This is very funny.
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I absolutely love this.
A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
A question mark walks into a bar?
A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a war. The bartender says, “Get out — we don’t serve your type.”
A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
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I’m from the UK, and so I’ll be referring to this game as ‘football’ throughout this post.
Football is one of the most popular sports in the world, but, in my opinion it could be run much better. I don’t expect any of my comments below to make much difference, if any, but here they are, anyway.
1. It is much too easy to defend in this game, especially in recent years. Too many teams ‘park the bus’ and have ten, sometimes eleven, of their players in their penalty box. It is thus almost impossible to get through to score. It also makes the game sess than interesting to watch.
One solution would be to limit the number of players able to enter the penalty area, similar to netball. I’m not sure this would meet with the approval of many players, managers or even fans, though. Too much of a change.
2. Another problem is that a club with a rich owner can ‘buy’ success. There are rules about spending, but they are to do with debt and turnover, and are not straightforward, At least not for me, anyway.
If a club has lot of money, they can buy the best players and pay what these players expect. Less well-off clubs can’t do this and so need to make do with the less brilliant players. Obviously, therefore, clubs like, Real Madrid, the 2 Manchester clubs, Chelsea, PSG etc will continue to be the top clubs, and dominate their own leagues and the European scene.
My suggestion would be to take a leaf out of Rugby’s book. Here there is, as I understand it, a maximum amount a club can pay each transfer ‘window’. How this is spent is up to the club. They can pay it all in one huge transfer, or use it for several smaller ones. This would level the playing field.
This would also stop clubs from buying players just to stop a rival from getting them, even though they might not actually need that player.
3. Now this one is under review at the moment. The use of video referees. There have been many occasions where terrible mistakes have been made in the past. Handballs leading to goals (Hand of God by Maradona that prevented England from progressing in the World Cup, and Thierry Henry’s that similarly prevented the progression of Ireland.)
Frank Lampard’s goal in, I think the SA World Cup finals, that was given off-side and many more, including refs sending off the wrong player.
4. In the event of a wrong decision that is not given, such as a disallowed goal, if, after the game, it was found to have been not off-side, that goal should be re-instated and, if necessary, the result changed. There is a lot of money at stake in the game these days and mistakes such as these can change the whole scenario of the tables. People often say ‘It evens out over the season.’ It may do in the case of numbers, but what if the mistake occured when your team was playing one immediately close to it and the result meant either promotion or relegation? (Or winning the league). The fact that the ‘correction’ might occur in a game with little significance on the final league position is unfair. That mistake could cost a lot.
5. Just had a discussion with my husband and son. There are a couple of games going on at the moment where we wanted neither side to win. This is obviously impossible. It’s either a win for one or the other team, or a draw. I suggested that a 0-0 draw should be counted as a defeat for both teams. this would ensure a more exciting game, as each team would be striving to score. Occasionally, nowadays, teams are happy to settle for a 0-0 scoreline, which makes for a boring game to watch.
6. Finally, as more managers are sacked, and I heard a discussion about the number of managers one club has had in the last few years, I think it could be time to consider a ‘window’ for managers, just like for players. Just two times each year when managers could be ‘sacked’. Every club seems to think they should win every game, or nearly every game, and if they don’t, but have a run of three of four losses, the manager is sacked. Players are never sacked, but they are the ones who are on the pitch.
Take Manchester United for example. Shortly after Sir Alex Ferguson was made manager of the above club, there were calls to sack him due to poor results. The club rejected these calls, and stuck with him. He became the most successful manager in Premier League history. Sacking a manager after a few months, at the most in some cases, hardly gives him time to get his techniques in place and build a successful team.
These are just a few of my ideas. Some might not work. I would be interested to hear your opinion on these four suggestions.
This took place between the years 69 and 70 CE. The Batavi was a small tribe living in Germania Inferior, near the Rhine delta. They sent some conscripts to Rome, who became what was known as The Germanic Bodyguard and were personal guards of the emperor. When they revolted, they were joined by other tribes in the area as well as some Gallic tribes.
Julius Civilis was a Batavian prince. He was also a Roman citizen and a prefect in the Roman army. He was stationed in Britain, but when his legion returned to Germania, he and his brother were arrested on trumped up charges of treason. His brother was executed and Civilis, being a Roman citizen was taken to Rome to be tried by the emperor himself.
The emperor Nero had been becoming more and more despotic, and so Julius Vindex, the governor of Gaul, decided to try to do something about it. He found what he thought as a worthy successor in a man called Galba. He fomented a revolution, Galba became emperor and Nero committed suicide.
Galba disbanded the Germanic Bodyguard because he mistrusted them as they had been loyal to Nero. The Batavian people took this as an insult.
After the death of Nero, Rome was plunged into civil war. There followed what is known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Galba’s deputy, Otho, overthrew him in a coup, then Vitellius prepared to take the Rhine legions to Rome to overthrow Otho. Once there, Vitellius released Civilis in order to gain his help. This Civilis did, and the Batavi joined the Rhine legions and overthrew Otho at the battle of Bedriacum.
