Should have posted this a month ago but I was too busy enjoying the football . . .

My kids don't like football . . . or Maths  . . . or History.

What do they like?

A screenshot from an old issue of Roy of the Rovers. I don't actually remember the strip itself. It was called 'The boy who did not like football'. Sod him.

It turns out 61 is a prime number

Apparently the theme for a 61st wedding anniversary is a plane wood tree, but I couldn't come up with an appropriate title incorporating that fact, so I settled with the wee fact - hitherto unknown to me - that 61 is a prime number.

Have I previously mentioned on the blog that I was for about 15 minutes in my youth a 'Mathlete'? Yep, I represented the school and everything. We got to the quarter final one year, before getting knocked out by Watford Grammar School. Funnily enough, one of the reasons for my early aptitude for Maths was Darts. It really did help with my numeracy. However, my primary thanks for actually being half-decent at Maths as a kid was my teacher in my final year at primary school. That teacher's name was Mr Lowde. It was also his final year of teaching after a lifetime in the classroom. (He served in the RAF during World War Two as a young man.) It would be fair to say that he was the most important teacher in my life during all my years in education. If I wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't have gone to university. Funny the stuff you remember when you're trying to come up with blurb to accompany your 180s.

With regards to this 180, I love the grouping, and there was only an 18 minute gap between this 180 and number 60 ('Diamond Life'). For those 18 minutes I was actually on fire, and I had one of those moments of (darting) clarity where I realised this is how I should throw all the time. The problem is that it never lasts. I can actually walk you through - or more importantly - talk you through how I can get the best out of my game but I can't sustain it for any half-decent length of time. It' something I should work on. Maybe muscle memory will eventually lock in. If it does, my game will definitely improve by 3 or 4 points, and those 3 or 4 points can make all the difference at the level I'm playing at.

61/50

Another part of my childhood gone . . .

Well, that's an absolutely gut punch on a Christmas morning.

For a few years in the late 1970s, John Robertson was one of the best footballers in the world. An absolute legend.

In the words of the late Brian Clough: "What is the point of giving you the ball when there is a genius on the other wing?" (Question to Martin O'Neill about John Robertson, 1979.)

Against Malmo, 1979 European Cup Final.

And it should also be stated for the record that he was front and centre on the greatest football song of all time. ('World in Motion' and 'Three Lions' can get fucked.)

The Visitor?

The last time Celtic lost four songs in a row, this song was number one in the British charts:

I mean, it's a stone cold classic -  and Agnetha is DDG in the video -  but I just want to climb into my DeLorean and go back two weeks. Put it through a car wash. Do a Bobby Ewing . . . or was it a Pam Ewing?

Round 510: More than a flash in the pan (groan)

 

Darts Thrown: October 6th 2020

Blog Written: October 13th 2020

Highest Score: 140

Lowest Score: 3

Sixties: 25

100+: 7

180s: 0

180s Missed: 1

Blogger's Note: Written in haste, so there will be spelling mistakes and slapdash grammar.

Another middle of the road darts round. Need to hit more 100 plusses. At least I was throwing for a 180 for a change.

About Round 511, and the mention of that miserable childhood holiday and the music associated with it; well, I happened to check out Flash in the Pan's 'Waiting For A Train' again and, gulp, it's fucking brilliant. I always knew it was a good song but I don't remember it being this good.  That holiday was still an absolute shocker but fair fucks, this song is magic. Turns out that wanker Guy Ritchie used it in one of his films, which half annoys me but I'll let it pass this time. Here's a link to the 9 minute version. Enjoy and try not to think about sand, sunburn and a pissed up pater:

Flash And The Pan - Waiting For a train (9 minutes) 1982

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 12

A song from your preteen years.

As a kid, it was such a big deal that they mentioned Glasgow in the lyric. The glamour . . . Agnetha . . . Be still my beating heart . . .

Abba - Super Trouper (1980)

I'm caught in a time loop, people . . .

Tried to explain the wonders of childhood Toast Toppers to the family in lockdown, and they just weren't buying it. It appears my descriptive powers are not as shit hot as I first thought. It didn't help that I also fell on my arse trying to describe a top cooker grill to them . . . 'You mean, it's like a broiler?' No, it's not a bastard broiler.

In exasperation, I dove into the internet, hoping to find a half decent pic of Toast Toppers in all its  last century glory but all I found was a thread from 2013 on Urban75 where people were shitting all over Toast Toppers. And, yep, I was in the middle of said thread, trying to defend the wonders of Toast Toppers. I'm living in a fucking time loop, people. No wonder I'm coping better than most with this lockdown repetition b/s.

Some of the better quotes from that 2013 thread. (I've removed the user-names, to ensure that the guilty are protected despite their snacking sins.):

• "It's a shame each variety looks like puke on toast.”
• “they look like a tramps vomit and taste like hells own armpit.”
• “Truly vile shit in a tin - even back in the day when they were the pinnacle of modernity."

And this particular contribution won the internet that day:

• "This is probably the most incisive class analysis thread on Urban. Love = working class Hate = middle class No fucking idea what you're talking about = ruling class."

"A Tufty Club badge . . ."

Still catching up (part 9)

28/50

Zéro de conduite (1933)

Knock off sheepskin jackets for goalposts

Brilliant pic from the '70s. Sadly, I will still dressing like this in 1981. I didn't stand a chance.

#ChildhoodTraumas

Boys’ pen, Anfield. Photo by Pete Marlowe

Little Green Man by Simon Armitage (Penguin Books 2001)

It was the start of the summer. I was sixteen. I got a job in a cardboard-box factory, worked eight till seven every day and Saturday mornings as well. It was a shit job with shit pay, but there was nothing else to do, and anyway I was saving up for America. Stubbs and the others, they'd still got a year to do. It was the holidays but I only saw them at night, a game of soccer in the schoolyard before it went dark or a bottle of cider in the bandstand. Then it was winter - they'd got their homework, I'd got my cardboard boxes. I was wishing my life away, waiting for my friends. Twelve months went by, until the day arrived. At three-thirty I turned up at the school gates with the same lighter. The summer stretched out in front. A summer like the year before last, the five of us going wild all over again. Then America, me and Stubbs and the rest if they wanted to come. Thumbing it from state to state. Occasional jobs. Getting into situations, getting out of scrapes. That was the plan, and today was the first day. I waited, but Stubbs didn't show. He'd sloped off across the playing fields. Like a traitor. And Tony Football went by on the top deck of a school bus, looking the other way. Like a thief. And Winkie was ill. I clenched the little green man in my fist, dug my nails into the jade. Only Pompous turned up, his blazer torn to shreds by the rest of the morons in his remedial set.

'Barney. Throw me the lighter.'

'Where are the others?'

'No idea.'

'Where's Stubbs? I told him I'd meet him here to do the business.'

'I don't know, all right? But he's not going to want his jacket tatching, is he?'

'Why not?'

Not if he's staying on next year. What's he going to come to school in - his vest?'