(no subject)

Look, I know it's silly and that I'm too old for this sort of thing - and all that kind of crap - but YAY!!! my birthday present has come!!! There can't be many 47 year old women in South Wales who have their own basket hilted rapier - especially a 42 inch rubber one. Well, latex actually but what's in a name? Think about it - a metal one could kill someone and I wouldn't be allowed to take it out of the house. But this one is very portable and you don't need protective kit to use it so my mask and plastron can stay in the loft. Mike and I can spar, as soon as he gets one of his own, and I can give his friend Robbie a through pasting - which he has been asking for for a long time. Robbie has two similar short swords but the length of my blade and my natural nastiness offsets that advantage. His youth and strength are another matter entirely - I'll have to cheat.

On another tack, the English rugby team beat the French in the semi-final of the World Cup and are matched against the Australians in the final. I only mention this (having no interest in sport myself - and for those of you who are confused about rugby it's like American football only played without armour) because it has set off a great wave of anti-English feeling around the globe. We are used to this now - after all it's perfectly justified, we owe a big apology to virtually every nation in the world (if anyone's interested I'll list them and the reasons)- and I'm quite prepared to put up with it and, again, I only mention it because I heard a brilliant little poem on the radio this morning that I thought some of you *cough*casfic*cough* might appreciate even though I can't quite remember the whle thing:

On the morning after the seventh day
Rather than stay in bed
God leaped up at the crack of dawn
And created the Welsh instead
Next he made the Scotsmen
And the roaring Irish as well,
Then he created the English
And the whole lot went to hell ~~~
The Scots the Welsh and the Irish
Sighed, resigned to their fate...
And then they all gave thanks to God
For giving them someone to hate!

I love that.

Actually, there was another point on the same radio programme. An American gentleman was saying that from a child he viewed the English as deeply sinister and dangerous people and it was only when he reached adulthood and analysed it a bit that he realised why...Walt Disney! All the villains in Walt Disneys films have English accents. Just think - Sher Khan, Prince John in Robin Hood, the witch in Snow White - the list goes on, I just can't be bothered to type any more. And the tradition goes on today - Alan Rickman in Die Hard, for instance. I think it's rather nice that we have something we're really good at. (I don't count the rugby because the other thing we are really good at is coming second - an attribute that is only admirable in bed.)