Thursday, June 08, 2006

DO need a new plan, Stan

We are not the world's greatest planners. One of the reasons is that when we make long-term plans, they screw up. F’rinstance: knowing it’s hard to get tickets for the French Open Tennis, we applied early. At Christmas time, son invites us to the Queens Club tournament – the Wimbledon warm-up, great tennis, half an hour from home. THEN we find we’ve got tickets for the French Open finals in Paris – the day before the Queens Club! (OK I know the sponsors want you to call it the Stella Artois but I’m old-fashioned.) There are many other examples of this phenomenon – like our booking to be in Budapest on the day of the World Cup final and the Wimbledon Final. No wonder it was cheap.
I have friends who would say, quite rightly, ‘Is that all you’ve got to worry about?’ Well not exactly, it’s just to illustrate my point, which is – I think - planning is for wimps.

The world waits – well England, which is the same thing - breath baited (whatever that means) for news of Wayne Rooney’s metatarsal. Will he, won’t he, play in the World Cup – or will the wicked witches of the North say he’s unfit because they don’t want their £27M player out of action for next season?
Rooney left Everton to go to Manchester because the Blues couldn’t afford to pay him the money that, in these inflationary times, he was worth. It is important to remind the world that in the last few matches before Rooney left them, Everton were abysmal. They only started to win again after he left – and they finished in the Champions League.
MORAL: If a team is totally reliant on one star, it isn’t a team. A team is eleven guys working for each other – not one star and ten satellites. (All right, I know stars don’t have satellites, but hell, it’s a metaphor.

PS Rooney flew to and from Manchester today from the team camp in Germany for a scan on said metatarsal – by private jet. Our government says the Queen has to fly on commercial aircraft because private aircraft are considered elitist.

7 comments:

Cliff said...

I heard Rooney signed for Brazil because he wanted to compete at the highest level. I think he said he will always remain an Englishman at heart.

Judas

Tuscan Traveller said...

What's Scouse in Portuguese?

Anonymous said...

Although "baited" may be in use in the UK, in the US the proper spelling of the phrase is "bated breath," where "bated" means "held" or "held back."

Your blog is an inspiration to me, along with the famous book "A Year in Provence" by Peter M.

I hope to be in the next generation of expat writers enjoying the Mediterranean air.

Anonymous said...

I can't write to save my life, or I'd be there by now;)
Rooney to Brazil? They're welcome to him, he'll be miserable.

Tuscan Traveller said...

Tibet never won a world cup, Cliff.

Thanks Joe - bated is correct (pp. of obsloete verb 'to bate'). I was just being lazy. Or better still I was just trying to see who was paying attention. (A kind of bait.)
Hope I'm still there when you get there.

Tuscan Traveller said...

You don't have to write, Ed. I put that book you mentioned on my Hay shopping list, and in the book capital of the universe no one had heard of James Salter - so I got it from Amazon. More on it later but thanks for the tip.

Anonymous said...

Not heard of James Salter?
Uncivilized;)