Not So Disenfranchised After All

Watched the Brits - a tepid and manufactured affair. Thank goodness I'm not a teenager anymore: I'd have to pretend to like Bovril Lasagne and her fake rock chick performances. However, I'm not as disenfranchised as I thought: of the ten CDs we took up to Carlisle with us for the weekend, seven were nominated awards.

Still don't get the Urban category though, nor the reason why it had double the nominees of any other award...


Postmans Graveyard

Nelson The Dog loves his animal bones. They tend to end up sucked dried of all edible matter in Mop & Bob's front garden. He also loves visitors: he'll chase his tail, retrieve a cushion, jump up, salivate and bash his tail against you.

Ann was telling us the story of a recent visitor (we'll pretend he was a postman) coming to the door. Ann asked him to hold on a minute so she could put the dog away in the kitchen - so Nelson wouldn't go for the postman (i.e. lick him to death). When she opened the door to the postman, he motioned to the piles of bones in the garden and said:

"Are these the remains of people who you didn't put the dog away for?!"


Colditz

Started reading the definitive history of Colditz, 14 months after Daz & Tine bought me it: At last I'm starting to catch up with some outstanding reading. The book's a blast and really captures the spirit of the "game of escape". It reads like a work of fiction and it is therefore easy to forget that the death-defying feats and escape attempts of the prisoners really did happen.

The first Brit to escape was smuggled out in a straw mattress. He dressed up as a Hitler Youth, and via the train and a 50 km lift from two Gestapo officers, he managed, over the course of 23 days, to get to the American Consulate in Vienna. With no money, food, clothes or papers he asked the Americans not for a safe-haven or safe-passage back to England, but for a 20 mark note.

The generous Americans gave him nothing and turfed him out into the cold. He was picked up a few hours later by the Germans and returned to Colditz for a 28 day stay in solitary.


Footballing Lessons

It's not often that an Italian club is given a lesson in football, but Juve were on the end of one last night. Lippi described Man Utd as "world class". He wasn't wrong. Although Utd rode their luck in the first half, they were so impressive and in control, that the result didn't flatter them one bit. Veron and Butt gave Davids a masterclass in controlling the midfield. A 3-nil loss at home is about the biggest beating an Italian side has ever suffered in Europe. Roll on the quarterfinals.