Watched the England v Norn Iron match on Saturday with Dad - good father-son bonding. It was a good game but having watched the scoreless first half in its entirity I was popping in and out during the second half and missed ALL the goals. Quite good going for a 4-0 victory. I'm sure it's no coincidence that once England base the team on a core of (former) West Hame players: Rio, Frank Lampard and Joe Cole - things start to happen. Well it worked in 1966.

Obviously the most important development on Saturday was the launch of the new white kit. The Guardian's footy email The Fiver captured the gravity of the launch on Thursday:

A clearly uncomfortable Michael Owen was cajoled into giving his verdict on the new product and could only stammer, "It's fantastic, er, I've worn a lot of jerseys in my career but, um, this is definitely the latest." Never a truer word spoken, and certainly not by David Beckham, who added, "it's important for the team to look good and now, obviously, we look very good." Christ.

Nevertheless I did quite like it - that little red cross of St George on the shoulder - quite cool. But what's with the star? Just like on the Red shirts Umbro have take the decision to embroider a golden star above the FA logo - looky..



This bothers me. I mean what is the point? Have Umbro unearthed some new heraldic secret hitherto lost to historians? Did Richard the Lionheart never go on crusade before picking up needle and thread and doing himself a nice star on that new battle tunic his mum had got for him? What gives?

The fact is that football shirts with such stars on them tend to belong to countries enjoying titles such as "The democratic republic of.." or "The people's republic of.." or even "The people's democratic republic of..". The kind of countries where "Partisans" played a significant part in their recent history as either freedom fighters or collaborators depending which way their guns were pointing. To be frank, there's something boldly Balkan about it. Is this cunning satire by FA/Umbro suits about the parlous state of British democracy? I think we should be told.

I did something I don't normaly do last night. I went to a classical music concert! I went to see Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ. I didn't know what to expect - I thought it would be a choral work, turns out it wasn't. But it was very good and a great change from a normal Tuesday night out. I went because the Gabrieli Consort (performing) were responsible for one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard: Tomas Luis de Victoria's Officium Defunctorum. I also went because of the venue: Christ Church, Spitalfields. I'd always wanted to see inside this magnificent building and it was truly spectacular. Wonderful whitewashed walls, magnificent plasterwork and beautiful Oak pillars, pews and balcony. The restoration work was finished last year apparently - justifying that old saying from Disney's Beauty and the Beast - "If it ain't Baroque - don't fix it"

What was really marvellous was the sheer quality of the sound. Having not heard anything not amplified or otherwise distorted for I don't know how long it was really thrilling to hear the beautiful sound of this little orchestra enhanced by the wonderful accoustics of the church. Proper Bo!

Sloane Lantau Bristowe Turner

Daughter of Ashley Bristowe and Chris Turner. Well done folks

Just back from a weekend in the Netherlands. I've finally been able to attend the annual Hockey North America European tournament in Zoetermeer, Holland. It was great fun but not being fully recovered from my ski injury was rather like finding the fun in FrUstratioN: I couldn't skate flat out and that really affected the rest of my game. We finished the tournament with a played:4 won:2 lost:2 record which wasn't bad and we had a thrilling final game against Canada which we narrowly lost... dispute still rages about the legality of the Canadians' second goal. But given their magnanimity after the Olympic rowing final I think we should just take it on the chin. I now have to write up all the details for the Statesmen website. Watch that space for more.


On the Saturday afternoon we had a gap between games and I went to visit my colleague Joep at his home in Amersfoort. It was very interesting to see where he lived and walk around the area. It confirmed my suspicion that the Dutch seemed to have got this 21st-Century living pretty mullarky pretty well figured out. It's not a lotus land or utopia, but it looks pretty good to me.

The bill was characteristic of those violent times when, instead of being guided by reason, we were to be put under the dominion of wild passion, and when our pretended alarms were to be made the pretexts for destroying the first principles of the very system which we affected to revere. Every warm expression, therefore, which he had used the night before, he now upon reflection justified and repeated; and even yet, while a moment was left him, he deprecated the horror of passing the bill into a law.

What's all this? One of our noble peers debating the merits or otherwise of the government's new control orders legisation? Er.. No. It's Charles James Fox actually in May 1794 attacking the plans of William Pitt to suspend Habeas Corpus! But it just goes to prove that there is nothing new under the political sun. Check this out:

Ministers knew well the dangerous predicament in which they stood: they had weakly and, as he thought, wickedly involved the country in a most disastrous war; every day plunged them deeper and deeper in the fatality which they had brought upon their country; they saw no hopes of extricating the nation from it with honour, nor of proceeding in it with success, and they dreaded all reflection on the subject: they knew that they had no safety but in depriving the people of repose; they knew that if the alarm should be suspended for a moment, and if men were allowed time and leisure for the exercise of their understandings, the war, and the principles on which it was undertaken, would be scrutinised and discussed. They dreaded to encounter so hazardous a trial, and all their measures had been directed to keep alive an incessant commotion, so as to suspend every operation of the public intellect.

British governments getting us into dodgy wars, and then trying to change the subject?? Thank God that would never happen today.

But his main theme was liberty and its place in Britain's constitution. How's this for a liberal manifesto:

If the love of liberty was not to be maintained in England; if the warm admiration of it was not to be cherished in the hearts of the people; if the maintenance of liberty was not to be inculcated as a duty; if it was not to be reverenced as our chief good, as our boast and pride and richest inheritance; – what else had we worthy of our care? Liberty was the essence of the British constitution. King, lords, commons and courts of judicature were but the forms; the basis of the constitution was liberty, that grand and beautiful fabric, the first principle of which was government by law, and which this day they were going to suspend

He goes on..

Let us demonstrate to every man the blessings of our system. Let us show that we not only are convinced that it is good, but that it will bear to be examined and compared with any other system. Let us make the people proud to court comparison, and strive rather to add new blessings to those they enjoy than to abridge those which they already possess.

And he had a lot to say about the tactics in the war on terror..

Persecution had never been successful in extirpating opposition to any system either religious or civil...The human mind was roused by oppression; and so far from yielding to persecution, exerted all its energies in consequence of the attacks it had to encounter.

I think his conclusion could have come from any of the dissenting peers yesterday..

Mr Fox concluded with a strong admonition to the House on the present alarming measure. He said he saw it was to pass; that further effort was vain; that the precipitation with which it had been hurried on made it idle for him to hope that argument would induce them to hesitate; and all that remained for him was to pronounce his solemn protest against a measure pregnant with consequences so fatal to the established order and strength and freedom of the country.

Me: I'll take those please

points at sprigs of pussy willow

Flower stall guy: That'll be £5 please

Me: Here you go

FSG: What have you got on that iPod? Any 70's Prog Rock?

Me: Erm... Yeah - almost nothing but.

FSG: Don't get me wrong - I buy a lot of modern music. But I do love a bit of Prog Rock on the iPod.. Beefheart... Yes... Well have a good day.

Opening night of NSN24 season 2 was a good one. I have clearly prevailed too much on the good will of my friends because we only had a small audience (c15 people?). But they were lively and I think they enjoyed it. I enjoyed it which is a start. So I'd give the show maybe 8 out of 10.