I’d care more if I didn’t find the general run of those enthusing about it and vandalising street furniture about it less repulsive. I get a sort of “anything these people want should be prevented at all costs” feeling.
There are, I know, many perfectly decent people who support England’s football team, but they are outnumbered by the brainfree oiks.
I’ve enjoyed watching football for most of my life - I used to play as a youngun, before the boys all outgrew me. Last night’s offering was not pleasing - foul after foul and nothing much was penalised. This matters as, apart from everything else, there are younguns and others watching who’ll be further convinced that there is no justice or punishment for violence - if they can get away with it. Plus, we saw the ‘occasion’ hijacked for political reasons. Sigh. Round these parts youth football is very important to the communities and I support this.
For dinner - asparagus and fennel risotto with padron peppers - because they’re there.
Soo xx
I am not a football fan, or indeed any sports fan Soo, but I do expect both the teams & supporters to behave themselves, & set an example.
I did suggest that I be placed in charge of FIFA, as I would be completely & utterly impartial… 
Roast chicken on buttered dark Ryvita for lunch, & an small jacket potato now, for the hot.
I may have some yoghurt too.
Today marks exactly a year since I went to Orsepiddle wiv me innards. I came home 16 days later, still wiv most ovvem.
Carinthia.xx
And it’s good to see you enjoying elfy food dear one
I lack whatever it is that lets someone feel for a sports team even when they don’t know the players personally. I’m sure it’s very nice for other people.
Excellent advice wee birdie
In December, a marathon is to be run in Croydon. Entirely within the IKEA.
(Paywalled after the first para, but that’s all you need.)
Shopping in IKEA can feel like an endurance event. Once you’ve walked
through the aisles, carried the flat-packed furniture back to the car and
wrestled with the instruction manual, you’ve certainly earned that
meatball dinner. In December, things will go a step further with the first
official IKEA marathon. Yes, that is correct.
When is the IKEA marathon?
Taking place on Sunday 13 December at the IKEA Croydon store, the race is,
unsurprisingly, a world first. The course is fully inside, taking in the
aisles, tills and warehouse. Each lap is believed to be about 1.5km,
requiring [48]marathoners to complete roughly 17 loops. The event is
scheduled to start at 6pm and finish at midnight.
How to enter the IKEA marathon
Tickets will likely go on sale, via the SIEntries and Sussex Trail
Events websites, at 6pm on Friday 26 June. Only 80 are available to the
general public and are expected to sell out within minutes.
The race is the brainchild of Jay McCardle, race director and co-founder
of Sussex Trail Events. ‘I approached IKEA with the idea,’ he told
Runner’s World. ‘We’ve done several similar things before. We did a
multi-storey car park in Worthing in 2017 and Southend in 2026. Seven
levels, up and down. We’ve done races on Southend Pier; races in Shepton
Mallet Prison.’
As McCardle pointed out, IKEA does have a particular advantage when it
comes to route planning. ‘It has the arrows on the floor. I thought,
“Well, I don’t even need to mark this!”
‘We’re currently working on the T-shirt and the medal, which I want to be
self-assembly and come with instructions.’
What everyone’s reading
The nutrition will also be typically IKEA. ‘They won’t open the canteen
but we’re looking at having meatballs at the aid station,’ said McCardle.
‘If not that, we might give a bag of meatballs to every finisher, but
that’s yet to be confirmed.’
If you are lucky enough to get a place in this unique event, you’ll have
to run it without your cheer squad. ‘For security reasons, we can’t have
supporters in there. It’s sad, but it’s the trade-off of doing an event
like this.’
‘We’re currently working on the T-shirt and the medal, which I want to be self-assembly and come with instructions.’
I love the idea of a self-assembly medal.
Where do the sins of the world go?
Bluddy Ell
I think my 'phone must be playing Silly Buggers. I have just had to log in to this site.
I set off to go to the Post Office in town, missed the 'bus & noticed that there was summat wrong with the Tumbril. One of the front wheels has broken now.
Sigh.
I wheeled it back home & effected a temporary repair wiv string & gaffer tape & went out & caught the next 'bus.
I will attempt an more suitable repair tomorrow because I don’t go out without it.
Sigh
Smoked streaky bacon wiv fried garlic mash today.
Carinthia. xx
Yesterday the Goldfish Palace sprang a terminal leak about 30cm from its base, leaving the fish with only 25cm deep water to frolic in instead of its usual 50cm. Clearly this was not a good thing and needed to be dealt with asap. But research and rushing all over the place looking for a replacement both yesterday and today showed that the size we have (90cm long x 60cm wide x 60cm high) is no longer made, and it has to be admitted that the 95cm x 95cm x 70cm is going to be a damn tight fit in the corner where the fish lives. Still, needs must; all the others we can find are too small for the size of the fish, which has grown enormous while we have had it.
What do you bet that we shell out for the new fish palace, install it with massive difficulty, and the damn’ fish dies next week because moving it was a shock to its system?
Unfortunately it is well-nigh impossible to give away an eight-inch long goldfish; anyone who wants them already has them, and you can’t add new, possibly diseased fish to a pond. Otherwise I would seriously have considered it as a possibility.
The only bright spot in all this is that the old palace has had blanket weed for the past three years or so; with luck, the new one won’t.
Gah!
Have Fish Palaces gorn Metric then, Fishy?
Did you get a good tour of the garden centres looking for it?
Carinthia. xx
The one we have was metric, in fact, being exact measures in centimetres rather than inches.
The other “there is that to be said” is that the footprint of the new one is larger than the old, so the jetwashed bit in that area will come as far as the edge of the new one. A smaller one would have had a dirty rim all round it on the ground.
I only went to four garden centres, and none was helpful.
Where did you get it from then, Fishy?
Are you pleased with the jet washing, despite the problems it uncovered?
Proffers Pitchers
Carinthia. xx
Unless I mistakenly think that the palace is not a Chinese style koi carp
No Matter I salute care of a life with the exception of cleggs and mosquitoes who have found a drain to reproduce in
Pleased with the jet washing, which did not itself uncover any problems. It was one of the chaps climbing onto the roof to jetwash the solar panels that broke the roof, which had not until then been a problem.
The new Palace is coming off the internet; one of the garden centres would have been happy to order us one, get it to us in a fortnight and charge a hundred quid more, whereas the one from a company a little further afield will be with us on Tuesday with a bit of luck. In other words, we have cut out the middle garden centre.
No koi here. It’s a standard goldfish-carp, so it’s not growing into Kun. Its ambition (apart from the annexation of the Sudetenland) might be to grow up to be a whale-shark. It doesn’t bask, so not a basking shark…
I have memories of seeing large golden carp in the mill races that were crumbling and supplying the steam engines that powered the various processes that turn fleeces into wool
Grandma taught me about the process and how the Yorkshire soft waters running from the moors was perfect for washing the fleeces
