Isn't Fruit Clever These Days?

The other day, as I was rushing thr(o)u(gh) Grand Central Terminal (which, I can report for the benefit of those who have never visited it, is both grand and central) it occured to me that I was holding in my hands the two central icons of contemporary American culture, or New York culture at least.

(It may surprise you to learn, if it elicits any sort of emotion at all, that The Referee's favo(u)rite US train station - and I know you had been wondering about this - is not the aforementioned GCT, but the splendid Union Station in Washington DC, which, as well as being named after the backing band to marvellous country singer Alison Krauss (check out her version of "Baby, now that I've found you"), is arguably even more grand and indeed central.)

Anyway, back to cultural icons. In my left hand, I was balancing a cup just purchased from ****bucks - the ubiquitous coffee chain, which now has more shops in the US than Americans have teeth, unless I just made that up. Admittedly, I was drinking their tea, as usual, but one has to hang on to some sense of one's homeland. In other words, I like to celebrate diversity, and indeed multiculturalism, whilst doing my best to integrate into my host country, save, of course, for speaking the same language.

In my right hand, I was fondling my new toy. A little device, named after a fruit, which is perhaps the only cultural icon now more numerous than branches of ****bucks. Let's call it a Kumquat.

Well, I can tell you that the Kumquat is a very clever little fruit indeed. It can do all sorts of things which will come as no surprise to those of you who are modern, thrusting techy types. But for a relatively crusty Luddite like me, it is nothing short of a revelation.

For a start, wherever I go since giving birth to my Kumquat, so to speak, my emails - both work and personal - arrive
thr(o)u(gh) the ether and land, literally, in the palm of my hand. Now, you may ask, is this necessarily good, or useful, or important? It's not necessarily any of those things, I answer, but it is very clever and very modern.

And there's more. The Kumquat is also a telephone, and a calculator, and an address book, and a diary. And it plays little games, or at least it would if I could work out how to play them.

But the best thing of all is this. The best thing is, wherever I go, I can "surf" the World Wide Information Steve Heighway using only a small piece of fruit in the palm of my hand, with no wires or nothing. (The previous sentence contains a reference for fans of 1970s assocceration football.)

Being a persistent sort, you ask again: is this necessarily good, or useful, or important? This time, I answer "yes", "yes" and "yes", but not necessarily in that order. Let me explain why, by way of an example.

Having battled thr(o)u(gh) the scrum that is the centre of GCT the other day, balancing a couple of cultural icons in my hands, I made it to the train and settled down for my daily commute thru (OK, I give up) Harlem and the Bronx. As is often the case during the first part of the journey, I gazed out of the window at the delis, delivery trucks, apartment blocks and police cars that make Harlem one of the most fascinating slices of urban life you will ever see. Whilst I was doing this, a thought occured to me which had never before occured to me in Harlem. I wonder how the Palace got on?

Now, for the benefit of those with only a passing acquaintance with the UK of Blighty, I need to point out that I was not wondering about Buckingham Palace. And, for those with slightly more than a passing acquaintance, and/or a subscription to Hello! magazine, I was not wondering about Beckingham Palace either. I was, in fact, wondering about the recent fortunes of Crystal Palace - my formerly local South London assocceration football team about which, it has to be admitted, the terrace favo(u)rite which ends with the words "we're by far the greatest team the world has ever seen" is sometimes sung, but never actually meant.

Anyway, now that I had a portable device designed for this sort of thing, why not find out how they had done, there and then, on the train?

Well. As I passed some kids playing extra-curricular basketball in a Harlem school playground, I learnt that we had won 3-0 against QPR. (Hurrah, I thought - first win in ages.) And as we trundled across the Park Avenue Bridge over the Harlem River, bidding farewell to Manhattan for another day, I read that the scorers had been Freedman, Kuqi & Morrison. And then, as we passed the warehouses and "gentlemen's cabaret" joints that tell the Metro North commuter that he (or she, these days) is entering the Bronx, I learnt that our manager, Peter Taylor, was convinced we could still make the play-offs, despite languishing in 16th place.

At that, I switched off my Kumquat, sat back in my seat, and day-dreamed contentedly about the glorious season that lay ahead for the Palace, all the way to the green and pleasant suburbs of Westchester County.

Now, if that's not multiculturalism, I don't know what is. And if it's not good, useful and important, I'll eat my hat. Or perhaps just my fruit.

Referee in "Referee is Referee" Shocker

Both of my regular readers will no doubt agree that it has been far too long since I shared with you the exploits of my senior son's Assocceration Football team. In fact, since my message of 21 November 2005, his endeavours have earned him a promotion from the Raptors (U10 C team) to the Rams (U11 A team), and so I now enjoy the privilege of spending every Sunday afternoon screaming and shouting from the touchline in the direction of a much higher quality expression of the Beautiful Game.

Until this week. This week, on the last game of the season, I did no shouting or screaming of any sort.

