Mistletoe's Musings

Bugger! Bent has scored on his debut again. Which is all right for my fantasy team. Berbatov, my other forward has scored 3! Ha. In your face Benty. And, in spite of having only one fit striker on the books, Sunderland won! Away! Well done Kieran Richardson who scored the two goals. Disappointingly, we gave away a penalty late on, so did not keep a clean sheet, but we kept the lead which was just as important and are now 7 points clear of the team in 7th (Newcastle) and only one behind Tottenham who are 5th. I am pleased.

Bruce was very philosophical about signing anyone. We have only 5 games in February and March while there are 8 games in April and May. By then Welbeck and possibly Campbell could be fit so they will bolster the front line.  The next 3 home games are Chelsea (3rd in table), Tottenham (5th in table), Liverpool (not in top half but on the up since Dalglish took over) which will go a long way to decide what sort of season we have had. I am well pleased so far and if we continue in the way we have at home (only 2 defeats all season) the away games shouldn't hold much to fear. Europe? I don't think Bent will get near that with Villa.

Been to the shops today and got another top in the sales which will look very nice with a vest in the summer at the cricket. Purple and grey hoops it is. Also got meat and cheap petrol, well, cheaper than where I live. It was £1.25 a litre which is 2p cheaper. The weather was manky, that horrible drizzle that gets on your glasses.

I have nothing to say about this week's Bones other than what I have commented elsewhere. I shall wait until there is an episode where I can really say something positive. 10 out of 22 seen and I haven't enjoyed any of them really.

New Who Matt Smith. Who?

Meanwhile FA Cup 3rd round day is always a thrill and usually the last we see of the competition. However, not today. Sunderland 2 Bolton Wanderers 1 (Jones 57, Cisse 67) and theirs was a fluke late on. So there's something else Sbragia has managed that Keane didn't.

Elsewhere, there were some upsets: First Division Hartlepool 2, Premier League Stoke City 0; Premier League Manchester City 0 Championship strugglers Nottingham Forest 3; non-League Torquay United 1, Championship Blackpool 0. Ah the magic of the Cup!!

To Sunderland shopping. Got a new pair of shoes for work after 2 visits to the shop. We couldn't get served the first time. Into the phone shop and spent my birthday money on a new phone - a Sony Ericsson W350I - which is charging as we speak.

It is sub-zero here again. My legs are cold. No surprise there.

First of the excerpts from my birthday book Too soon for a midlife Crisis. 

You're aging when your actions creak louder than your words - Milton Berle

By Jove I've got that much to waffle on about I don't know where to start or even if I can remember what I want to say. I'll try to sort it out in order of importance.

1. Tosca Beautiful singing, lousy production. We tore it apart when we got back to Debra's. The main cavil was that Tosca was murdered at the end. For us, this completely undermined the tragedy of her sacrifice for Caveradossi.  All sorts of things were disappointing about the third act in particular. Scarpia raped her before she killed him; her duet with Caveradossi was sung side by side with no acknowledgement of either's presence. Caveradossi was not shot but was still dead; he just sort of lay down. I thought he had gone back to sleep.

Strangely, the same set was used throughout - a church with scattered upright chairs - which worked reasonably well in Act 1 but ruined the contrast of the settings in Act 2 and 3. There was what Debra referred to as the cupboard in the corner which acted as the Angelotti chapel and the torture chamber. It was also the perch from which the Marchese (sic) di Angelotti observed the last two acts. I don't know why she was there; nobody noticed her throughout and she sang three lines as a link between Act 2 and 3 which had no curtain.

The torturer was a local electrician complete with tool box. Scarpia was played as some sort of psychotic pervert complete with twitching and hugging of a bust of the Virgin Mary. There was nothing menacing about him at all although his behaviour in Act 2 was disgustingly deviant rather than deviously scheming. He died in his underpants. His henchman shot Tosca. The highlight was the curtaincall when the conductor appeared complete in tails, white waistcoat and a shock of white hair. He did the hokey cokey with the cast 3 times and finally the curtain fell. Only one aria got an ovation which was Visse d'Arte.

