Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett - Author and owner (I paid for it at least) of this blog and Into-English-Translations - mistakenly added there as an 'Administrator' - or maybe it was on purpose. King's College, Cambridge graduate (KC 1987, graduated 1991, took up MA rights remotely during Covid in 2020) and University of Lincoln postgraduate. And one time member of a happy group of bilingual/trilingual secretarial students at Lincoln College.
24 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists 1998)
Following an out-of-sorts-looking Carlos Alcaraz’ exit from Queen’s, I feared a bad omen had been delivered for Spain’s national football squad. Would they go down to Italy? I worried that my expert ‘tip’ for the finals would be proved wrong and my sibling would be gloating over a Moretti over his adopted homeland’s progress instead. It was however con mucho gusto that I saw them edge a win and go through to the last 16. ¡Felicidades España! Perhaps their neighbours on the Iberian Peninsula are also in with a shout…
Since I watched Carlos go out, the football tournament has moved on apace… Although my verdict on the prospects for any of the matches on offer is that they are likely to be both boring and brutal (some of the Hungarian interactions certainly were) – although I was pleased to see a bit less tripping up (and diving), pushing, shoving and hardly any shirt-pulling in the past few days.
Willing to give Turkey versus Portugal a try and see if there was a spark there. And there was indeed – more than a spark or two. I even watched a promising young player who is apparently very good but ‘not a Maradona or a Messi’ (so the Portuguese media have indicated). A very good player though. Around the goal mouth I did detect a Maradona-ness about him. Maybe they don’t want to build him up only to tear him down subsequently.
In terms of Germany’s performance – creditable to get into the last 16, but why leave it until the last 90 seconds? Füllkrug to the rescue, followed by a vollem ,Krug’ in der Kneipe, no doubt. Hopefully, Der zerbrochene Krug will not make an appearance. Of lime and soda or an Apfelschorle. How horrid that there was a terrible enough injury for a Hungarian to be taken off to hospital. I think it would be better for all concerned to behave a little bit more respectfully to one another as any injury has the potential to be career-threatening.
My one question would be: why was everyone so beastly about England’s performance? Is it the famous cynicism of the pundits back home? I saw plenty to suggest that their performance was no worse nor better than many other sides playing. Much as I know England expects (still, come the finals we will be in the best country in the world to enjoy football as a fan, but perhaps not as any prospective owner). As we know by now, Scotland no longer expects or hopes… Although I fancy a fair few friendships will have been made thanks to the eternal attraction of a man in a kilt. In a toss up between Lederhosen and kilts I know which I would choose.
21 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016)
[cannot upload any images I have of memorabilia from Coleton Fishacre – now in my offline scrapbook]
An enchanted and enchanting valley in the Devonshire countryside – a combe/coombe leading down to a cove. In which many a cove has likely wandered with his love. A deep, narrow vale of such lushness, variety and beauty and yet so little known: Coleton Fishacre.
I’d never heard of the place, but then why would I as visits to Devonshire with family to visit paternal relatives in the 1980s and 1990s had seen us confined mainly to sandier shores, close to ice-cream parlours, places where you could buy not only post cards, sticks of rock, buckets and spades but also strings of shiny shells which came from far away and not from round there, the occasional seafront photographer on the promenade with their squirrel monkeys, and visitor attractions such as Buckfast and Dartington. Occasionally, bleak journeys with Dad driving us across the moors to sight ponies and other less inviting spots. Shaded valleys such as Coleton Fishacre were for adults with distinct horticultural interests perhaps. And quiet contemplation.
I was taken to the enchanted valley by Frances, a work colleague, who had moved down to the south-west to get away from London and be close to family. Not far from Totnes she had a barn conversion – with land bounded on one side by a field of menacingly attentive bullocks, who would crowd round the metal gate or gaps in the hedgerow and peer through incuriously.
Frances had great organisational capability and always had something very interesting to say and was a fantastic hostess. The evening before I left she cooked a delicious meal of pork with prunes – cooked long and slow – and surprisingly delicious with its sweet, sour, salty meaty flavours. A robust country meal, eaten in front of a huge open roaring fire.
I remember walking along the coast by the buttery gorse and being driven in her ‘Chelsea tractor’ (by now a somewhat outdated term) swiftly and safely through the dark tunnels of country lanes, with the soundtrack from Baz Luhrman’s film with Nicole and Ewan on full volume.