(I should point out - for those who are thinking that the season is not yet halfway thr(o)u(gh), and that there are no prizes for being top at Christmas - that over here the season starts in spring and finishes in the fall/autumn (and the kids have a break in summer as well). This is because it is very cold in winter. No, very cold. And so American footie fans are deprived of the joy of freezing in the stands and trying to warm their hands with a plastic cup of lukewarm tea, while the players are battered with hailstones until they succumb to falling on their behinds in a river of mud. Now that's what I call sport(s).)

Anyway, you are wondering, why did The Referee not get to deliver his usual quota of encouraging screams and shouts, or, indeed, any at all? Thanks for asking. Well, it's because I was the referee. That's right. For reasons too complicated and dull to explain here, the actual referee was nowhere to be seen, and so The Referee was, for the first time ever, the referee.

Now, for those of you who have never actually had the privilege of being the referee, I can report that it is a very interesting experience. So interesting, in fact, that I have decided to share with you, dear reader, the life lessons which I drew from it. May they be enlightening to you and yours.

1. Being impartial is not so far removed from being partial.

Almost from the second one blows one's whistle, one is overcome by the need to be fair and upright, despite screaming in a very partisan manner for one's team just seconds before the whistle string went around one's neck, and again after it is removed. Perhaps this has something to tell us about our ability to adapt to the roles life throws at us. Or perhaps it just tells us something about how far we will go to avoid being lynched by the opposition's parents.

2. Even if one is freezing standing still on the touchline, one can quickly become warm by running around on the pitch.

Actually, I'm not sure there is a deep life lesson in this one. But make sure you keep warm this winter.

3. Not everyone who claims he is having his shirt pulled is actually having his shirt pulled.

This is an easy one - don't assume something is so just because someone tells you it is. Go and look for yourself. In this case, having looked for myself, I saw no shirt pulling and waved play on, much to the disgruntlement of a certain section of parents, who clearly had developed the approach that little Johnny should always be believed, and had perhaps abandoned the discipline of going and looking for themselves.

4. It is better to let the game flow than to blow up every couple of minutes.

This is a bit trickier. Perhaps it tells us that we should stop trying to interfere in other people's lives and let them get on with it. They are adults, after all. Or something.

5. Some small boys are better behaved than their parents, who are loud and annoying.

Perhaps this tells us that things don't necessarily always get worse; sometimes they get better. On the other hand, perhaps it just tells us that some people are loud and annoying. We should also remember that a foul is not a foul unless the referee (who might not necessarily be The Referee, although was in this case) says it's a foul. I hope that's clear. It certainly makes me feel better.

So, I don't know about you, but the next time I go to a game, I will certainly think twice about shouting some helpful advice in the direction of the referee. And then I'll do it anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Pedants' Revolt

An old friend once told me the following joke: "Who was the leader of the Pedants' Revolt? Which Tyler."

I think this is a joke which (or should that be "that"?) separates the population into two groups: those who get it and those who don't. If you don't get it, there is no hope for you. And if you do get it, there is no hope for you either, although for a different reason.

I offer this by way of introduction only because I was reminded again recently of the importance of dull discplines such as punctuation and sentence construction, and not only for those of us who live in non-English-speaking countries. (Just a little joke.)

Before sharing with you the example which got me thinking about this, I should re-iterate (why is it that no one ever iterates for the first time?) that - as explained in my message of 23 April - this is not a political site and has no axe to grind in that direction. Oh no. Despite the apparently political nature of the following example, The Referee's interest has nothing to do with the war on terror and everything to do with the proper use of the English language.

The Referee recently stumbled across the following news headline: "Bush: Sept 11 architect to be tried".

Not a particularly remarkable headline in itself, perhaps, but I couldn't help thinking that there is quite a lot one can do with that sentence just in terms of punctuation, even if the seven words are left untouched.

For example, "Bush, Sept 11: architect to be tried", involves only a couple of minor changes - losing a comma and moving a colon - but creates quite a different headline which might have less to do with terrorism than the President's level of satisfaction with structural changes to the West Wing.

There are, of course, some rather more straightforward changes one could make along the same lines, such as "Bush, Sept 11: architect to be tried?", if it wasn't clear whether the President was satisfied with the work or not.

Or, just by adding a couple of hyphons, "Bush, Sept 11: architect-to-be tried" suggests that the root of the problem might have been that the chap in question was not yet fully qualified.

But the most fun one could have with this - and I suspect you might be ahead of me here - would be "Bush, Sept 11 architect, to be tried". In that case, only three small changes - lose the colon and add a couple of commas - are all that's required to set off a wild conspiracy theory.

If a little comma can change the course of recent history, can we afford to ignore it? I think, not.

The State of Things to Come

Back by popular demand - ie The Referee consulted himself and made a decision in the absence of any dissenting opinion - I am proud to bring you the second in the ground-breaking series, "Things I Learned from Studying My Children's Plastic, Easy-Wipe Place Mats" (see my message of 27 July, or 7/27 as they like to say here).

