurable things:

Writing blogs/watching Match of the Day/cuddling my wife/driving/10-pin bowling/watching fireworks/eating/kissing Anya while she’s asleep/partaking in conversations/sleeping

Hope it goes soon