Feeling like rubbish yesterday following the recent bout of infestation stations, I called in at Carrow Road on my way home from London last night to see what should have been an easy win by high-flying Norwich City over struggling Doncaster Rovers.
The visitors, afflicted by injury and general tzores, could barely field three old ladies and a dog, and haven’t scored a goal since 1929 – but the match was woeful, and Norwich could just about scrape a draw (scoring Doncaster’s goal for them – a pitiful own-goal by a Norwich defender, a real facepalm moment). Usually when I’m at Carrow road the excitement is great (especially for an evening game) and the time flies by. Last night it crawled with the elan and esprit of an arthritic snail with brakes on. Perhaps feeling so meh didn’t help.
Before the match, various small boys run about on the pitch, announced as today’s team mascots, preceded by announcements about who they are, their age, what school they attend, and their interests. They are so, so, dull and generic it makes me want to scream. They all go something like this
Darren Bloke is 9, attends St Gary of the Recidivist’s Primary in Norwich, and enjoys Football and Computer Games
or
Kieran Bongle is 11, attends Our Lady of the GBH High School in Great Yarmouth, and enjoys Football and the XBox
That mascots enjoy football is expected. But apart from that, do they ever do anything but play Angry Penguins or Grand Theft Unicycle? I was crying out for some variation. If only…
Tarquin Fortescue is 10, and enjoys Lacemaking and Latin Poetry
or
Alfonso Sploo is 9, end enjoys re-reading Proust while listening to his Dad’s tapes of kittens being impaled on red-hot skewers.
or
Phantasmagorius Polycarp-Smith enjoys collecting female barnacles and helping his mother make cheese out of toenail clippings.
Anything! Anything but the Ludic Consolation!
Perhaps it was the slight delirium, then – the same that took this headline and read it as
DEFIANT GUINEA-PIG REFUSES TO QUIT
But I digress. Yesterday the builders removed the conservatory
And in other news, here is a rare occasion in which I wiped the floor with my iPhone’s Scrabble program on its most difficult setting
(Well, if Steve and Austin can post chess problems…). I was very pleased with GALEtTeS, which was a bingo over two triple-word squares and scored me, like 300000 points. The iPhone Scrabble program has updated its dictionary in the most odd way. You can have ZO but no longer ZA, JA or EUOI (eheu!), and why can you have C*** but not ANAL? Bizarro.
And here’s a cute picture of teh kittehs to warm your day.
Something for everyone here. I’m sure the little boys running around are bursting with pride, even if their interests, at least as reported, are somewhat self-selecting.
But, but, but … games are better than reality, at teaching us to engage with the real world, sez author and game designer Jane McGonigal. I, for one, am waiting for the data, and continue to eschew computer games. I’m counting on lacemaking and crocheting marine invertebrates to slow the inevitable sclerotic encrustation of my neural pathways.
Hey, pal, I was one of those boys on the pitch, once upon a time. Of course, it wasn’t at Carrow Road. I ran on the field at the Liberty Bowl for the Memphis Rogues. And of course, there weren’t any video games back then, just jousting, mumbly-peg, and buffalo dodge.
But those were fond days, chasing down balls that went out of bounds. I used to go slow when it helped the team. I was so obvious about it that once an opposing team member aimed a clearance at my head. He missed. Ha ha, I said. Or something like that, as I picked myself up off the ground.
Jeff Crook, aged 13, of Nyarlathotep High, enjoys designing Gothic apparel and writing horror fiction that scares the bejasus out of his classmates.
Like, whatever.
No more ZA?! But but but… I needs it, precious!
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What language was that Scrabble game in? Some of those “words” looked pretty far-fatched to me…
And “TZORES”?! Is that also a Scrabble word?
I should try TZORES. Certainly, all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are permissible (VAV, YOD, KOPH and so on). And one of the best-scoring words I’ve ever had, which scores 75 on a triple-word score, is PUTZ. FUTZ is even better…