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 category “Uncategorized”
Slovenia
a busy week. Got back from slovenia saturday afternoon and was straight off to take Elena to her birthday party. A trip to see Johnny English at the cinema with 3 friends, a curry afterwards and then the dreaded sleepover! they went to sleep 1.30 am and was up 7 am………needless to say they are tired today. Photographs will follow in due course. Hedgepig decided to be extra social today and came out happily in the daytime sitting on folks laps. The film was actually very funny. Rowan Atkinson doing a sort of tuned down Mr Bean character. Greyhounds all walked today with Elena accompanied by her current best friend Caitlin, who could not be more different to Elena if she tried.
Happily, I missed a 0-0 Brentford v Scunthorpe game which sounds as exciting as the scorelines suggests.
slovenia though was amazing. A special place. Green country with snowy mountains, happy smiling people and lovely city centre with river walks, cafes, bars, music everywhere. I was however the oldest person there! My talks went well so a good choice that I will be invited back to slovenia and Croatia!
Weather here is starting to turn autumnal, leaves are all off the trees, cold in the evening and heating has been turned on for the first time. Not bad I suppose, the middle of October!
Highwayman
for reasons that are almost inexplicable the local school have deemed that all children in Year 6 ( these are 11-12 yr olds in our parlance, but currently this time of year mostly just 11 yrs) can wear costumes to be a book character to school tomorrow monday. What does the 11 yr old want to be? A highwayman. Maybe this is a career decision and if so not a bad one. Enjoy. My eldest daughter asked a most reasonable question as to why I had photos of her sister in these outfits. My initial response was the the new headmistress had decided the school should be a progressive school and children might wear what they wanted. this was treated with some distain but sadly the truth of the matter was that my wife has a fancy dress shop at her work. this is strange enough anyway, but she works in cancer research in a hospital environment and I do not feel that I have totally convinced my eldest daughter that this part is indeed totally true. The idea of highwayman comes from two angles. Firstly they are doing the poem the Highwayman at school and i would recommend you to type in highwayman into youtube and watch the videos. Secondly, a great book called Jack Bolt by Richard Hamilton. i have read a number of books to me daughter over the years and this one is in the top ten and based on the story of a Highwayman ending up in the 21st Century. go read it.
highwayman - a career choiceHighwaymanHighwayman
Metropolitan Police 0 Billericay Town 1
As Brentford were playing in carlisle, which is essentially an hour from Glasgow, it was a simple decision to miss this game and go to a local non-league game. I have taken to watching Met Police who play in the Ryman’s Premier league, which is actually only 3 leagues below the football league. One of the reasons i watch them is that parking is so easy, a great big car park at their Molesesy HQ. However I always check that my tax disc is showing and in date and the tyres on the car are not too offensive. a decent game. Met Police play passing football and most teams they play seem to rely more on the physical aspects. Met Police had a player sent off after about 10 minutes for being ” the last man” and the game seemed destined to finish 0-0, although in fairness Billericay should have had a number of goals. In injury time a truly shocking backpass gave billericay a goal. this also is the first game where the secretary came around in the 75th minute to hand out programmes to all spectators because the programmes had been printed ” been sent somewhere, and arrived in the 75th minute……”. Free of charge i must add.
Meanwhile Brentford drew 2-2 with Carlisle and it seems from the report a lively enough game with Brentford taking the lead and then equalising in the 88th minute. Uwe Rosler on the radio afterwards sounded a happy enough soul.
Hedgepig
due to public demand and thousands of plaintive requests, I have given in and taken some photos of the beetle-crunching Hedgepig. Strangely he agreed to come out in the daytime and have his photo taken. His price was a plate of mealworms and beetles. Apparently the mealworms turn into beetles?
My bedroomUniversityHot air in Berlin
Berlin was a wonderful city to visit . Being there really only two days did not allow much to see. Work was good as the congress was superb, based at a congress centre with hotel attached in the south west of the city at Dahlem, which curiously was the student area, though not obvious. The weather was superb and our presentation went well. Got a day to go round Berlin and some photos attached. the only downside was having the saturday morning flight delayed by 7 hours. Berlin airport is not an ideal sightseeing venue.
A few interesting fashion statements. Alexander McQueen would have been impressed by the latest headgear modelled on the top of a bus.
Unusual Hat in Berlin
Elena 11th birthday
seems like yesterday she was born. not sure where 11 years have gone. amazing weather here in UK around 28-30 degrees and felt hotter and this the start of October. she woke us at 7.30 am, not too bad and presents opened, mainly books and lego, at her request and thankfully a request that amazon fulfilled. Greyhound walking for a few hours, followed by curry buffet and then home again with extended family over. Sitting in the garden playing scrabble ( well I took only a little part, never heard of most of the words). altogether a nice day. Shadow is not happy with me ( black cat for those who have not met her). i was throwing out old cold tea in the garden and suddenly saw a black shadow-literally!- streak by. Seems she was standing where tea landed. Cue one unhappy black cat avoiding me all evening! Nice cake though. Yasmin was baking at 8 am this morning ( not a usual happening) but produced a great Hedgehog cake to Elena’s specifications. It was actually the same cake, not literally, as for her 4th birthday, and she saw a photo of said cake recently. 
Brentford 0 Huddersfield 4
As a long time Bees fan I do know realistically what to expect, usually nothing. But this season is something different. Brentford were beaten today comprehensively by a much better, motivated,stronger,agile and seemingly fitter side. If the result had been 7-0 one could not have complained. This is going to be a long season if everytime a side who wants to tackle and push and generally play physical football ( and do it well and mostly in the bounds of the laws) cones to Brentford, they will win. We have lost 3 games at home to similar sides, Tranmere, Preston and Huddersfield. In this league having players who cannot/will not tackle is a luxury. sad day . Streams of Bees fans were leaving at 70 minutes and maybe one might wonder why they did not go before. no-one today came out with any credit. No-one played well, it was only differing degress of badness. To compound matters I arrived back at Heathrow at 2.30 on a much delayed plane from Berlin, got picked up and kindly deposited at the ground, so to go to all this effort seems pointless. A very bad Brentford day.
We also seem to be doing our usual trick of accumulating average players who mainly have failed elsewhere and thats why they are out on loan. Take David Clarkson. Simply woeful. Please send him back to Bristol City tomorrow. Why sign Harry Forrester and not play him? We dont know how good he is because he has been on the bench all season. Who was the captain today? As in where was the captain? Oh and usual again ex-Bees players always score against us. Jordan Rhodes, whom I rate very highly and without doubt is at least a championship player scored 1-2 goals today.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 