HAPPY NEW YEAR.

A very happy new year to everyone, especially those who have no one to think of them or act for them. All of us have times when the going looks bleak, but I imagine most browsing the internet will not be among those desperate souls who get themselves disconnected from society. So God bless them particularly.

Indoors tonight, full of a very heavy cold, but we are all in together and will, in that rather meaningless way we all seem to have developed, "welcome" in the New Year. I hope, but do not expect, that  2012 might bring an uplift to the country, and the wider world in general. This though does look extremely unlikely, and I imagine there might be a grim few years ahead of us all, so the type of perspective I was hinting at above may well come in handy during these different times. I'll try and remember not too feel sorry for myself !

Some predictions for 2012:

Football:

*  Man City to win the Premier League by ten points. Utd, Spurs and Liverpool to join them in the Champions League.

* Sunderland to improve slowly under Martin O'Neil, finishing 14th. Better times may lie ahead though and after just scraping to safety, we do much better in next season, ending the year in 8th place with 28points

* Blackburn, Bolton and Norwich go down.

* West Ham, Middlesborough and Cardiff get promoted to PL

* Celtic to win Scottish PL

Cricket:

* England go well in 2012, Beating Pakistan and West Indies, and drawing once more with SA at home.

* Durham finish third again in the CC. Again ,as in 2011,  the lack of a genuine attack bowler costs us as we are unable to convert enough winning positions into points. Ben Stokes pushes himself into the England squad again.

Politics*.

* I'm a year out here, having predicted the Euro's demise this year, but 2012 will surely see it start to dis-assemble. The numbers have their own power and they are already too great to resist. It will be messy but there is no need to assume it will be a financial armageddon. It won't be. Once it has started to happen, it will become clear quickly enough, and to enough people, that the world has not stopped. Life will go on, and will eventually be the better for it.

* Labour oust Red Ed. His brother marches to the rescue, but the Labour Party splits itself into two warring sections, making life easier than it should be for the rabble that is running the country now.

My cold eventually gets better.

Happy New Year and  God Bless.





               

2011 Christmas

Happy Christmas to anyone coming across this. We will all be going to midnight mass tonight, and that really IS midnight this year.

Again, it will be sardine time, and Christ's birth will be celebrated and remembered. The BBC would be outraged I imagine at such flagrant display of the Christian faith. Pity for them.

A little Euro Fable.

The Euro And The Hot Air Balloon

You are up in a hot air balloon, in the middle of a much publicised and prestigious attempt to cross some huge continent. Things have been going well for a good while now, a fair wind has favoured you, and has disguised any problems you thought you might have had with your gas supplies. This had been an early concern, but was something which you felt it necessary to take a chance on; you couldn't wait forever.

Looking good in this enterprise was vital, and so you had made certain that your balloon was as eye catching and impressive looking as it was possible to make it. You were going to show them all that it really could be done.

Ahead of you, far away but in sight, are a vast range of mountains which you had always known would present you with your biggest challenge. But, as that fair wind was no longer behind you, you also know by now that your gas is just not going to get you over those peaks. So your choice is simple.

Choice number one is that you accept that you won't make it, and exercise a controlled descent. This will safeguard all those on board, (you were not alone, many others were airborne with you, most without being asked if they felt like making such an unlikely and hazardous journey). You will then, as a result of this “failure” be obliged to accept the bit of bad publicity that would come your way, but everyone is safe and life returns to normal very quickly.

Choice number two is for you to attempt to cross the range, knowing that you are almost certain to come to grief. This option allows you to delay, just a little longer, the moment of public failure. As you had always maintained that you could accomplish this flight successfully, the attraction of this delay is very appealing to you. Even more appealing to you is the fact that you are able to eject at the right moment because you had prepared yourself, but everyone else suffers as the balloon crashes into the rocks.

No sane or reasonable man would pick the second option.

But that is exactly what the unelected politburo of the EU and their minions are doing now while they pursue their futile efforts to save the Euro. To this hopeless end, they are obviously quite happy to see the impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people, and the subverting of democracy in Europe. The forthcoming calamity is nothing to them just as long as they aren't seen to have been wrong all these years. They don't mind the long drawn out processes, it makes them look useful. They are just kicking the tin down the street a bit. Unbelievably, out of vanity, they are taking option two.

 And they can do this because they enjoy, (at our expense), fantastic, barely taxed salaries and pensions, and will suffer not at all when this ridiculous political experiment finally obeys gravity and comes hurtling down to earth.

But WE are going to pay. We are the passengers who didn't ask to go on the ride . Brace yourself for a meeting with the rocks.

Hello Again.

Well "hello again" seems as good as anything else after months without a word! I have been very busy but idle as well.

On the football front, we have a had a stuttering, difficult start that you could see coming really, the only really disappointing part of which was the last hour of the game at Brighton. We could have won the derby,  came back well against a good Liverpool side, and picked up a decent point against Swansea. But at Brighton  though we sort of waited for something to happen after about an hour. We should be okay, but boy do we need some goals!

I keep predicting it, but I really think the Euro is nearing it's last few months as a genuine currency. It seems that faith in it, along with some very entrenched vested interests is all that is keeping it from imploding. But the markets and their numbers have their own awesome power, as they have done since the days of the Medicis, and I can't anything but a collapse.

 An orderly retreat is still possible but this is beyond the pale politically for those who could make this happen. This will be a very messy business for us all. The fate of hundreds of millions of people has been left to swing in the wind while political vanities are massaged. It is grotesque and disgusting , and I genuinely wish that the peoples of Europe would , as old Percy Bysshe exhorted people of another time, "Rise like lions after slumber".

There will be blood over this.

Holidays

I think we might be off to Cyprus this year. My brother is getting married and they have decided to do the thing there rather than here, (maybe they don't do marriage now  in England or Scotland !), but good luck to them and God's blessing . If possible we'll try and get there.

Wouldn't mind getting to see the pyramids at Giza again if we do go. It would be great for the kids and, although expensive, might be a really memorable and worthwhile extra. We'll see.

Another win for the lads yesterday, 2-1 away to Blackpool. No Bent , but Richardson was superb alongside Gyan, who , if he stays fit could improve dramatically by playing on his own up front. He is technically better than Bent, and knows where the goal is, and can also see the wider game better. He is also a better dancer!

Well done Steve Bruce , SNQ and Ellis Short.We look stable ,and confident and set to improve, a state of affairs unimaginable a few years ago. The only flaw in the clubs strategy that I can see is the delay, possibly cancellation, of the the proposed training barn, an indoor facility the club badly needs. I hope this is not the case, as it would be an awful mistake , and one laced with huge irony. SNQ is on record as saying that the team should have taken precedence over the building of the present Academy, and the same "choice" appears before the club with him in charge. He must ignore his instincts and push for the barn.

DERBY!

Don't much fancy us tomorrow. We are good at home, they are missing a couple of key players, (though not as many as us!), I think we will finish above them, and away wins are quite rare in Derbies. Still I don't fancy us. Natural pessimism perhaps, but I think the physical and aggressive side of their game will win the day tomorrow.

But I wouldn't swap our position for theirs, and if they do win, they can enjoy the day, but can expect more traumatic days ahead while Mike Ashley is in the big seat up there. As long as we are run as we are being run at the moment, we'll fare better than them overall.

In the unlikely event of us winning though , I genuinely think we will be difficult to shift out of sixth place. An unheard of achievement for us in my time.