Non-baseball items, part II Showing 1,351-1,392 of 1,392

[C. John]

It is Budget Day in the UK. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, will present her budget in the House of Commons. It is expected there will be plenty of demonstrations. normally the police would have the assistance of the Parliamentary Police in dealing with this, except that the latter went on strike this morning for twenty-four hours. However the Met did ban farmers from bringing tractors to any protest so that might help.

[C. John]

British actor Jack Shepherd has passed away at age 85. No idea of the cause of death. The article only said a short illness. If you don't recognize the name he portrayed Inspector Wycliffe in the series of the same name. That was a favourite series of mine.

[C. John]

We are being told that a decision in the case of Manchester City and the 115 charges levelled against it is "imminent". Yeah, right, and pigs can fly too.

[C. John]

Canadian swimmer Penny Eleksiak will be absent from the Olympics in LA as she has been suspended for two years. The suspension is due to three whereabouts failures.

[C. John]

Canadian Curling legend and pioneer Colleen Jones has passed away at age 65. She also worked as a broadcaster for the CBC.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s...

[C. John]

For those into Gridiron football here is an article that rates all the broadcast teams.

https://awfulannouncing.com/nfl/2025-...

[Peggyzbooksnmusic]

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since we only do free streaming, hubby has the Green Bay at Detroit game on Tubi App. Sound is great but video is iffy. Screen keeps going blank. Probably as so many are streaming for free like us :)

Son gets Paramount Plus for free through his work so will be switching to Kansas City at Dallas soon. Hubby HATES KC as he's a diehard Raider fan. So rooting for Dallas.

[C. John]

The following is from today's Soccer Daily newsletter.

Red faces in Bulgaria, where the Republic of Ireland Women’s Under-19s have been in European Championship qualifying action. Their group opener against Sweden was preceded by organisers mistakenly playing God Save the King over the speakers. Cue some choice words unsuitable for a pre-watershed email, the hasty removal of said anthem, 30 seconds of awkward silence and the Irish squad, coaches and fans belting out an a cappella version of Amhrán na bhFiann. The Swedes ran out 3-1 winners and Ireland will hope officials are better prepared when they next play there against Poland on Saturday.

I do not know how to pronounce the name of the Republic's national anthem for the record.

[C. John]

Apparently today is the deadline for submitting a bid to host the 2035 Women's World Cup (Football). So far the only interested party is the UK.

[C. John]

Golfing legend Fuzzy Zoeller has passed away at age 74.

[Brina]

I saw that. US gets 2031 and I want to go to a game. I have no idea how to get tickets but I want to go.

[C. John]

I daresay that ticket info is likely to come out later. Be prepared though. Apparently FIFA is using dynamic pricing for tickets for the men's World Cup which means tickets are expensive. Of course a lot of people can simply write them off a s a business expense but the average Joe or Jill can't.

[C. John]

A little bit of politics but since this is on the naming of a new party in the UK I trust I can be forgiven. There is a new left-wing party being formed in the UK. Supposedly they will choose their name this weekend. They have released a short list of four names for the members to choose from, which are Your Party, Our Party, Popular Alliance and For the Many. If I may be allowed to comment I think Popular Alliance is the best of a bad lot. See how it goes.

[C. John]

Reading an article on the difficulties of renaming streets in the UK which are named for the former Prince Andrew. I learned that there is a Plaza Margaret Thatcher in Madrid. No idea why. There is one street in the UK caught up with this which one person is saying was actually named for Prince Philip's father, Prince Andrew of Greece.

[Brina]

Back after offline time. Wouldn’t women’s tickets be less expensive even if US women’s team is far superior to the men’s?

[C. John]

Women's tickets are likely to be less expensive, although this is FIFA we are talking about so don't take anything for granted. However the key is how much the men's tickets will be. I have heard some pretty high numbers.

[Brina]

My husband wants to go but he’s also realistic that he won’t be able to afford a ticket.

[C. John]

It only seems to be in the last few years that premium sporting events have gotten this expensive. Of course I daresay the cost of holding these events has risen as well.

[C. John]

The Lionesses played China in, I think, a Nations League match. The score was UK 8-0 China.