After the battle, the Batavi were ordered to return home, but then Vespasian, commander of the forces in Syria, revolted. He was joined by the legions of the Danube.
Vitellius tried to conscript more than the agreed maximum number of conscripts from the Batavi. This, the brutality of the conscripting centurians and the sexual assaults on Batavian boys brought things to a head.
In the summer of 69, Civilis was commander of the Batavian troops in the Rhine regions. He persuaded the tribe known as Cananefates, to revolt and to attack a number of Roman forts.
This was a good time to do this since most of the troops were off fighting the civil war in Rome. The commander of the Rhine regions then sent troops to put down this rebellion, leaving the rest of the area vulnerable. Civilis and his men defeated the Romans near what is now Arnhem.
To deal with this insurrection, the commander sent two legions, V Alaudae and XV Primigenea to fight them. These legions included some Batavian cavalry, who defected to their countrymen during the battle and so the Romans lost after which the Batavians were promised independence.
Civilis wanted vengeance, however. He wanted to destroy the two legions. He besieged their camp. With the civil war in Rome, the Romans could do little about this. They did not have the troops to spare.
Then came the news of Vitellius’s defeat. This had been helped by Civilis pinning down two legions, but his aim was not to help Vespasian. He launched an attack on Krefeld, sending his eight best cavalry troops. This time, the Roman army was successful, destroying all eight troops, but at great loss to themselves.
Civilis then lifted the siege, saying that the legions could have free passage providing they left everything behind for his men to loot. The two legions left with nothing, but a few kilometers away, they were ambushed and all of them destroyed.
Vespasian, once he had established himself on the throne, sent an enormous army to deal with Civilis and his rebels. On hearing of the approach of the army, one of Civilis’s allies surrendered, but Civilis himself continued to fight.
He made a series of raids from land and from the river, once capturing a Roman flagship. The Romans then invaded Batavia and the revolt was over.
It is against this chaotic part of the Roman Empire that Vengeance of a Slave is set. Adelbehrt’s father and some of the other villagers take the opportunity of a weakened army on the Rhine to raid across the river into the Roman lands. This leads to the terrible punishment of the men at the beginning of the book.
If you are interested in reading more about Adelbehrt and his sister Avelina, and how they come to be in Britannia, click on this link. http:/mybook.to/vengeanceofaslave
It’s a good job some people don’t take life too seriously.
Thanks for the giggle, Chris.
I have been very concerned by, and, yes, afraid, of the war of words between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. They both seem to be wanting a fight. This I can’t understand as it would be a war that cannot be won, and could be the end of humanity. Certainly it would be the end of society as we know it.
It would not end with the cessation of attacks. Such a war would leave a legacy of radiation and sickness for those left behind, and without the resources of medicine, millions more, who survived the blast, would die horribly. Think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those bombs are as children’s toys compared with what is available to the nuclear powers today’
Then there’s the ‘Nuclear Winter’ that would follow. Without the sun, plants would fail and there would be massive starvation. How can world leaders even consider such a dire possibility?
In the 1960s, people were afraid that a nuclear war was a very real possibility. After all, in 1960,it had only been 15 years, since the USA dropped a hydrogen bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was also the era of the ‘cold war’, and everyone was afraid of Russia, or rather the USSR as it was then, a vast empire ruled by Russia. It was in this climate I wrote the following poem.
It is the only poem that exists from that time. It is also the only poem of mine ever to have been published before as a poem and not as part of a novel. It was published in the student magazine of UMIST, in Manchester.
A Plea for Peace
Now we have created something
That threatens to destroy.
One error, one mistake
And what is left for us
But Death.
I see the ruins of a country
That once was powerful.
Now it is nothing but
Ruins, dust, decay
And Death.
I hear the cries of suffering people
Many people, old and young
They cry in agony to God
Please give us peace
Through Death.
But
The only true peace we can have on Earth
Is through remembrance of our Saviour’s birth.
If you liked this poem, and have an opinion on the views it expresses, please add a comment in the comments section.
As you will know if you’ve been reading my pages, I also write under the name of Emily Littler. The novels (well, one to date and another on the way) I write under that name are Historical novels, and the first, Vengeance of a Slave, is set in Roman Britain. I thought it might be interesting to give a little background and so I am posting a few bits that I think you might be interested in. The first is about a woman who most will have heard of. Boudicca, sometimes known as Boadiccea, Queen of the Iceni in Eastern Britain.
The year is 60 AD. Suetonius, the governor of Britannia is off on the island of Mona, putting down a revolt of the Druids there. This island, off the coast of North Wales, is a stronghold of the Druids. The Romans hate them. I suppose it’s because they refuse to worship the Roman gods, and deny that the emperor is a god.
I am of the Iceni tribe, and I have seen what has been happening. Our king, Prasutagus, has died, but, he made his will and has left our lands to his two daughters and the emperor, Nero, to govern together.
