Banditry: The idle musings of John B

List of significant winter sports and the teams who play them seriously who are from English-speaking countries

American Football (USA)
Australian Football (AUS)
Ice Hockey (CAN, USA)
Rugby League (AUS, GB[ENG],NZ)
Rugby Union (GB [ENG, IRE, SCO, WAL], NZ)
Soccer (GB [ENG,SCO,WAL,NI], IRE)

List of significant winter sports and the serious teams who play them seriously who are from non-English-speaking countries

Ice Hockey (SWE, NOR, FIN)
Rugby League (FRA)
Rugby Union (FRA)
Soccer (THE ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD, SERIOUSLY, THE ONLY FUCKING GAME, NO, ENGLISH SPEAKING PEOPLE ARE WEIRD)

Yes, that was a really stupid thing to say in an interview.

On the plus side, it’s good to see the people of Liverpool dispelling their unfair stereotype as past-obsessed whiners by ignoring an irrelevant off-the-cuff aside about something that happened a generation ago.

Compare and contrast these three (3) pieces of media:

(better Begbie clips happily received. It took me long enough to track that one down…)

Diamond Geezer has an excellent piece on the sterling work that Boris Johnson has done in eradicating crime, misery, poverty, racial disharmony, etc from the town of Henley, and how useful this experience will be if he’s elected Mayor of London…

Would throbbing multicultural London (population seven and a half million) be a better place if it were more like genteel riverside Henley-on-Thames (population ten thousand)? So I headed upriver to Henley at the weekend to find out. And what do you know, I think Boris has it sorted.