One evening we ended up at an olde inne down a creek – off the Helston River – or that may have been another time. I was sure I spotted a famous political PR man semi-secreted in one corner. In such a tucked away place I suppose he was seeking privacy and I thought he looked pensive (although he looks and sounds much better now judging by the TV Podcast which is almost as mesmerising as Andrew Neill’s late night programme used to be). In any case I was unlikely to disturb anyone I saw in such places. Not because it was likely to be a case of mistaken identity but because they may simply be enjoying time away from the gaze of onlookers. No need to be smuggled in here or smuggled out under cover of darkness.
Another visit was to charming ‘rainbow’-coloured Totnes, to Dartmouth straddling the estuary, with its many small vessels, and to Coleton Fishacre and it was the latter that I found at once so lovely and yet so painful as it reminded me of undercliffs at Lyme Regis and on the Isle. I think I remember some ‘exotica’ – huge ferns and so on. But mainly the slight dampness and the relative warmth and shelter. No bluebells at the time we visited. It’s a cliche to say the memory is dappled, but that was indeed the light – chiaroscuro. I must have loved the place, and the memory, as I kept the ticket in the back of an old wallet with a lot of other used tickets and what might loosely be described as memorabilia for years – the old leather one from the Ponte Vecchio.
Often I can pick odd items like these up and remember quite a lot, even without any photos there in front of me.
21 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020)
The Writers’ Collective
They were mainly from highly academic backgrounds, or, at any rate, aspirational – mostly sons but also some daughters of bankers, businessmen, academics, teachers, senior healthcare workers, actors and lesser paid and/or ‘respected’ professions too. Usually from broken homes and/or income-strapped homes. And always resenting in some way members of their peer group or cohort and age group who had either seemed to have a perfect (home/work) life or had ‘made it’ in other ways. They were particularly jealous of children whose parents had somehow stuck it out and stayed together. Grass is always greener, ‘type of thing’, when they probably had no real idea.
As some kind of sly joke, they called themselves ‘casa rotta‘ – some, but not all, were from broken homes. They used an Italian name as they believed that this made them sound more sophisticated and some of them got a bit mixed up with their languages thinking rotta meant red, because they were all or mostly just a bit left-wing in their thinking. Language interference from the German, it seems.
Some had just felt slighted by or resentful of family members or their peers. Chips of varying sizes on their shoulders. As an outsider often observing resentfully from a distance, and not taking physical notes, but certainly storing things away. Just be careful, you never know who might be watching. Or listening.
Not that their ideas were broken – they were usually sound enough to be accepted as storylines. And at least these ideas would enable them to claw themselves out of being broke too. Often struggling for years, perhaps even lacking the money for house repairs and maintenance, until they made it. Now at last we can get the roof fixed, the window replaced… Perhaps even a little holiday abroad, rather than slumming it at a camping site.
In the beginning they would sit around the coffee table at someone’s house smoking and drinking – not necessarily coffee – and sharing and pooling ideas. A collective. Nowadays WiFi, instant messaging and social media were helpful – enabled even larger collectives at times. Collaborations could lead to arguments. And eventually, some would go their own separate ways… Break away, if not break up the group.
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett
rotta is the past participle of the verb ‘rompere‘ – to break – used as an adjective (a describing word) with a feminine ending, since casa is a feminine noun (naming word for an object).
21 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016)
Much as I subscribe to Darwinian evolutionary ‘theory’ (some still do not accept natural selection as described by Darwin as an entirely plausible explanation of how ‘we’ and other life forms arose), I cannot condone his abominable comments regarding the fairer sex.
I remember during my Conservation Biology studies being fascinated by the derivation, descent and epistemology of evolutionary thinking and came across Lamarck for the first time. He is widely ridiculed for having believed that characteristics were acquired during the lifespan of individuals and then passed on to the next generation: the Giraffe’s neck length is one example of his speculations, i.e. that Giraffe’s necks stretched to reach up to the Acacia crowns … and that, my friends, is how the Giraffe got a long neck. How the mechanism worked he could not explain, but then neither could Darwin in any detail (we’d have to wait for the 20th century for that) – although he did famously observe the ‘changing’ of beak shapes in Finch species in the Galapagos over very few generations.
