Last night’s World Cup football proved to be exceptionally entertaining. In the first match that I watched, Netherlands vs. Sweden, the Dutch put the ball into the net five times to win the match 5:1. It may have been that in their previous match they had been a little tentative and their coach had evidently given them new instructions. In their match, they frequently got the ball to the byline and then made a fast pass across the mouth of the goal with which the Dutch strikers frequently intercepted. In the case of the first goal. the striker hit the ball with such force and was coming forward with such momentum that he himself finished up in the back of the net as well. So this match, as you might imagine from the scoreline was incredibly entertaining – if I popped out of the room for a moment, the Dutch seemed to have scored. The second match was equally entertaining but it was in a different way. It was Germany v. Cote d’Ivoire who are actually one of the leading teams in Africa. The Ivorians scored first and maintained their lead for most of the match and seemed to be heading for a win when Germany equalised late in the second half. At this stage, it appeared that the match was heading for a well-earned draw but then Germany, in a superb goad, blasted home a winner two minutes before the end of the extra time added onto the second half of the game and thus ran out as 2:1 winners. My sympathies lay with the African team and it was a cruel twist of bad luck for them that they were defeated at the very end like this. There is a massive controversy behind the innovation of hydration breaks half way through each half because the flow and momentum of the game is definitely disturbed, coaches run on to give mire detailed instructions and a score often takes place immediately after the break. We have noticed something similar in cricket as after having had tea, the concentration of the batsmen has to be re-built and they often succumb immediately after a tea interval (or a break for rain for that matter. The domestic news is rife with speculation as to whether Keir Starmer after a cabinet meeting will announce a date for his retirement and a ‘de facto’ handover to Andy Burnham who has just secured his seat in the House of Commons after a thrashing of the Reform party. Although it is just speculation at this point, the odds seem to lie heavily with Keir Starmer announcing a date for his departure thus leading to an orderly transition of power. Andy Burnham will become prime minister as the herd is ‘not just moving’ against Sir Keir Starmer ‘it is stampeding’, Harriet Harman told Sky News. Speaking to Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast following Burnham’s win in the Makerfield by-election, she said: ‘Well, I hate to quote Boris Johnson, but do you remember what he said, when he realised that he had to leave government? And he said about his ministers and his MPs, the herd is moving. Well, I have to say that it is not only that the herd is moving, they are stampeding.’ In the morning, I had been asked by my Italian friend if she could accompany me to the 8.30 church service so I have arranged to give he a lift. Now that she has decided to stay where she has lived for over thirty years, I suspect that she is very keen (as was I) to build upon and sustain her social contacts and going o church and having tea and coffee in the parochial hall after the service is one way of doing this. I particularly look forward to this little social gathering because one meets people of a whole variety of ages whereas the U3A activities are evidently dominated by the retired. After set the alarm first thing in-the morning, and them dozed off again, I made sure that I had switched the slow cooker on to cook my gammon and after my new found knowledge of yesterday I had already prepared a potato which had been cubed and was sitting in as jug of cold water in the fridge, ready for lunch later in the day with my American friend. She was reading the lesson at her Methodist church this morning and had given me a phone call to check on the pronunciation of ‘Beelzebub’ (a name given to the devil) Beelzebub is a name for the chief devil or Satan. Originating from ancient Philistine texts, it translates to ‘Lord of the Flies.’ In literature and theology, it represents a high-ranking fallen angel or a symbol of chaos, corruption, and the embodiment of evil. But some Jewish texts have given the name as ‘Beelzebul’ and so the name is translated in some versions of the Bible (but not the King James version)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later on in the morning, my American friend came round and although I ad got some of the elements of the dinner prepared, I needed the sprouts and the broccoli to complete the veg. I had already roasted a gammon joint in the slow cooker but I finished it off with a good dollop of thick honey smeared on the outside and finished off in the oven together with the Yorkshire puddings. So it turned out to be quite a large but a very satisfying meal. After the meal, we entertained ourselves by watching a succession of Rowan Atkinson monologues, of which ‘The Devil’ is one of my favourites. One of the most excruciatingly funny is the monologue of the headmaster of a private school explaining to a parent how his son had been beaten to death because he had been taking out library books without permission. Another series that most doubt might ring many chords is the story of the best man, followed by the bride’s father. Following a light supper of cheese and biscuits we decided to put on an opera video of Rigoletto (Verdi) but we thought we would split our viewing into two halves with one half this evening and the second half next weekend. Next Friday is our Ukrainian meal day which is held on the last Friday of every month and which we really enjoyed on the last occasion. I am going to take my Italian friend down there and my American friend, although she will be doing some serving out, will probably be able to join us for a few minutes as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night’s World Cup football proved to be exceptionally entertaining. In the first match that I watched, Netherlands vs. Sweden, the Dutch put the ball into the net five times to win the match 5:1. It may have been that in their previous match they had been a little tentative and their coach had evidently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8362,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8361\/revisions\/8362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}