(You will have noted, I am sure, that the apostrophe in "children's" - ie something belonging to the children - goes before the s, and not after it, as is usually the case with plurals (eg "the boys' waistcoats"). This is, of course, because it is necessary to distinguish between "the boy's waistcoats" - a number of waistcoats belonging to the same boy - and "the boys' waistcoats" - a number of waistcoats belonging to a number of boys. "Children", however, is necessarily a plural, despite the fact that it has no s, and so there is no need to make such a distinction by putting the apostrophe after the s, and so it stays in front. Best to clear that up at the outset, I thought.)

Anyway, a big shout out (whatever that means) to the good people at Painless Learning Placemats - painlesslearning.com - for inspiring this series, the second of which might be sub-titled: "Why is it that some States are more interesting shapes than others"?

I am sure you, like me, will from time to time have spent an idle moment or two staring at a map of the USA and wondering how such different shapes and sizes could possibly have emerged. In particular, I often wonder whether those in the very boring almost-rectangular States are secretly insanely jealous of their neigho(u)rs in the State next door, which is so much more random and, well, wiggly.

Texans, for example, must be intensely proud of the splendid and unfathomable shape of their huge State, particularly the southwestern part which meanders along the Rio Grande and around the corner created by the Gulf of Mexico. And how much more pleased with themselves must Texans be when they look to the north west and see New Mexico - by all accounts a beautiful area - but which is almost entirely rectangular, except for the bit in the south west corner which looks as though the ruler of a small boy drawing a map slipped south a couple of times, and for some reason he didn't have time to erase it and start again, and so New Mexicans will forever have to put up with a funny little step in their south west corner.

And what about Kansas and Nebraska and the Dakotas (North and South)? All periously close to being depressingly rectangular, except for the saving grace of the Missouri River and Minnesota River respectively, which meander along their eastern extremities just enough to make them slightly interesting.

Now, in case you should think I am wittering on incoherently (imagine that!), I should point out that I have, in the interests of research, decided that mere subjective description of the shape of the States is insufficient. And so I have developed a highly scientific and objective method for calculating how interesting or dull the shape of a State is exactly.

Now, you are no doubt thinking, if such a method exists, surely it could be used on other countries and states anywhere in the world? Well, maybe, but let's not run before we can walk.

I have called this measurement the Geographical Interest Index (GII). The GII of a State can be measured by calculating the proportion of its borderline which is defined by rivers, coastlines or is otherwise natural and wiggly-looking, minus that proportion of its borderline which has clearly just been drawn on a map by someone with a pencil and a ruler.

Well, the results are very interesting. What a statistician might call the median State - with a score of precisely 0 - is the lovely State of Oregon up in the Pacific Northwest - which scores 0 because the percentage of interesting borderline is exactly matched by boring straight lines. (I hope you're following this.)

Just to the south, the great State of California scores a surprisingly poor -4, since its lovely coastline is more than matched by the horrible straight lines someone decided to draw inland in order to ensure that neighbo(u)ring Nevada (which scores a shocking -90) goes round a 140 degree corner.

A special mention should be made of Idaho which, despite scoring a rather modest 2, manages an attractive narrowing towards its Canadian border which serves to draw the eye away from the hopelessly square bit at the bottom.

But, without further ado, joint last place goes to Colorado and Wyoming, both of which manage the lowest-possible GII score of -100 - in other words, not one yard of the border is the slightest bit natural or wiggly - all of it is shamelessly drawn by a cartographer with something of a right-brain creativity deficit.

And, finally, congratulations to the marvellous State of Michigan, nestling as it does between the Great Lakes, which scores an unbeatable 76, thanks in large part to being defined by lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron, which are, without exception, commendably wiggly.

So Good They Named It Thrice

Regular readers, if there were any, might find this difficult to believe, but The Referee was recently told by a colleague that he is a "geography anorak". All I had done to deserve such a compliment was to point out, during a conversation back in Blighty about what a nice day it was, that it was in fact the warmest September day since 1940-something. Which happened to be true.

(Which reminds me, those who are unsure about all this climate change fuss should ask themselves why it is that every weather record you can think of has been beaten within the last five minutes.)

If I have established this reputation, deserved or not, I thought, I may as well dine out on it for a while. And so I offer the following local anorakism which I thought you might enjoy. And even if you don't, I'll enjoy telling it.

You will no doubt be familiar with the old Gerard Kenny song, "New York, New York", in which we learn that my adopted city is named twice because of its inherent qualities, rather than the actual reason, which is of course that New York is the name of both the city and the (roughly) triangular state in which it nestles - in the southernmost corner, to be precise.

You might also know that New York city comprises five boroughs - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. (A brief aside - is it just me, or does your blood also boil when you see or hear the phrase "comprises of"?. For those who can't see what's wrong with this, please pay attention: the word "comprise" means "consist of". There is already an "of" built in. Please don't feel the need to add another one.)