Lamarck was influenced by someone called Buffon (not a bouffon but an aristocrat who had time to muse on such matters), but his ideas were hardly laughable since Darwin himself is said to have admired Lamarck’s work and is even quoted as having advised women to marry early before their hands became rough and their complexions ruined so that these features would not be passed down to their offspring (Fernandez-Armesto, 2015 – see other blogposts relating to A Foot in the River). In its sheer hurtfulness, directness, and possible ill-foundedness, comparable with some of Jane Austen’s published and private pronouncements. And much as I admire Austen’s novels, I was surprised at Darwin! Perhaps I had gone selectively blind…
Today, Darwin would be no-platformed or even cancelled at any University (or in Society at large) for his possibly misogynistic views: in his day (mid-19th century), this was seen as an entirely reputable and scientifically valid observation (and actually perhaps not entirely impractical advice – forget that “it’s the personality that counts not how you look” crap, “get married before you lose your looks” – physical attractiveness being a significant driver of selection). How fashions change – I mean with regard to tolerance for perhaps distasteful views, not natural selection, obviously! Descent with modification – or protestation.
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, with some experience of being a female, being revolted by male attitudes, being a student of evolutionary theory, being mocked for liking Lamarck and not giving an F. Nor even having been given an F (as far as I know).
20 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists 1998)
The inside page of Sophie Louisa Bennett’s old passport (still in my possession) and if you want to use this in a blogpost you must be desperate or a bit thick. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Peter Richerson and Rob Boyd are researchers who collaborate in the field of anthropology and genetics on work exploring how societies exert cultural preferences that affect genetic inheritance. Their inspirations were amongst others researchers at Stanford 30 years before – Feldman and Cavalli-Sforza, who sought to describe the mechanisms of cultural change and lay the ‘theoretical foundations’ of co-evolution. Boyd and Richerson aim at modelling cultural change mathematically and unlike Feldman and Cavalli-Sforza they wanted to go on believing that at some level culture changes in a Darwinian way. According to Boyd and Richerson, cultural evolution means the accumulation of learning across generations, rather as Darwin saw biological adaptations arising from the accumulation of small variations. The analogy is dismissed as ‘very weak‘ by Fernández-Armesto who emphasizes the role of ‘selection’. However, I do not see that the analogy fails to incorporate that idea.
Richerson and Boyd talk about the ‘decisions, choices, and preferences of individuals‘: these are not independent of evolution (or indeed a parent looking over your shoulder, breathing down your neck or admonishing/advising you). These two know that biological evolution and cultural change can throw up ‘maladaptations‘ which may be functionless or dysfunctional, that selection fails to ‘excise‘ (by which he means fails to cut out – precisely why Crispr gene-editing techniques were devised) – and these can also account for cultural divergence. Most culture is of this kind, resembling at best a phenomenon, marginal to ‘mainstream‘ evolution (by which Fernández-Armesto presumably means the genetic variation, mutations even, and selection process by which fundamental biological survival is conferred/transmitted). And then there is always the role of ‘chance‘ and ‘bad luck‘, which has nothing whatsoever to do with culture or biology. The author even acknowledges this, stating that ‘some cultural changes occur randomly and are imitated capriciously‘.
Let’s take the use of surnames as an example of the capriciousness or randomness of aspects of cultural practice and change. Surnames are a recent addition to human society, relatively speaking. For a large part of human history they were not necessary: people could be identified by their forenames and certain features (the one with the tool-maker, big head, long legs, red hair, big house, farm…), but as our populations expanded and we wandered further from our roots, surnames became an inevitable requirement. As a means of closer identification of kinship and belonging.
I don’t know what the science of the study of surnames is but there is an evident story to be told there, and we can link in some of Fernández-Armesto’s themes and those of other researchers into history, culture and genetics. ‘Richerson’ (as in Richerson and Boyd) for example – where does this surname come from? Same root as Richardson? Did someone at some point hear his name wrongly and wrongly transcribe it? Was his real name French or Norman – was he from a Rich(e) family, or the richer of the two sons of Richard, or himself a Frenchman, a ‘Rikard’ maybe – and decided to change that name so that the Frenchified culture he was entering would accept him more readily? Perhaps a Norman scribe at the time of Domesday (1086) wrongly inscribed his name on a piece of vellum? Ah, you are a Richerson? No, I am Richardsson – son of Richard. Ah, oui Monsieur, Richerson – c’est ça. Next please. Now such a change would require a deed poll; then it could be achieved by the merest misunderstanding. Precise cultural transmission was not quite complete, but did not evidently burden the bearer of that name with a particular disadvantage over time, as the name Richardson has survived and thrived.
