In this day and age of concern over horse meat and equine food accompaniments, on the way to Stamford Bridge this morning to see the might Brentford play, there was tucked away in the arches a burger van selling delicious burgers. The stone inscription above amused me and suggested some degree of bravery should apply to eat burgers there!
IN HONOUR OF ALL OUR BRAVE MEN- WHO ATE BURGERS?
A somewhat pleasant day where the sun threatened to shine and photography was halfway possible without floodlights, not that one notices when they come on at Walton . A good day out though, decent game, crowd 106 and the best burger I have had at football for some while.
Walton Casuals if nothing else play in one of the better strips and today there was a riot of orange, red, yellow from both teams. Walton also are consistent having not won a home league game all season and that is why they are second from bottom of the Ryman south League.
The first half was all Eastbourne and until Walton scored with almost the last kick of the half, it looked like it would be a 5-0 type of game. the second half was all Walton and they were unlucky not to equalise.
The football standard in Ryman South does seem variable this season and although neither of these clubs would fancy their chances against the top sides, they did play a good open game in a decent spirit, and the game was well refereed too.
Mu Maan may be the most important player for Walton judging by how the programme had him down playing at both number 8 and number 10. I did wonder before the game if he might be a large gentleman needing two shirts, however in fact he was of normal size and in fact never really caught the eye today.
The jury is out on this one. On the one hand it is easy to reach by train but on the other there are few lounges, highly expensive food and drink and not so many planes in the middle of the day.
The cost of food is frankly startling here. For 16£ they were offering rich souls a take away pack in a hideous bag ( cooler bag I suspect) containing panini, water, popcorn and fruit ( 1 piece). Extraordinary. For almost 20£ one might have a real breakfast served in a restaurant that actually is a walkway, so an easy place to make and meet friends as they will practically be dropping in as you have your breakfast.
Planes tend to be smaller, so space for luggage more limited. So, I really do not know if this a good or bad option.Not a cheap one though.What you see here is the free cabaret of watching the de-icing of planes. Quite like the look of that job!
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I am not a man of poetry and actually failed my english Literature O level many years ago. Luckily this amazing lack of poetic talent has not genetically passed to my 12 year old. Whilst waiting to enter the field as a second half substitute at hockey last week ( on that freezing cold day), she wrote this poem in her head and then transferred it to her phone on the long coach journey home. To me an amazing poem butyou must be the judge.
Although a doctor I can claim to know nothing about teeth, nothing at all. But this last week has been most unpleasant. The tooth story started almost 6 months ago when I had a temporary filling put in a tooth that was earmarked for root canal treatment. Although temporary it actually did the trick and the reality was that there was little time to have any more procedures done.
Sadly since then things have gone awry. In December a lump appeared on my upper gum and even with no knowledge of anything in life it was clear that this was an abscess. Antibiotics helped it better within days and took me over the xmas period.
This week, the tooth has been a disaster. The tooth was poked down, cleaned out and whatever else was done using what looked to me like torture chamber size toothpicks, filled with some sort of cement and allegedly left for a week to ” settle down”. The tooth however had other ideas and refused to stop hurting and the lump on the gum re-appeared in large size, and frankly made me feel awful. Back to the dentist, lump poked, some musing and indeed more antibiotics provided. Metronidazole is actually quite a good choice for an antibiotic as it has the same effects as antabuse if you drink alcohol , so best not to. Hence no alcohol for me for a week. What will happen? Well next tuesday the next battle round takes place. Could be more cleaning and preening of those tooth holes called root canals, or maybe just an extraction. I favour the latter.
Despite having all this done I know nothing of a root canal so thought best to investigate what they are. Here is my detective work.
A root canal is the space within the root of a tooth. It is part of a naturally occurring space within a tooth that consists of the pulp chamber (within the coronal part of the tooth), the main canal(s), and more intricate anatomical branches that may connect the root canals to each other or to the surface of the root.
