Friday = Fish

Friday Night Fish Fry

That's a jazz song by someone, I think. I've had a Friday night seafood broth. Onions, garlic, ginger, new potatoes, carrots, celery, mushrooms, all gently sweat in olive oil until they wilt a bit. Vegetable stock goes in and it all simmers until the flavours develop and the spud pieces are done. Everything's chopped up nice and small. Drop of sesame oil and mushroom ketchup. Once that was good and tasty the fish went in: thin salmon pieces (½ price, Sainsburys); three raw king prawns and three scallops (buy two for £5, Sainsburys); shrimps (not on any sort of special offer, but cheap as chips), bit by bit, just long enough to cook through. Mopped up the liquid with a doorstop of bread. I'll be having that again, and not just because there's so much let in the fridge to use up.

Oxymoron

Mobile phone company helpline. At least according to BLISS. Work all week in stressful jobs, then spend Friday night with more stress because the helpline is an oxymoron that's similar to the Young One's Rik (with a silent 'p').

Aussie swimmers

Shane Warne: Congratulations to the gold medal winning Australian women's relay team.

Both: Naturally. You lot have to swim fast, all those deadly animals in your waters.

“I'll do it skip”

South Africa's skipper, Smith, was unavailable injured. There was a team meeting about shuffling the pack. Smith opens the batting. The obvious thing would be to bump everyone one place up the order.

“No need” said Morkel, “I can open”. He convinced the management that he was actually much better than his usual position low in the batting order suggested, and was duly promoted. He strode confidently out to face the new ball.

Two balls later he was walking back in. Not only out but out attempting some outrageous attacking shot. Back to the drawingboard, but you can't fault the bloke for being positive.

The disqualified badminton players

Look, they didn't throw games to win a gambling syndicate tons of money. They didn't go out and lose, they were already through, they'd done enough. Runners ease off in heats when they know they've done enough, saving something for the next heat or the final. Weightlifters and highjumpers chose to come into the competition to suit their chances of winning, often with an element of risk involved.

Groups stages, then rather than predetermined draws, two bags, group winners, group runner ups, one from each bag. Added interest and no more disqualifications. The criticism and disqualification should go to the idiots who organised the event and made the rules.