Anyway, what readers outside of the Big Apple might not know is that the five borough names listed above are in fact only informal nicknames. This is because the five boroughs of NYC are formally counties of NY state, and have official county names to go along with that status.

Now, in a couple of cases, this does not amount to a great deal to write home about - the official name of the Bronx is Bronx County and Queens is formally known as Queens County. But - try to contain your excitement if you can - in the other cases it's not quite that simple. Brooklyn is more properly known as Kings County, and - keep this under your hat for next time you find yourself at a pub quiz - Staten Island is actually called Richmond County.

Which brings me to the bombshell that Manhattan is in fact called - and I expect you're ahead of me here - New York County. Oh yes.

So, when you're next strolling thr(o)u(gh) Greenwich Village, lacing daisies into the hair of your beloved as you dodge the splash of rainwater caused by the trundle of an early morning delivery truck thr(o)u(gh) an overnight puddle, as I often do, don't forget that you're strolling thr(o)u(gh) New York County, which is one of the five boroughs of New York City, which nestles in the southernmost corner of New York State.

So good they named it thrice.

Get Me POTUS On The Line

Fans of the West Wing (that's everyone, I assume) will remember that the original pilot episode contains a string of difficult and embarrassing situations for Sam, the White House deputy communications adviser (played by Rob Lowe). The most difficult and embarrassing is that he spends the night with a woman whom he discovers only the next day is what he euphemistically describes as a "high-priced call-girl". He makes this discovery because, after their tryst (whatever that means), they each inadvertently leave with the other's pager. During the next day, Sam receives a number of interesting and surprising requests, whilst his new girlfriend receives a number of mysterious messages from "POTUS". She takes this to be a friend with an unusual name, until Sam points out that the messages are from the President of the United States.

As my regular reader(s) will be aware, The Referee sees part of his mission to be painstaking research on aspects of American culture, such that you, dear reader, are able to benefit from my travails without the trouble of having to put in any effort. Now, I would like you to think that this involves me pouring for days over historical tomes in the Smithsonian library, but that is not always the case. In fact, it's never the case.

This occasion is no exception. In this message, I am proud to bring you the summarised highlights of what I have been able to glean from one of my children's plastic, easy-wipe place-mats, entitled "Presidents of the United States of America".

Firstly, although we are currently enjoying/experiencing/enduring (delete as applicable) the tenure of the 43rd POTUS, the current President is in fact only the 42nd person (by which I mean "white bloke") to have held the office. That is because Grover Cleveland (a Democrat and later a '70s soul singer) was President on two separate occasions: 1885-89 and 1893-97, separated by a stint from Benjamin Harrison (Republican).

Coincidentally, Cleveland and Harrison both appear in perhaps the most historically significant sub-category: serving Presidents who sported facial hair. A number of Presidents deserve an honourable mention on this point, but the most salient facts are perhaps the following:

* shamefully, it has been almost a century since we have been blessed with a President who displayed any facial hair whatsoever - well done to William H Taft (R) (1909-1913);

* before Taft, citizens of the USA enjoyed an unprecedented 40 year period in which all Presidents were facially hirsute - back to and including the splendidly-named Ulysses S Grant (R) (1869-77) - with the disappointing exception of the hopelessly clean-shaven William McKinley (R) (1897-1901);

* before Grant, the only incidence of Presidential facial hair was thanks to the one-and-only Abraham Lincoln (R) (1861-65), who was famously the only President ever to sport a beard without a moustache; although an honourable mention should be made of Martin Van Buren (D) (1837-41) who sported flamboyant and unruly sideburns;

* only five Presidents have sported full beard & moustache combinations: Grant, Harrison, Rutherford B Hayes (R) (1877-81), James A Garfield (R) (1881), and Chester A Arthur (R) (1881-85) - although it should be noted that Arthur's was one of those beards that is all edge and no middle, and therefore the purist might prefer to assign him to a separate list all his own;

* only three Presidents have favoured a solo moustache: Cleveland, Taft and Theodore Roosevelt (R) (1901-09).

In case you are looking for some political significance here, and heaven knows why you wouldn't be, it should be noted that, of the nine Presidents to have sported some sort of facial hair (not including Van Buren's sideburns), eight have been Republicans - well done once again to the marvellous Mr Cleveland, the only Democrat of the bunch.

On matters hirsute of a more general nature, there is not a great deal to write home about, except for the admirable James K Polk (D) (1845-49), who favoured what fans of 1980s British football would describe as a "mullet". With some regret I have to report that there has never been a completely bald Leader of the Free World, although the consecutive pairing of Harry S Truman (D) (1945-53) and Dwight D Eisenhower (R) (1953-61) at least made a nod in that direction, so to speak.

The only other President who made any serious effort to lose his hair whilst in office was John Quincy Adams (1825-29), whose father was the second President, John Adams (1797-1801), and who therefore shares with the current President the distinction of keeping it in the family.

