For the “Hand of God” goal the majority view is that he did it intentionally but in my opinion Maradona, wary of being thumped in the head by the onrushing Shilton, who was a little slow off his line, raised his arm and the ball struck his hand and nestled in the net. After seeing no linesman’s flag and hearing no referee’s whistle, he happily took the glory for a clear piece of cheating.
My Mexico 1986 memories of Maradona, the Azteca and a commentary faux pas - David Pleat
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It does tend to get parky alright — there’s a rumour that one day on Achill Island the wind stopped blowing and everybody fell over.
Made me laugh
The counties of Ireland and their nicknames – from Antrim to Wicklow | The Irish Post
Pic: National Library of Ireland on The Commons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Constitution contains a Bill of Rights. But I think there was also an implied Bill of Responsibilities. It was just so widely accepted, they didn’t need to write it out.
Well…he’s got my vote
" I always say to my son, in my more bleak moments, play ‘The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn’ at my funeral"
The Quietus - Party Pieces: Andy Burnham’s Favourite Albums
I haven’t seen this before - a Wikipedia page detailing all the statues on the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral
Statuary of the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral
Pic: by me, when the Fire Brigade were practicing
The story behind Kingfishr’s ‘Killeagh’, which has now had 60 million streams on my streamer alone, is quite something
In mid-2024, Eoin Fitzgibbon was asked by former hurling coach Phillip O’Neill to write a song for Killeagh GAA to which he agreed if the juniors made the east Cork final that year. Fitzgibbon believed it was unlikely as team hadn’t made the final since 2001. Fitzgibbon said, “lo and behold, October arrives and they get to the final” and he is contacted by O’Neill.
The song was written in 20 minutes, with the group saying “It literally could not have been more of a slapped-together job” Killeagh (song) on Wikipedia
I’m enjoying the Ribble game on Puzzmo
Scores on the doors:
| Date | How long | Words |
| 21st July | 5:39 | According to Wiktionary , an axon is 'A nerve fibre which is a long slender projection of a nerve cell, and which conducts nerve impulses away from the body of the cell to a synapse.' |
| 14th July | 2:22 | Quite a quick one today. Ribble had hydrophobic, and allowed 'hydro', but not 'phobic'. Maybe 'phobic' on it's own isn't a generally accepted usage? |
| 13th July | 12:38 | A couple of words I didn't know and a couple I didn't recognize today. 'Rill' is a rivulet. 'Lien' is a claim on someone's property. 'Linty' is something covered in lint. 'Lain' is a layer or a past tense version of lie |
| 12th July | 3:14 | 'Hew' seems to me to have slightly contradictory meanings. It can be chopping bits off of something, or it can be rigid conformity |
| 11th July | 4:47 | 'Quail' can be a bird, it can be to cower in fear, or it can mean to curdle |
| 10th July | 3:10 | 'Dolt' is "from Middle English dold, a variant of dulled" |
| 9th July | 4:05 | 'Husk' in the sense of shell, or casing possibly comes from the middle English _hus_, meaning little house |
| 8th July | 3:00 | 'Trice' is a nautical word meaning to haul or jerk something, presumably like a sail or an anchor, very quickly. The ordinary usage of 'in a trice', meaning quickly, comes from that |
| 7th July | 3:26 | According to Wikipedia, "During Gerardo Machado's dictatorship in Cuba, Havana citizens were forbidden to dance the conga since rival groups would work themselves to high excitement and start street fights. This was not the case when Fulgencio Batista became president in the 1940s - he permitted people to dance congas during elections, but a police permit was required." |
| 6th July | 4:18 | 'Oaf' is "Variant of awf, aufe,[1] probably from Old Norse álfr (“elf”)". Wiktionary says the plural can be 'oafs' or 'oaves' |
| 5th July | 4:38 | 'Tome' implies a single volume of a larger work, apparently |
| 4th July | 2:08 | |
| 3rd July | 6:49 | 'Fief' is essentially the same as 'feifdom', as far as I can tell |
| 2nd July | 3:30 | 'Lute', as well as being an Olde Worlde guitar, can mean something used to seal joints and stuff - something like putty 9th July update: I learnt via the marvellous Saint Denis show that a 'luthier' is someone that makes and maintains stringed instruments |
| 1st July | 10:37 | 'Owie' is _colloquial, North America, childish_ A painful, usually minor, injury. 'Agar' is "From Malay agar or agar-agar, both meaning jelly" |
| 30th June | 2:55 | 'zinc' is from "German Zink, possibly from Zinke, spike (so called because it becomes jagged in the furnace)". |
| 29th June | 4:05 | 'Tuft' is "Middle English, probably alteration of Old French tofe, from Late Latin tufa, helmet crest" |
| 28th June | 13:10 | 27th June | 7:37 | Tort is the legal thing, and French for 'wrong'. Torte is a cake | 26th June | 6:27 | an octad is "A group or sequence of eight" |
| 25th June | 5:10 | |
Watching: Brazil ‘70: The Third Star 🍿.
Possibly something for football nerds of a certain age….but I’m very much enjoying it
They used to say if you don’t like the weather in England then you can wait five minutes and it will have changed. Starting to feel its the same for Prime Ministers.
I’m not much interested in Burnham vs Starmer. The significant story seems to me to be how badly the right did
Reform is dying out there, absolutely dying on its arse - Ian Dunt substack (my retitling)
Great bit of detail about Count Binface
The man in the bin is a comedian named Jon Harvey. He used to stand in elections as Lord Buckethead, including in the former prime minister Theresa May’s constituency in 2017 so that she had to face down the dreadful results for her party alongside a man with a bucket on his head. However, after receiving a copyright complaint from the American film-maker Todd Durham, who created Lord Buckethead for his 1984 science-fiction film Hyperspace, Harvey had to rebrand as Count Binface.
Binface, foxes and raving loonies: the UK’s proud history of costumed candidates
Pic: Jpdfive, Count Binface, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Wondering whether I’d rather see Chelsea win the Premiership away at Tottenham or away at Bournemouth 😀
⚽ #ChelseaFC #cfc
Chelsea - Scores & Fixtures - Football - BBC Sport
I’m back at Outpatients. Being a total wuss, I always feel a bit sorry for myself….until I see other people who are much worse off than I am.
There was a chap in the radio the other day who had bought a bottle of beer from each of the 48 nations in the World Cup.
As each team gets eliminated he’s going to drink that country’s beer.
It’s a nice idea. I wonder whether that last bottle of beer, of the side that never gets eliminated (England, obviously), will ever be drunk, or will it become a family heirloom, passed down and treasured through the generations.
It’s coming home. Possibly. ⚽
It’s great that the referee’s signal for “hydration break” is the same as the mime for “do you want another beer?” ⚽
I was pleased to hear the first “and rightly so” from Alan Shearer in this World Cup.And rightly so. ⚽
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