Happy belated Fourth Of July to all my US friends and readers! Hope you had a good day last Sunday. Lots of fireworks etc.? Hi to Helen B-T in Boston who wrote to say she was going to enjoy her first July 4th there after moving out last year (or was it 2 years ago...?).

In a just world the atrocious foul committed by the defender would be offset by the Oscar worthy acting performed by the attacker. However this rarely seems to be the case. Even the slightest contact from an opposing player will result in the 'dive-scream-grimace-roll' whereas generally a bad foul will result in consternation from the recipient coupled with hand-waving and glances in the referee's direction.
For a World Cup organisation that promotes 'Fair Play' I think that this behaviour should be cracked down upon pretty hard. Instant Reply should be used to review the tackles and any player taking a dive should be red carded immediately. Likewise the existing rules about fouls should be administered more thoroughly with more yellow and red cards being handed out by the ref's. Sure it will slow the game down. it might even make some sides more prone to playing with 10 or even 9 men after having players sent off. but - as with anything in life - if you reward the desired behaviour and punish the undesired behaviour you will get the results you want. Once well respected teams like Spain, Germany, Argentina and Brazil are forced out of tournaments not through bad plat but through having to play against opposition when they only have 9 men, they will soon change their actions.
And don't get me started on Mark Van Bommel.......
The hosepipe bans have started. It happens quite regularly in the UK. We suffer through rain, sleet, snow and ice for a large proportion of the year - including spells where it will be grey and wet for a week or so at a time - and yet as soon as we have more than 2 days of relatively warm sunshine the water companies impose a hosepipe ban to help "safeguard essentials supplies". I guess I am like the large proportion of the UK population who have a great deal of trouble understanding this. Why - in countries such as Spain and Portugal where the weather is consistently warmer and the rainfall consistantly lower are water restrictions measures rarely implemented, yet in the UK where we are known for having rain does the slightest hint of a warm spell put the water reserves under pressure? I've heard that this is because we have a lot more heavy industry in the UK than Spain and this saps the water supply. OK I can buy that. So why don't industry heavy places like Atlanta, Georgia and New Orleans suffer from these bans? They are located on a longitudinal level with the Northern Sahara, Algeria, Libya and Egypt, have large industrial areas, high populations and a large need for water, and yet I've never heard of them being put on a hosepipe ban. Things like this puzzle me.

Finally: Who really, REALLY cares about where LeBron James is going to be playing basketball next year? Really? I know I don't. At least not to the extent the media has been covering the story over the last week or so. Tell us he's looking, then tell us he's signed. We don't need the constant updates saying nothing's happened or he might be signing with this team, or that team are 'interested'. Just do it and tell us already!
0 comments (See Policy http://tinyurl.com/5qgr5x):
Post a Comment