On a more serious note, four Presidents died in office of natural causes - William H Harrison (Whig) (1841), Zachary Taylor (Whig) (1849-50), Warren G Harding (R) (1921-23) and Franklin D Roosevelt (D) (1933-45). Harrison (whose designation as "Whig" has nothing to do with his slightly dubious comb-over) has the distinction of being the shortest-serving President ever, at a rather minimalistic one month. That makes 1841 one of only two years ever to see as many as three serving Presidents: Van Buren, Harrison and John Tyler (Whig) (1841-45); the other being 1881 (Hayes, Garfield and Arthur).

The splendid and grandfatherly FDR - forever immortalised by an ugly and permanently-congested dual carriageway running down the east side of Manhattan - shares with Benjamin Harrison and Lyndon B Johnson (D) (1963-69) the distinction of sharing the surname of a former President without having been his son.

Four Presidents were assassinated: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and, of course, John F Kennedy (D) (1961-63), who, like the second Roosevelt, has the distinction of being immortalised in a somewhat inappropriate transportation landmark - in his case, New York's largest and most-infuriatingly congested airport.

Only one President has ever resigned: Richard M Nixon (R) (1969-74), who fell on his sword after testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing steroid.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly of all, only one POTUS shares his name with a former Crystal Palace striker sold to Everton this summer for GBP 8.6M - step forward Andrew Johnson (D) (1865-69).

I don't know about your hopes for November 2008, but personally I'm holding out for Hillary v Condi. At least we wouldn't have to worry about the facial hair.

Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Converted A Penalty

No hope, no harm, just another false alarm.
Last night I felt the semi-finals around me.
No hope, no harm, just another false alarm.
So tell me how long, before the next one?
And tell me how long, before the right one?
This story is old, I know, but it goes on.
And on.

With apologies to Mr S Morrisey, another ignominious loss to Portugal on penalties at the quarter-final stage is not exactly what The Referee had predicted (see my message of 15 June). Nevertheless, that prediction was based on empirical scientific evidence, and you can't say fairer than that. Needless to say, I will be going back to the proverbial drawing-board to check my calculations.

In the meantime, a thought: if we lose to Portugal on penalties in the quarter-finals for a third time, do we get to keep the wooden spoon?

Whilst you're pondering that, I am pleased to report that US interest in the World Cup of Association Football, at least in the NY area, appears not to have been dented in the slightest by Team USA's early exit, which was hastened considerably by the penalty kick awarded to Ghana on the basis that the USA's new promising central defender, Oguchi "Gooch" Onyewu, was apparently guilty of being tall and well-built in the penalty area.

On the contrary, most locals that I speak to about such things appear to have been "rooting", as they like to say here, for other teams as well as their own. I have been pleasantly surprised to note that England has often been the favoured choice of second team (and sometimes first team), particularly since we are "celebrating" independence this week.

In case you are finding that concept difficult to grasp, I can tell you that, over the weekend, not one, not two, but around half a dozen of our American friends and neighbo(u)rs sought me out in order to say variously that they were (i) sorry that England had been eliminated, or (ii) disgruntled with penalty shoot-outs (or should that be "shoots-out"?) in general terms, or (iii) not particularly enamoured with the sort of sportsmanship that involves running halfway across the pitch in order to point out to the referee (rather than The Referee) that an opponent really might appreciate a brief glimpse of the redder of his two cards.

In defence of our Portuguese friends, and in a spirit of fairness, I felt obliged to explain that, in "soccer", it is not generally considered appropriate to stamp on the delicate parts of one's opponents, whilst accepting that in "football" it is considered almost essential.

Having agreed on that balanced approach to things, my American friends have largely been content to return to more important matters, such as following the Mets v Yankees weekend series, or organising the 4 July fireworks.

How long, indeed.

Sporting Math

Americanisms are so infuriatingly inconsistent, at least in the logic department.

For example, "sports" is so much more logical than "sport", since there are of course more than one of them. On the other hand, "math", in the singular, is a rather poor abbreviation of "mathematics", which is clearly plural, and therefore the Britishism "maths" has it. At least according to the Referee. And he is, after all, the Referee.

To its credit, the US media - if not its people - is making a good effort to become caught up in World Cup fever. Following the opening-match 3-0 humbling of Team USA by the Czech Republic (in which I take no pleasure at all, absolutely none), there has been an outpouring of outrage and disappointment which is all too familiar to those of us who have been England fans at any time in the past 40 years.

The New York Times astutely pointed out this week that that outpouring is the most important thing to have happened to US soccer in a long time. In other words, although the performance was poor, the public angst with which it was greeted can be taken as a sign that Association Football might just be starting to matter here, at least at the national level.

It is often said that, given 20 years or so, the omnipresence of well-organised soccer at youth level here will come to fruition and the US will lead the world. I don't buy this, as they like to say over here. Were people not making the same point 20 years ago?

The lack of US dominance at national level - to which it is accustomed in so many other sports - is not because they are not doing enough to develop young talent (they are probably doing more of that than any other country in the world), but because Association Football has not mattered here. And, because it hasn't mattered, talented kids drift away in their teens to play "football", baseball or basketball instead.