[C. John]

Does anyone remember the song The Super Bowl Shuffle from 1985. I don't but then I live in Canada and have little interest in gridiron Football. Here's an article on its 4oth anniversary

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/202...

and here is the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooT_u...

[Brina]

I was 6 but I’ve seen the Shuffle so many times over the years. It is finally an exciting time to be a Bears fan.

[C. John]

Okay, to get you in the mood here is a Christmas song for you. It appeared on last year's Advent Calendar but will not appear in this year's. This song takes being a curmudgeon to a whole new level. Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAxbg...

[Lance]

Oh I saw it far too often. Add in that Mike Ditka called the Metrodome the “Rollerdome” and us Vikings fans weren’t too happy

[C. John]

Okay here we go with this year's Musical Advent Calendar. The selections are going to range from the familiar to the hey that one's not bad and the where the hell did he find that one. First up is Enya: O Come O Come Emmanuel. Start us off with a traditional hymn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPHh3...

And by the way, none of the singer/song combinations on this one will have appeared on last year's.

[C. John]

Today is the beginning of Whamageddon.

[C. John]

The second selection is The Glenn Miller Orchestra performing In the Christmas Mood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZBiI...

The Glenn Miller Orchestra is the name the band would use after Glenn Miller's passing.

[C. John]

Currently listening to a ten hour playlist. Can't complain as this is one that I created. Apparently it dates from 2021, though I have named it Christmas Season 2020. I have a Part Two as well.

[C. John]

Of the five players who were acquitted after that sexual assault trial four of them are playing hockey, two in Europe, one just signed with an AHL team and one is with the Las Vegas Golden Knights and I believe will make his debut with the team tonight. The fifth player did play in Europe last season but has not played this season.

[C. John]

Day 3 of the advent calendar and this time we have Trans-Siberian Orchestra performing the Christmas Canon. This is the rock version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IBZ_...

[C. John]

It seems FIFA is going to try and make sure that some tickets for the WG games are affordable. Unfortunately it seems these will be the tickets allotted to the various national organizations for sale to their travelling fans.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...

[C. John]

Just read an article on trysting places in London. Interesting stuff.

[C. John]

The fourth selection for out Advent calendar is a bit of Canadian Jazz, Oscar Peterson: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u4wG...

[C. John]

Here is the breakdown of which countries are in which ball for the World Cup draw tomorrow. Also a bit of an explanation on how this whole thing works. Should be interesting to see how this all turns out. It does seem weird to see Canada in the same pot as a number of the world's best teams.

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/worl...

[C. John]

Sorry I am a bit late with this one. Bing Crosby: White Christmas. This version is from the movie White Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT5qe...

[C. John]

Well we now know the makeup of the groups for the World Cup. I am not sure I like Canada's draw, as the winner of that UEFA playoff could easily be Italy. Then again Italy has had a tendency lately of missing the tournament finals. We shall see.

[C. John]

Going to try and get back on track with this calendar, tomorrow. Today we have a more humourous selection
Homer and Jethro: Santa Claus the Original Hippy

https://www.youtube.com/results?searc...

[C. John]

The song Spotify was just playing listed, among the artists, Sue Richards on Celtic Harp. I didn't know the Invisible Woman (as I think she is now called) could play that instrument.

[C. John]

Using Mr. Peabody's machine to take us back to fifties or sixties Chicago for this one. I don't have an artist but the title is Hardrock, Coco and Joe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKGon...

[Lance]

C. John wrote: "Well we now know the makeup of the groups for the World Cup. I am not sure I like Canada's draw, as the winner of that UEFA playoff could easily be Italy. Then again Italy has had a tendency lately..."

I’m good with the USMNT group. IMO, good chance to advance out of group play

[Lance]

Lando Norris is your 2025 F1 champion

[C. John]

Lance wrote: "C. John wrote: "Well we now know the makeup of the groups for the World Cup. I am not sure I like Canada's draw, as the winner of that UEFA playoff could easily be Italy. Then again Italy has had a..."

Every commentary I have read says that the US should have no problem as they have beaten the two teams we know about recently. Of course that means the US will lose both those games now since people won't shut up about the wins.

[C. John]

Reading up on Charles de Gaulle's 1967 speech in Montreal that caused a ruckus. Apparently de Gaulle didn't think much of Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Maybe Trudeau wasn't so bad after all.