Wood Wars

You’ll have heard of the Cod Wars in the 1970s and then of course there was Star Wars and now there’s Wood Wars.

A couple of years ago there was a fire on greenbelt land not too far from our house. Afterwards, the council, as per their own legal instructions to householders, cut down a number of trees which were too close to buildings and the wood was just left lying.

In those two years I’ve looked at those wood piles several times a week as they lie beside the lane down to the main road but for one reason or another I haven’t made a move to take it. I was unsure if the nearest houses had first claim on it – a sort of unwritten French bye law if you like. But as amazingly, I appear to have enough wood to last me this winter, I haven’t been too worried, thinking that as the wood hasn’t moved for 2 years, it’s unlikely to move anytime soon.

Two weeks ago as I headed into the village on my scooter to have a ‘boys lunch’ I noticed that the council were cutting down some small overhanging trees just around the corner from our house. As they felled the trees, they were cut into two foot lengths and were being loaded onto the council truck. I thought fleetingly about asking the guys if they wanted to sell me the wood (for next year’s fire) but previous experience has taught me that they generally ask too much almost to the point where you could buy seasoned wood for the same price, so I left it and headed off to the Bar Midi.

As I passed the wood-cutting spot on my way home, the truck had gone but there was a large pile of cut logs lying beside the road. Never one to miss a trick, I carefully loaded a few onto my scooter and headed home. The trip was just to see how easy, or difficult it was to make the 30 second run back home on the scooter but it turned out to be quite straightforward. J was out in the jeep and there’s no way I would sully my Alfa with cut logs so I decided to do another run in my scooter, and another and another. I did five trips in all and had almost collected all the wood, when on my 6^th trip I was stopped by a older guy in the ubiquitous white Peugeot 207s they all seem to drive here.

He jumped out, shouting about me taking his wood and I just stood there quite calmly – for a Glaswegian! After all, in ten years here I now know how the redneck natives behave – they immediately start off by shouting at you, hoping to intimidate you. I just smile. Then they write your number plate on the palm of their hand as if they’re going to trouble the police by reporting a wood problem. It’s hysterical – they all do it. Even this guy who looked as if he’d just finished the dirtiest job in the garden managed to find a pen on him and write the number down. Nowadays, I grab their hand and check to see if they’ve written the number down correctly – they hate it.

Anyway, this guy made such a song and dance about the few remaining pieces of wood which were left, that I let him have them, despite thinking that I should have told him to **** off and go have some Frogs Legs. After all, I’d already taken 90% of the wood! He called me a ‘chapeau’ whatever that is – nobody seems to know – and we went on our respective ways.

Fast forward to this week and I’m working down in my ‘jungle’ and the same guy passes on a small tractor with a trailer and gives me a knowing look. 30 minutes later he’s back with his trailer loaded with wood – he’s obviously decided that the wood which has been lying further down the track for two years is now not safe and so he’s been collecting it. He’s been doing these runs now for almost a week and every time he passes he gives me that French look – the look reminiscent of finding something messy on the sole of your shoe.

For my part I just smile and wave and think he’s a complete wazzock.

Oddball Bits And Pieces

Here’s a few statements, comments, extracts from articles and a couple of videos which have caught my eye over the last week or so……

“It was said with all the solemnity of a vicar who has just found out his daughter is a porn star.” This was a reference to a statement made by a politician.

“I'm reminded of an old saying: presenters broadcast their mistakes but doctors bury theirs and lawyers imprison theirs." Said by Nick Robinson (BBC Political Correspondent) after he made a prediction on TV which, within 10 minutes, happened in totally the opposite way to what he had said.

“It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes and then taking out a life insurance policy on the buyer of the car.’ Said by a politician when discussing how banks actually bet against some of their own clients in the stock market.

So J and I are sitting in the local bar having lunch when some friends dining at the next table were explaining to us how the EEC had provided the Mayor of Tourrettes with funds to repave the village streets, and J says, ‘and what EEC is that then?’ Doh !

Headline in a newspaper -“Man loses 6 teeth while smoking” – My view – probably because he picked up somebody else’s fags in a Glasgow pub.

So I says to J – “When we go to London for the May reunion, we’ll take the Gatwick Express, it’ll be quicker.” ‘Does that not stop so often then?’ she says.

Truck smashes into motorway bridge in Turkey – isn’t CCTV wonderful? How the person crossing the bridge from the left survived is a miracle. See video below.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/7090792/Truck-smashes-into-motorway-bridge-in-Turkey.html

ATM for midgets – oops sorry – vertically challenged persons.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/7137563/UKs-lowest-ATM-is-a-back-breaking-18-inches-high.html

Story by a female journalist who based herself near the Chelsea training centre so she could do research for a book on WAGs: John Terry, England’s disgraced football captain and his wife in a restaurant – Terry - ‘I’ll have a burger and chips.’ Waiter who didn't recognise who it was – ‘sorry sir, this is a Lebanese restaurant we don’t do burgers.’ Terry – 'I don’t care what sort of restaurant you are, I want a burger and chips.’ Mrs Terry – ‘John he says they don’t do burgers now pick something from the menu.’ Terry – ‘I want a burger and chips – get me the chef.’ He got his burger and chips! Moron!

