Rooney has trouble with German defence

To continue the Great Escape theme, yesterday England were Richard Attenborough and Gordon Jackson. After they get out of the German truck.

It is better, I find, to blog from a place of relative zen-like calm than in the throes of apoplectic rage. So, a day after the calamity in South Africa I put pen to paper in a somewhat coherent state that wont get me sued by someone like John Terry. What is there to say except that yesterday’s loss to the dreaded Boche was as humiliating game as I have ever seen. And I saw England lose to Scotland once.

The team out there in red yesterday was not much of a team, and quite frankly were amateurish. Defenders getting pulled out of position, invisible strikers, absent and uncreative midfielders—it could well have been more than four. If Lampard’s goal had counted, then Germany may have been back on their heels and who knows we might all be crowing this morning about the “great” 4-2 victory. But that would have hidden the truth. As it is, Englishmen must hang their heads in shame.

Lots of people are calling for Capello’s head this morning and the FA are taking a couple of weeks before deciding on his fate, which is probably the best idea. And they are right in saying that Capello took a dejected crap team and made them winners again, albeit in qualifying, so let’s not rush to judgment.

Now, Capello made some very odd choices. This whole Heskey bizarreness, the Gerrard/Lampard thing, the benching of Lennon and Cole. It wasn’t his fault that he had injuries to some key players and a bad choice of goalies. But his record of winning things speaks for itself. So, while he shares some of the blame for this cock-up, he shouldn’t shoulder it all.

Most of the blame should fall on the shoulders of those who failed to show up . Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Ashley Cole, and Rooney – the core of the team and the best players and leaders – where absent for all four games. They did not lead, provide inspiration, do anything to justify their price tags and were mostly anonymous. The one man player revolt was a farce, the bitching at fans a joke and the performances a tragedy.

Capello would do himself a favour by picking a team of eager under-24 year-olds and melding them into a team for the next two tournaments. That means dumping the big names, but so what? This golden generation have largely been complete and utter crap anyway.

This lot have had three managers and have failed to do anything with any of them. Quarterfinal loss in the last World Cup, didn’t even get to Euro 2008 and now this. All managers with success under their belts so methinks it might be the players at fault.

Or maybe the league they play in. The guys who are making this World Cup hum don’t play in the English Premier League. It is interesting to note that the stars of the English league who are at this World Cup are on the bench or are playing injured – Drogba, Torres, Fabregas, Van Persie, Deco — and a couple like Ferdinand and Ballack are not even there due to injury. And England’s team frankly looked knackered. I have always said that the 1970 Double winning Arsenal side played way more games than any team does today and did that with eleven regulars and about four subs for the entire year. But it is a faster and harder game now and maybe the workload for English teams today is too much. Maybe a shorter schedule or England should just stay home. World Cups are much more enjoyable once that lot are gone anyway.

I was trying to think of something pithy or witty to start this blog off (why start now I hear the comments) but I just don’t have it in me.

Today’s game, without a doubt, was the worst performance by an England team I have ever seen. Absolute rubbish. Shockingly so. I really am at a loss for words.

Or not apparently.

As he walked off the pitch in Cape Town this evening, Wayne Rooney is seen to say “Nice to see your home fans booing you.” Really,Wayne? Really?

The fact that someone didn’t run onto the pitch and shove a vuvuzala, or what ever those bloody annoying horns are called, up your hairy arse is probably down to the fact that nobody could be bothered to get up and do it after that shocking performance.

And maybe the arrogant little scouser should think about the hard working stiffs that ponyed up a lot of money to travel to South Africa to see him jump around like a Springbok with a tranquiliser dart in its arse. Instead of getting angry at them and slamming your Aston Martin door really hard, Wayne, just try and imagine why someone would want to boo you. (OK I was booing and i wasn’t in SA. But I am in solidarity with the booers…or is that boers? )

Before the tournament, Rooney was being mentioned in the same breath as Messi, Kaka and David Villa as guys to watch. Well, he certainly is Kaka. And watch? I rather put lotion on my bunions and watch that dry.

How do you tie Algeria? How can you not score against a team as bereft of talent as that with a dodgy goal keeper to boot? Usually the standard line is “with all due respect to team X, and they did play well, but…” But they didn’t play well. They played terribly. They didn’t get a shot on goal for f’s sake. They played as you would expect Algeria to play at this level. A team that Slovenia beat handily.

