Curious

My LJ entry last night was written from the heart, as soon as Totti had scored and almost before the game was actually over. Then I listened to two separate teams of English commentators, neither of them with any sympathy for Italy (any time Italy win a soccer match, two English journalists get nosebleeds) and at least one of them shamefully pro-Australian; they agreed that the penalty was right, that the Australian player had flung himself into the Italian's so as to force him down whatever he did. The opinion of Alan Shearer, former England captain and one of the finest goalscorers England ever produced, was particularly strong in this regard: if that had happened to him, he implied, he would have expected to get a penalty and regarded himself as cheated if he did not.

Now I have been reading the Italian commentators. They all seem to agree with me that the penalty was "soft", "generous", even dubious. So: all of us, glad though we are to be through, seem to worry about the legitimacy of the penalty; while all the English commentators I heard, rabidly jealous of Italy though they may be, odiously partisan and biased, agree that the penalty was there. I'm not saying that you could not find, in both countries, people who disagree; but that seems to me to be the atmosphere. So, who's right?

All right, so I'm a weenie

I escaped from the Dungeon of Fpb!

I looted the Axe of Mythology, the Crown of Privatemaladict, the Crown of Thepreciouss, the Axe of Noli Me Tangere and 0 gold pieces.

Score: 150

Explore the Dungeon of Fpb and try to beat this score,
or enter your username to generate and explore your own dungeon...

Bear in mind that this is the first time I've gamed in my entire life. As soon as the game inflicted a hit on me, I figured that to get out while the getting was good was a better strategy than to be a dead hero with piles of gold coins and twenty amulets at my feet.

You couldn't make it up dept no.39: the great brothel fiasco

A lot of us have heard how several German authorities, eager to make the expected influx of football fans feel happy and relieve them of the highest possible amount of money, have been expanding the provision of legal prostitution throughout the country. This has roused considerable anger in many places, and indeed seems typical of a certain strand of Prussian insensitivity. However, what is turning out is apparently that not only the expected onrush of passing foreigners has not materialized, but the ordinary flow of regulars has actually diminished, and brothel owners and everyone who relies on them find themselves badly out of pocket. Bars, restaurant and ordinary hotels, on the other hand, are coining it. The German authorities ought not to have given in to the temptation of cheap immoralism; and at least they should have paid attention to all those fans who wore t-shirts featuring "12 reasons why a beer is better than a woman."