If they start to care here - if the beautiful game becomes "much more important" than life and death, as Bill Shankly put it - the rest of the world will have to watch out.

In the meantime, a word about England. Whilst my fellow countrymen are working themselves into a lather about our boys' rather pedestrian performances to date, they might not have noticed a fascinating and statistically significant pattern, which I share with you now, at no additional charge.

England won their first game 1-0. They won their second game 2-0. Can you see the pattern yet?

Given that there are a maximum of seven games at the finals, I hereby confidently - and scientifically - predict that England will win the World Cup Final 7-0.

You heard it here first.

Too Much Monky Business

I don't know about you, but the Referee finds that there are, from time to time, things which one feels compelled to do which one nevertheless senses one will regret, but that, despite this, one does, and regrets. This message may be one of those things.

Last week a new film opened here - and everywhere else, I shouldn't be surprised - which seems to be causing disproportionate fuss, not to mention nonsense. I haven't seen this film, nor have I read the book on which it is based. I have no plans to do either. I am therefore in absolutely no position to summarise its plot. So here goes.

A monk - let's call him Brother Sven - is murdered. In the process of investigating this murder, it is discovered that a murky religious society - let's call it the Association Football Association - is preserving an amazing secret. The secret is that Our Lord - let's call him Wayne - didn't meet His end in quite the way described in scripture. In fact, he didn't break his metatarsal at all. Rather, in a mysterious bid to avoid spending the summer in Germany, he faked a broken bone and sneaked off with Coleen to a secret beach location - let's call it Fuengirola. These facts are hidden from the faithful for generations, for fear of sparking chaos and unrest.

Now, some people have got worked up about this story. Some people in the US - including people who know as much about the film and book as I do - have been out on the streets protesting about its blasphemous contents. Other people have gathered together to produce other books and documentary films, now showing on US television, aimed at proving that the book and film in question - both self-declared works of fiction - are nothing more than works of fiction.

The question is: why does anyone feel the need to do this? I don't mean, why does anyone feel the need to disagree with something that they disagree with? I mean, why does any self-respecting person of faith feel the need to put time and energy into earnestly battling with an English bloke in polo neck sweaters who's done quite nicely with a novel, and a balding American chap who used to be in Happy Days and has now made a film of the book? Are these two the sort of folk St Paul had in mind when he exhorted the Ephesians to struggle against the "principalities and powers of this dark world"? I rather think not.

Now, don't get me wrong. The Referee is himself, or at least attempts to be, a person of faith. He is most certainly not a person standing outside, doing something inappropriate into the proverbial tent. He is most assuredly inside the tent, but sometimes bemused about the behaviour of some of his fellow campers.

Think of it this way. Those of us inside the tent consider ourselves to be followers of someone who is - in the final analysis - the Supreme Being. We believe He created us, and everyone else, and the entire universe (although don't get me started on how precisely He might have done it). We believe He is all-knowing and all-powerful (I know there are fancy words for those two, but I can't remember what they are).

Those of you outside the tent may not believe in such a Being, but at least you believe that we do, and that we believe we're following Him, and that will do for the purposes of the next bit of logic.

So, when someone writes a book, fiction or otherwise, or makes a film, which suggests, directly or otherwise, that things might not be quite how we campers believe them to be, do you suppose for one moment that the Supreme Being and Creator of the Universe is quaking in his heavenly boots? Do you suppose He (or She, ladies!) is cowering behind a cloud, wishing that that troublesome English bloke in the polo necks would go away and bully some other celestial beings? Do you suppose He is concerned that this little novel might surpass His own debut work as best-selling book in the history of the world? Do you suppose He is desperately hoping that we campers will protect Him from all this slander by painting up some signs and hanging around in front of the local cinema?

I rather think not. I rather think He might instead prefer the approach taken by Oscar Wilde, when he famously said: "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about".

Or, in the more recent and perhaps slightly less eloquent words of the President of the United States: "Bring 'em on".

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Some of you reading this - how I love to pretend my readers are in the plural! - are, like the Referee, both male and English. You know who you are. Anyone fitting this description should turn away at this point. In fact, one might almost say that reader discretion is advised. Except that that wouldn't make any sense.

A riddle. I am cut short if it rains, and I always stop for tea. What am I?

The church fete? No. The annual outing of the Mothers' Union? Wrong again. Cricket. (See, I warned you.)

Cricket is dull. There's no two ways about it. Dull, dull, dull.

My gender and my nationality, when taken together, suggest that I should be first in the queue (or line, as they insist on saying over here) when it comes to drinking warm beer, wearing a floppy sun hat and discussing the finer points of the Duckworth-Lewis method. But somehow, I just don't get it.

(By the way - two cricket fans in the pavilion. One says, "So, do you really understand the Duckworth-Lewis method?" The other replies, "Well I thought I did. But Vanessa got pregnant anyway".)

