Shiver me timbers...

...today is world wide Talk like a Pirate day.

So there is still time to great friends with a cheery "avast there mi hearties" and strike up a resounding chorus of  "15 men on a dead man's chest yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" before finally splicing the mainbrace.

Long John Silver, Captain Hook, Captain Jack Sparrow and their ilk will no doubt be fondly celebrated over a tot of rum and the rest.

This parody of a national holiday began in Oregon USA in 1995. Where else!

Given Teapot's Cornish ancestry you might therefore hear a chorus or two from the Pirates of Penzance drifting out of the Tardis.

What chance though do you think  of me having to walk the plank before the day is out?

September

is an emotional month and feelings run high. For us there is 9/10 and for America 9/11.
2001 is just yesterday for those most closely affected and this is a shot of ground zero when we were there in 2008.
So I am not surprised the temperature is rising about the plans to construct an Islamic Centre and Mosque not far from the site of the Twin Towers. There are raw emotions on display here. Typical being republican Newt Gingrich saying the planned development "would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum" along with much of the same from the Fox pundits and teabaggers.
Barack Obama has not done his fellow democrat candidates in the mid terms any favours by coming out in support of the venture. "If a mosque opens at ground zero on 9/11 next year Obama can kiss the White House goodbye" says that pillar of the UK press the Daily Mail.
So much for all that freedom of religion stuff in the US constitution.
What this reminds me of is the wild west posse spirit which grabbed hold of George W Bush and the neo cons after 9/11 and eventually led to the invasion of Iraq. A bigger disaster than 9/11 itself and, dare I say, any mosque that may ever be built near ground zero.

The Welsh Sheila and The Mad Monk

In the year that Messrs Strauss and co visit Australia to defend the Ashes there is a spicy warm up bout called the Australian General Election.

In the Labour corner we have Julia Gillard a plain speaking Welsh born lawyer from Melbourne who is the present and first woman prime minister of Australia. She achieved high office in June when Kevin Rudd was removed from office with the efficiency of the stiletto. Et tu Brute. She is said to be very charming one on one but so I believe are crocodiles. Ms Gillard is also an atheist which apparently may not play out too well Down Under.

In the Liberal corner is Tony Abbott who once studied to be a Catholic priest. He was born in London albeit to Australian parents. Earlier this year he completed an iron man triathlon at Port Macquarie in NWS. He is well versed in the traditional debating arts of Australian politicians and last year described the argument for climate change as "absolute crap".

Ms Gillard expected to win by a street but her coup d'etat and worries about what she believes by way of policy, if she believes anything, are making this a neck and neck race.

We are used to criticism from our antipodean friends that England has to recruit for its cricket team from South Africa and now Ireland. So it is a glorious irony that the next PM of Oz will be a Welsh woman or a Londoner!

P.S. I hear Shane Warne has returned to Australia from his commentary duties on the England Pakistan series. On which side will he bowl his googly? The outcome will be known on election day August 21. Timelord can't wait!

Spoon Fed

Two doughty Lancastrians decided to make their way to Colwyn Bay to watch the Red Rose play cricket the other day and were prevented from entering the ground because they had metal spoons for eating their strawberries and cream. Stewards even took exception to their jars of coffee and tea. Plastic spoons only allowed.

I suppose one has to make allowances for the land of the Druids but those stewards should be grateful they did not encounter Teapot and try to deprive her of a flask of Yorkshire's best.

We went to Trent Bridge a fortnight ago and decided to be well prepared for the health and safety police. We carried out a pre match risk assessment leaving copies back at the Tardis with Wesley and Tiger in case of emergency. We had sun block in case it was hot and cloudless, umbrellas in case of rain and overshoes in case of snow. We both took gloves just in case it was cold and on the off chance that Eoin Morgan planted a switch hit 6 in our direction. We decided to take visors for our eyes: for protection against being blinded by the sun's reflection off KP's bling.

