London, UK
As promised here:
1. Arsenal to win the Premiership in England.
2. Political unrest in China ahead of Olympic Games in Peking.
3. A Hollywood film star will die unexpectedly.
4. Some type of natural disaster in Central or South America.
5. Republican Candidate to win the race for the White House.
6. More terrorist atrocities in Middle East and elsewhere.
7. Madeliene McCann will be found in Morocco or Algeria.
8. Unrest in Belgium.
...............no Russell Brand this time but the simply gorgeous Mischa Barton who plays JJ French in St Trinians
Friday, December 28 2007, 00:20 GMT
By Beth Hilton
London, UK
My immediate reaction to the awful news from Rawalpindi today is this:
1. Will further instability in Pakistan result in the deployment of more British troops in neighbouring Afghanistan?
2. What would happen to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country is taken over by radicals?
3. Will this lead to more terrorism in the West?
London & Margate, UK
There are two things I currently dislike about football:
1. Players who feign tackles or injuries, and
2. Players who individually, or collectively whinge and moan at officials and don't "get on with the game".
Both were in abundance at Hartdown Park, Margate on Boxing Day where the home team drew 1-1 with close neighbours, Ramsgate FC. Some of you would have read this article which appeared on my main site towards the end of last season. Both teams were "up for it" back in April but yesterday, there was a nasty edge to Ramsgate's play which exemplified their desperation to finish above Margate in a league for the first time in 50 years.They may succeed come early May.
Much has been discussed in the media about players diving in the box to con the referee into awarding a penalty.This is now known in footballing circles as "simulation". One of the Ramsgate forwards, Steffan Ball, tried it on in the first-half, just in front of my commentary postion. He should, in my opinion, been given a yellow card or perhaps a junior Oscar. This started the big "Ramsgate whinge" which continued throughout the rest of the match and only to be interrupted when Ramsgate scored the opening goal just prior to the break.
Most of the talk after the match centred around an incident halfway through the second half. The Ramsgate goalscorer, Olly Shultz, sithed down Margate skipper, Rob Haworth. The tackle was one of those two-footed, off the ground and potentially career-ending tackles. He was shown a straight red and will face a three-match ban. Question is, is this adequate? Will a six-match or three-month ban get the message home to players? And Suppose Shultz had done this down your local High Street. He surely would have been arrested.
On a lighter note, it was great to see some of the Yorath family at Hartsdown Park. Dai (details) Dean, who played 33 times for the 'Gate and Terry Yorath. (Read this)
Happy New Year
Picture shows Margate winger Ryan Martin impersonating Cristiano Ronaldo
St Trinians 2007 starring Russell Brand is now general release in the UK. Have you seen it yet?
Lauren Rose's version of Hava Nagila. Didn't quite make it to number one for Christmas.
Full story here
I did promise Mark Goldberg (her father)on BBC London's "Non League Show", I'd plug the record.
Mark, you owe me one!
The local derby everyone's been looking forward to!
Catch me and Steve Wells, live only on the Internet from Hartsdown Park on Boxing Day at 1pm. Go to www.margate-fc.com
London, UK
As seen in today's London Evening Standard and elsewhere on the internet:
London, UK
On Christmas Eve at 9pm, I'll be appearing with
Caroline Barker of BBC London and her guests David Watters and "Willie Wordsworth" of the Non League Daily. We'll be joined by Alan Alger of Blue Square Football
The only place to hear the show is on-line. See here for more details
London, UK
Here's a photo of Will at Leicester Square earlier this evening. See full story and LSQ photo here
London, UK
Could Belgium split in to two separate states? Read this article
This current news story from the on-line Daily Telegraph may have worsened matters between the Walloons and the Flemish.
Belgium's newly crowned beauty queen has been drawn into the bitter political feud that has left Brussels without a government for six months after it emerged that she cannot speak the language used by half of the country.
Alizée Poulicek, a 20-year-old language student, was booed by the audience when she failed to respond to questions in Dutch before being crowned Miss Belgium at the weekend in Antwerp, in Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north of Belgium.
Miss Poulicek may be multilingual in French, English and Czech but political correctness demands she also speaks Dutch, the language spoken by Belgium's Flemish majority, whose demands for more autonomy are behind a political crisis that has lasted almost 200 days.
"I was shocked, it was not fair play," the beauty queen, the daughter of a Czech father and a Belgian mother, told the French-language newspaper La Dernière Heure. "In the wings, I told myself it was lost for me because of that but everyone encouraged me and told me it was not important."
The Flemish, comprising six million of Belgium's 10.4 million citizens, are increasingly demanding that public figures are tweetalig, or bilingual in Dutch and French.
The row illustrates the deep divisions in a country where tension between the Dutch-speaking Flemish and francophone Walloons has prevented the formation of a government since national elections on June 10. In a bid to end the crisis, Belgium's King Albert II has asked the caretaker prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, to form an interim government.
London, UK
Reports from Havana tonight suggest that 80-year old Fidel Castro is about to step down as leader.
Is your Blog outstanding?
Leadership and Other Ramblings: Outstanding Blogs
Have you made that list?
London, UK
I am Legend premieres in Leicester Square next Wednesday. Here's Will Smith talking about it:
Iain Dale's Diary: Why is France Getting Twice as Much as Britain Out of the EU?
Looks like people are starting to wake up.
Maybe.
London, UK
Russell Brand popped along to a Hare Krishna temple. He's found a new religion. Talk a peak at this from today's on-line Daily Mail:
Motormouth comic Russell Brand appears to be seeking the path of enlightenment as he took time out to connect with his spiritual side at a Hare Krishna Temple.
