The afternoon before last was a quiet one but I browsed across the TV channels and saw again the closing half hour of a film I had first seen in about 1957 or 1958. The film was ‘The Desert Fox’ and was unusual in that it was a very sympathetic portrayal of the career of Rommel, the German adversary of Montgomery in the deserts of northern Africa in the second World War. James Mason delivers a critically acclaimed, restrained performance as German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in the 1951 biographical film ‘The Desert Fox’. The movie portrays Rommel’s final years, his leadership of the Afrika Korps in WWII, and his ultimate descent into a conspiracy against Adolf Hitler. This was a brave film to be made only six years after the end of the war but I remember it made quite a deep impression on me at the time. At the boarding school that I attended in the late 1950’s, at the first night back at school after a vacation break generally a good film was shown to us and I can remember quite a lot of the films shown us including ‘The Student Prince’ On Sunday nights, if we did not have a film, we would have a whilst drive (where you move from table to table and new partners after every few games) which I always enjoyed. In the early evening, the doorbell rang and it was my Asian neighbour from across the front lawned area in front of the house with a bag of freshly prepared samosas which his wife had just made. This was a wonderful kind thought and I shall look forward to eagerly to their consumption. In Indian subcontinent, samosas are prepared with an all-purpose flour (locally known as maida) and stuffed with a filling, often a mixture of diced and cooked or mashed boiled potatoes, onions, green peas, lentils, ginger, spices and green chillies. I am not sure exactly what ingredients my Asian neighbour will have used but it is always a heartwarming gesture to be offered food by neighbours. The evening before yesterday was the day of the anticipated World Cup match between England and Panama and after a lack-lustre first half, the score remained at 0:0. Eventually, in the second half England started playing with a little more urgency and then scored a couple of well-taken goals. This meant that England had progressed in this World Cup by playing for some 150 minutes in the last three matches, including this one, until they actually scored a goal and unless they up their game considerably, I can see England being knocked out quite early on in the competition. The England defence seems pretty shaky even against inferior opposition and is vulnerable to a quick opposition break-away. in fact Panama did score a wonderful break-away goal but the VAR video system showed there to be an offside but only by an incredibly small margin, perhaps as little as a kneecap, so this was a vivid illustration of the England weakness in this area. In the morning, I awoke to a layer of thick cloud but a glance at the dry patio showed that we had not had any rain during the night and I am hopeful that a good downpour will occur later in the day, now that I have the lawns cut. During the course of the transmissions of the football by ITV, I notice an advert for the forthcoming Nations Cup rugby competition. This is a new competition and this is what I discovered about it. The Nations Championship debuts in July 2026. Two groups of teams compete in a Northern versus Southern Hemisphere tournament format across six rounds, with three fixtures in July and again in November, before culminating in the first of its kind Finals Weekend to decide the dominant nation and balance of power between the rugby hemispheres, every two years. In the Nations Championship, every point, result and match matters, to every team. This brings together the twelve biggest international rugby teams in the world, packed with the best players in the sport, competing to win rugby’s newest title. So this will brighten up next weekend for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sunday morning pattern took on its usual shape with my attending church for the 8.30 service in the morning, after which I have coffee and biscuits in the parochial hall. Afterwards, I normally go along to a local BP garage where they have a do-it-yourself car washing machine. If you are very quick and have a small car, this can be done for as little as \u00a32.00 but I generally double this and the amount of time that is bought There are a variety of ‘programmes’ that can be activated within your allotted time span and I tend to go for a quick pre-wash with a minimum level of detergent, followed by a foaming low pressure clean and then finishing off with a very high pressure rinsing. I find that doing this week by week suits me down to the ground as it probably does a more through job than I can manage at home and is a lot less strenuous than heaving buckets of water all over the place. When I got home, I started preparing things for lunch which happened to be quite minimal as my American friend was going to bring some quiche around and I had purchased a Mediterranean vegetable mix which needed an oven roasting. Once we had lunched, we eventually located the YouTube version of ‘Rigoletto’ which we had started to view last week. This week, we concluded our viewing of the really dramatic ending to the opera (which I did not spoil for my American friend by telling her about the ultimate twist in the story line). We then made our way to our local park where we have our evening constitutional walk and then we retuned home to a light supper of samosas (kindly provided by our Asian neighbour) complemented by some salad. Afterwards we viewed the second half of one of the first football matches in the knockout stages of the World Cup being Canada (one of the co-hosts) vs. South Africa. After quite an exciting match, the Canadians snatched the deciding goal with only about three minutes of stoppage time left and this meant that the game as a whole did not have to go into extra time and penalty shoot-outs. England play Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday next and the result of this contest is difficult to predict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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