sven its over for England

Undistinguished Karlskoga ex-player Sven Goran Eriksson can finally leave the England team manager role after England losing tonight to Portugal.
Tactics from £100k per week Svengori concluded England only needed one striker to score goals. It didn't seem to work.

Instead of "England romps to victory", I suppose we will all be checking the google "Sven Romps" searches. Gosh I found 730.

Now Sven has always been somewhat controversial and there have been a few bad taste jokes about him through years. However, his agent Athole Still seems proud enough to support Sven who will have collected around £25m over the last few years. Here's his (ahem, alleged) video escape with the loot.

England played with spirit, and Portugal played with gamesmanship. After 90 minutes it was 0:0. Then another 30 minutes and still 0:0, so a penalty shootout. So another 4 year wait.

England's team will be at the airport tomorrow. I'm still wearing a three lions shirt, like half of England tonight.

its only a game?

The estimate is that 25 million Brits will watch the England game this afternoon on television. Thats around half the population. Another 100 thousand are in Gelsenkirchen.

Expect:
a) pubs to be packed
b) power cuts at half time when the kettles go on
c) an England win

phone it in

tonight's blog entry is being typed on my treo phone. I'm in a hotel in Lancashire and don't have internet capabilities except via the telephone. So tonight I'm using that well known browser called 'Blazer'. And I'm typing this with two thumbs onto my phone keyboard. At least the journey here was straightforward because I suspect everyone had decided to go home early to watch the soccer. I missed today's game and realise as I type this that I don't know the score - but I expect Germany won!

Thursday Thirteen (V25)

I'm combining the iTunes lyrics meme with a Thursday Thirteen. The iPod meme is about listing first lines from tracks as played on shuffle.

Those of you that have visited my last.fm will see the type of sounds I listen to, or maybe even have indulged in rashbre radio, which broadcasts 24x7x365 via the last.fm radio player.

I decided instead, to grab a selection of old vinyls and take first lines a la HolyHoses Simon. And Simon is looking for extra comments at the moment... Go on, you know you want to!

So here's my first lines serially from a stack of disinterred thirty three and a thirds, along with assistant Bianca demonstrating the true meaning of vinyl.

1) When the night falls and the silence can be heard I hear you calling my name.
2) Oh come on come on dig my mine, Oh come on come on kiss me all along my spine.
3) Oh the feeling, when you're reeling you step lighly thinking you're number one.
4) The wine it was drunk, the ship it was sunk, the shot it was dead, all the sorrows were drowned.
5) As I did travel all on a journey over the wayside and under a dark moon hanging above a mountain.
6) And if you feel that you cant go on and your wills sinkin low, just believe and you cant go wrong. In the light you will find the road. you will find the road
7) Lime and limpid green, a second scene; a fight between the blue you once knew.
8) Don't you know they're talkin' 'bouta revolution - a whisper.
9) Oo, I bet you're wond'ring how I knew 'bout your plans to make me blue with some other guy that you knew before.
10) Hey can you follow, now that the trace is fainter in the sand try turning your face to the wall.
11)I was the master's best friend he was the only man I knew; its been a tall harvest that he turned us all onto.
12) Out on the wiley, windy moors we'd roll and fall in green; you had a temper, like my jealousy-Too hot, too greedy.
13) Standing on the corner, suitcase in my hand; Jack is in his corset, and Jane is in her vest, and, me, I'm in a rock'n'roll band.

Now some of you know my musical taste is somewhat eclectic, so can anyone name any of the tracks, artists or any other relevant fact?

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Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

OTA: Wordless Wednesday

Boat of Garten Station, Scotland, June 2006

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Tag: Wordless Wednesday

Flammenkuchen

I'm wondering where the tarte flambée went this evening? One minute it was in the kitchen, the next time I looked there were just a few crumbs.

mix

More of an observation than a post. I help out Christina Nott with her blog and web site hosting and see her latest post has TWO great French bootleg tracks on it.

More than that, if you set them playing together and then pause them and wind them back alternately, they make a bangin club mix. Best to jump to her site for the full story, but I've added them here as well...

DJM j'adore katerine, jacksons and chilis
DJM hendrix, jamiroquai, red hot chilis and bikini machine

da Vinci clothes

I think doing the laundry would be a close run thing to watching the da Vinci Code this evening. I enjoyed the book which I will review in three words as "entertaining religious mystery" but to use three words on the film I'm saying "creaky, melodramatic disappointment". Anyone got change for the fabric conditioner? Oh, and more London laundry here.

paper

Reality bites. I need to respond to most of this. Fortunately, the Americans have a simple suggestion to assist this.

invent yourself a shortcake

I know this is a totally obscure post...A surprise package arrived this morning, containing a little book to accompany a strangely great album called 'Aeroplane over the Sea' by 'Neutral Milk Hotel'.

What, you say? I have never heard of this? No surprise really.

The little book is from the 33 1/3 Press and contains the equivalent of extra sleeve notes for this 1990s composition. Occasionally an album is so intriguing that it is quite fun to get further into the head of the performer and like many (OK a few thousand) I have puzzled through the lyrics on many occasion.

Jeff Mangum composed these lyrics partly about Anne Frank but mixed with circus imagery and other wild thoughts from an intense and creative mind. Some parts are simple to interpret and the recording flows like a single live set to be run chronologically. Neutral Milk Hotel was originally a name for the various cassette recordings of Jeff, but became the 'band' name for this and a prior record. Also, tucked into the book was a plastic bagged CD of Jeff live at Jittery Joe's. I shall enjoy a listen in this strange semi-private world.

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me

quantum glue

Like reading the cornflakes packet during breakfast, when unwrapping dishwasher tablets I've wondered why they don't just make the outer wrappers degradeable?

Well, Finish solved it and their 'Quantum' have this feature. I discovered, however, when I accidentally got water into the box, they all stick together into one big blob and now I have to cut them apart with a kitchen knife.

Oh well.

hot aire

Excellent dawn experiment today in Stratford-upon-Avon with five hot-air balloons broadcasting ambient music and sound bites from A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest.

The idea is to see whether it affects the dreams of the residents. Luke Jerram is the person behind this with music from the Sky Orchestra. The Shakesperian extracts are read by the actors Patrick Stewart and Janet Suzman.

Dreamy.