Go Ahead Eagles

Regular readers will know I am fascinated by football club names. See my earlier post about the Stuttgarter Kickers. The Go Ahead Eagles are a club in the Eredivisie - the Netherlands First Division. They gained promotion last season by finishing second in the Eerste Divisie (First Division, which is what the second tier competition is called - don't ask). They last won the Eredivisie in 1933, so it's time to Go Ahead again.

Proper football fans, i.e. all our readers, will be interested to know that the Go Ahead Eagles were the first club of renowned player Marc Overmars, winner of 86 caps for the Netherlands. Marc came out of a 'retirement' in 2008, after leaving Barcelona in 2004, to give some glamour to his home town club for a year at the age of 35, making 24 appearances for them in the Eerste Divisie. I always find it heartwarming that there is still romance in football.

The club is from the city of Deventer, population 100,000; the eagle is in the coat of arms of Deventer

Hence Eagles in the club's name. The club was founded as Be Quick in 1902 but had to change its name because the players were not quick enough there was already a Go Ahead club. As for the name, dutch.news.nl tells us "The Dutch, as we know, are a sensible folk. But not when it comes to naming their football clubs. In most countries football clubs have really boring names like Manchester United, Barcelona or Paris Saint Germain. But not so in the Netherlands. Here, names are descriptive."

I guess that's some kind of answer and at least it give the fans - average attendance 6,500 - a reasonable chant. And ... I have a song for them:

1, 2, 3, GO!

Go ahead now! See the mail order

Go ahead now! Cooling off the paper

Fall in, fall out, Fall in, Fall out

Go ahead now! Check your speedmeter

Go ahead now! Refrigerator

Fall in, fall out, Fall in, Fall out

Take a big mess, take a little rest

Take your reflex, spoil your test

We're pinheads! Here we go now!

Go for it! Let'em make a phone call

Go for it! Let'em get a own goal

Fall in, Fall out Fall in, fall out

Go for it! Let'em dig a big hole

Go for it! Let the good times roll

Fall in, Fall out Fall in, fall out

Let's go!

Take a big mess, Take a little rest

Take your reflex, Spoil your test

We're pinheads! Here we go now!

Let'em scoot, Let'em go!

Go ahead now! Go for it!

Go ahead now! Go for it!

Fall in, Fall out

Here we go ahead now now now now!

Take a big mess, Take a little rest

Take your reflex, Spoil your test

We're pinheads! Here we go now!

Take a big mess, Take a little rest

Take your reflex, Spoil your test

We're pinheads! Here we go now!

The song is by Polysics, a Japanese new wave and rock band from Tokyo, who dubs its unique style as "technicolor pogo punk". It was named after a brand of synthesizer, the Korg Polysix. [according to Wikipedia]. This is it:

Obviously a bit tricky for the fans to sing, but a great "entering the field" booster.

You'll be pleased to know they are Going Ahead reasonably well so far this season. And - at the time of writing - they have just gone ahead in their latest match.

15,215 days to the end of oil

1,459,013,978,422 barrels of oil left when I started this post. 1,459,013,757,364 barrels left when I finished.

15,215 days is 42 years. And a few days. What then?

Coal has longer to go: 148,329 days

Apparently 1,748,707,614,456 Megawatts of solar energy struck the earth so far today. Grab a bit of that and we'll be fine.

Yep, I'm back on worldometers.info and browsing aimlessly.

At the start of this post, China's population was 1,439,323,776. According to https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/. There's a guy out there counting. Here comes another... Surprisingly, the Chinese rate of growth is declining; 20 million extra in 1990, 13 million in 1995, 8 million in 2005, just 5.5 million in 2020. The fertility rate (the number of children a woman has on average) was 6.3 in 1970 and is now 1.69. 1.7 is generally regarded as the benchmark for a stable population size.

Where are they now?

I referred to the planet Zog in an earlier post. That made me think about King Zog of Albania, of whom I was aware as a child. He died in exile in France in 1961. European countries have been ambivalent about having exiled monarchs in their territories; Zog fled Albania in 1939 and went first to Greece then Turkey. Onwards via difficult wartime routes ending up in France. When Germany invaded he fled to England, where he lived for five years before going to Egypt then settling in France.

Poor chap, you think. But he took with him a huge chunk of the Albanian treasury's cash, so maybe not so poor.

So we know where he is now. Probably not in Heaven.