I hate to be one of those self-loathing English people who pee all over the coach after a bad result. I tried to be somewhat restrained after the last cock-up and at least try to see to positives somewhat. But what could you draw from this? Whatever you can say about Sven-Goren Erickson’s sides, England were never this crap.

Five years ago, journalists, bloggers and most other people said that Gerrard and Lampard can’t play together and that Heskey is a donkey who can’s score, shoot or run. So, here we are at another World Cup, five years later and Capello still seems to think this will somehow work now. Hey look kids, he will say, this is more or less the same team that beat Croatia 5-1 in qualifying. Really? This is the team that couldn’t beat Algeria at the World Cup, so let’s bury that history nonsense.

This is really down to the coach. All plaudits to him in qualifying, and he was lauded as the saviour for the work he did. And you know what, he could still win the world cup.But after these two games, I think he needs to look in the mirror and recalibrate because something is going terribly wrong.

The team is not playing as a unit. That’s the coach’s fault.

The team has no structure or form or tactical set up. Coach.

Players seem unmotivated or lost, clueless and slow. Coach.

Bone head substitutions. Coach.

I saw assistant manager Stuart Pearce tell Capello so substitute Barry. Maybe “Psycho” should be promoted and Capello benched.

How can a team with this level of talent, be so awful?

Germany lost today and looked five times better than England. Ditto Spain. People have bad results but at least they perform.

Here is my idea for the Slovenia game. Clearly the team is falling apart, and almost everyone tonight was complete and utter cra,p and while it is probably wrong to make wholesale panic changes at this point my choice for next eleven goes like this – James in goal; Johnson and Ashley Cole full backs. Dawson and Terry central defence; Central midfield Barry and Lampard. Wings Joe Cole and Lennon. Forwards Defoe and Crouch. Yes, it is very Spurs and Chelsea heavy but at least they know how to play with one another. And do you think they would be any worse than that lot out there today? How could they possibly be? Capello has a reputation as being bold and ruthless. Well, here is an idea –bench Rooney, Gerrard and Heskey. England won the world cup after losing their best player in Jimmy Greaves…maybe that same dynamic will work here.

By the time the next World Cup rolled around in 1978, things had changed a great deal. Oh sure England was different and there was civil war in the air, punk was in full swing and nuclear war loomed; but more importantly I had grown pubes, some nasty spots on my chin, was tall and lanky and was firmly enamoured of the opposite sex. Most of them, however, felt less enthusiastic about me.

England had again failed to qualify for the World Cup to be held in Argentina. A generation of exciting footballers like Rodney Marsh, Tony Currie, Alan Hudson, Peter Osgoode and Stan Bowles had all been ignored by the England set up to make way for plodders like Trevor Cherry and Emlyn Hughes and the Italians kept England home in qualifying.  

The ’78 World Cup mirrored what was happening in England in a strange way. The final turned out to be between Holland, the hip rock star of a liberal country and Argentina, long haired Latin maestros chained to the sinister wishes of a fascist autocracy. I am sure Ardiles, Luque and Kempes were probably reminded by the Junta that stadiums were not only for football games and threatened with disappearance if the cup wasn’t won on home turf.

In England, I remember it being a hot summer. And everyone seemed angry. Angry at unions, immigrants, the weather, the government, tourists, everything and everyone. The National Front was a racist, neo-fascist party who had come from nowhere to win some local elections and people were up in arms. The Anti-Nazi league had formed to fight back. There was a Rock against Racism live aid type thing…but no one outside of Hackney heard anything about it. Strikes were going on all over the place and the government just seemed lost.

Great time to be coming into your political consciousness.

While I was definitely not on the side of the NF or the Tories, even at that young age I thought there was something a bit dodgy about the anti-fascists. Those earnest Trotskyites seemed overly annoying and self righteous. And so serious. And I didn’t have any illusions about the Soviets either. Laying bed at night with my mustard-coloured mono radio listening to Radio Moscow and Radio Albania rail against capitalist dogs made for late evening fun.  Even back then I knew girls were not really into Marx.

