Apologies if you heard any inappropriate language

This goes down as one of the most banal statements ever by football commentators. Ever since football has been on TV when there are no spectators, you can usually select to watch with either fake crowd noise, which is obviously absurd, or with just the stadium sounds. With 22 players and around 6 coaches shouting instructions - or abuse - at each other, you can hear quite a lot of what is said.

These are vigorous, highly motivated (although that applies to some more than others) young men and it's unrealistic to expect them to say "pardon me but I think you accidently kicked me" or "excuse me referee, I think you made a small error there".

If you really think this is how footballers should speak, you are probably watching the wrong sport and would be better served by show jumping. Or croquet, although I have been known to... no I'm not going there.

In any case, usually we haven't heard anything at all, but as soon as you hear or see the apology message you think "wait! what did they say? I missed it".

Broadcasters take varying approaches to this "problem". Some have a kind of ticker tape notification, others instruct the commentator to offer the apology - for swearing or "bad" or "inappropriate language". Frankly it's ludicrous. If you are sensitive to impolite language, you could:

• watch with the fake crowd noise on, or
• watch with the sound off (there are advantages to this, in that you don't hear the nonsense spouted by commentators and co-commentators), or
• watch snooker

In any case, who decides what is "inappropriate"? Or "swearing"? I won't quote examples on this family-friendly blog but I would contend that industrial language is entirely appropriate for football. So it would be more honest to say "apologies for appropriate language". Broadcasters, take note.

I did a bit of research into what constitutes inappropriate language in this context and, not surprisingly, I decided it's best not to quote any, however absurd some of them might seem.

It's also true that most of my language while watching my favourites teams is, although both appropriate and deserved, not something I would have wanted my mother to hear. And possibly worse than anything the players might say. I just wish they could hear my advice and act on it.

Now I do realise that the broadcasters are simply following Ofcom rules, and that most matches start before the 9pm watershed but really? It's football; take it or leave it.

Here's my suggestion as to what the message might say:

"If you are offended by any of the language that you heard, please note that your television set, or streaming device, has an OFF button."

The greatest nation ever?

I've been watching the proceedings from the US House of Representatives, as they debate the articles of impeachment. Speaker after speaker refers to the USA as "the greatest nation ever".

Have they never heard of the Ancient Greeks, the Egyptians? Not to mention the Mayans, Aztecs, the Incas and the Osirians? And more.

"Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" [Monty Python, Life Of Brian"]

Calm down, people.

Anyone want Diego?

News of free agents (see earlier posts from October). Diego Costa is available! In England, Costa is remembered as a a key part of Chelsea's Premier League title winning teams of 2015 and 2017. How to describe his style of play? Start with the fact that no defender wanted to play against him. Aggressive, physical, a trickster who riled opponents into giving away penalties and red cards (see Gabriel Paulista for Arsenal in 2015 - https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-furious-gabriel-sees-red-6474691). Sum him up in one word? Nasty.

But a terrific centre forward in his prime; 58 goals and 28 assists in 120 matches for Chelsea.

After Chelsea he went back to Atletico Madrid, winning the Europa League for coach Diego Simeone

- another hard man as a player, perfectly suited to Costa. In 2020, however, he was blighted by injury - 132 days injured during the year. Age, at 32, and a hard man style of play, perhaps took their toll and even when he came back from injury he couldn't get back his place in the team. In December he and the club agreed to terminate his contract.

So now he is a free agent. You'd think that he still has a couple of years at near to the top level in him. He probably wouldn't want huge wages - largely because no club is going to take a punt on high wages given his injury record. But you'd imagine there are clubs around for whom he could do a decent job, maybe on a pay by play contract. There are two Premier League clubs which have scored only 9 goals this season - Burnley from 16 games and Sheffield United from 18.

Any takers? I'll definitely have him in my Free Agent XI.

Acknowledgement for details to https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/statistik/vertragslosespieler

The  good:

The  bad:

And the  ugly:

Vexillology

Words you may not have encountered.

Vexillology is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags. Do people make up words to justify their own activities? Is there a word for the study of blogging? If not (a) why not and (b) let's think of one.