If memory serves me correctly, we Brits have a penchant for hosting failed foreign leaders, especially those having connections with our royal family, i.e. pretty much all of the world's monarchs and ex monarchs. So I thought I would investigate whether there are still any of these lovely people living in our welcoming country.

I know, you are imagining your intrepid investigator traipsing through the streets of Chelsea, Mayfair and the like, knocking on doors and asking is "King xxxxx in residence?". In normal times this would undoubtedly have happened but I feared that turning up wearing a mask might evoke a less than pacifist response, so instead I turned to Mr Google for help.

I started with King Constantine of Greece, because I remember him. He fled a military coup in 1973. Lived in Hampstead until 2013, when he returned to Greece. First cousin once removed of the Duke of Edinburgh. Second cousin of the Prince of Wales (and presumably his brothers and sister; who cares?), second cousin once removed to Prince William (and presumably to that one who lives in California and various others of that generation|). So, connected. He and his wide live in Porto Cheli in the Peloponnese, a nice resort with access to a private airport. It's a hard life being an ex-King.

Mir Suleman Dawood Jan is the 35th Khan of Kalat. Kalat is in Balochistan in Pakistan. This chap is currently living in Cardiff, allegedly in a three bedroom semi. Far away from the glitz of the Ritz [Ed: are you writing poetry now Nigel?]. Perhaps because he has no known connection to Her Maj. "Sure you can come live here but it will have to be in Wales. Don't worry, they have people there; you could join a male voice choir if you are bored."

Do you like the new layout? Let me know

The Cull of 57

I have 57 blog posts in draft form. Many of them months old. The earliest was "Jazz stuff" in July 2020. Just a title. I'm good at titles; less so on sustainable content.

Time to start a cull. "Jazz stuff" has run its course. Gone. 56 to go.

"Another brick in the Wall" - shortly after "Jazz stuff". Again a title only. Gone. Heaven knows what I had in mind.

"Useful names" - some content about a footballer's children's names. August 2020. Gone.

"Confusing names" - about a female character called Michael in a Star Trek episode. No longer culturally acceptable. Don't tell on me. Gone.

"Riffs" - most of my posts are riffs, so no longer necessary. Gone.

"Excuse me? - maybe about some modern language idioms. Gone.

"Heroes and cheats" - about footballers such as Terry Butcher (hero) and as yet unnamed cheats (maybe most footballers). Would lose half my audience. Gone.

Finally - for the moment - two which I plan to revisit:

"A new pope, two popes and odd popes" - about two excellent TV series.

"Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch" - the miniature railway; contains a nice picture.

50 left. More in due course. I'm currently busy reading Dickens, Dickens (Claire Tomalin) and Dickens (Thomas Keneally).

Platform 9

It has been claimed that Boudica is buried beneath platform 9 of King's Cross Station. Some say 8, others 10, JK Rowling probably 9¾. According to londonist.com "This idea began with John Bagford and a dead elephant. The elephant was discovered near a flint axe head in a gravel pit at the top of Gray’s Inn Road. In 1715, Bagford published a suggestion that the elephant has been brought over by the Romans, and that the flint was a spearhead of a British warrior who fought them." Whatever.

Anyway, I was introduced to Boudica - Boadicea as we knew her then - as a child hooked on I-Spy books. I guess they are called i-spy now. Away on our summer holidays? Get out I-Spy At The Seaside. A day at the zoo? I-Spy At The Zoo: Birds And Reptiles. Outside our house? I-Spy In The Street.

A trip to the smoke? I-Spy The Sights Of London. And there on the Embankment (and on page 15) is the glorious statue of Boudica/Boadicea and her daughters.

In the first century AD, Boudica led an uprising against the Romans. She was the queen of the Iceni, a Brittonic tribe from East Anglia (the trains from Cambridge come into King's Cross on platform 10 BTW) and they joined with the Celtic Britons and others to attempt to throw off the yoke of the invaders. According to Mr Wiki:

An estimated 70,000–80,000 Romans and Britons were killed in the three cities by those following Boudica, many by torture. Suetonius, meanwhile, regrouped his forces, possibly in the West Midlands; despite being heavily outnumbered, he decisively defeated the Britons. The crisis caused Nero to consider withdrawing all Roman forces from Britain, but Suetonius's victory over Boudica confirmed Roman control of the province. Boudica then either killed herself to avoid capture (according to Tacitus) or died of illness (according to Cassius Dio).

Don't mention the torture, or that statue may not have long ..............