At last

I have finally found a curry and wine pairing that goes really well.

I'm quite happy to use 'cheats' in cooking and I can recommend VH Thai Red Curry Sauce in a jar. Just a few pieces of chicken breast, onions, mushroom, whatever you fancy partly cooked and the sauce added to simmer. Very very nice.

The wine was a Rosé;  Beringer Zinfandel. Nothing fancy but a reliable wine so far. It went superbly.

School Proms catching on in the UK

The humble school disco is almost a thing of the past, with an estimated 85% of UK secondary schools now holding a prom during June or July...In reality, many of the proms are relatively low-key dinner and dancing affairs in the school hall but at some, girls in particular feel under pressure to spend hundreds of pounds on the right dress, hair and beauty treatments, stretch limos and professional photography, as well as pre and post Prom parties.
Anger over rising costs has spilled over in parents' forums... "Why have we adopted this American thing?," one asks. "Why are 16-year-olds having a limo? I can't afford money for dresses that will be worn once. I would like to meet the person who first thought a prom was a good idea at a British secondary school and slap them."
"We live in quite a deprived ex-mining town so it's not like my daughter's school isn't already aware there are parents who will be struggling," says another. "Yet for proms, you should see it. Last year a few people arrived by helicopter, I kid you not!"
Others, though, reckon the cost is worth it. "I would spend around £500 on my daughter's prom as a way of treating her for finishing a big part of her education," says one parent. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing and a pretty big deal at that age."

So why not spend it on something like a good holiday then? Something with a more lasting memory and lasts a bit longer than a once worn dress and something that's over in a couple of hours.

Why is it that people with money to burn are the ones without much sense?

Another example

From the same writer as yesterday's comment.

“If your husband is cheating on you, it doesn't mean that you need to get prettier -- it means he's a scumbag.”

Fair comment. But where's the recognition that wives cheat too?

It appears to be a reference to articles about "keeping your man" or "winning him back."

I'm pretty certain that I've seen plenty of articles about how, when a wife cheats, it's because of something she's unsatisfied with "at home".

It may also be the cheating husband may be missing something too, but that tends to be put on the base level of something like a blow job while the wife misses more intellectual stimulation.

Of course, there's some truth to the guy "thinking with his dick" but one can take it too far.

Have we gone back in time?

I've been paying attention to one of the feminist writers in the Guardian lately. It's like being back in the 70s and 80s when you could tell the distaste in some mouths when they utter the word men.

A few weeks ago there was a column about sexist men demeaning women by the way they use their name.

Like most things men call women when they want to diminish them, "Jessie" (rather than Jessica) is meant to remind me that no matter what I accomplish – the number of books written, articles published, speeches given – I'm still "just a girl". But it's the overly-familiar infantilization that really makes my skin crawl. Very creepy Uncle Chester.
As it turns out, it's not just me. Behind every female with an opinion is a man with a sneering nickname for her.
Sophia Wallace, a photographer and feminist artist, tells me, "In professional contexts, I suddenly become 'Sophie' with people who have an issue with me. Usually they think I have exhibited too much leadership and are trying to bring me down."
When I asked Rebecca Traister, a senior editor at the New Republic and author of Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women, about men calling her something other than her name, she responded: "Becky, Becky, Becky." Slate's Amanda Hess gets "Mandy". The Guardian's own Jill Filipovic told me, "Male commenters pretty regularly call me 'Jillly' when they're trying to be condescending."

Now I read this and I thought but women do the same to men too and men to men, women to women.

Of course men are far more likely to be in positions of power over women and there's obviously something wrong in that. But what she's describing is those in power demeaning their subordinates. It's not sexist men. It's not even sexist, if it's negative and all people do it regardless of their sex.

Today, in a column about naming and shaming alleged rapists - those who have not even been through a legal process let alone having been convicted - she was in favour of what amounts to opening the door to vigilantism. Let alone dismissing innocent until found guilty.

The men should have been subject to the law courts not some internal university finding of 'responsibility' allowing the writer to say they were allegedly guilty.

I decided to check back over previous columns. Does this make me a stalker?

Anyway, in a column called Feminists aren't 'man-haters' – we just don't like men who are sexist and in answer to a made up question "Why don't you just say 'I don't like men' and get it over with?"
She says

I don't like men who are sexist. I find that males who think of themselves as above me because of gender are generally unlikeable fellows. (And, for whatever strange reason, are usually terrible spellers, too.) I don't like men who call women they don't know "sweetie", "honey" or cutesy nicknames – it's obnoxious and condescending. I don't like men who harass women on the street, making comments about their bodies or telling them to smile. I don't like men who control women in relationships, abuse them or hurt them sexually. I don't like men who use the social and political power they have to further discrimination against women in a desperate bid to maintain their status.

