Archive for the 'sport' Category

New soccer rules

Grandad February 18th, 2008

I find soccer incredibly boring.

I have never liked the game, or any aspect of it.  The game itself is just a crowd of overpaid nancies running around a field kicking a ball.  Then there is the hysteria and [worst of all] the interminable analysis that accompanies each game.

I have a little proposal to make the game a little more interesting.

Soccer is played on a very large pitch.   10,800 square meters roughly.  Including the referee, there are 23 players on the pitch at any one time.  Correct me if I’m wrong?  Each player takes up only one square meter, so, in the course of a match, the players take up one five-hundredth part of the pitch.  That leaves a hell of a lot of spare space.

football_pitch

My proposal is simple.

Why not hold two games at the same time?

All you need is two different colour balls, and four different team colours.  Each match will be entirely independent of the other.  You would only need to introduce a couple of extra rules about players using the wrong ball or tackling a player who isn’t their official opponent.

Semi-finals could be played on the same pitch.  Think of the excitement!

Also we could get the damned soccer season over in half the time.

In fact, this principle could be applied to a lot of games.  Rugby?   Cricket?  Tennis?  Baseball?  The list is a long one.

It might even make the game interesting enough for me to watch a game or two.

I’ve been tagged again

Grandad November 11th, 2007

Our K8 has come up with a new meme.

And, bless her little cotton socks, she has passed it on to me.

She wants me to write a post that uses every tag. It’s all very well for her - she only has a few. I have loads. The cow!

Now I may be getting old but I find these difficult. I had a hard days blogging yesterday, as I had a good rant on a podcast to America. That was after I did my post on Cully and Sully.

So today I went for a ramble around the garden, trying to think of a topic. No go. There was no inspiration around the house either, and I’m damned if I’m going around the village or around the town for something so trivial.

Back in the 70’s life was a lot simpler. There were no computers or Internet, or even television so there were no memes. I had no irritating daughter in the family either. We found our pleasures in simple things. I remember learning to drive so we could go on holidays touring in the West, with no worries about flying and Global Warming. We had such simple sports as children in times past, like watching spiders spin their webs, and the designs they’d make. We’d go for rambles through the woods and have picnics of tea and spam sandwiches. We were a lot healthier for it.

Nowadays, work is the new religion and people have lost the use of their imagination. People only get worked up over celebrities and smoking out corrupt politicians. They panic over property prices and have lost sight of the soul of life.

No.

I can’t think of anything.

I elect not to do it.

I’m going to file this under Uncatagorised.

Maybe Sixty should have a bash at this?

Or how about Kirk at Just Thinkin’? I haven’t tagged him before.

And it’s a while since I annoyed Grannymar!!

tag-award

F*cking memes….

The aerodynamics of dog turds

Grandad June 6th, 2007

I cut the grass yesterday.

It had been getting quite long and the dog kept getting lost. But it’s short now.

So I decided to practice my golf as I hadn’t tried my new clubs yet.

Now the only problem is that I don’t have any balls. And I mean golf balls before any of you come up with smutty remarks. So I thought I’d try out with pine cones. I have thousands of those from the woods. They work extremely well, though they aren’t very aerodynamic so they tend to curve in flight.

It wasn’t long before I was sailing them across the road and into the valley beyond. At one stage I managed to sail one in through the open door of a tourist bus that was driving past. With a bit of luck, I might have hit someone.

Then I remembered our K8’s idea about using dog turds. So I brought in a pile from outside the gate. They were nicely sun-dried and ripe for driving. All I needed was a target.

Our neighbour put up a rather ugly extension some years ago that blocks part of our view. I always hated that extension. But it made a perfect target.

If anyone is interested, dog turds are much more aerodynamic than pine cones. I could aim straight and true. The neighbours extension now bears a remarkable resemblance to a large Jackson Pollock. It looks a lot better. As long as the wind doesn’t blow from that direction.

paintsplatter.jpg

I have to wait now for the local dogs to produce more golf balls. Assuming it is from dogs, of course.

And in years to come, if the pine cones take root, I’m going to have a lovely forest in the valley across the road.

Anyone for tee?

Grandad May 28th, 2007

By now you probably know I hate sport.

I have played a little tennis in my time. I played hockey once by accident, and they tried to make me play rugby at school.

The only sport I ever really took to was golf. Well, by golf, I mean par-3. Until a couple of years ago, I had never weilded anything bigger than a three-iron.

It’s an old cliché that retired [or semi-retired] people take up golf. It never occurred to me to do anything like that. It costs a lot to join a club and you need all sorts of things like golf clubs. But I quite like playing. It is a relaxing sort of game. There is no hysteria, like in football. You can talk golf without having to know the name and score of every player back to the 1940s. It is played in pleasant open spaces where you can enjoy nature, and it’s good exercise.

There is something immensely satisfying about a good tee shot. There is the crisp click as you hit the ball square on and then watch as it sails high off over the trees to be followed by the sound of breaking glass and a yell from some unfortunate.

Our K8 was here over the weekend. She told me she had bought some clubs for The Accidental Terrorist for his birthday. He had immediately gone out and completed the set. But he already had a full set which is now redundant. So she informed me that his entire old set is now in my porch. It’s mine.

All I need now is someone to play with and somewhere to play it. None of my pals around here play, so it’s a bit of a problem. I’m going to play around the garden a bit. I have enough space to play with putters and 9-irons and maybe even 7-irons. I’ll have to cut the grass more often though. I can practice my drives by aiming for the neighbour’s windows.

Our K8 is move to a new house close by soon, and she says we are going to play a lot on the course up the road. That sounds great, but I think they’ve closed the course down, which is a bummer.

golf.jpg

My ambition is to be the first person ever to get a hole in one on a par 5 at the U.S. Masters at Augusta.

Does anyone know where I can get an application form?