There was a boy at school – primary school I’m talking about – whose name always fascinated me as it sounded Elizabethan or Tudor. But perhaps intervention by a Norman scribe had a part to play here too. Next please – Yes, I am Hayrick, sir. Ah, Herrick you say? No, Hayrick, as in a rick of hay. Quite so. Indeed, sir… Herrick, très bien. Next, please. ‘Descent with modification is a fact’, as Marion Blute would say.
A favourite ‘game’ of mine over a longer period now has been to guess from the credits on any film or TV programme which I just caught the end of where that programme was made. Sometimes these credits are seemingly endless – leaving me/you wondering whether these people had all really been employed in these capacities or if this was some sort of false accounting. In the UK you will find a mixture of ‘typically’ English or Welsh, Scottish or Irish surnames, mixed in with some Indian, West African and, increasingly, Eastern European ones (a higher proportion of Eastern European ones if you’ve ever watched Plebs, a programme I identify with completely); in the States you will find a lot of German/Jewish names mixed in with Hispanic and British surnames, along with a smattering of other European names – Scandinavian, Eastern European – and Asian ones too; in Canada a few more French ones mixed in with the aforementioned; in Australia, the credits are characterised by British, Italian and Greek surnames and now maybe the odd Asian surname but few Aboriginal. And I notice more hyphenated names today as couples want to celebrate their unity: however, at some point the following generation, if there is one, may have to decide whether they carry this tradition on. They may even have to choose ‘sides’.
I knew a young man at University long ago (he’s caught in time in the background of one of my graduation photos) who joked about the absence of use of surnames amongst us as undergraduates. Always assuming a degree of familiarity which wasn’t there, but then we were always associated by virtue of having matriculated together. About how we knew each other by our first names: ‘Sophie’, ‘Karin’, ‘Jane’, ‘Ashley’ even ‘Richard’ and so on and yet in quite a few of those cases we either did not know their surnames, even within the same College, forgot them soon after introduction and never asked again, assumed wrongly a sense of familiarity which would enable such a lack of deference, or maybe felt this wasn’t important at all in a small, relatively cloistered and closed ‘society’. Now we will probably be getting to the stage where we still use the first name but struggle to remember this a little and use the word “thingy” quite a bit. You know thingy who could always drink you under the table and still get up for lectures on time the next morning… By the same token I would say, as experience dictates, just because you know somebody’s first name and surname, share a nationality, a birthplace perhaps, speak the same language(s), even belong to the same family, do not assume any deep knowledge of them as a person. Indeed, descent with modification, such that you may not recognise them as being from the same lineage.
[photo of Darwin and non-human animal on a two pound coin from 2009 to be inserted here just as soon as the download maximum exceeded message is removed]
Source of materials from the one referred to as ‘the author’:
Fernández-Armesto, F. (2015) A Foot in the River. Oxford: OUP
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, who loves the fact that Nature and Nurture – and Accident – gave rise to her.
19 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020)
Under an English Heaven – a cassette belonging to someone living under a Lincolnshire heaven. Photo of own cassette: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Many have heard of the Lincolnshire Poacher, but who is familiar with A Lincolnshire Posy?
Who’d have thought it? You can travel from Lisbon to Rufford Park under an English heaven. Courtesy of Percy Grainger (1882 – 1961), who was born Australian but wrote music about the land and the county of his forebears. Like Vaughan Williams he was an avid collector of folk songs. “I regard the study of native music [makes me feel somewhat like he had been studying zoological specimens] and close association with folk-singers as the most fruitful experience in my creative career.” He worked hard to preserve the originality of folk songs by recording and taking notes of individual performances in their natural habitat.
Six of the songs Grainger collected on one of his ‘expeditions’ (I hope the natives were welcoming because they tend to be quite fierce at times.) are presented in A Lincolnshire Posy. The Posy was described by the composer as “a bunch of musical wild flowers.” A description I would more readily associate with Elgar or Vaughan Williams, but there is much to enjoy in this floral offering. Considered by Ray Crick to be Grainger’s masterpiece for bands, it displays “all his originality and colourful invention” (Crick, on the sleeve notes of a Past Times cassette recording of Under an English Heaven: A Treasury of Pastoral Music).
