Plant in, Arsene out

In, out, in, out, you shake it all about

We've got a plant. We've had it a while now. It's got lovely white bell-shaped flowers hanging all over it. Whatever it's called (and I can recognise some plants, just not very many) we were told to 'harden it off' by putting it out (when the weather's good) and bringing it back in (overnight, if there's a frost). The idea was that, when proper well hard, it could live outside, on a permanent basis. The thing is, while it was getting hardened when it was out, we've kidded it when it's in, and it thinks it's Spring now and has flowered. Too early, apparently. Looks like it'll have to live indoors from now on. It seems nicer for the plant, a warm cosy house rather than a cold wet garden, populated with all sorts of nasty insects and now, according to the doom merchants, huge Spanish slugs that are going to eat everything in their path.

There's been no shaking it all about. That'd be cruel.

MM ran the half marathon!

Without any training, other than football, he ran and hour and forty minutes, over a far from flat course. That's wonderful and a great effort. After the race we had a chat with a bloke he'd buddied up with along the way, about how finding someone going at about the same pace can help you through the harder miles.

That reminded me of the annual social cross country I used to run. It was just six miles. After half a mile the 'just' became 'a long and hard'. I used to have several groups going at the same pace as me to help me round. The first two miles was with the scallywags. Midfield players and rugby centres, many of them finishing a last roll-up just before the starting gun, they were aiming for a top half finish. The second two miles would be with guys like the ageing, obese third team keeper, and some front row forwards. I'd be the only one taller than I was wide.

Final two miles? By then I'd slipped back to the “why am I doing this?” group. Equipped with medicinal hip flasks and packs of Bensons, these were just happy to cross the finish line and head for the changing rooms rather than A&E. It's not great for your self-respect to be overtaken by a bloke old enough to be your dad, who's lighting up his third Marlboro of the event.

Killing Them Softly

The underground economy as the economy. Brad Pitt's polite hitman working his way through the cast. The dead dad from 6' Under again. A great final line as Obama's oration plays on the TV in the bar:

“This is America. It's not a nation. It's a business.

Time to go, Arsene

Raving, barking mad. Decent players replace world class players. On whoever's say-so, the club is run with both eyes on the bottom line, not on the team's performance. Empty seats. Another season over.

Fourth place and Champions' League football is a great consolation for an unsuccessful tilt at the title, not an objective in itself. Anyone else would be better, as long as they don't have that economics degree.