Football dilemmas

My youngest son plays in a football team. (He had a great game in midfield today with some calm and assured passing easing his team to a 5-2 victory.) I took him to training on Saturday as usual but I noticed that a couple of regulars were missing. It turns out that some of the private schools in the area were having some sort of open day and so some of the kids had gone with their parents to view them. I thought no more about it until I overheard our centre-half talking to our left-winger, discussing whether they might go to Charterhouse (£22K per annum) or some other private school. Not the sort of conversation that the young Rio Ferdinand would have had with the young Joe Cole?

Did I forget to mention that my sons football team is based in Woking?

Putting aside my conflicted feelings about private education, I suspect there may be socio-cultural reasons why the Pyrford - West Byfleet - Horsell triangle will be unlikely to give birth to the next Wayne Rooney, but we'll see. What I was wondering though was if my son's footballing development might be disrupted when he discovers that we are the only family in the team without a swimming pool...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: kids, sport

How the other half lived

What a pleasant couple of days. I've been down at Elvetham, in deepest Hampshire. Now this is living. The grounds are vast and beautiful, the Victorian pile in the middle is massive, you can't see hoi polloi with a telescope. Once upon-a-time it belonged to the Seymour (as in Jane Seymour) family: cool. Since it's been so lovely and sunny and I've been ambling around chatting with people outside, I can confirm that this is a more pleasant place to spend the day than, say, Woking town centre, which is where I am going later on.

Here was the view during my morning stroll. I imagine the peasants are keeping discreetly out of site behind hedges and things.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

Half and half

I had a strange timeshift experience in the West Country. It was like that TV show where that guy got knocked on the head and woke up in the 1970s. I woke up in Cricklade, which is much the same thing. Anyway, I wandered up to the bar to get some drinks in and spotted two amazing things. The first was Babycham. I had no idea that this still existed -- I haven't seen it for years. Growing up on a Swindon council estate, I'd always imagined Babycham to be the height of sophistication, although thinking about it I'm not sure if I can ever remember going out with a girl who drank it. Anyway, as the momentary shock of recognition jolted me, I almost gasped out loud as I glanced to my left and saw Ansell's Mild on tap. When I worked in a British Legion club before I went to University, mild & bitter (half of draught mild mixed with half of whatever is the cheapest draught bitter) was my favourite drink. So that's what I ordered, and you know what, it was really nice. A genuinely Proustian moment. It tasted like 1976 (apparently the best ever year), when I used to drink literally a gallon (i,e eight pints) of the stuff in an evening and didn't get drunk. Last night, though, I only had two pints of it and I fell asleep in the car on the way home.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: nostalgia