The contents of Under an English Heaven: a Past Times cassette of typically English ‘folk’ music. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
The opening song of the six is Lisbon and the Posy ends, as it should, with a last dance. I could even have saved myself the ‘bother’ of flying out to Portugal it seems by simply listening to a collection of songs from my native county ;-). And clearly either Grainger’s geography was not quite as accurate as he believed or Nottinghamshire has at some point stolen Rufford from us by a change in boundaries! Otherwise Greater Lincolnshire could have been much larger, it seems.
A Lincolnshire heaven – a Skellingthorpe heaven in fact. Fuck off creative commons. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
19 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Football Rules (KC 1987, Cantab 2020)
A corner flag and football (aka soccer ball if you are from the USA), in a corner of a football pitch. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Česká republika/Czech Republic (sorry, Czechia – does that make them Czechians?) versus Portugal
I was so glad yesterday to see an absence of shirt-pulling on the playing fields of Germany; lovely Leipzig to be precise. But mad as hell to note so much pushing and shoving. It seemed that the Czechs would have won that competition outright. One Portuguese player seems likely to have been a can-can girl in his spare time. Worrying, but very diversity and equality minded. No doubt he was wearing frilly knickers under the shorts.
So unfortunate were the Czechs that they gifted Portugal a goal and assisted another: Hranáč, having an off day, or an on day if you are Portuguese, will need time out now.
On the strength of Portugal’s performance, I can honestly say I am not going to either rule out or rule in following them further in the competition.
The player of the match for me was Czech – Provod – brought up on Pilsen it seems – even if his goal was, thus far, just edged out by the magic of Güler.
And now for some tennis…
All I can recall of Queen’s so far is the banana-coloured Nike kit and the yellowing-browning grass. I don’t know what all the purple is about, but I’d be puce at the state of the courts. And would be docking points and giving warnings upon any evidence of the now infamous Djoko-slide technique. I say that with a rye smile on my face.
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, reporting from a community which has a large playing field frequented by local football teams, young and older, used to have two hard courts (and a tennis club run by volunteers), and now has a Wickstead play area complete with wooden ‘boat’.
19 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020)
Sophie Louisa Bennett’s copy of a Naxos recording of Swedish classical music featuring Anders Zorn on the front cover. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Midsummer is approaching again. So why not get in the mood by listening to some classical music I have always felt especially suited to expressing its sheer specialness by Hugo Alfvén (1872 – 1960): Swedish RhapsodyNo. 1 (Opus 19). You can hear the sun rising in this piece called Midsommarvaka in Swedish (Midsummer Watch). A cor anglais no less introduces the central “hauntingly beautiful melody which evokes the stillness of the Swedish night […] There should be no difficulty for the listener to hear in this music the moment when the sun rises or to imagine when the merrymaking starts on Midsummer Day. Like Vaughan Williams in England, Alfvén derived much of his inspiration from folk music. He was the first Swedish composer to use folk music in symphonic form and Midsommarvaka contains several of these elements. The catchy tune which beins the rhapsody, for instance, is said to go back to a melody that Alfvén had heard whistled by a farmer in the region of eastern Sweden called Roslagen.” There is no attribution for these words from the cassette sleeve of an EMI Records compilation of 1982 (see below) which I had at King’s Cambridge and which was both mocked (on acount of Lumbye‘s The Copenhagen Steam Railway Gallop) and loved enough to have been used by the Organ Scholar for his dissertation piece (but that was Wirén). Praeludium by Järnefelt (a Finn), also on the tape, might also be midsummer-worthy.
If you prefer, there is also a very suitable alternative recording of seasonal Swedish music by Alfvén from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Niklas Willén: Dalarapsodi, Opus 47 (Svensk rapsodi nr. 3); En skärgårdenssägen, Op. 20 (Legend of the Skerries/Archipelago); Symphony No. 3 in E major, Op. 23.
Alfvén is regarded as representing the spirit of Sweden and its countryside. He was however no narrow ‘provincial’, but a highly sophisticated musician who spent 10 years travelling throughout Europe. Nor were his talents confined to music: he was a write and an accomplished water colourist who once contemplated a career as a painter (notes from a translation by Kerstin Swartling).