And still on a football theme …..

'He's a bootlicking moron.' Said by Carlos Tevez about his ex-teammate, footballer Gary Neville. Not bad for an Argentinian who supposedly couldn't speak any English!

Grindingly Slow French Justice

Yesterday, after nearly 10 years, the trial of those charged with the terrible Concorde crash in July 2000 began. Three Frenchmen, all associated with the design, on-going operations and maintenance of the Concorde programme, and two Continental Airways employees are up before the French beaks. They are all charged with manslaughter.

The trial will take care of itself but the fact that Concorde had several near misses when tyres blew out and punctured its wings and fuel tanks, points to a severe design problem which nobody did a thing about until after the crash. Aged 70, 72 and 80, the French defendants look as though they will have a tough case in front of them whilst it seems to me to be more difficult to pin any responsibility on the Continental employees who are blamed for ‘allowing’ a metal strip to fall off of their plane which in turn, caused the Concorde’s tyres to blow.

It will be a closely watched trial.

But why did it take nearly 10 years for it to come to court? The crash investigation was completed years ago which is why, after wing and fuel tank modifications were made, Concorde was allowed to fly again. I’m afraid it’s just another case of the painfully slow legal process in France.

As I’ve written before, commit a serious crime in France and you can be in the slammer for 3, 4 or 5 years before your trial comes up. And what if you are then pronounced innocent?

As far as the Concorde trial is concerned these old men have had a sword hanging over their heads for nearly 10 years. OK – they’re not in jail but not a day could have passed when these people didn’t think about their fate. France has a long history of finding someone to blame for accidents and disasters – no matter how long it takes - it must be something in their psyche.

The French press believe that the French guys at least will be found guilty (there’s so much evidence against them) and will get suspended jail sentences which is completely irrelevant. Are they going to commit other crimes? At 70, 72 and 80 years of age.

It’s just the French legal system going through the motions to be seen to be doing something. A complete waste of time if you ask me. These three men will have to live with the consequences of their actions (or non-action) for their remaining years and in fact have been suffering for the last nine and a half years.

The Beautiful Game ?

I wish I didn’t like football so much. In other circumstances I’d stop watching it in a nano second because with each passing day the ‘beautiful game’ is being dragged through the gutter.

We all know the obscene salaries these players get and whilst I’m an advocate of market forces and letting the market decide who gets paid what, I find it staggering and quite frankly upsetting that someone, a lout like John Terry the Chelsea and England captain, earns some £8 million a year from his footballing contract alone, whilst the Prime Minister, with all the world’s problems on his shoulders ears less in a year than Terry does in a week. It’s scandalous, but it’s not the money per-se which I’m complaining about, it’s the effect it has on their sense of decency that perturbs me. And this isn’t just a rant at John Terry although he (and his family) does more to blacken the image of the sport than most.

This weekend has summed up the grubby lives of football stars perfectly. If ever you wanted a mélange of sordid, cheap, self-centred activites by the footballing ‘greats’, this weekend is it.

It started on Thursday with Ashley Cole, incidentally, another Chelsea player, who was caught driving at over 100mph in a 50 mph zone being banned from driving for a couple of months. Fair enough. But he was also fined a thousand pounds and astonishingly asked for time to pay the fine. This is a guy who earns over £100,000 a week! But don’t be fooled by Cole’s petty little game. He could probably have paid the fine with the cash in his back pocket but he probably just wants to ‘screw’ the court system by making them wait for their money. This, is after all, the guy who when being cautioned by a referee a couple of years ago turned his back when being spoken to. Like a naughty schoolboy trying to impress the girls in the class he belittled the ref, but it all backfired. Those who didn’t despise Cole before that little encounter, did so immediately afterwards.

And then we go back to John Terry, the current England captain. This guy and his family have a rap sheet as long as your arm. From shouting abuse to Americans who were watching the 9/11 attack unfold in a bar at Heathrow Airport, to his father being caught flogging cocaine in a bar, to his mother knicking knickers from Marks and Spencers, to Terry taking £10,000 for showing some people around the training ground, to him parking in a disabled bay to save a 50p parking charge and finally to him screwing his pal’s girlfriend. It’s true what they say – you can take the boy out of Essex but you cannot take Essex out of the boy!

If the FA don’t relieve him of his England captaincy I will have lost any remaining faith I had in Fabio Capello, a supposedly highly decent man who demands the utmost in loyalty and integrity from his players. He will have capitulated totally and put results above common decency.

And finally we come to the grubby little case of Eidur Gudjohnsen who was moving from Barcelona to West Ham. Another average player on over £100,000 a week, he was invited back to play in the UK by one of his old friends, Gianfranco Zola, the manager of West Ham.

He arrived in London with his ‘entourage’, was put up in a fancy hotel as he no doubt demanded, had a medical, agreed a new salary and then without a word to his old pal, the following morning he actually went off and signed for another London club.

It’s a bit mean to do something like that to an old pal who is trying to help you revive your career but to then leave the hotel bill for West Ham to pay is even worse but, I’m afraid, totally in line with how today’s footballers behave.