I realise that this will make me something of a pariah as far as many of my fellow countrymen are concerned. To them, I can only apologise.

To make things even worse, I have for many years harboured a secret regard for baseball. Long before our move over here was even a twinkle in my employer's eye (or something), I could occasionally be found staring at Channel 4 at 2am, trying to follow the mysterious statistics being measured during a passionate clash between the Cardinals and the Astros.

But I wasn't an instant convert. At first, I couldn't work out why I was fascinated by a bunch of fat blokes in baby suits playing rounders. But fascinated I was. Perhaps it was the lightning-fast fielding; perhaps it was the explosive power of the home run; perhaps it was the unfathomable terminology. Yes, I know that cricket has the equivalent of all these things - but it's still very dull.

Last week, for the first time since moving over here, I took my kids (and visiting father) to the legendary Yankee stadium. New York Yankees v Oakland Athletics. A tight and fascinating game, which the Yankees won 2-0, thanks to home runs from Rodriguez and Williams, and some brilliant pitching by Wang. The atmosphere was astonishing - particularly in the 5th inning when Johnny Damon came up to bat with the bases loaded - despite a damp evening and a relatively thin crowd of 47,000.

This - and the fact that baseball is known here as the "national pastime" - got me thinking. Sitting in the crowd, I came to the conclusion that cricket - despite all the similarities - is the wrong comparator. The place that baseball holds in American hearts makes it much closer to football (Asocceration football, that is), seen from a European point of view.

I have long had a theory that everything a visitor needs to know about Blighty can be picked up by sitting in the crowd at a football match. Foul-mouthed blokes with tattoos; women and children left indoors; cold, damp weather; dry, self-deprecating humour; suspicion of outsiders; cold meat pies. I rest my case. (Now, don't get me wrong - I love the homeland dearly. But, if you think any of the football staples mentioned here doesn't have a resonance with wider British society, you'll have to tell me which it is.)

Perhaps the same was true of baseball. Was it possible, I wondered, to get to the essence of America by sitting in the Yankee stadium? Well, it's early days in the development of this new theory, but the initial results are encouraging. Communal singing of the Stars and Stripes; prayer for the troops; communal singing of God Bless America; top-notch hot dogs; giant, flashing signs; three strikes and you're out.

You know it makes sense.

Reader Discretion Advised

It's very difficult to watch American TV.

No, hang on a minute. There's supposed to be a bit more to that sentence.

It's very difficult to watch American TV for long, these days, I find, without coming across the phrase "Viewer discretion advised". Very often, when the upcoming program(me) is going to be a bit racy, and just as often when it's not going to be racy in the slightest, TV stations over here are apparently obliged to announce, or display, or both, the mangled and dehydrated phrase "Viewer discretion advised". Just add water to get a sentence in English.

Now, I don't want to blind you with grammar, so to speak, but pause for a moment, if you will, and see if you can work out what that sentence actually means. I don't mean whether you get the gist of it. The gist is simple enough: "You are about to watch something with racy bits (except that you're probably not). There, you have been warned. If the racy bits upset you, please don't ask your lawyer to write a letter of complaint to our lawyer. If you do, our lawyer will write back to your lawyer pointing out that the offending program(me) was preceded by the magic words "viewer discretion advised". No, we don't know what it means either, but there it is."

In trying to get to the bottom of what these magic words actually mean - on your behalf, dear reader - I have consulted not one but two dictionaries: the Oxford English Dictionary (on the assumption - perhaps slightly hasty - that the base language we are dealing with is English) and the Webster's New World Dictionary (to ensure that I didn't miss any local subtleties or Americanisms).

The good news is that, on this occasion at least, we are indeed divided by a common language, in the sense that both dictionaries led me to the same conclusion, which is as follows. The word "discretion" is a noun which relates to the adjectives "discreet" (careful, prudent) and "discrete" (separate, autonomous). In the former sense, it is commonly used to mean judgement. The "viewer" is the object of the sentence - ie the person who may nor may not be about to watch something racy. And "advised" is the closest this phrase comes to a verb.

If you buy this, as they like to say over here, then the magic words must have one or more of the following meanings:

1. You are about to watch something a bit racy. We therefore suggest that you don't mention this program(me) to anyone else, unless it's strictly necessary.

2. You are about to watch something a bit racy. We therefore suggest that you don't sit near to any other viewers.

3. You are about to watch something a bit racy. Unless you decide not to watch it.

So there we are. I'm glad to have been able to clear that up.

The Referee, at your service.

Poop Government

Let me be absolutely clear about something: this is not a political site. It does not do politics. You may have imagined the odd pseudo-political comment buried in one or two of the messages here. But that was just your imagination. Perhaps you are the sort of person who imagines things. I don't know.

Having got that of his chest, the Referee is free to share the following message without fear of being misinterpreted.

I find that New Yorkers know quite a lot of things about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as I like to refer to it, or the UK of Blighty, as it is more formally known. One of the things they know is that it rains a lot over there, and in any case a lot more than it rains here.

