So, Thierry Henry made a bit of a mistake, as regards using his hand to play football.

I kinda feel like the villainisation of Henry is unwarranted, though. It is fair to say he cheated, but I don't think it is as evil as people seem to be making out. I doubt, for example (and this is fairly clear from the video) that his immediate thought as the ball came towards him was 'OOOOH! THE REF CAN'T SEE!' and I doubt he even had time to think that as he more or less dragged the ball back into play with his hand. In such a situation, my reaction would be 'ohhh shit...'.

Would an Irish player have stopped, held his hand up, and said 'sorry guys, handballed it, wouldn't be fair to play on. Let's have a free kick'? Of course he wouldn't have done. The entire team, and the support of their countrymen, would likely rest on that decision. Aside from anything else, as Henry says, he's "not the ref" - it is up to the ref, or the linesman, to say 'handball' and to stop the game.

I'm surprised there isn't more fury surrounding the refereeing team responsible for the game. Public opinion seems decidedly anti-Henry, and in many camps, anti-French (the amount of times I've heard 'the French are a load of fucking cheats' today, in a school with a very high proportion of French students, confuses me), but it really is the fault of the officials. But even so, with that amount of people crowded into a small area, how could you expect someone to be able to see the event clearly enough?

The facebook group calling for a rematch is admirable but idiotic.

why don't they stop the fireworks i can't even see them i do not want this invisible noisy fireworks and i am sleepy

on iTunes is weird. The playlist for Devil's Haircut by Beck kinda made sense for 3 songs. It's sort of degenerated into "Well, SOME of their songs are a bit odd.". Currently Space Oddity. Not similar.

They do like to feature their tuba player. Not that that's not an appropriate venture, he is the king of the tuba. Like, woo. But both concertos arranged for the album I have are played by tuba; both violin and oboe. I mean, come on.

Anyway, people have jobs now. So, I have a job, at the Hemingford Arms in Islington. I do not enjoy jobs, let's say that, but this job is a relatively nice one. On Sundays (unless I'm very unlucky and they cook everything they have) I get a free roast dinner, I get a free drink each time I work (which extends almost to 'as much as I want' if I'm closing up), and the people are nice. There is a Swedish woman that works there who talks SO CLOSE TO YOUR FACE and it still makes me nervous.

I have been reading-man recently. After Brendan (HELLO BRENDAN) showed me the 1001 books to read before you die, and I discovered I'd read about 11 of them, I decided to attack some of the things you should read. From July til now I have read (in order that I'm remembering them, nothing fancier);

. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
. Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott
. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
. Group Portrait with Lady - Henrich Böll
. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
. The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde (actually a re-read, I think for the 3rd time)
. Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck
. Othello - Shakespeare (2nd read, so first reread, if you see what I mean)
. Some Keats, Byron, and Plath poetry

That might not look like very much but I normally read about 3 novels a year, so, this is an improvement on that. I am learnin' so many words and stuffs.

ALSO I WANT A WOMAN DOES ANYONE HAVE ONE I COULD BORROW

Tower Hamlets are doing this 'summer uni' sort of thing, and it has loads of free 1-week courses to learn how to do stuff for 11-25 year olds. Which is pretty sweet, as you can learn rock-climbing, golf, fencing, cookery, events management, and all that. It is split into different sections; Fitness and Health, Business and Careers, Arts and Fashion, Music and Performing Arts, and Skills for Life. Woo.

One of the 'Skills for Life' is Thai cooking, which I am totally going on ohyes. One of the others is Thai fruit carving.

Um.

LOOK I'M POSTING AGAIN OMIGOD THAT'S LIKE TWICE IN UNDER A YEAR *EXPLODES*

Anyway, Jade got naked in the sea and her boyfriend did not marry her. I would've. *thinks* *stops thinking before it becomes illegal*

I just saw Star Trek (film) and it is the most feel-good thing in the world. It's the references, the first time Bones says 'I'm a doctor' is like GRIN and such. Although Spock and Uhura (sp?) is an odd thing. I dunno. LOVE though. <3

I saw a woman on the bike ride to the cinema who looked exactly like Zooey Deschanel (of Yes Man, Elf, and other films fame). Guess who loves her? Me. I nearly crashed into a car. One that was going at speed.

Snippet.

Snippet is a good word.

Flibbetymibbetymoo.

Sorry, may have run out of things to say.

I AM THE BEEF HAT OF YOUR DESTINY

I have a hole in my jeans. I have several, actually, but now a crotchal hole has sprung into being. This is a Bad Thing. These are my oldest jeans, I like them, they are faded BY THE SUN and not by a shop, and are comfy and loose and that. Will probably sew them back up but it is becoming apparent that they are beyond their time, as given by the One That Made My Jeans.

Yesterday I went to a Ceilidh with my flatmate and 3 other friends (in Cassie-style, let's call them I, R, C and T). It was good fun. I drank 2 pints more than anyone else, because... well, actually, the main answer to that is that I was drinking instead of talking, so I got through my drinks a lot faster than everyone else. But, slightly tipsy Ceilidh dancing is entirely how I dance at Ceilidhs (I assume that's the plural?). We did the basket when I was with C, I and R, and R is tiny and light so when we were coming out of it I was grabbing her v. tight each time, so that she didn't fly off into the wall. Seriously, you'd worry about that as well. Especially as she got dropped multiple times when she went before, apparently. AnYwAy the Ceilidh was at Cecil Sharp House, which is the home of the British Folk Dance and Song Society, and is really quite cool. It has a bar an' that, but more importantly I guess houses a lot of what Cecil Sharp and people like him did; which was to preserve British folk-song, writing down a lot of the tunes in a basic form, so that, even if they fall out of by-ear circulation, there is still a record of them. It's brilliant. (These people are called Ethnomusicologists. People who study this now get to go to places like Japan on research grants.)

Bananas are amazing because they have their own packaging.

I was reading my blog on blogspot.com, which I last wrote on in 2005. I miss Lisa, Zoe, Sarah, Laura, Fi, and that... I miss that time, when I would go to school, and then after school was socialising and me-time. That doesn't really happen any more. It is a sad thing. The only people who didn't waste the opportunities they had to really enjoy themselves seem to be the people that I thought were pricks. C'est la being a judgemental arsehole.

J xx

FUCKING MYSPACE EDITING I CAN'T REMEMBER HTML SO APPARENTLY MY PROFILE IS DESTINED TO LOOK LIKE CRAP. CHEERS MYSPACE.

Hello the guys. And the girls. And the others, you know who you are.

So, I don't know who knows this, but I'm not really back over Easter, something which saddens me immensely. I am going instead to the Internationale Junge Orchesterakademie in Pleystein, Germany, and there's nothing you can do to stop me. Unfortunately.

I am going to be back from the 27th (V. LATE like 2 in the morning but I'd probably still be up for stuff if anyone else is), til late evening on the 30th. And that's it.

I do still love you all all lots and lots all.

:(

J xx

I want to go to the US and/or Canada in the summer but I can't seem to find any way of me doing this for under about a grand in total. Even if I get lots of teaching work next term, I'll still have to not eat in order for that to work... any ideas? Also, if anyone's ever flown cheap to the US, that'd be super-handy to know.