Girls, however, were into The Police and my-anti lefty attitudes had to readjust once post punk began to take root. “Yeah that Stingy bloke is kinda cool, but you wanna go to a Scout Disco?”

I don’t remember being much into punk, I was more into Genesis, Queen and ELO. I know. I dated an East Indian girl who also got me into Bob Marley, so i had some cred I guess. I say dated, but I mean just hung out at her house and snogged for hours. I never really got into the whole punk thing. While in London it was a scene and a movement, out in the sticks it just seemed like a bad fashion choice. We loved the Pistols, and Sham 69 if only for their anthymic Kids are United thing. But rest just didnt fire me up.

Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, The Clash and Ian Dury arrived on the scene in 1978 and that seemed like a movement that didn’t need special clothes. I feel that way about both music and sex – I am up for it unless it requires special clothes. It would prove to be the birth of a great music era and gradually I was awakening musically. Politics and music seeming amazingly intertwined in that summer. And football.

Back in South America, Scotland, had managed to sneak into the finals –  again. They recorded a song to fire up the fans that sticks in my brain like a BSE prion – “And weel rearrrrly shake um up, when we weeen the worrrrld cup, cus Scotland is the greatest footbaalll tim.”  

Except for Peru, who trashed the Scots 3-1 and Iran who tied them 1-1. Scotland’s coach, Allie something, stood on the sidelines constantly bleating “C’mon Archie” much to our English joy. That call made it to the school playground every time you wanted to irritate someone underperforming. The last group game for Scotland came against the Dutch and Scotland had to win 3-1 or better to go through even though everyone expected a pasting. Then came the Archie Gemmill goal so immortalised in Trainspotting, when the little Scottie danced his way through the Dutch defence and stuck it in to go 3-1 up. I think Allie came on Archie. You could have heard the roar of every Scotsman over Hadrian’s wall. Alas, it was not to be as Dutch ace Johnny Rep nicked a goal late. My first taste of true Schadenfreude.

The BBC played ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ as the camera panned over the Scottish team after the game, pausing on the exceptional Graeme Souness (who was inexplicably kept on the bench) when it got to the line “The answer was here all the time.”

Shenanigans were also afoot. The winners of the first round groups went into two second round groups, the winners of which would go straight into the final. Holland easily won their group, but in the other, Argentina and Brazil were battling it out. In the final round of games, the Argies had to win by four clear goals to move ahead of the Brazilians on goal difference and into the final. Strangely,  the previously strong Peruvians seemed all to have pulled their groins and left their glasses at the hotel and Argentina won 6-0. Bribery anyone? A fascist junta bribing a poor third world goalie! Noooooo!

I distinctly remember the final and everyone in England was rooting for the Dutch. Not only because they had deserved to beat the Germans four years before, but because the Argentines seemed like cheats. Holland was a liberal democracy, wore orange and still seemed cool. I had been to Holland a couple of years earlier and the place seemed like a great place with impossibly attractive girls. And that was before even knew what a spliff was.  Argentina on the other hand was some Latin American land o’fascists. And real fascists, not some disaffected, unemployed steelworker from Rochdale with a hate on for Pakistanis.

Still, there was something dashing about their long haired players with their socks rolled down, their sort of free flowing football and their chain smoking coach. I adopted the Luque look for my next football game. The long hair, shirt untucked, the socks around the ankles. Most of my friends confirmed I looked like a prat. And played like one too.

The final featured lots of Argentinean diving, stalling and whinging and great Dutch football. But again, the Dutch couldn’t win it. They hit the post with a minute left in the game and that should have been it. But it went to overtime and Dutch looked spent and the Latin tide couldn’t be resisted and Argentina won 3-1.

As those Generals all slapped each other on their pink uniformed backs smirking behind their sun glasses I wonder if they realised by the next world cup they would be at war with England – real war.

Neeskens scores in 1974 WC final

1974 was an important year for me. It was the year I made it into my second decade. It was the year I began notice girls. Well, it wasn’t so much an interest as a newfound lack of apathy. I distinctly remember kissing Lisa C and her friend Julie S (try that at 30, doesn’t go over so well) during morning break for research purposes.