Of course, to be a journalist, she'll have had a very good education. She should really be above that dig at those less fortunate.

But all of those things are not exclusive to men and their behaviour to women. I've experienced or witnessed all of those things from women towards men.

It's just bad behaviour. By focusing exclusively on bad behaviour only when it comes from one sex really makes it appear as if she is singling out men.

Germaine Greer was never like this.

No bugger's going to read this but

I'm going to say it anyway.

The England Football Team.

Clearly suffering through lack of numbers playing at the top level. I'm not in favour of quotas, I would prefer to see it happen naturally.

But there  is a clear link between so few players - down to about a quarter at the top level now, compared to three quarters when the rest were Scots, Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish - and poorly performing England. It's just not in the simplistic way some see it.

I'm not just talking about results as one can look at 'before' and 'after' and see there's not a huge difference. I'm taking into account the performance on the pitch as well; how impressive did we look? And I don't think the Euros are a fair comparison either. The finals have only come to resemble world cups in terms of size relatively recent. Also the general higher quality of the teams at a Euros can sometimes distort the picture, as in the WC2010 that saw Holland in the final and Italy knocked out at the first stage followed by Italy making the final of Euro 2012 while Holland went out at the first stage losing all their games. A 'good' Euro might simply be a lucky draw and a 'bad' one the reverse, as with Holland and, indeed, the one where England were supposedly in a weak group and the two finalists that tournament were both England's opponents in that group.

The first thing to do is to look at star players and how important they were to the team.

Back in 1982 England went into the WC with injury doubts for Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking. Both major players. Yet without them, we qualified from the first group stage with a 100% record including matches against Czechoslovakia and a star studded France of the Platini, Rocheteau, Giresse era.

Going into WC86 we were all concerned about whether Bryan Robson's shoulder would hold up. It didn't and we lost him in the second game. But we still had good performances, getting through to the knockouts and then the infamous quarter final with Argentina.

For WC 98 the country's fans were rocked with the news that Paul Gascoigne was left out of the squad. But we had other midfielders like McManaman, Beckham, Anderton, Ince, Scholes, Merson. We only made the second round this time - facing Argentina again and another penalty defeat and 10-11 - but we did look good.

Then we come to the 'after' era. WC 2002. We all suddenly know what a metatarsal is as Beckham breaks his toe. The nation is on tenterhooks waiting daily for the latest on how he's recovering. See, there's really no point in us going to the WC if he's not fit. That's the difference compared to the 'before' era. And, ultimately, we disappointed when we couldn't take advantage of playing ten man Brazil and having led the game too.

The whole thing was repeated again for WC 2006 when it was Rooney's broken metatarsal. Once again there was really no point in going if he couldn't recover. We still had Owen for goals, of course, but that was still nothing compared to the plethora of strikers we had in the 90s like Shearer, Sheringham, Ferdinand, Owen, Fowler and all available to choose from.

Of course, as soon as he recovered to actually start a game, Owen was out of the finals with his injury in the first few minutes. We made the quarter finals and again went out on penalties and down to ten men. Again.

But aside from the backs to the wall QF, we were pretty rubbish throughout.

Then there was WC 2010 which I would prefer to forget but it's impossible. We were diabolical. The worst ever.

Now look at the actual squads over the 'before' and 'after' eras. Shilton or Clemence. Seaman or Flowers. Then into the noughties and it's Robinson or....er....and then James (yes, really!) or....

We had that business with Green and Carson when they were asked to step in. And now it's the same with Hart or....er.....


2002 - Danny Mills, Trevor Sinclair, Wayne Bridge, Darius Vassell
2006 - Bridge again, Jermaine Jenas, Stewart Downing, Scott Carson
2010 - James & Green, Michael Dawson, Stephen Warnock, Matthew Upson, SWP.

We never used to have squads padded out with players like that. You'd be hard pushed to find their equivalents in past England squads up to and including the 90s especially several each time.

That's where the difference lies; with more England qualified players available they're not necessarily going to be better or make the England team better, although with more of them the possibility of a real gem increases

But any absences for whatever reason - form loss, injury, suspension - are more likely to be covered by players of a similar ability, just as they used to, with no great loss of performance level.