A year of change

I thought it was going to be a year of change. Looks like I had no idea how much.
Mrs Breadcrumb has just one more week in her current job, and is trying to work out whether here new home is the fire or somewhere cooler than the frying pan. At least during the jump there is cooling down.
I am trying to work out whether I want to change what I do - which is largely driven by the fact that this year I am not making any money doing it.
We have a house move to plan. The breadcrumbs little helper has a marriage to finally face up to. The godparents have two breadcrumbs of their own to adopt.
The economy is on the fritz, the environment is on the fritz, and the middle east (source of much of my income) is on the turn.

Year of change indeed.

Meanwhile Liverpool beat Sparta Prague. All together now - "We are Sparta FC"!

Insights

Funny the insights you get as you are falling asleep. I suddenly found myself thinking that the reason I am self-indulgent as an adult is because I was rather neglected as a child. This is not an excuse incidentally, more a warning to myself.

Isn't it funny how things from our childhood can still haunt us decades later.

all political careers end in failure

I wonder if we can add Prime Minister Berlesconi and Colnel Gadaffi to the list of people contemplating them message?

4 gym sessions, ice skating and swimming in a week. I may be old, decrepit and skint, but at least I can try to do something about the decrepit bit.

odds and ends

Mrs Breadcrumb is away for the week wrapping up odds and ends with her old job. So, I am at something of a loose end in the evenings. Saw Spurs beat AC Milan - great goal by Crouchie - still don't know why we sold him.

Then finished off the Millenium trilogy for the second time. It's rare I re-read books - especially within 12 months. It may be something like comfort food - you know you are going to like it. But great books.

And tonight will be Arsenal vs Barcelona - which should be good. They are the 2 teams I would choose to watch if Liverpool were not involved. According to my principles I should support Arsenal, but my heart wants Barcelona to be brilliant and win again.

Meanwhile, there is sunlight during the day and I am going to the gym. Although realistically our finances are still perilous, it is easier to be positive. Or at least ignore the situation. Some paid work would be nice though.

The American Constitution

I'm a Brit, so I don't always understand American Culture - but I've become strangely interested in the logic of the Tea Party and other Republicans who have a fixation on the American Constitution. From here, in the land they broke away from to write the constitution (by a bunch of slave owners with holes in the ground for toilets as pointed out by Scott Adams of Dilbert), there seems to have a lot of people who believe all the answers and authority of the US government lies in the constitution as originally written. Now they have Amended the constitution. Does that mean the Tea Party think that all the Amendments should be withdrawn? Or do they accept the amendments? In which case their whole argument collapses (because obviously the original constitution was not perfect, and there is no obvious reason why the current version should be either). Just asking. It confuses me.
I am used to people having holes in their political beliefs (says a guy who is apparently to the left of 98% of the population on social matters, and to the right of 90% on economic matters) - but this seems more aligned with the views taken by religous cults than real politics.


In the UK we avoid this by not having a written constitution, which allows our politicians to make things up as they go along. Note that this doesn't seem to work either.
At some stage I shall get exercised by the government deciding that we can have an extra MEP, but not bothering to going to all the trouble and expense of holding an election - just appointing a Tory off the Midlands list. That is the sort of thing you expect in Egypt! Oh, we could have had an election but it would have cost money, so we decided not to bother...
Even if it is perfectly legal it shows a disregard for the democratic process which is staggering. As did the attempted coup when they pushed for a fixed term government that could not be defeated by a majority of the House of Commons but only a majority +5%. Again, in most countries we call that fixing the parliament.

Oh apparently I am going to rant about it now. Sorry.

all political careers end

in failure.

I forget who said that, but I wonder if Mubarak has heard it?

Fernando who?

Well, to be serious, Torres is a great player and will get better at Chelsea. However, beating Chelsea in London was more than I could have hoped for. Despite my reservations about the potential damage to King Kenny if he should fail, it seems that (so far) he is succeeding. Liverpool again look like a Liverpool team. They seem to have confidence that they can actually beat anyone (personally I am pretty pleased this is not going to be tested against Barcelona). A cause for (cautious) optimism.

On that tack though, if Arsenal can conceed 4 to Newcastle, what is going to happen when they play Barcelona and Lionel Messi?

things could be worse

Bleak as things sometimes seem, they could be worse. A friend of the Breadcrumb's little helper has had a breakdown and is needing round the clock support and attention to make sure she does not harm herself. As well as taking herself off the grid she had cancelled all her bills, including the rent, with the clear implication that she would not be around to pay them next time.

As Peter Hook said about Ian Curtis - a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

I hope she makes it through.

off we go

Mrs Breadcrumb is escaping the evil empire, otherwise known as Bastard, Bastard and Greedy GmbH, and heading for the wilds of Widnes.
We means that me, the breadcrumbs, one cat, 5 fish, and 2 gerbils will also be heading west. But not until 2011. Cut off for schools is 1 March, and we don't know where we are going to live, so the move has to wait until next year.

As David Tennant said as Dr Who, "I don't want to go". I shall be happy when we are there, but the thought of the upheaval and losing our friends here is rather disheartening.

Still, we are only here because of Mrs Breadcrumb's job, so it is not surprising we have to move again. And hopefully this will be the last time. But it is unlikely we can ever again afford something as large and rambling as this house. Shame, but there you go.

Transfer Madness

£50m for Torres seems about right. £35m for Andy Carroll? I hope I am as wrong about that as I was about Roy Hodgson.
I had forgotten that it was Chelsea at the weekend. Shouldn't we have a clause saying that he could not play in that game?
Got to feel sorry for Anelka, and that is not something you can say everyday.