Vexillology is derived from the Latin word vexillum, which refers to a kind of square flag which was carried by Roman cavalry. So we need a Latin word for blog. There isn't one, which I suppose means there were no Roman bloggers. Although you could argue that Pliny the Younger was a blogger, so I'm going to say that Plinyology is the study of blogging. Mr Google gives no results for plinyology, so I think I must be the first. Does that make me a neologist? I think that may also be a new word. So that's Nigel 2 Dictionaries 0; I'll get on to the OED in the morning.

The December 2020 updates to the OED include deliverology, apparently coined by British civil servants as a humorous, spuriously scientific sounding name for the process of successfully (or unsuccessfully) implementing policy and achieving goals in government.

Anyway, I'm interested in flags, so that makes me a vexillophile. I'm also interested in words, which makes me a logophile. dictionary.com calls me a word nerd. I'm OK with that. What else? I'm interested in jigsaw puzzles, as you know. Apparently that makes me a dissectologist. 

Who knew? More of this stuff throughout 2021.

Four Generals and an Admiral

Some years ago we lived in High Wycombe. Ever since, my sons and I have - with more or less consistency and enthusiasm - supported, or at least taken occasional interest in, the local football team, Wycombe Wanderers.

Gareth Ainsworth's seven years as manager of the club makes him the longest serving manager in the professional leagues in England. He works fantastically well with the players, using a group of long serving senior players, who he calls his "four generals", to create and maintain squad unity. Vital given that, having very little cash, the club has each year had to bed in a group of loan players.

The latest loan player is a 19 year old striker Admiral Muskwe, a Zimbabwean International from Leicester. I've never heard of anyone called Admiral although I often given that moniker to my friend Tony, in honour of his service in the Royal Navy (although not quite at that rank).

Apparently there was a burst of popularity for this name in the USA for a few years around 1900, perhaps due to the Spanish-American War, but close to zero since then. Admiral as a baby's name was ranked number 11,433 in 2017 according to babycenter.com, although number 394 in 1898. I found a site listing the 50 most popular baby names in Africa but no Admiral. Sadly, I have no further info. If you know of anyone called Admiral, please let me (and my hundreds of readers) know.

Other names which boomed in popularity after the Spanish-American War included Maine, Manila and Havana (all girls). Could have been worse, for example Guam.

I've not heard of anyone being named St Austell. Except for the Saint, of course.

Anyway, the boy played really well in today's 4-1 victory in the FA Cup. Here he is, speaking during the period last May when football was inactive.

What else did these designers and engineers build?

Gustav Eiffel, in addition to building a small tower somewhere, built various bridges for the French railways, notable the Garabit viaduct in the Massif Central region of France. He later became involved in the financial scandal of the Panama Canal.

George Ferris - George Washington Gale Ferris Jr - built a little wheel

for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. He also designed and inspected railroad bridges, trestles, and tunnels, none of which were famous or spawned hundreds of imitations.

In addition to building steamships, railways, dockyards, bridges

and tunnels, Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed and built a pre-fabricated hospital for use in the field in the Crimean War.

As well as taking a bath and shouting "Eureka", Archimedes designed a screw, to pump water uphill.

Leonardo da Vinci is known for well, doing everything.

Most remarkably, he died at the age of 67, when the average lifespan at the time was around 35. I guess he was just too busy to die.

George Stephenson built the first public inter-city railway line between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. His chosen rail gauge became a modern standard. Later in life he built deep coal mines using a technique called tubbing. And made a pile of money.

Elon Musk is most recently well known for space rockets which can land on their backsides but he made his fortune as founder of PayPal, when it was bought by eBay.

Charles Babbage is credited with the invention of the mechanical computer. He was also a writer; in his On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures of 1832 he exposed the restrictive practices of book publishers and called them a cartel.

Thomas Alva Edison is known for development of the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the electric light bulb, but he also collaborated with Henry Ford and David Firestone on the Edison Botanic Research Corporation, which was created to find a domestic source for organic rubber.

Clever people.