It was also a good year for music. I became interested in stuff other than the Cat Stevens signalong crap they made us sing at Newington Junior School. The head master of the school also used to make us all listen to Mozart and Beethoven at morning assembly in order to make us better citizens or something. My parents were addicted to Radio 2 and the middle of the road crap that was de rigueur on that awful channel. I am sure that listening to No Charge on Family Favourites every single flipping Sunday made me the angry man I am today. Thank god for Top of the Tops. A weekly fix of T. Rex Garry Glitter and Slade. I was probably a little young to be exploring the nuances of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway so Bang a Gong had to suffice.

And I finally got into the whole football thing. Thinking back upon it, I had some pretty detailed knowledge of the teams in the 1974 World Cup final by the time it rolled around. I had some book that you assembled from pull outs from the Daily Express or something featuring world football players. This was back in the days when players from various countries played in their home leagues. So teams like Panathanikos and AC Milan seemed impossibly glamorous and all the photos of the tanned players had them bathed in sunshine. Similar photos of Burnley’s centre forward featured rain and mud and comb-overs.

In 1974, England had failed to qualify for the World Cup, which appeared  to send England as a nation into a depressive spiral that lasted until about 1982. I remember the 70s as being drab, rainy and grey. I vaguely recall seeing Alf Ramsey’s bland squad of journeymen collapsing in the rain to the Poles and a mist of depression settling on the whole country.

To further aggravate us English, Scotland had managed to sneak into to the finals. That was back in the days when there wasn’t a lot of difference between the two countries.

Thankfully, the orange dressed Dutch perked everyone up for a while as did Zaire, whose players appeared to only have a rudimentary understanding of the rules.

Back in those days there were no South Americans playing in Europe, so you had to wait every four years to see what those geniuses would turn up to do. So, we were all expecting a repeat of the 1970 Brazil team. We basically got it, except that were all forty years old by that point. So it was going to be a European World Cup winner then.

It is odd to admit, but even at the age of 10, I was already inculcated into the world of national stereotypes. Now, my family had welcomed a couple of German families in as hosts when they went to the local school of English. And very nice they were too.

But come the World Cup final, I desperately wanted the Germans to lose. It wasn’t some hatred brought on by the war or something, but there was just something boring, relentless and cold about those Germans. They just seemed to plod on and bore the opposition to death before scoring on the break. Then reverting to an 11 man wall and winning one-nil.

The Dutch on the other hand were rock and roll stars. Their club teams, such as Ajax, had dominated European football. Johnny Rep still has one of the best names in football history. Johan Cryuff was the new Pele. They all seemed to have long hair and tossed the ball around for fun. They played what they called total football and made other teams look like they played on wet sand in clogs. It was the era of rock and roll football and the Dutch had turned that freewheeling, cocky attitude into an art. The Dutch just seemed cool. And everyone thought they would win it, even if it was on German soil.

Well, we all know how that turned out. Brilliant Dutch football finally defeated by a Paul Brietner dive and a typical Gerd Muller goal scored from two yards out followed by 45 minutes of eleven man defending. Football lost a bit of its soul that day.

But the result was that every kid playing football started rolling their socks down and wearing longer hair. Less Norman Hunter and more Johan Neeskens.

It was the first time I felt the elation and the depression that one can get from a football game and it was probably that day that my addiction to the game was born.

So football, girls and rock and roll. Not a bad year then.

Is just me or is it every time there is an announcement about the football stadium the image of the thing changes?

Yesterday, all the political big wigs walked onto a flat piece of grass at the University of Manitoba, got a big digger to dig a hole and then announced construction of the new stadium was underway. The diggers were gone by 2.00pm by the way…so not a lot of construction then. But its all about the optics, and two guys in donkey jackets with a measuring tape and a can of pink spray paint wouldn’t have really cut it as a backdrop for the most significant announcement since the MTS centre broke pavement.

But here is the picture of the new stadium.

Doesn’t quite look like this plan, which was the one bandied about just a few months ago.

Or this one that was posited just a year ago.

Or these from two years ago.

None of these are bad, (and i know the last two were from a different proponent) but it leads me to think that there really is no final plan for the stadium and these fancy graphics are just to appease us masses before some ugly pile of crap goes up. Cynical  – perhaps. But there have been a few recent example of that sort of thing….WHRA stand up?

