I'm with the great unwashed

I'm on a GWR train. Trying to watch the football on my shiny new (non-Apple) tablet, which I adore. But the train wifi isn't up to the job and m I'll explain why.

My train was cancelled, which is not atypical on a weekend. I get the next train, one hour later, on which of course I no longer have a seat reservation - although a bit of aggressive hunting resolves that. But there are now two trainloads of people on one train. And two trainloads of people using the wifi which is in normal circumstances slow and is now virtually unusable.

I find a seat and notice that the free first class drinks trolley is a few rows away, so I can grab a coffee. Not so fast: "Sorry. I've passed that seat, I'll catch you on the way back". What? I'm here, you're there, just hand me a coffee. Please. Not my actual words but I was not myself. A good thing I got the coffee while it was available (plus a pathetic little "snack box", which is GWR's contribution to citizens' obesity at weekends when there are no sandwiches - which you'd think they could make a packet on given the large customer base on this train).

Because shortly after, the announcement "sorry we're suspending trolley service because we can't get through the massed hordes".

Meanwhile, in a further development, "sorry there are loads of you without seats so we are declassifying this service; you can go and sit in the empty first class seats alongside the posh people who have paid £100 or more for the privilege of avoiding the hoi polloi. Long live the revolution!".

"Dear first class travellers, please note that, should you ever get home, you can claim a refund of the difference between your fare and a cattle class fare, although it's obviously possible the website will crash if you all do it at the same time ".

What am I going to do for the remaining hours of my journey? I know, I'll write a blog post. Which is why I'm sharing this with you, dear patient reader.

If I ever get to Whitstable today, I'll need a strong drink and a shower.

Footy updates 2025/16

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Recent matches (international break for the men):

Arsenal Women 1 Lyon 2 (Champions League match day 1 of 6)

Forgotten how to defend.

Wigan 0 Wycombe 1
Out of the relegation zone

Wealdstone 5 Whitstable 1 (FA Cup Fourth Qualifying Round)
A great run to get this far. Now they can concentrate on the League: win all their games in hand and they'll be top!

Arsenal Women 1 Brighton Women 0
Every game's a struggle at the moment 

Holmesdale 0 Whitstable 4 (Kent Senior Trophy 1st round)
Town are three time winners of this competition and were beaten finalists last year

Benfica Women 0  Arsenal Women 2 (Champions League match day 2 of 6)
More like it. I've seen an estimate that 10 (possibly even 9) points from the 6 games should get you into at least the playoffs for the knockout rounds. So Arsenal need 7 points from the remaining 4 games. Winning all those 4 games might get them into the top 4 and automatic qualification for the knockouts

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My forecasts for this weekend: (and ChatGPT's)

Middlesbrough 1 Ipswich 1 CGPT: 1-1

Charlton 1 Sheffield Wednesday 0 CGPT: 1-2

Blackpool 1 Wycombe 2  CGPT: 1-2

Erith & Belvedere 1  Whitstable Town 2  CGPT: 1-2

Fulham 0 Arsenal 1 CGPT: 0-2

Tottenham 2 Aston Villa 0  CGPT: 2-1

BBC2 has it all wrong

Regular readers will know that Monday night is Quiz Night on BBC2. Very entertaining and stimulating it is; our public service broadcaster has a duty to inform, educate and entertain.

Tonight, Quiz Night is cancelled in favour of...bloody football! And not just any old football, it's the mighty clash between...Northern Ireland and Germany. Oh my!

A few points to make here.

1. The BBC has a Northern Ireland channel, as variants of BBC1 and BBC2. Just as viewers in Kent get your local news and weather on BBC South East and we in Cornwall have BBC South West, so the lovely folks in Belfast can get their own stuff. Which could easily show the footy and leave the quizzes for the rest of us.
2. Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge regularly pull in one and half (Mastermind) and two (the others) million viewers. Let's be conservative and assume there are all the same people - devotees like me.
3. The population of Northern Ireland is roughly 1.9 million. Let's assume that half them are women and 100,000 are boys below the age of 5, based on recent census data. I'm not being sexist, just making a reasonable assumption that the goodly ladies of Derry have better things to do than watch their awful (FIFA ranked 71st in the world) football team lose to Germany (9th). Take away the 18,000 who will actually go to Windsor Park to watch the game, plus let's say 15% of the men who couldn't care less about football, and you are left with a potential audience of (being generous) around 700,000. 

So how does the BBC justify junking a 2 million Quiz Night audience for 700,000 Northern Irish football fans who could actually watch it on their own local channel?

It makes no sense.

But I will get to watch England's Under 21s play live on YouTube, without missing any quizzes!

USA 0 Norway 1

The title tells the story. No more words needed.

The Female King

Can you have a female King? Jadwiga was one. She...wait, I couldn't find out what pronouns she preferred to use...was the first (and last) female monarch of Poland in the 14th century.

According to Civilization VI, she was "well-educated, fluent in five languages and embarrassingly pious". She was 11 years old when she became King in 1384. Sadly, she died in 1399 after she gave birth to a daughter; both mother and child died of complications. 

It appears she was much loved by her subjects, particularly because of her holiness. Three miracles are attributed to her and she was canonised as a Saint by the Catholic Church in 1997.

I've read various texts explaining the reasons she became King rather than Queen. It seems that (a) tradition inferred Queens as mere regnal spouses and (b) none of the noblemen wanted the others to be King.

No offence, Wales

Every football fan knows one thing above all about England. The men's team, that is.

We race through the qualifying groups against countries like San Marino and Andorra, scoring bucketloads of goals and ending with a 100% record. Then comes the competition proper. And we struggle against decent teams and...

...get beaten by Germany.

Our (German) coach is leading us through the qualification campaign ready for the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the USA next Summer. So far we have played 5, won 5, scored 13 goals and conceded none. So when it comes to filling a gap in the schedule with a friendly game, you'd think it would be a great opportunity to find out about the players vying for their spots by playing a match against Brazil. Or France. Maybe Ghana. Definitely not Senegal, we lost 3-1 to them earlier this year (see what I mean?)

But no, we decide to play...Wales. No offence to the Welsh but they are ranked 30th in the world, between Panama and Norway. We know what our players, even those notionally in our second string, can do against Panama, Wales and Norway. What we don't know is how good they will be against Portugal, Croatia and the Dutch. Better to find out now rather than in 9 month's time when it matters.

I don't get it. As the well-known terrace chant goes:

You don't know what you're doing.

Oh and just so you know, it was England 3 Wales 0.