I suppose he thought he would secure the safety of the tribe by having the emperor himself a joint ruler. However, things seem to be turning out very differently.
After Prasutagus’s death, Nero decided he was going to be the sole ruler of our lands, and he has sent troops to annex them. Needless to say, this has angered Boudicca, Prasutagus’s queen. Nero has wilfully ignored her husband’s will.
Prasutagus was an ally of Rome, and this is how his last will and testament is being treated. Still, this is the emperor and his greed is notorious. Indeed, the greed of all the Romans for land and other goods is well-known.
Boudicca has made her anger known to the Romans. They are not pleased. I heard the soldiers took her and flogged her, then raped her daughters. I am worried about what will happen now. Queen Boudicca is a strong woman and I don’t think she will readily accept this treatment.
I was right. Boudicca is full of anger. She is planning a revolt. No, a war. She has gained the support of the Trinovantes, and it is said, some other tribes too, as well as the Iceni. They are marching to Camulodunum. The Romans have erected a temple there to their emperor, Claudius. And at our expense. The cheek of it. The Romans say their emperors are gods. Crazy folk, these Romans.
But we Britons have a great history. We saw Julius Caesar off when he came to conquer, so why not these Romans, and why not with Boudicca at our head?. She’s a great leader. She inspired her army with these words.
“It is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. This is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves.”
Well, she did it. she managed to conquer Camulodunum. They say she razed it to the ground and slaughtered the inhabitants. Perhaps a bit violent, as many died who were not Romans. But that happens in War.
Boudicca besieged the remaining people in the temple of Claudius for two days. The Romans living there sent for help, but only 200 auxilliaries turned up, so it was easy to fight them off. Very few of them survived.
‘Londinium next,’ they said. ‘The army is going to do the same there as they did in Camulodunum.’ They didn’t expect the rest of the army to come marching down Watling Street from Mona in response. The Romans made for Londinium, but we were too many for the Roman army and so they left.
Londinium was not important enough, evidently, for the Romans to fight for it. In spite of the pleas of the population, mainly traders and merchant vessels. Suetonius, the commander of the army, left the city to Boudicca.
Our army reached Londinium, and finding little or no resistance, they razed that to the ground too, just like Camulodunum. Many of the population had left with Suetonius, but the army put those who had remained to the sword, then burned the buildings.
The same fate awaited Verulamium, a little further north. The slaughter was terrible, they said. Boudicca had no interest in taking prisoners even as slaves, but killed everyone in the most brutal fashions she could think of. They say that in the slaughter, of the three towns, between seventy and eighty thousand people were killed.
Boudicca and her followers made sacrifices of some of these people to the gods. Were the gods pleased? who knows. The following events don’t seem to suggest as much.
While Boudicca and her allies were slaughtering and burning, Suetonius was busy. He regrouped his army and he called on his own force, the Legio XIV Gemina, and some vexillationes from the XX Valeria Victrix. Although the Legio II Augusta di not come to Suetonius’s call, nevertheless he managed to amass around ten thousand men. Then they marched to meet our army.
Suetonius took a stand somewhere along Watling Street, in a small valley with a wood behind him. He was still heavily outnumberd by Boudicca’s forces, though. Our army, I was told, numbered about 230,000.
Boudicca made a speech from her chariot and fired up her army. She pointed out that the gods were with them because they had already routed one legion, She did not, of course, mention that it was not the full legion.
Well, a number of things were against our army that day. The terrain was narrow, being in a valley, and so we could not put any more men forward at a time than the Romans could. Then, in that valley, our chariots proved to be not very manoeverable.
At first, when we attacked, the Romans threw heavy pila at us. These were a kind of javelin, and they killed thousands of our men, rushing forward to engage battle.
Then they formed a wedge and forced our men back. They were highly disciplined, and our troops were not. We fought as every man for himself and all rushed forward as individuals, with no thought for co-operation with each other.
Then the men were forced back against the wagons where the women and children waited. That was another thing. The Romans did not bring their families to battle.
The long and short of it is that we were defeated, and heavily. Boudicca poisoned herself rather than submit to the Romans, no one knows what happened to her daughers. Perhaps they were taken as slaves, perhaps they, too, committed suicide, or perhaps, just perhaps, they might have escaped.
They say that after this battle, Nero was ready to abandon Britannia. Unfortunately, though, he didn’t. After the uprising, Suetonius started to conduct punitive operations, but Nero feared he would trigger a new uprising so replaced him. He replaced Suetonius with our current governor, Publius Petronius Turpilianus.
So that is where we are today. Under the rule of Rome. They, the Romans, say it’s good. We are at peace. they’ve stopped the inter-tribal wars and brought us what they say is culture. But we had culture before. It was just not the same as the Romans.
You can read my book, Vengeance of a Slave, set a little after Boudicca’s revolt.
http://mybook.to/vengeanceofaslave
Dragons Rule OK. V.M.Sang (author) 