Still I live in hope.

I guess it speaks to the difference between a city with a Premier League side or an NFL team and one with a Canadian football league side. Winnipeg does have the same population as a city like Leeds in England and Elland Road sits about 39,500 Neanderthals quiet comfortably. So why is Winnipeg only building a 33,000 seater? Leicester City, a city of just under 400,000, or about half the size of Winnipeg , built a brand spanking new state of the art 33,000 seater a couple of years ago (below).

So why is Winnipeg being so chintzy on this stadium? As the baseball diamond and MTS centre proved, if you build something swanky people will come out. So a better stadium will mean more ticket sales. I am sure there is a core of people who don’t go to the current stadium because they don’t want to sit on tin benches, exposed to all elements hot and cold, and breathe in the exquisite and piquant aroma of decaying hotdog, popcorn and piss.

 Winnipeg’s new stadium will cost around 120 million Canadian dollars (which is either 90 million or 110 million US depending on what day it is). Compare that to Tottenham’s proposed stadium (below), which is being pegged at 400 million quid.

And Minneapolis’ new proposed, although as yet unapproved and not paid for, stadium which is close to 800 million dollars.

There are precious few rock and roll bands still want to see. Thank God for comedy.

Oh the irony there.

So Yeah. Last night, I got to see Eddie Izzard at the Walker and was treated to a Springsteenesque three hour or ad libs and odd riffs.

We don’t get a lot of higher end comedy shows here in Winnipeg. I can’t think of the comedy equivalent of AC/DC ,which would be the sort of big time comedian that would sell out here in river city.

I can see why a certain segment of Winnipeg would have some issues with Izzard. Transvestite. Well there is that. Atheist. Well there is that too. But English. That’s beyond the pale.

Of course having been a fan for years and being a fellow Kent-ite, er Kenter, er Kentishperson, I was going to be front row for that. Ticketmaster had other plans.

But a good crowd did show up and it was truly an interesting mix of young and old, hip and downright nerdy. The seats are as hard as concrete and I managed to get stuck behind some guy whose head was the size of a beachball, so it took some nomadism to find a good view. It was worth the work.

Izzard was on form last night and managed to drag an audience through about four billion years of history. Raptors to Popes makes for a strange evening.

Izzard makes this show look like work in progress and Izzard did a lot of bits that sort of didn’t go anywhere or end anywhere. Although these digressions were very funny. Izzard has such a style that you are drawn along on these journeys and the trip is better than the destination anyway. I was expecting an hour and half and got three.

This show mines much the same content as Ricky Gervais’ stand up and even a bit of Carlin. A lot of riffs on the Bible and the absence of god. “If god existed you would think he would flick Hitler’s head off.” History is Izzard’s angle and he took the audience from the Sumerians to Charles Darwin with a lot of Latin and Greek in between.

While i like athiest humour as much as the next person, Izzard’s real talents show in those oddball digressions about rabbits and raptors.

There are not a lot of shows that mix the Battle of Themopylae, problems with Latin, Giraffe conversations, the problems of medeval journalism and Noah’s ark.

The difference between the top tier comedians as opposed to hacks and rock stars is the willingness to exclusively try new stuff. Sting can go out do a concert and try his new stuff, but if it isn’t going so well, you just strum the opening bars to Roxanne and the crowd goes wild. For a comedian, it’s not like Izzard could slide into Death Star Canteen. Although that would have been sort of cool. So there is a fair amount of bravery in reinventing a whole show. And a fair amount of trust from an audience who pay to go along for the ride.

Was this show as good as Glorious or Dressed to Kill? Not quite, but it was very funny and it was great to see an artist actually work some new stuff in front of an audience. Brave yeah? Excellent definitely.

