World Cup Update

It's sadly official, but I got an e-mail from FIFA today notifying me that I was not successful in the first opportunity at buying World Cup tickets.  Which sucks, but which I had pretty much guessed.  It feels especially egregious getting the e-mail the day after England officially qualified - the first European qualifier in a suspiciously easy group.  So my chances of obtaining tickets for a game are seemingly dwindling.  I have a bad feeling that I'm going to have to shell out a lot of money if I really want to watch a game live.  Which I do.  The early prices when I looked on the official FIFA resale site the other day were outlandish.

Waverley Abbey

A random trip yesterday to the 12th/13th century ruins of Waverley Abbey.  Another local sight I didn't know existed.  And apparently it has been used as a filming location for many years.  It kind of reminded me of a much junior version of Rievalux Abbey, which I've somehow dredged out from the deep recesses of my memory as somewhere I have been to before many years ago.

PS Salisbury photos added.

Hunted

Hunted on Channel 4 - one of those shows that sounds great in theory, but lacks something on execution.  I just watched the first episode of series 8 (? - there are really 7 previous series of this?!) and I thought it sucked.  The artificiality of the hunters was just ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as the stupidity of the contestants - and this show clearly suffers from over-production and choppy editing that afflicts so many reality TV shows nowadays.  I see there have also been celebrity versions of Hunted - which I imagine are even more fake, and consist of "celebrities" rather than celebrities.  I see there is also an American version of Hunted that lasted all of one season.  I can't say whether I ever watched it, but I certainly don't remember it.  You'd think America would be a much better place to host a show like this - since it is so much easier to live off the grid, as so many people have done and continue to do so.  Sadly, in today's America, Hunted is a bit too close to reality for so many undocumented (or, indeed, documented) migrants.      

Harlequins 20-14 Saracens

I haven't seen a rugby game live for such a long time - I think the last time was when I went with my Dad to see Harlequins play at Twickenham (Allianz Stadium) in their Christmas Big Game several years ago.  That might have been one of the last things I did with Dad while he still had his mental faculties - which gives you some idea of how long ago it was.  I haven't even seen much rugby on telly recently - in the US, it now airs on some obscure streaming service that I'm not going to pay for.  Anyway, it was good to go see a game - again the Harlequins (I guess they are my de facto team now), but my first time going to their regular home stadium of The Stoop.  As you will tell from the photos, it is extremely close to the big stadium!  Note also I'm not going to win any awards for sports photography.  And my viewpoint was very surreal - right behind the goalposts at one end.  This is the polar opposite of how you see rugby matches on telly, so it takes a bit of getting used to.  At times I struggled with perspective, and you also can't see action at the other end too well.  But I kind of liked being sat with what seemed to be a load of regulars.  Though it will be interesting to compare the atmosphere here to when I go and see Palace - the few half-hearted attempts at chants and singing among the upper middle-class rugby crowd was rather pitiable.  While in the vicinity, I also took the opportunity to walk some of the Thames path - on sections I've definitely done before on previous walks.

Salisbury

A random day trip to Salisbury the other day.  Somewhere I was sure I had been to before, but nothing looked familiar.  Is my mind playing tricks on me?  I do now think this was my first time here.  And I liked Salisbury - an attractive little city with a big cathedral, a smattering of history and a nice location.  If I was better organized, I would have gotten here early and combined a trip to the cathedral with a trip to Stonehenge - but instead I stuck to the town centre and especially at the cathedral, where I had signed up for the tower tour.  And that was more than enough, and I was glad I did the tour, particularly since the cathedral also happens to have one of the oldest working clocks in the world, one of the tallest spires in the country, and one of the last surviving original copies of the Magna Carta.  You just don't get anything close to this in the US.  I took way too many photos - I'll aim to add some to this post later (Monday?).

Emoluments Clause

Is the Emoluments Clause simply not a thing anymore?  Or is it just being brazenly ignored?  Just asking.   

Celebrity Traitors

I'm disappointed with myself.  I somewhat reluctantly watched the first episode of Celebrity Traitors, and now I'm addicted.  It's absolute trash.  And if the celebrities were "celebrities" (think stars from such shows as Love Island and Big Brother) then I wouldn't have bothered watching.  But, surprisingly, I actually knew who more than half of the celebrities were.  And yes, the show is horribly over-produced and over-edited to create unnecessary tension, but when you have such a good selection of personalities then it is going to work no matter what.  I still much prefer Alan Cumming as the presenter (he does the US version), but as long as they allow the personalities to shine and don't overdo the twists and turns of the game then it should remain extremely watchable.