Month: October 2002

Yay! GBlogs is back, thanks to Darren, Jez and Ben.

TFF: a middling 25 points this week.
Transfers: OUT: Heskey and Short. IN: Zola and Bridge.

Yet more evidence, if any were needed, that the current British Government is crap, and excessively nannying: sports leaders slam Government plan. Reporting the presentation where the mandarins laid out the Government’s proposals to the leaders of the six biggest sporting codes in the country (athletics, cycling, cricket, football, rugby and tennis):

Curiously, the Government is now reported to be back-pedalling as fast as Prescott’s stubby little legs will go.

Unsurprisingly, I woke up with a bit of a fuzzy head this morning. urf. Serves me right.

Just want to send a big hug to Bella and another to Marianne.
God, I get far too sentimental when I’ve had a few drinks.

Cocktails, beer and peanuts tonight with Paul F, Arron, Terry, Kearn, DA, Aris, Guy and assorted others, including sightings of the largest meeting of attractive blonde women that Chichester has ever seen. Pity I was only looking.

Pessimystic Meg.

Not the most enjoyable of mornings, starting out with taking Vince to the vet for his innoculation, then dodging the rain, sorting out problems with customers and coming up with an appropriate response to a flaming mail addressed to our work website feedback address. Joy.
On the plus side, CDs ordered from Pork Recordings have turned up extremely quickly and very well packed. Top marks there.

My maternal grandmother would have been 107 today.
It is also the 36th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, in which a waste tip at a Welsh coal mine collapsed, burying part of the neighbouring village including three classrooms of the junior school. 144 people died, including 116 children. I don’t think anyone can fail to be moved by the images of that disaster, including the picture of the local policeman carrying a child that had been pulled from the rubble. I particularly suggest that you read the accounts of the witnesses:

Tonight, the annual Sloe Fair is being held just up the road from me in Northgate car park, which used to be part of Oaklands Park. In 1107, Henry I gave the Bishop of Chichester the right to hold a yearly fair. The fair, now known as Sloe Fair, is still held on the 20th October every year, except when the 20th falls on a Sunday (as it did this year). If I have my facts right, I think the fairground stalholders have to pay a tithe of a shilling to the church for the right to take part, and the fair causes great annoyance to the district council because it takes over the second largest car park in the city for effectively four days, although the fair itself is only one day long.
I suspect that the fair now is nothing at all like the original. Today’s fair is a magnet for children, teenagers and bored parents. Invariably, a stroll around the ground reveals countless “yoofs”, smoking, drinking (if they can get it), and generally showing off in front of their mates. There are two groups that really enjoy it though: the twenty- and thirtysomethings, recapturing their lost youth before it escapes them entirely and they join the serried ranks of parents being dragged around by the other group that really enjoy the fair – the wide eyed children. In many ways, half the joy of going to the fair is to see the expressions on the faces of the youngest ones, wide eyed at all the noise, bustle and bright lights of the fair.
Even I have been known to go to the fair (though usually I have to be dragged there by someone). Sitting on top of my monitor is Roosevelt, a small orange bear that I rescued from the fair one year by winning him from a stall.