Lucky pants, the facts

Theology and the philosophy of lucky pants

All I said was something about the ruthless always being ready to exploit the beliefs and naivety of others. Television evangelists. Psychics. Performing to theatres full of ticket buyers, who don't question the seer's inability to foresee anything useful, leaving them unable to win the lottery or predict the result of the 1:45 at Wincanton and put their feet up in the Bahamas. Mediums. Clairvoyants. All those that advertise in the Fortean Times (is that where they advertise?).

In an outrageous non-sequitur, this lead to the questioning of whether lucky pants can affect the results of sporting contests (as if this has ever been in any doubt), and the mock-scrutiny of the shirt numbers, changing room routines, and suchlike that appease the sporting gods. The existence of the sporting gods themselves was, in an act of extreme heresy, questioned. As you can imagine, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

There are, actually, two quite distinct and different things going on here. Lucky pants, naturally, don't remain lucky forever. Sooner or later the wrong wash cycle, an unfortunate change of fabric conditioner or being folded up the wrong way, and they become good as useless. Lucky pants come and go.

The changing room rituals are a self-preservation thing. I broke bones in the 6 shirt (never wore that number again) and the 8 shirt (never wore that again, either). Currently I put my kit on left, then right. Left sock, right sock, left boot, right boot. This isn't designed to secure a victory, or even a decent personal performance. These are more prophylactic measures, to avoid the trip to A&E, the career-ending injury, or even the embarrassing minor injury that forces you out for a few weeks.

So. I remain an atheist and a sceptic about the supernatural. But, with a universe chock full of invisible dark matter and anti matter and God particles and time-travelling particles, there must soon be a lucky pants theory, approaching the (event) horizon.

Looper

I wish I'd seen this at the cinema. Apart from anything else, I'd've watched it in one long sitting, and not been tempted by the kettle and the Earl Grey tea bags, the pre-match blogs and newspaper sites. I find myself increasingly faintly to fatally irritated by interruptions.

He gets intimidated by the dirty pigeons, they love a bit of it

“Look at those pigeons” said K, home cheering up DLL, “they're so fat they can hardly walk.” They are. Not so long ago, while not exactly sleek and svelte, they weren't in the supersize bracket they are in now. The feeding regime in the back garden is superb, and it's soothing looking out at all the birds coming and going. But we could be heading for problems with the pigeons. They'll need miniature cranes to get in and out of their nests soon.

They are the Griswalds of the bird kingdom. They turn up in numbers, noisy and bickering. They don't hit the bird bath. Ever. Though I don't think 'Parklife' made reference to that sort of 'dirty'. If they gain just a little more weight they'll have disabled badges on their wings, and be allowed to nest on the lower branches, in special extra-wide roosts.

Brighton away in the cup today

Wenger's press conference yesterday was bit of a gem. Bleating on about teams buying too many players in the window where they can, er, buy and sell players, is madness. Of the highest order. Do you think any of those fans celebrating their teams lifting trophies give a flying one about how much part the cheque book played in that success?

Wenger's using our club for a pet project the way Thatcher and Blair used the country for their experiments in social engineering and exercises in acting as the hand of their imagined god.