Canada is an interesting country to be living in now. As a pseudo-Canadian I get to watch what has been going on over the last two weeks in Vancouver with a slightly detached point of view.
But Canada has seemed to change in the last two weeks.
It seems odd to me that a sporting event can change a nation’s attitude, but these Olympics have inspired a new type of patriotism in the country — a type of patriotism that is genuine, unforced and confident. I can’t remember when I heard Canadians singing their national anthem. But here they are all over the country singing along every time the country wins a gold medal. People are partying and having a great time and are unabashedly proud of the country, the athletes and games.
There also hasn’t been the navel gazing debate about it either.
Canadian patriotism has always seemed a bit odd. More marked by anti Americanism or anti British-ism than something unique and self confident. Canadians have always felt a tad embarrassed by the flag waving yanks and their My Country Right or Wrong braggadocio. Canadians have always envied the Australians and the pride they show in their country.
Canadians have inherited that British liberal embarrassment at displaying patriotism in anything other than an arch, ironic way. But the constituent British are very patriotic. They might think they are not but they can be as draped in the flag as any American. Watch the Welsh at a rugby game, the Scots and their golf the English and their football. The Last Night at the Proms is silly but it is all about patriotism. The main difference is that the Brits tend to be aware that there other nations in the world.
Canadians have always apologized for any overt shows of patriotism. But the national identity is changing. I think it began with the war in Afghanistan. Canadians have been proud of their troops and patriotic in honouring the dead. Suddenly waving the flag isn’t seen as fake and American.
It is also interesting that this new found pride is a ground up type of thing. No one is trying to organize this. Canadians are not being told to be patriotic or to get into the streets and wave the flags. This isn’t some TV generated phenomena. People are genuinely expressing themselves and unashamedly so. It is quite refreshing.
I was in India once and some Brit asked me where I lived. I said Canada. He said “Ah, the quiet achiever.” I felt like telling him to f off. Today, I would have.

As the winter Olympics gets going, I find myself in the odd position of having to pick and choose which team to root for. As I watched the Canadian go for gold in the moguls I was rooting for her. And I think in all the sports in the Winter Olympics I would be rooting for the Canadian. Even if the UK had a hockey team in the tournament I would still be supporting the Canucks.

Come the World Cup, however, if Canada ever made it into that tournament (an unlikely proposition I grant you) I would definitely be roaring on England. Ditto Rugby, and cricket.

Strange isn’t it? I mean I would be rooting for Canada in soccer if they were playing the US or Mexico or almost anyone else. Probably really rooting if it was Scotland or France. But it is like praying for anyone playing against Arsenal or Man U. In last year’s Champions League final, I wanted Barcelona to win. Big time. That is treason in some people’s mind. But it is Man U.

There is also the “anyone but the yanks” thing going on too.

So it is strange duality. It is also an odd thing this fandom thing. But it is rooted early and doesn’t lend itself to age. I might root for the Canadians, but I don’t have the same level of tension, anxiety, pain and joy as I do supporting those teams I grew up with. So while I might be happy with Canada lifting gold in the Olympic hockey tournament, I will be insane if England won the World Cup.

Thankfully, the UK generally sucks at winter sports so it never is an issue of who to support on slope or ice. Oh, and before you say curling, I only watch women’s curling and then I root for the best looking team. I may be English and Canadian but I am still a guy.

Winnipeg in Winter

I think I am finally a Canadian. I now am getting smug about how freakin’ cold it gets here. It is a Canadian disease. It may have a contagious element or maybe repeated brain freezings bring it on. Whatever it is, it is the tendency to take pride in how ridiculously cold it gets is a particularly Canadian affliction. There is a strange pride in living in a place that can get to minus 40 degrees C. I wonder if people who live in the north of Sweden or Norway are like this and the southerners in Oslo and Stockholm have to endure northerners rabbit on about just how cold it can get up in the Arctic and how tough they are as a result and it’s a dry cold. I am sure they get asked the same question I have always asked…why on Earth would you choose to live in such a place?

So now having drunk the Canadian cool aid, I have watched with some level of glee at the fate of Britain and its complete collapse under the weight of a couple of inches of snow. It was quite amusing to see the BBC reporters talking about the country coming to a halt and the fears for the elderly as the temperature “plunged” to minus seven Celsius.

Of course, here is sunny Winnipeg it was minus 20 something and a couple of inches of snow is a light dusting. It was somewhat funny to think of those English chavs stuck in their homes with nought but pot noodles and some old tins of Hemlin. Puddles are freezing. Oh the humanity.

Now, I read that England is struggling with a rash of potholes. Welcome to my world.