For those of you desperate to know how to say root canal in Latin,
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canalis radicis dentis
That even sounds painful without anything going wrong, and talking of pain I have not even mentioned the bill as yet. Apparently there are lots of these canals, rather like caves, and if one is missed and the dreaded pulp not removed, then the infection remains. Worse still they can have kinks in them and it has been known that the stick things that get poked down can break off inside. The joy does not stop there, oh no. These root canals if not treated properly can then spread their dreaded infection to local other tissues, jaw bones and finally cause a life-threatening constriction of the throat. This is not good news at all. But the good news is that these infernal canals can be found and apparently ” electronic apex locators” are just the thing. Sounds like those cameras you put down a drain to see where they are blocked, and also see just what the contents of the sewage are from your next door neighbours. Now there is a party theme. |
Even now that the rain has allegedly stopped, the flooding is still present in many areas in Surrey. Certainly in Cobham the Thames is very high still and these photos are of a nice filed that is often used for picnics and cricket, not at the same time, in the summer. Near Esher and in fact opposite Garson’s Farm in Winterdown Lane. The cruel ones amongst us might suggest we are looking at the new QPR football ground with ample space for their legions of fans watching a team that has been the most consistent in the football league this season!
In a life of a football fan and especially a non-league photographer a day of hideous weather such as yesterday, is not wanted. Most games were called off and the challenge was to find a game that was actually on. For me this would have represented a challenge to the management of a club that wanted to boost their attendance by getting the word out there that the game is on, or even off. Some clubs did this very well. Respect due to Sutton who even replied to my humble tweet to them about if the game was on. A club that did badly on all counts was Tooting and Mitcham FC. I could find no social media nor internet site to answer my question. The websites attributed to Tooting seem to have been last updated months if not years ago. No Twitter account. No Facebook page. I might add that all these media are freely available and indeed free. Many other clubs did well to update their fans. Lets throw some praise around. Walton and Hersham have both twitter and facebook and their fans knew the night before that the game was off. Horsham regularly tweet game updates during the game.
I belong to a closed group on Facebook related to non-league photography and from the multiple postings there it was clear that our little coterie could have been driven to any game probably on, hence boosting attendances by a few, but multiply this up and clubs could have done themesleves a real favour.
Having guessed correctly that the game might be on I arrived 2.20pm at Tooting to find no information available. Was the game on or off? Turnstiles all locked. No signs. No clues. No programmes. A few stewards appeared, mostly young lads, doing a grand job I must say, of about 13-14 years, who appreciated the issue and went away to solve the problem. Turnstiles duly opened at 2.40pm. A thin paper based programme was on sale from a cheery gentleman for 2£. In all honesty the poorest non-league programme I have seen for some years. I do not exaggerate but I could have printed this off from my computer in far better format. Little to no food was available in the snack bar. A wait for 10 minutes led to a burger. Priced at the not so cheap price of 3.50£. Entrance to the ground was 10£.
The pitch was not in bad condition at all considering the rain .
I will stop my social media rant here, but what opportunities are being missed by clubs who want to boost their crowds. Each week we read that non-league football needs larger crowds but clubs must promote themselves a little better to get new fans. Tooting missed this opportunity big time yesterday.
Small Crowd at Tooting
Ann Wildgust has her latest exhibition at Holt, a small Norfolk town in UK. A truly superb series of paintings all around a theme. European links with early US settlers, hence some are painted in UK and others in Holland, Leiden. Well worth a visit. What is equally amazing is that Ann has only been painting now for a few years but is starting to attract attention as she is working in different styles and themes. We are fortunate enough to have one of her paintings and another print of one in our house. 
Strange but true. Brentford ask a minimum of 1£ only but you can choose what to pay if you buy your ticket beforehand up until 4 pm friday evening. Why are they doing this? Perfect sense. They have around 2000 season ticket holders, who do not begrudge them doing this at all, and will make it up to their season ticket holders later in the season with some offer one suspects. So 2000 have already paid. The expected crowd for a home game the saturday before Xmas is never high, maybe 5000 maximum and possibly lower. Stevenage will not bring armies of fans and most likely will bring around 200-300 only. Folks will not pay 1£, they are likely to choose to pay a median amount of between 5-10£ in my opinion.
So a good PR activity, a good day out. Lets hope this works. A few years ago a home game versus Peterborough was sponsored by a company (maybe St George Homes?), and they essentially made it free to get in. Result, great crowd,great atmosphere and home win! So spread the word and call Brentford to buy your tickets over the phone or online. Lets fill the ground. Already two sides have sold out, so don’t delay.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 