Taoiseach

I had never seen recently-installed Irish taoiseach Brian Cowen until this week - what a fantastically bizarre-looking man he is. He is like a puppet out of some 1970s children's programme (on the left):

If only...

Nick Hornby spots a classic case of English myopia:

In his sports column in today’s Evening Standard, former Tory politician David Mellor reckons that “with Croatia and Turkey through to the quarter-finals, it is even more blindingly obvious what a great chance England would have had, if they had qualified. Frustrating, isn’t it?” I had to read this twice, just to make sure that I wasn’t missing some elegantly-disguised irony, but I’m pretty sure it’s not there. Perhaps he has forgotten that the main reason Croatia are playing in Euro 2008 at all is that they beat England twice, home and away, in the qualifying group.

Cinema weirdness

Some very strange behaviour in the cinema the other week. We were allocated seats when we bought our tickets, but there were so few people in the cinema when we got there that we decided just to sit in the seats we fancied. Another couple then came in and embarked on a lengthy search for their allotted seats, despite there being hardly anyone else there. Clearly they were unfamiliar with the concept of rows and numbered seats. After all, it is a bit of a new idea, and very difficult to grasp. In the end they seemed to give up and decide, like the rest of us, just to sit where they felt like sitting. Which was, of course, in the two seats directly in front of us. Why? Why? Why?

Well that was a hot weekend...

And we spent much of it in the sun, which explains why we are feeling fairly wiped out this Monday morning. One of K's mates did us a barbecue on Saturday, which was pretty good, and then Graham and Alice cooked for us yesterday. So I guess that officially makes us parasites. A funny moment on Saturday when K's friend's dog attempted to make friends with K a bit too vigorously and succeeded only in making the chair she was sitting on collapse. If only we'd had a camcorder, it would have been perfect for "You've Been Framed". Fortunately no damage to K, although it's certainly the end of the road for the chair. That'll teach them to get their garden furniture on the cheap off the Internet!

This is the first post I've written using Microsoft Live Writer, as recommended by Matthew Stibbe (whom I often get mixed up with Martin Stabe). Could make it easier to maintain more than one blog site - we'll see how it goes!