gingerjon

Highlights are on Quest at 9pm; live matches on Sky.

FA Cup starts on Saturday.

I was quite happy where I was!

First game of the season yesterday. A friendly between Easington Sports and North Leigh (Oxford) that finished 3-0 to the visitors. A less than impassioned crowd of about 30 watched less than impassioned players do a cardio session.

Just finished on Audible: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue. Narrated well, which helps, and the story is a decent page turner. It covers quite similar ground to Hannah Kent's The Good People, being a sort-of-struggle between the female carers for a child who is not well but whose community is governed by Irish superstition in the mid 19th century. It's more satisfying than that book but I do agree with a Stephen King review (which is quite spoiler filled so only read if you're not planning on reading the book or you've just finished it) which says that the central story is more than strong and compelling enough and the additional secrets and romance (which come very late in the tale) totally unnecessary and a bit distracting.

I made it through the first book and into the second. Some amazing stuff in there. But I didn't have the patience and got a bit distracted. Enjoy the journey.

Currently working my way through the happy-go-lucky fun factory that is The Accusation, a collection of short stories smuggled out of North Korea and published under the pseudonym of Bandi. If you've ever read any of Ismail Kadare's simple but effecting stories about life under dictatorship in Albania then there's a lot that will feel familiar. It may be an issue with the translation - and almost certainly because the author cannot have had the comfort of revisiting and reediting significantly - but whilst the stories are good they are not quite as amazing as promised, although the simple fact of their existence is remarkable.

First time volunteering this weekend. If you’re doing the Hastings run stay off the cycle path on the top prom bottleneck, it’ll make my life easier.

He's taken a very narrow strip of personality and gone a long way with it. It's a bit annoying if you're in the wrong mood but he seems like a decent enough bloke.

Highland Park was on offer the last time I went to Sainsbury's should anyone be interested.

Deleted - a bit unnecessary.

Here lies Tim2, and he's bloody exhausted ...

Been an age since I took my camera anywhere interesting so yesterday I took it into Hastings to watch Compagnie DYPTIK get all funky on the Stade. Here's a photie: Compagnie DYPTIK by Jon Smalldon, on Flickr

Genuinely difficult to see how. They needed to come back up this season.

Something keeps drawing me back to this topic.

We used to have a Beautiful People thread. Just saying, like ...

Sorry, just felt I had to quote this post.

You won't be surprised to learn the guy (3,000 followers) is also very angry about the SJW takeover of Star Wars and that Miss America won't feature a swimsuit round any more.

Saw it today and really enjoyed it.

I think it goes by Ten Little Soldier Boys these days. There was a decent radio adaptation by Joy Wilkinson not that along ago. She's done a few now and, personally, I think they work better than the books.

Uninteresting and trivial "Tommy Robinson" got 13 months.

Exactly right. And their parachute payment now drops from £33m to £7m making it that much harder to assemble a team to get out of the division.

Hastings again. Fifth time this year, I think. I’m also doing the Hastings Runners 5M tomorrow. Seemed like a good idea when signing up. The issue for Hastings park run is that it does totally block the seafront path if not well marshalled and some of the volunteers (and some of the runner to be fair) are better at getting that sorted than others.

You are dead to me.

Oooooooo ...