Rules changes for football

After the World Cup the following needs to happen

1. Sin bin- Netherlands would not be able to play such negative football if they lost a player for 5 minutes for a yellow card. It might also cut down on time wasting, taking your shirt off, throwing the ball away. The punishment needs to be more immediate rather than delayed for the next game.
2. Stopping the sinbin if a goal is scored. You don't want to ruin the game.
3. Goal line technology - if Wimbledon can use it so can football

England at the World Cup

Disappointing - the reasons where

1. The ball was quite light and not suited to the longer range passing England employ.
2. The altitude for the same reasons
3. Too many good players in1 position - attacking midfield meant that trying to fit them into the team caused the team to be poorly shaped
4. The very hard pitches seemed to cause the ball too bounce higher
5. Poor first touch - maybe because of some of the reasons above
6. A lack of ruthlessness - on a couple of the German goals fouling the players early in the move would have stopped their attack at the cost of a yellow card.
7. Poor refereeing - if only...
8. Capello not changing the formation as needed
9. Too many of the players not playing well
10. Not beating Algeria - then we would have played Ghana and then maybe Uruguay and finally Netherlands rather than Germany, Argentina and then Spain.

Welcome back

So the marking, football, marking, end of term, A and marking got in the way of blogging but mainly done know.

Football

Good to see that the World Cup is finally coming alive. The first matches were woeful as the teams were very defensive but now the teams are needing to win the excitement should build. I listened to the first match in a field in Suffolk, the second at Scott's house and the third will be during parent's evening. So I will tape it and hope that I don't find the result out in the mean time. I expect England to fire and win and go through but I expect the French thought that as well.

House selling

It is all a bit disheartening. Despite the large number of potential buyers promised by the estate agent (well you always hope although doubt they are telling the truth) no offers as far fewer viewings as I would have liked and no offers. The house we have our eye on is still on the market so we are in a holding pattern. The standard feedback seems to be that the price/space is less and the potential to improve is low as it is already redecorated. I don't really understand the mindset that as it is liveable reduces the desirability but this seems to be the way the market works. It is also probably good for me to have to ensure that the house is clean and tidy every time I leave the house.

To President Obama

Enough. I know that you want to avoid looking like George Bush when he was faced by Hurricane Katrina but you have to got to get a sense of perspective. As a private company BP is not state owned and I have no connection to it but indirectly I feel that they are representing me as they bear the name of the country I was born and raised in. Since the explosion BP have spent nearly a billion pounds and continue to spend more trying to deal with a situation that it is not clear that they are responsible for. The only leased the rig that exploded, they neither owned it nor operated it. They have tried multiple attempts to stop the problem including drilling two new holes to release the pressure. They have ensured that money, manpower and ideas were all available and all you have done is criticise. It is a catastrophe that this oil spill occurred but to be critical of the attempts to clean it up shows no understanding of the situation. If it was easy it would have been done by now. To continue to be furious after so long makes me wonder what hidden problems you are trying to deflect from. All I know is your posturing is negatively affecting the share price of a company to which many pensions are linked so if you could stop then we would appreciate it.

The Hobbit

Went to see the theatrical version of the Hobbit last night and I found that I have been spoiled by the quality of other productions. This was about half the cost of a normal performance in Norwich and a third the price of London and frankly it showed. The show was perfectly serviceable and had a few loud bangs but it lacked a bit of sparkle. Gandalf was good but not as imposing as I would like, the goblin were good but could be a bit more goblin and the acting could have been better. The actor playing Thorin stood out but too often complex dialogue was rushed and the emphasis was in the wrong part of the sentence. The best bit however was the dialogue between Smaug the dragon and Bilbo. In the book they have a number of conversations but this was reduced to two in the play and I wonder about the storytelling. Meeting the Trolls or Elrond could have been let out and more important parts of the story focused on. In someways it was too faithful to a complex book.