The front cover of the CD I have however does not feature any of Alfvén’s paintings but one (albeit ‘flipped’) by Anders Zorn (1860 – 1920) “Outside” aka “Outdoors“, featuring three naked women indulging in some wild swimming, assuming they will be unobserved, presumably somewhere on the archipelago. Hence perpetuating the (stereotypical?) image of Swedes being free and easy with their bodies. I wonder if this ploy was at all successful in selling the recording…
Sophie Louisa Bennett’s 1982 recording of Swedish Rhapsody and other Scandinavian classics… mocked and loved, perhaps not in equal part at King’s Cambridge, featuring a watercolour by Goodwin. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Albert Goodwin, RWS (1845 – 1932) – “Right“, the painting on the front cover of Swedish Rhapsody, looks Scandinavian but I have no idea why Goodwin was chosen over a Scandinavian artist, other than the fact that the cassette compilation was recorded mostly by UK orchestras, notably both the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Bournemouth Sinfonietta.
17 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists 1998)
A Mitre football for personalising from the Mitre website
Assuming you think wimmin have a valid perspective on football – or am I being misogynistic? – I thought I would write my own small pieces on the greatest European football tournament this year. But perhaps not the greatest sporting event per se… That one will be sending my father out into the conservatory and garden for a whole fortnight come the beginning of July.
I’ve already picked the teams I think will reach the final – Spain (caliente at the moment, but it’s early days) and Germany (home adwantage[1]). I joked to my brother about a Scandinavian team reaching the last 4 – and was told through pursed lips that there was only one Scandinavian team in the tournament. And they happen to be in ‘our’ group (not that I am especially loyal – well, not if we fail to get past the group stage). So that tells you most of what you need to know about my legitimacy as a Euro 2024 pundit.
I watched the Italy versus Albania match with interest, having connections to both countries – in the present and past. I even wondered how many of the Albanian players have played in Italy – not many – perhaps Serie B for one, despite historic connections between Italy and Albania, in particular in the instep. Apparently Albanian national team members play in Croatia, one or two in Turkey, here in GB/UK and also Russia.
There was a bit of shirt-pulling, but mostly quite clean, and fast. Assuming I could keep up with play, I would be giving yellow cards for any shirt pulls – and the pitch would soon be quite empty. One consolation for the Albanians: I doubt very much whether the quickest goal will be surpassed in this tournament or even very soon. Gezuar! So despite the defeat, there is that feather in that rather strangely-shaped cap of theirs.
I thought Hoxha looked very lively, considering. In fact, pretty damn quick and he did well in the time he had – clearly the corners specialist (good pressure!). I only wish – in fact I was almost praying – they could have had another bit of good luck and a miracle goal at the end but it was not to be for Bajrami. Sorry, Manaj. Still who cares about accuracy when you are a woman writing about football. Ahem. Nice legs but rather too many tatts in places, for my taste at least, and I wondered whether the etching and the ink might be less aerodynamic, slow them down a little bit – extra margins and all that.
I think the Italians should be a bit disappointed in themselves and if I’d been their coach I would have given them quite a stern talking to and asked them to pay just a bit more attention rather than trying to tell their team mates where to go and who to look out for in the first 30 seconds. Because you just never know.
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, reporting from a small office in Skellingthorpe, while England have held their own against a much smaller country and manage to scrape one goal, but the important thing is to score one goal more than your opponent, so that’s a relief.
Footnote:
[1] I say adwantage not in a spiteful way: I was always slightly curious as to why it was some German friends would pronounce a ‘v’ as a ‘w’, when the Germans don’t have that sound – ‘wuh‘ – in their language. Such that ‘wedge-eatables’ became an affectionate term for at least some of the more recognisable items on our dinner plates for a while. Adwantage Zverev! (I bet that’s never been heard on the courts of Queen’s or Vimbledon).
Postscript to our neighbours up north…
The consolation of being poor wee beasties
How I felt for the Scots in their first round match. Despite pre-match optimism for a ‘close-run’ game, the scoreline did not reflect their hopes and dreams. Still, a consolation goal, albeit by the opposition. And that person was clearly kicking themselves. The viewer was treated to mimed histrionics which is always the way in such cases: much gesturing and protesting.
Of course it takes a woman to see sense and be sensible about pre-match predictions, and indeed one Scottish lady did declare to an interviewer that she would be delighted if they came away with a goal. With a wee smile too. And there you have it. Better to travel hopefully than to arrive for some teams at this tournament. But at least they will have experienced some of the wonders of Germany, even if only in a tankard or a glass or a Stein, thanks to the Reinheitsgebot.
Into-English-Translations 