2. Blackburn Rovers 1 Sunderland 2. Now that was a surprise. Yet again the opposition scored on the stroke of half time. That was that I thought so I transferred this week's Bones to video and took no further interest. Imagine my surprise when I checked the final scores and saw we had scored 2 in the second half: Kenwyne and my man Cisse. I will watch it later.

3. 6 o'clock and the phone rang. It was Nina from the television company. Kevin (my toy boy) had left a message on the phone for a meeting yesterday. Of course I was at the opera so had missed it. However, I am meeting with Denise for a chat tomorrow at 4.30 at the local posh hotel. I had to call my head teacher to tell her about the change of plan as we had originally thought she wanted to go into school to see the lie of the land, find out how to use the interactive whiteboards, how to log onto the computer network, how to do the electronic register. No, just a little chat. I think she may fall flat on her face. Not that I wish her any ill will or anything but I don't know what they expect teaching to be like. Maybe we were so good when the toyboy was watching they thought it was simple. I'll keep you posted.

4. Shopping at Asda today after another failed foray to the furniture store. My mam had seen two suites she liked the look of in the paper but the live ones were not what she wanted. We did see one called Germaine which she is thinking about. Anyway, I am now re-stocked with cheese and ready meals for lunch next week so that part was fine.

OK. I think that's the gist of things.

Champions! Hello by the way. I have been busy at the ant farm alllllll week and wish to draw a veil over the unpleasantness that is my working life. Therefore, here we are Saturday teatime and what lovely weather we have been having, better than the summer hands down. So how appropriate that this was the last day of the cricket season.



( Games with bats and balls )

Meanwhile, this week Sky 1 started Season 4 of Bones and on second viewing it wasn't as bad although I still wasn't struck by the Grayson/Angela/Hodgins/Cam storyline. I watched Episode 5,  on which I have the following thoughts.


( Spoilers for The P P in the P P )

Shopping in Durham today which was heaving. I got a new pair of smart trousers for work and some cheap jeans. I had to send my dinner back at the Slug and Lettuce as my Thai curry was still frozen in the middle. It came back much nicer. They serve it wrapped in a banana leaf.

Sad to hear of the passing of Paul Newman. He made some magnificent films that I enjoyed: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting in particular. Sometimes he was a bit too much of a method actor for me. I wasn't a fan of Cool Hand Luke for that reason. However, he was an actor from the old school of Hollywood stars and for that, as well as his charity work, he should be remembered.

Defeat! Only tempered by those around us also losing. If we'd even got a draw we'd be up to 15th! 

After all the fuss, Newcastle got a goalless draw with Bolton Wanderers in a tedious game. So much for exciting football.

How do you get more icons? I have 105; is that all I can have? Bah!

Today's word is also tomorrow's word. How cheap: covering two days with one word and it's not even a good one: demurderized - pronounced to be not murder. 

It is Edgar Allan Poe's birthday, though the calendar doesn't make clear if it's today or tomorrow. I'll look it up. (It's today) He, of course, wrote The Murders at the Rue Morgue, considered to be the first murder mystery. Wasn't the 'murderer' an ape? Anyway, it is also  the first outing of a detective in fiction, namely C. Auguste Dupin and so partially inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. 

This calendar takes you all over the place and I've remembererd things I'd forgotten I knew, like Poe married his cousin when she was 13 and Allan was an adopted name when he was taken in by that family after his mother died.

Television would have struggled to fill the hours without him. Just think of all the programmes that rely on detectives - amateur and professional - to entertain us. I liked early Columbo and the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Adventures. And we wouldn't have had Bones either, should the WGA strike ever end. I see the directors got a quick fix. Our pay rise for the next three years came in at 2.45% initially followed by 2.3% in 2009/2010. Of course, British Gas just put their prices up by 15% so that was a short-lived thrill and we don't even get it until September.

Went to Sunderland shopping today. Got a new hat for inclement weather and knickers. How thrilling.