Not In His Stream Of Consciousness
Oct 10th, 2009 by 'holic
I’ve mentioned the ‘holic father before, I know. One of the things I recall him talking about was how his parents had been born in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and how they could not comprehend the scale of the achievement of putting man on the moon as they were in the autumn of their years.
I thought of him a couple of times today as well. When that lunar landing was made in 1969 the ‘holic household viewed those grainy pictures on our black and white television. Colour was a luxury we could not afford until Arsenal reached the FA Cup Final in 1971, and then it was DER who came to the rescue with a deal on a rental set.
Football highlights were on Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, and if you were lucky Wednesday night too. That was it. When World Cup qualifiers came around you might be lucky and get live coverage of England and the goals from the games involving the other home nations. You didn’t see anybody else until the World Cup came around.
Had he been visiting today the old fella would have found it difficult to understand the scale of the technology that enabled me to watch Cameroon beat Togo, Russia fall to Germany, Armenia end up second best to Spain, England crumble in Ukraine, Denmark ensure qualification against Sweden, and Ireland’s dramatic draw against Italy. I even snapped the screen on my computer so he might better understand how I could watch two games at once.
Of course I watched Ireland and England because I need to be able to discuss one or other of those games with people I know over the next few days. There is no Arsenal to keep us going. All of the other games were essential to keep an eye on the international Gunners. Well ‘essential’ is maybe pushing it a bit, but I needed a day of rest, and it seemed to satisfy the management who didn’t much fancy going out in the cold anyway!
So I saw Alex Song humiliate Adebayor and apparently walk off without so much as broken fingernail. I watched Arshavin become increasingly frustrated as Russia slid towards a play-off if they are to make the World Cup finals in South Africa, but crucially he seemed unharmed. I smiled as Cesc led from the front in the Spanish triumph. He is just on fire at the moment. That left a look at Nicklas Bendtner playing wide left for Denmark as they qualified, and a couple of hacks apart I think he should be ok tonight.
I must confess that is enough football for one day. Although having said that I should go and hunt out those Senderos goals for Switzerland. Why did I not watch them too? Maybe not. But I will be back tomorrow night, for Bolivia versus Brazil.
The old chap really wouldn’t understand that.
24 Responses to “Not In His Stream Of Consciousness”
Heh DER eh? We rented our 4 button colour TV through them as well. There was a DER shop on almost every high street as I recall.
The internet? Pfff!
I’ll have two of those fancy Spanish bottled lagers please ‘holic.
Dos Cerveza per favor!
What? No lime?
PS. Didn’t know you wore a Mac.
Thoughtful, slyly charming blogging as usual. Gawd bless you Goonerholic…
Thank you Snail (I got my first telly from Granada!), and Anonymarse.
A quick word for the couple of people who contacted me about the RSS feed. The changes have been made and the results are astonishingly different depending on browser used to view. Firefox appears to produce the most abridged version, while Explorer has everything, even the images. Opera is in between with a lengthier, but nonetheless abridged version.
If anybody reading is using a different browser I would be interested to know just how full the posts appear in the RSS feed (click the orange button next to ‘Feed on Posts’ at the top). Thanks.
The feeds do not render at all in Google Chrome, you just get a raw xml feed, but that is, I believe, a design ‘feature’.
You leave me ashamed of my lack of techno skills!
I loved Bendtner’s performance today. The way he set up rommedahl a few times was a joy. Makes me wonder if he would be better off on the left for us as well and Arshavin would certainly do better than rommedahl with the finishing.
Cesc is on a roll. the finish was delightful. if you watch cricket you might have seen how some indian batsmen were very wristy and fantastic to watch… his finish was quite ankly in that sense!
Regarding RSS — I’m getting three lines in Chrome, that’s with the old feed. I’ll have to resubscribe to the new feed, perhaps?
Where were you streaming all those internationals from? My only option was Portugal v. Hungary on Setanta Canada so I didn’t bother.
And didn’t Gallas score for Belgium?
While real Belgium marched on to victory for the first time in ages with Captain Vermaelen?
I’ll have a whisky of your choice, ‘holic. Thanks.
Thanks all, especially Ollie for the opportunity to do a bit of sub-editing 😉
Snail, I actually have got that raw xml feed before, then a simple refresh has solved it. Because I had not received any complaints before now I put it down to a glitch in the Mac/Firefox combination on this machine. Interesting.
Mark, if the email address you left is genuine then I have sent you a little message which may help you to find a few more games. Feel free to leave another ‘drink’ with the correct one if not. It won’t be published.
Hello ‘holic,
Further to Mark’s query where do you watch those Arsenal games that are not live on Sky/ESPN?
I’m farily new to all this streaming business as I have only recently managed to get a 2mb internet connection at home.
I have seen a couple of games on iraqgoals.net. This appears to be the only one where you do not need to first load some sort of viewing software before you can watch the stream. I am reluctant to download any viewing software due to the threat of viruses and malware being hidden in the download.
Do you have a list of sites which stream arsenal games – preferably without having to download software first – if not which ones in your experience are trustworthy?
Hello dharg,
you too have mail if the address in your post header was correct.
Holic,
Please assist with the stream site also
heres the link to watch those two goals that i watched not too long ago myself
http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/3621405/
53 seconds of your time to watch two great headers from big phil.
Hi ‘holic (aka Bruce),
First off, top blogging site, it’s actually nice to read very good english as well as a blog created by a balanced Arsenal fan… Keep it up!
Would you mind sharing your recommended links for watching Arsenal games; you can never have too many potential streams to try – and get disappointed by – on match days… Thanks in advance.
Thanks ds, and sorry for the delay. Any ‘drink’ that contains a link goes into the spam queue just in case it is something naughty. Can’t have my readers catching anything here now, can I? Anyway, good stuff. Thanks again.
Great blog ‘Holic.
StuGoon: read the comments stream on Arseblog around when the game starts.
Had many many nice coktails yesterday so I’ll pass the Sunday kicker.
Excellent read ‘holic. Reports of the Cameroon v Togo match are hard to come by. Did Song tear Adebayor a new money slot?
We were Radio Rental in our house
‘holic, don’t you know you can take a screenshot by pressing apple-shift-3?
Sorry to jump on the bandwagon as it where, but would it be possible for you to email me info on where to stream the football from as well please holic? I have failed luck with these things in the past and altho as a season ticket holder i see my share of live games i hate going without when were away from home and not on the box, boy help would be most appricated cheers!
haha that last line should read ANY help would be most appricated my mistake!!
Boy help DaviesH? Try the arseblog arses!
We have such an interesting week coming up. Of course it should be delightful to watch our artists mince Birmingham and the hammers and get closer to the top.
But the real drama is up north. Mugsmashers are facing Sunderland away, Lyon and United home. The almost-bankrupt owners are at each other’s and Benitez’ throat, licking some Saudi’s arse to save them from financial armagideon and now it looks like they will be without Gerrard, Torres and Macherano at Sunderland.
Once they lose, the sharks will circle around Benitez (who won a CL title with Houiller’s team but nothing since while spending as much as United and Chelski on players of dubious quality) and if United manages to win at Anfield (they are really overrated but with their usual refereeing “luck”…) , get ready to witness the descent to hell for the reds. Don’t think they’ll sink as low as Leeds, Charlton or Forest but who knows? Will be entertaining to watch anyway.
So not only we’ll likely win a title this season but it will be the first season in a long time with the gutter press off our back.
Holic?this is my first visit to ur blog?pure class?as good as arseblog
and gunnerblog?if only u can write more~
By the way?can u send me the sites for various matches?
Curious u can watch that Cameroon game~
Thank u all the way