Dish Ran Away with the Spoon
This story is from the Daily Mirror.
A woman tunnelled out of jail using a spoon.
The attractive un-named 35-year-old – doing 18 years for trying to murder her sister-in-law – was called “a dish” by local newspapers.
Her lawyer Ludo Hameleers said: “She would have been released in 18 months. She just couldn’t wait.”
The woman, who had served 12 years, dug the 30ft tunnel from a cellar of her Dutch jail, hid the soil in her trouser legs and then sprinkled it around the yard – a ruse straight from classic PoW tale The Great Escape.
This is the complete story, so apologies to the Mirror.
On the other hand, this was repeated word-for-word on the BBC.
Cycling to Football
In my teens I nearly always cycled to football at White Hart Lane. When I returned last night, I don’t think that would have been possible. Or at least I couldn’t find anything on the Spurs web site.
Wouldn’t cycling to football be a good idea? Clubs could also make a charge for a bit of security.
If you take Ipswich Town, they have a bit more space than most and I’m sure that they could provide parking for a couple of hundred or so bikes with ease.
I’ve just looked up Ajax in Amsterdam. They have sheds for 3,000 bikes. It would also appear that the Olympics in London will also encourage people to cycle to the games.
Return to White Hart Lane
The last time I went to White Hart Lane to see Spurs play was when my two eldest children were perhaps eight and seven. I spoke to the younger today and he didn’t remember, and as I can’t recall who Spurs played that day, it must have been a truly memorable match.
Last night, as I was in London, I decided to get a ticket for the FA Cup replay against Bolton. I deliberately chose to sit in Block D of the upper deck of the East Stand, as that was where my father used to take me as a child.
The View from Block D in the Upper East Stand
I can remember a few matches from those years in the mid-50s, but one in particular stands out. It was against Newcastle, for whom the formidable Jackie Milburn was playing up front. The first half was very one-sided with Spurs being completely outplayed and if it hadn’t been for the heroic goalkeeping of Ted Ditchburn, the match would have been all over. He was so dominant, that Milburn actually missed a penalty. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of good goalkeepers, but never a display to match. In the end Spurs got their act together and won 3-1.
Little has changed in that East Stand over those fifty and more years. The views are still good, as they would be because the stand was designed by Archibald Leitch. In fact, they have probably improved, as the roof has been remodelled. But the stairs are still the same as as this picture of the back of the stand shows, it’s still as it was built well before the Second World War.
White Hart Lane, East Stand
I can remember queueing behind that stand to get tickets for European matches in the early 1960s.
Those were the days for Spurs.
I probably went and stood in the bottom of the East Stand about fifty times.
I’d usually cycle from where I lived at Cockfosters and park my bike at a garage near by, for a charge of a shilling or so. I remember, I could usually get home quicker than someone who braved the horrendous jams in a car. Sometimes though I’d take a bus to Enfield Town and then take the train to White Hart Lane. That was great fun, in that to avoid the bus queues coming home you’d alight from the train at your fastest running speed, so that you overtook everyone as the train slowed. The joys of slam doors.
I saw the famous double side of 1960-61; Brown, Baker, Henry, Blanchflower, Norman, Mackay, Jones, White, Smith, Allen and Dyson, Jimmy Greaves in his pomp, the antics of Tommy Harmer, the emergence of Pat Jennings, as after that one performance of Ditchburn, the best and most consistent goalkeeper I’ve ever seen, Terry Venables, who we always slagged off for some reason, Ron Henry’s only goal against Manchester United and many other great players and incidents of the 1960s.
Those truly were the days for Spurs.
And to complete a good evening Spurs won by four goals to nil.
Anyone but England
So the Scots are supporting England by selling “Anyone but England” T-shirts for the World Cup.
I don’t care, as if the Scots could manage to inject some proper spirit into their team, rather than the local brew, they might do better. Just read about Allan McGregor in the Scotsman.
But I have a better idea.
