With great sadness I announce that Ken is returning to the USA to live and work. He’ll be based in LA and I can only imagine that his Ken-ness will grow and he will prosper.
He has been tracking down gifts for family and settled, at least for a while on football team shirts. These are for the most part wearable advertising hoardings. Adverts for things or organisation that don’t register with me at all. Ugly, expensive, manufactured to a mediocre standard in synthetic materials, I am thoroughly underwhelmed. Of course I would be, I am obviously not the target customer for such an item. I expect the young male recipients will be delighted.
I suggested he might like to look at an England team shirt. At least it has the three lions. I really like the three lions badge.
During a Stonehenge and Avebury road trip, the British lion came up in conversation. GorJus was curious as to why so many items of a heraldic nature had lions on them in England. Did lions ever live here. Of course, I said confidently, like wolves and bears, they moved on. When? She asked. Centuries ago, I offered. But then I became unsure time scale wise and I suggested she google. I can now offer this information, yes lions, specifically the cave lion, lived in England……..500,000 years ago. Even the chaps who had a hand in building Stonehenge would never have seen one.
I’m not sure that appropriating animals from other continents to represent a nation is ethical. Given this, what wild, fearsome creature might be more appropriate on an England shirt. Three bears on a shirt? (Mummy, daddy and baby bear) or three wolves perhaps? Or my favourite might be three boars on a shirt. Hedgehogs? Bulldogs? Sheep?
I’ll park that thought here, clear my head of it, and leave you with the problem.
I’m teaching full time over the summer. The university has moved to a new building in the Olympic park, a fabulous building that is still working on being fit for purpose a year after its completion. It’s almost there. The front doors can now be used after another inner set of doors have been installed. This double set of doors prevents the ever present high winds in the area rushing in and up the four storey, really impressive staircase and fucking up the heating system.
My current class room looks down onto the Olympic stadium, across to the millennium dome, with views of both Canary Wharf and The City. It’s impressive. The stadium now houses a football team, in keeping with my lack of sporting interest, I don’t know which one and can’t even be bothered to ask madam google to help out.
Much of the area is a bit of a building site, the BBC building next door is still under construction, as is the new V & A building and the new Sadlers Wells. I remember Stratford as a wasteland of poor housing and derelict warehouses. I find the transformation fascinatingly unlikely but there it is.
I’m just realising that there is an underlying football theme in this post.
Yet again it’s The Euros, aren’t they supposed to be just every four years? Cornflake is a bit interested so it’s been on the tv. I half listen to the pundits and have developed opinions. I wish the pre and post game banter would be more consistent as after listening with a view to getting educated I’m unsure if the England team is absolutely rubbish or actually doing a grand job.
One French player appears to be playing in a Lone Ranger cosplay mask. I would encourage wider use of cosplay on the pitch for the entertainment of those in the room with football, with no actual interest in the game.
I don’t know who I’d need to approach with this idea, but as I see it written in black and white, it seems like a great proposal. It would also add another layer of merch opportunities. What’s not to love?
I think it’s a winner.
fat tart 