Odd though really since no one seemed to mind when Stuart Broad planted a bumper on the hapless Pakistani opener's helmet at a tad short of 90 mph. Or the seemingly endless procession of bear trays juggled precariously between rows of spectators lurching from side to side. Threatening at any minute to spill over and cause a drenching with the probability of a non too civil word or two as a result.

Curious that at Edgbaston the following week an advertising board suddenly decided to attack a steward all on its own holding up play for several minutes.

May be I have missed something. Home Office statistics on the number of woundings using metal spoons perhaps.

Be assured though spoons of all kinds are welcome in the Tardis and especially teaspoons when stirring the morning brew.

Ginger Nut

They say the ginger nut is the "Chicken Vindaloo of the biscuit world". Gingery enough to be actually spicy and just hard enough to stay in one piece after dunking in a cup of coffee.

But this ginger nut is a friend of mine and a cricket nut at the same time. Whenever I see him it is not long before the cricket bat and gloves and cricket ball somehow mysteriously appear as if he were performing a conjurer's trick.

This piece of magic immediately takes Timelord back into the far past when he used to be able to perform the same feat of wizardry every time his father came home from work in the summer months. The back garden was transformed into Old Trafford and it was England v Australia every night. Of course Ted Dexter was never 6 and out on the railway line but who cares when imagination rules.

Ginger Nut is sadly out of action right now with a broken thumb and not even the result of a joust with Shaun Tait! But hey what is that as even K.P. himself is being rested for the next few games with a thigh strain.

They will both soon be back.

A celebration of sons

Today is father's day. But you cannot be a father without sons or daughters. And in my case it is sons and here they are.

So today is really the day to celebrate sons.

I showed a friend of mine Curly Al's wedding photos yesterday and she gave me a knowing look along the lines of he's a chip off the old block. Well I have never had curls and have never used a soldering iron. And it was his great grandad Smith who was an engineer. So there he can breath a little more easily! Yet oddly he has inherited his grandad John's shivering aversion to peeling and eating apples which seems to have passed me by.

I will never stop missing FreelanceNerd. But could I have coped with the angst over the current state of the England football team?? Or what to do about the budget deficit? Today though was a Matt day. Wall to wall sunshine and time to put on the shorts.

There are some times when an experience shared with him is repeated now in 2010 and it can be painful but even at the same time invigorating because it makes the memory of him so much stronger.

One example is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He inherited the Smith love of story and literature and the films were great favourites. Such that Teapot cannot bear to hear the music from the score with its lilting melodies. I understand that but at the same time find it stirs me deeply. So with her being away this week I have watched some of the Fellowship of the Ring and plan to see more as the week goes on.

And when we reach the point where Gandalf tells the Balrog of Morgoth, "you shall not pass", I shall be at a special Matt moment.

Vuvuzelas....

...have become one of the big talking points of this World Cup.

Assuming that is you can hear anybody talking above the noise made by thousands of them in the hands or should I say mouths of the South African football fans. Some people think they should be banned and are a danger to long term health or just a plain nuisance.

I mused a little on this earlier today as I walked by a lone bagpiper busking outside the Gracechurch Centre in Sutton Coldfield. Now there's optimism for you and he even had CDs for sale as well! Now just think about thousands of football supporters all playing the bagpipes at the same time. A sort of shivering goes down the spine just to imagine it.

But back to vuvuzelas. Professor Nils Steyn from the University of Witwatersrand has published a research paper on the history of the vuvuzela showing conclusively that they take their inspiration from the the rams horn of the people of Israel in Bible times. It was after all the vuvuzelas that brought down the walls of Jericho. So you can imagine there is real concern for the structural safety of the football stadia in South Africa. Watch out for falling walls!

More recently the vuvzela has found its way into the more lively forms of Charismatic worship. I have a suspicion that Mission Team Leader is a secret player (she is not called Cath Horne for nothing) and may even give us a taster at this week's "Song from the Shows".

Watch (or listen to) this space.