Daily Diversions (Web Log)

David's Mental Meanderings
20th March 2001

I am setting aside profound thoughts and musings at this time to offer a general update on life in the UK. The order of the topics contained herein is not in any way reflective of their importance. So let's begin:

Your football season has long been over, but ours is just now building to its climax. Our two seasons begin at roughly the same time each year. However, unlike the American version, what the rest of the world calls football lasts for nine months. And unlike American football, our teams sometimes play more than once a week. And drawing further distinction, soccer (to use a term you can all understand) never stops. None of this play five seconds, rest forty-five seconds, play five seconds, rest forty-five seconds. Soccer is like basketball played up and down a 100-yard field and just a bit rougher (virtually every foul is due to someone sprawled across the pitch, and the stretcher is not used very often in the NBA). It is no wonder they don't score as often.

But as I was washing the dishes last night, I was contemplating the whole name thing. Just in case you don't know, "soccer" come from the official name of the game, Association Football. But why they call the American game "football," I really don't know. I am constantly reminded by my friends here that American football has very little to do with the contact between the foot and the ball. They know as much because they have seen the occasional game broadcast on Channel 5 after midnight or on satellite TV.

But what they don't realise, since they have not learned the basic rules and structure of the game, is that with the exception of the kick-off, all other contact between the foot and the ball is the result of failure to do something with it in the hands. Fail to move the ball a measly ten yards in three attempts and you punt the ball away. Fail to do it when you are too close to punt, and you attempt a field goal, a consolation prize for trying hard, but, well, just not hard enough. And yet they call it football. Okay, enough about that…

Mrs. Holford and I are fine and well. Some of you will find that impressive, only because of my reputation as a hypochondriac. That being said, having just days ago passed my 37th birthday, I probably should have the first full physical of my life. (Those of you who have been reading these electronic Meanderings from the beginning with no doubt recall how I whinge about the National Health Service not funding preventative medicine, resulting in the UK have the highest rates of cancer and heart disease deaths in Europe.) I recently discovered that in a country with socialized medicine, this will cost me approximately $650.00 out of pocket.

We are both still quite involved as officers in our local Life Group. I am currently working on a re-designed website for our group. When it is done, you can see it at www.hereford-life.org.uk. If you go there now, you will see the original site. In fact, maybe you should go there now, just so you can see the vast improvement in a few weeks.

And speaking of charities, we have just lived through Red Nose Day, also known as Comic Relief. Every two years all the comedians in this country encourage everyone in the nation to raise money for their BBC-sponsored charity, which funds many good causes in the UK and in Africa (primarily Rwanda). On the actual Rose Nose Day, perfectly normal, upstanding citizens going about their professional lives put on red plastic noses. This year, in conjunction with the stated theme of "Say Pants to Poverty," these same people (including my own boss) wore underwear on the outside of their clothes. It was truly a bizarre sight.

The timing was actually quite good, because if the British people ever needed cheering up, it is now. You have probably heard about the outbreak of foot-and-mouth (or as you call it, hoof-and-mouth) disease. The number of cases now exceeds 300. The rural economy is in freefall. The British farming industry has been in terrible shape for several years now. Even before foot-and-mouth was given to us by an overly generous Middle Eastern country, Welsh farmers were committing suicide as a rate of two each week. The combination of depressed livestock prices and an ill-conceived European Common Agricultural Policy has resulted in disastrous consequences. Now many of these same farmers are losing what little they have had left. If the disease is found in any single animal on their land, every single animal is destroyed, burned in a giant pyre, and the ashes buried on the farm.

Now the Government want to kill all the healthy animals within 3 kilometres of any sick ones, just to be sure they don't get the disease. The farmers aren't exactly pleased. The Government is convinced it knows better than the farmers, even though none of the three Agriculture Ministers comes from a rural constituency.

Now if that weren't bad enough, the domino effect into other areas of the economy is even worse. Agriculture in the country is worth about $9 billion per year. Tourism brings in over $30 billion. Right now, the countryside is effectively shut down. Thus farms that have been totally dependent upon their bed & breakfast business to stay afloat are sinking beneath the waves. I was talking to the owner of a fish & chip shop this week and not only are the sausages and burgers difficult to get (probably a bigger portion of the chip shop trade than fish), but the locals don't have the money for takeaway and the tourists are no where to be found.

Various sources have disclosed that this crisis is the judgment of God on Britain for being such a godless nation. I'm not saying that this is unlikely. One group has a discovered much more specific reason. According to the Outer Isles Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland (commonly known as the "Wee Frees"), foot-and-mouth, recent floods, and several train crashes have all been caused by the visit between the Queen and the Pope. But then to call the Wee Frees "anti-Catholic" is a bit like calling the atomic bomb a small explosive device.

And on a completely different note… I have found a new hobby. I work as a volunteer for Ted Turner. Okay, that got your attention. Actually, I am an editor on the Open Directory Project. The ODP, also known as Dmoz (for reasons that would take too long to explain), is the best directory-based search engine in the world. It is owned by Netscape (which used to be called Mozilla) which was bought by AOL, which merged with Time-Warner, which also bought CNN. Anyhow, only a few hundred thousand people actually used the ODP each month. However, it is a feeder directory, providing raw data for many of the major search engines. And if any websites want to be listed in the Regional/Europe/UK/England/Herefordshire category, they have to come through me. I also edit the regional categories for Monmouthshire and for Port Lavaca, Texas. I intend to extend my scope to Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and Powys (that's a county in mid-Wales next to Herefordshire, in case you were getting out the atlas). The ODP can be found at www.dmoz.org.

Well, that's enough for now. I'll have more profound ponderings another day.