Racist Chelsea fans pushed a black man off a train not once but twice after their match against Paris St Germain. The culprits then followed this up with some vile racist chanting. Given the nature and seriousness of the offences and Chelsea fans’ long and dishonourable history of racism I think a severe example needs to be set. My suggestion would be that Chelsea be disqualified from this year’s European competition and banned from all supra-national competitions for a period of five years.
Before moving on to the second part of this post, here are some pictures from today…
Bangladesh achieved a comfortable victory over Afghanistan in the cricket world cup, although Afghanistan bowled fairly well to restrict Bangladesh to 267 a disastrous start to their reply saw them tumble to 3-3 from which there was no recovery. I believe that for a competition to be genuinely global some ‘minnows’ must be present. The problem with the cricket world cup is that by diktat of television there is only one match per day because if matches were played in parallel there would be less advertising revenue as only one match each day can be televised in full. Personally, i think that the interests of cricket should outweigh those of the TV moguls and that matches should be played in parallel so as to concertina the competition.
The fact that Afghanistan managed to qualify for this world cup shows that rapid improvement is possible even in very difficult circumstances. Similarly impressive stories may be emerging from Nepal and Papua New Guinea in the not too distant future.
England, as has been the case in every world cup since 1992 when they reached the final, have been decidedly under-impressive so far, and if it is at their expense that one of the minnows gains a quarter-final place I for one will be unequivocally celebrating on behalf of the minnow!
A second selection of pictures to end…
There were also several large dinner/ tea services in various extremely fragile materials which therefore needed very careful handling.
Yesterday’s auction at the Racecourse (a regular James and Sons affair) was overall very successful. A combination of a matchday brochure, team sheet and ticket from a Spurs v Chelsea match of the early 1900s (in which the legendary Vivian Woodward appeared for Chelsea) fetched a credulity-stretching £600. There were many other notable successes, fuelled by a substantial number of people registering for online bidding via 
One of my favourite Autistic Spectrum Condition related bloggers is Autism Mom, and one of her recent posts, which I have already 
On the subject of the rest of this post, the forthcoming General Election, one should first of all remember that it is not one single contest, but 650 separate contests, each decided on a first past the post basis. The second point is that for everyone except the rich another five years of Cameron as PM will be an absolute, unmitigated disaster. Fortunately, I am saved any great difficulty in my own constituency by the fact that the only candidate with any sort of chance of dislodging the current Tory MP happens to be someone I would be happy to vote for anyway. Jo Rust (Labour) is a Unison Rep, was involved in the successful campaign against the Saddlebow incinerator, was one of those who helped We Are Norwich to make the EDL feel as small and insignificant as they were. The contrast between the incumbent and the challenger is particularly marked when it comes to the NHS – Unison Rep versus shareholder in one of the companies who stand to benefit from the carve up of the NHS. If you are in Northwest Norfolk and want to see the back of the Tories make sure that on election day you get to the polling station and vote for Jo Rust.
aspiblog 