As the Scots economy is not in the best of health and has just been propped up by the UK government bailing out two major banks with big Scottish connections, would it not be a good idea if England fans, who can’t afford the trip to South Africa, went and watched their team in Glasgow.
I’m sure that the local economy would benefit and that the English would be welcomed with open arms.
Gillespie Road Lives
Gillespie Road is the original name for the London Tube station, that is now called Arsenal.
There is some wonderful Edwardian tiling, that shows the original name and the design wasn’t changed, when the station was renamed.
Gillespie Road Tiling
The tiling is not original as when the station was restored, it was found to be in poor condition and had to be replaced. The details are on the Transport for London website.
This picture shows the detail of some of the new work.
Gillespie Road Tiling
Although, we’d all have loved to see the originals preserved, I think they have done a very good job as a fallback. It would have been so easy to just put in plain white tiles and be done with it.
But they didn’t!
I’d love to know who made the new tiles in the style of Leslie Green, the original designer.
Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll
I finally saw this biopic of Ian Dury’s life.
Was it good?
Yes! I laughed and cried and left the cinema in a better state than I arrived.
That is all you want.
But don’t go if you don’t like real swearing. And I mean lots of it, with both the f*** and the c*** words.
A Useful Cook Book
I bought a cook book called “One Pot – low-fuss food for busy people” from Waitrose for £5.99. It is actually published by the Australian Women’s Weekly. The ISBN is 978-186396793-8, but I can’t find it on Amazon.
It is quite simple and although not specifically gluten-free, most recipes seem to be so or are easily modified. I’ve already cooked one recipe for Beef and Mushrooms in Red Wine. It was good and I froze three portions for later.
The only problem is that some recipes talk Australian and use terms like pizza-cheese and smoked ocean trout.
Hideous Underwear
My late wife discovered expensive underwear late in life and I often bought her bras and knickers from the web. I also buy all my pants that way, usually from Figleaves, as I can never find anything that fits me properly in the average shop. They’re either too big, uncomfortable or the wrong colour. If they’re not what I want I can always change them.
I had an e-mail a couple of days ago, announcing a new range called Lascivious. Not for me I hasten to add.
But!
I’ve never seen anything that looks so ugly, impractical and very expensive for a long time. It even looks bad on the attractive model.
If a lady undressed in front of me in the Milla contraptions, I would go into uncontrolled laughter.
How to Behave, Libyan Style
This article in The Times caught my eye. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
A Swiss businessman who has been holed up in his country’s embassy in Tripoli for much of the past 19 months finally surrendered to the Libyan authorities yesterday after they ringed the compound with police and allegedly threatened to storm it.
Max Göldi walked out of the embassy and was taken to prison two hours after a noon deadline that the Libyan regime had set for his surrender. It was the latest twist to a saga that began when Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s son was arrested in Geneva in 2008 and led to Libya denying entry to most Europeans last week.
Colonel Mad (a.k.a. Gaddafi) seems to be up to his old tricks again, perhaps this time on behalf of his son, Hannibal. The son, sounds like a very bad chip off the old block, if the list of his offences in the article is to be believed. But he’s obviously a devout Muslim, so it doesn’t matter.
But we’re supposed to be all friend’s with Gaddafi now. He has the oil. And the blood on his hands!
The Dickin Medal
The Dickin Medal is the Animals VC and it has just been won by a black labrador, called Treo, in Afghanisthan for finding improvised explosive devices.
To me, two animals who have won the Dickin Medal stand out.
One is Able Seacat Simon, who was the ship’s cat on HMS Amethyst during the Yangtze Incident. I remember the making of the film of the incident at Felixstowe in the 1950s, so it probably sticks in my mind.
The other was Judy, the only dog to be recognised as a prisoner-of-war by the Japanese. I first read about her in the obituary of Len Williams in 2006. CPO Williams was also on the Amethyst, but later had an easier posting on the Royal Yacht Britannia.
Unlike Simon, who died in quarantine at the age of about two, Judy lived to be 14.
The Anonymous Widower 