Some of the pictures have been quite beautiful I must say. I think I can count on one chillblained hand the number of times it snowed in Ramsgate as a kid. Slush and it was gone the next day. Now, I am like an Innu I can tell about 20 different types of snow.

My wife asked how I dealt with my first winter here in Canada. I must say it seemed OK at the time. I had gone out and bought an absolutely ridiculous parker with a tube hood that would be good for the winter on Baffin Island. I soon ditched it in favour of the much more fashionable ski jacket. Much colder, but much easier to get in and out of a bus. I did manage to freeze my ears solid one afternoon walking to my friend’s house. Turning your ears into rubber isn’t nearly as painful as thawing them out. I did walk home one evening and was so cold I wanted to lay down and die. I elected instead to buy a car. It isn’t really as bad as it sounds – minus forty. It is just crisp and bracing and you dress for it. And you just get on with it and appreciate the heat when it arrives. It is also incredibly sunny here in the winter and the sky usually clear and blue, which is very different from the slate grey of an English winter.

There is a city here now and all the amenities of a city and lots to do in the winter. The one questions I have is those Scots who turned up here 200 years ago and said “aye, minus 40 and nowhere to live, let’s stay here!” Grand.

I was reading a favourite blog the other day that is, quite frankly, much better than mine on the subject of what Americans think of the English. The writer is a Brit who lives in New York and has experienced something I have always found odd too; the propensity for North Americans to assume that being from the UK somehow makes me posh and a bit smarter.

I used to get annoyed at the whole “You have a cute accent” thing . I suspect it was a fear that it was just the first part of a longer comment that concluded “Just as well because you are an ugly git.” But, I eventually learned to accept it and use it for nefarious dating purposes, which probably explains why it has stuck around like a mutated wart. Anything that makes you stand out from the crowd i guess, is a good thing too.

The English have a myriad accents — from Geordie, to Brummie to Scouse to Esturine. My accent has flattened out a little from being over here but most Brits would place me somewhere in the south – Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Hampshire maybe. I’ve been told it changes depending on my mood. Somewhat posh when calm a bit more cockney when angry. Imagine Roger Moore morphing into Jason Statham.  

But over here, even if I came from Sunderland, everyone would think my accent was very posh and hoity toity. I guess it is all about ear….it took me some time to discern that the Ontario accent is slightly different than that of the west. They really do say “oot and aboot” down there.

As opposed to us Brits who all say “ieght and abieght.”

I get “what part of Australia are you from?” a lot. Now, maybe you have a hard time between Australia and New Zealand. But c’mon, a British and Australian accent is as different  an accent as Boston is from Arkansas. I usually tell people I am from Zimbabwe just to screw them up.

Some Brits over here do “posh-up” their accents. You talk to some ex-pat and they sound like they just stepped out of their Lined Rovah after arhftanun tea at Asscut with aych are aych. The look on their falling faces as you ask where in Yorkshire are they from is priceless. “Aye up yar right, how thee guess?”

One of things I hated about England is that whole accent-defining-who-and-what-you-are thing. You have to be English to understand it. But open your mouth and your education, class and status is instantly communicated. And it is rubbish. That’s the great thing about Canada — aside from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the North End of Winnipeg, there are no accents and they certainly have no bearing on you education level or status in life. But when people try to lord it up over the rest of us with some fake Oxbridge banter, well then you have to prick that balloon don’t you?

People accept that if you have an English accent you must inherently be smarter. Ability to list at least one of the colleges at Oxford or Cambridge is tantamount to being accepted as having gone there. People are a little puzzled that there are actually other universities in England. I dont know where this comes from but it is endemic.

And people don’t believe you when you tell them people from England are just as stupid as everyone else. Well, people who have never met English package tourists anyway.

The flip side of the positive assumptions of being identified as being English is that you are emotionally remote, cold, crap in bed with really bad teeth. I fight the good fight by pointing to the works of Henry Fielding and Byron et al to dispel the bad in bed thing. The bad teeth thing is slightly harder. But the English are very emotional. You should see how I got when Stoke scored that crap goal the other day. But the English are, I admit, not as sentimental as North Americans. I’ve lived here for ages and I still can’t figure out why people cry on television when they win 200 bucks on Wheel of Fortune.

Now to work on my Terry Thomas impression. “Absolute Shah!”