Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the day “June 27, 2016”

Worst England Performance Ever – England 1 Iceland 2


There can be little doubt that those that witnessed the 90 minutes of misery versus Iceland saw the worst performance ever by an  England football side. These are players paid around 100,000£ a week and Roy hodgson earns 3.5million £. To give some perspective. IMG_0088

There was a lack of passion, organisation and frankly skill, but what really beat us was the delusional belief held both by the team and the pundits (before the game) that we would/should/will the game. These are players also who invest huge amounts of time in furthering their income from advertising and other money-making ventures, and it seems maybe more attention to football related matters and less to advertising might be a way forward. Put simply they are overrated.

The pundits also bottled it saving their scathing comments for after the game when it fact it would be good punditry to state their negative thoughts beforehand. IMG_0095

The England coaching staff ooze mediocrity being full of failed coaches and managers elsewhere. There is something of a history here and the worrying tones of mention of Southgate, Nevill and other equally bland characters is frightening.

Most football fans know that the passion needed starts with the managment and coaching staff, who also have to be ruthless. Why was Joe Hart even playing after his abysmal game versus Wales? Why was Marcus Rashford not playing? He did more in 5 minutes than most did in 90 minutes.

We need a manager who can motivate his team to at least get out of them their best. Countries like Wales and Iceland have this. IMG_0094

The nonsense that gets trotted out by the FA (including that Hodgson wrote his resignation speech in the dressing room) is facile. That Hodgson was not prepared to answer questions is simply rude. Some fans would have spent their life savings to follow England to a tournament and to have answered honestly questions would have cost him nothing other than 10 minutes of his time. It shows a complete lack of respect to the fans.

These players were not ” hungry”, “young” or anything like that, they were clearly a poor group of players unable to step up to the level of a major tournament, through either lack of effort, training,preparation or stage fright. some should never pull on an England shirt again, others need more motivation.

Who next? Most agree that an English manager is essential. The only names that make any sense to me are Sam Allarrdyce and Mark Warburton. Perennial failures need not apply. IMG_4390

 

Keir Starmer Resignation Letter. How to write a resignation letter from shadow Cabinet. Copy and Paste.


With all the mass resignations from the shadow cabinet it may be helpful to have a copy and paste document to use if anyone has not yet resigned.

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Strasberry. What exactly is it?


Having been offered a punnet of strasberries in a fruit shop in UK I decided to find out a little about this interesting little fruit.

The Strasberry is a variety of the garden strawberry, with a raspberry-like appearance, originally developed by the German breeder Otto Schindler in 1925. It is not a hybrid of the two fruits.It is similarly soft textured, with characteristics that are similar to raspberries, such as being a deeper red, being rounder and having a bumpy exterior.  They are also smaller than an average garden strawberry and have deeper seeds. Unlike other garden strawberry varieties the strasberry (‘Mieze Schindler’) produces no fertile pollen and will need a pollinator. To therefore grow  strasberries, you need a self-pollinating strawberry plant within its proximity. Hence you  never find a greenhouse completely full of strasberry plants, there will always be some self-pollinating strawberry plants next to them with bees acting as the pollinators.

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Strasberry

Despite its much-valued flavor the variety was threatened by extinction but plants survived in amateur gardens in the former German Democratic Republic until they were reintroduced as a commercial variety by a Dutch farmer in the twenty-first century. 

Breeder Hans de Jongh who leads the Beekers Berries Breeding program, started selling the strasberry in 1996. However, due to the difficult growing circumstances and smaller yield compared to the “normal” strawberry, it still is a specialty product not grown by many. Planting the strasberry in your own garden will therefore remain very unique.The strasberry is available from March till mid-December with lower availability around the summer months. This is the same period as the pineberry and bubbleberry.

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