The wild-haired one got into the spirit of things donning traditional flowing white robes, gladiator-style sandals and sitting in the lotus position among his fellow devotees.
Scroll down for more...
Hairy Krishna: Russell Brand spent the day at a Hare Krishna temple and is said to be a spiritual devotee of the spiritual practice.
London, UK
| Democracy banned in European Parliament | |
| The European Parliament has censored its own television coverage to avoid showing a serious protest in the debating chamber in A group of about 80 Eurosceptic MEPs protested loudly as the Charter of Fundamental Rights was signed, with the result that a huge section of As the demonstration started, TV cameras immediately killed all sound so that none of the protest could be heard and the cameras stayed away resolutely from the large block of protesters. At one stage, The President of the Parliament, Hans Gert Pottering, asked them to leave the chamber. They refused. The protest continued during speech by Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. However as he talked of "greater democracy for Mr Pottering shouted at the protesters accusing them of being "anti-democratic because they will not let our guests speak." He was met with cries of "Let the people speak." UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, one of the prime movers of the protest, said: "This is the new EU in action, showing the world a united face as they steamroll towards their own superstate while totally refusing to allow anyone to see a different point of view." Furious at the protests, some MEPs resorted to rough tactics and one member of the European People's Party dragged a female observer from the "The "This, of course, is the anthem which is supposed to have disappeared. To their everlasting shame, British MEPs from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties stood ramrod-straight to grant this piece of music national anthem status." Mr Farage added: "Fortunately, cameras from the BBC and ITV were there, so at least there is a chance that people in | |
London, UK
This day, December 13th, there are two interesting results in the history of Margate Football Club. I mentioned one last month, here about the FA Cup clash with Yeovil in 1967. That 3-1 away victory was a great achievement for Margate who then lost to Peterborough United in Round 2.
A couple of years later, Margate, like many other senior non-league clubs at the time entered a new competition, the FA Trophy. I remember the draw being made for the 3rd Qualifying Round. It was to be either St Neots or Thorneycroft Athletic. This is a bit like Arsenal or Chelsea having to play Brentford or Rochdale in the FA Cup. Expecting an easy away win, I called the "away" results line. I rang back because I couldn't believe the 0-2 result. Margate FC's record since that time has been less than impressive.
The furthest Margate has reached in this competition was the 3rd round proper, when they were defeated by Runcorn (after a replay) in 1979, then to Morecambe in 2002 at the quarter-final stage. This season, Margate lost to Leamington (formerly AP Leamington) 1-0 in a 2nd qualifying round replay.
London, UK
From the blog at on-line magazine, Management-Issues:
The annual Christmas quiz in UK lawyers' magazine Legal Business has raised eyebrows with questions such as "which female partner at a top City law firm was sent to Asia after she was caught having a threesome with two trainees – in the office?"
Other gems include asking the name of the firm where one secretary hospitalised another after hitting her with a champagne bottle in a fight at a party and which firm fired a trainee after they were sick on a partner at a Christmas dinner.
Intriguingly, the magazine says that it has never been threatened with legal action over the salacious quiz, despite featuring similar tales of misbehaviour for 14 years running.
As the magazine's editor, James Baxter, told the Evening Standard: "morality levels in the legal profession are directly linked to earnings, with one decreasing as the other increases."
London, UK
As if my head wasn't big enough already!
Yours truly, or rather Jeremy Jacobs. com is in a list of oustanding bloggers by Trina Lamarche of the "Virtual Assistant Assistant".
Thanks Trina but what about Corporate Presenter?
London, UK
Alan Caruba pointed me in the direction of his Blog. He writes:
“Climate change is a non problem,” says Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher. “The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”
Of course, the 10,000 participants and observers at the United Nations conference on climate change are not there to “do nothing”, if you discount the handful of skeptics who are there to rip back the curtain to reveal what a complete fraud is occurring.
The United Nations is not a stranger to fraud. The Iraq Oil for Food fraud helped enrich a number of its officials. Its indifference to genocides and human rights offenses is well established, but its love of treaties in which to increase its power over sovereign nations is also well documented.
The global warming “crisis” has been created and pushed forward by the United Nations in the form of its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whose various reports are replete with deception. Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer of every single draft of the IPCC reports, going back to its inception in 1990, says, “There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any effect whatsoever on the climate. It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics.”
On December 10, former Vice President Al Gore accepted a Nobel Prize for PEACE along with the IPCC. A panel of politicians, not scientists, awarded the prize. Moreover, what does the climate have to do with peace, unless perhaps one recalls that it was the Mini-Ice Age that drove Napoleon’s troops from Russia in defeat or that America’s Valley Force during the Revolution were also subject to conditions that caused even the Thames in London to freeze?
The Mini-Ice Age lasted from 1300 to around 1850. The earth has been warming ever since. It has nothing to do with human beings and everything to do with the Sun and other natural factors that determine the earth’s climate.
The charlatans behind the latest UN conference are not there to “do nothing.” They are there to impose limits on energy use that will have horrendous implications for any nation foolish enough to accept them.
The Kyoto Protocol needs to be allowed to expire. The world needs to do nothing about climate change because the human race can do nothing about climate change. Because the amount of carbon dioxide has nothing to do with climate change in that it follows a warming cycle, not precedes it. It changes nothing. It responds to change.
How difficult is that to understand?
Not difficult at all Alan.