This turns out not to be true. In fact, delving into the language of the great Eric Olthwaite only very briefly, if I may, the average annual rainfall in NYC, at 1,124mm, is almost twice that in London (611mm). But, as residents of the UK know only too well, those millimeters are spread nicely through the year - about 2 every day - with a couple of days off in the middle of the year, which we Brits like to call "the summer". In New York, however, most of the annual millimeters fall on the same weekend.

We just had that weekend. It rained heavily and constantly for two days and nights. Everything was cancelled, even Asocceration Football. (Americans do not appreciate - yet - that part of the joy of the "beautiful game" is standing under a corrugated iron roof eating a cold meat pie in the pouring rain while blokes in long shorts slide around in pools of mud.)

As a result, we had nothing to do. My two sons decided to spend Saturday afternoon watching what they now insist on calling a "movie".

Now, at this point, some of you - as though the readership of this site could properly be described in the plural - will be bemoaning my lack of parenting skills. You will be saying to yourselves something along the lines of "Well, when my children were young, they were never allowed to watch TV on a Saturday afternoon. Oh no. In my day, when it rained at the weekend, we amused ourselves with parlour games or teaching the children to speak Cantonese". To those people, I can only apologise. In our house, if there's nothing to do and the kids want to watch a film, they watch a film. Sorry.

Anyway, as my two sons were settling down in front of the TV, I overheard an animated debate about the certificate which the film had been given - apparently displayed on the screen as "PG". They were discussing whether this meant that they would be allowed to watch it in the cinema or not.

In a spirit of helpfulness, and because I thought it might assist in keeping the noise down a bit, I asked whether they knew what the initials "PG" stood for. As quick as a flash, and with a confident grin, my younger son - 7 years old - announced: "Poop government".

I have no idea what he meant by this. Being a 7 year old boy, of course, he would not discuss it any further. But his confident air in announcing this phrase made me think I must be missing something.

So, being a 21st century kind of chap, I Googled it. Not just "poop" and "government", but the precise phrase "poop government". Nothing. Not an episode of Spongebob. Not a new kind of Pop Tart.

Of course, if you were to Google it now, you would get something. You would get me going on about the fact that, when you Google it, you don't get anything. Google is funny like that.

And so my new favo(u)rite phrase remains a mystery. As they like to say over here, "Go figure".

An Ode to Upstate New York

I really wanna wander
Through the streets of Tonawanda.

A Tisket, a Tasket, a Green and Yellow Basket

For the sake of clarity, I want to start by saying that I am, in general terms, an enthusiast when it comes to sport, or sports, as they like to say here. Given that there are indeed more than one of them, I suppose the plural has it. Or has them, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, for the last couple of weeks much of this fair land has been gripped by the final stages of the NCAA men's basketball competition. My in-depth investigation - on your behalf, you understand - suggests that that stands for National Collegiate Athletics Association. That's right - the newspapers and airwaves have been whipped into a frenzy about - wait for it - college basketball.

In a recent chat about sport(s) - (what else is there for men of a certain age to talk about?) - one of our neighbo(u)rs asked me about the state of the college scene in the UK. How was college basketball, for instance? I pointed out that, whilst there may well be some college students playing basketball (and all sorts of other things) in the UK, it got no media coverage at all, because no one was interested.

He looked at me as though I had said something quite inappropriate about his mother. Which I had not. I don't even know the woman. So let's just leave it there, shall we?

Anyway, in case you think I am unjustly persecuting keen young students who are lucky enough to have their PE lessons televised, there is more to it than that.

Because, you see, CBS has been so accommodating of these important sporting events that it has actually - whisper it - moved "The Late Show with David Letterman" back in the schedules. Which is almost like saying something inappropriate about MY mother. For those of us who have reached the prime of life (see my message of 18 March), staying up 'til 11:30pm is bad enough; but 12:30am is out of the question. And so I have been temporarily deprived of my favo(u)rite program(me).

Now, you should know that the David Letterman show is very funny. I make this rather basic point only because my wife does not see it quite the same way. She thinks he is a lecherous old millionaire who reads out other people's mediocre one-liners. Maybe so, goes my retort, but he's still very funny. (You will infer from this that I am a first-rate debater.)

The show is so funny partly because it's always the same: Dave does topical monologue; Daves indulges in comedy banter with Paul Shaffer (his musical director); Dave gets the audience to do something stupid and/or reads out a comedy Top Ten list of something topical; Guest #1 (doesn't get much of a word in); Guest #2 (ditto); band (usually loud). End. Bingo. I don't mean that Dave actually....oh, never mind.

Now, in order to give the impression that we are living a showbiz lifestyle over here, I should mention that we were recently at a party and in the middle of the evening I realised that I was standing next to the one and only Mr Paul Shaffer. I thought briefly about having a chat and then decided against it.

On the way home, I pointed this out to my wife, who hadn't spotted him. "You should have introduced us", she said, "I would have told him that his show isn't very funny".

It's enough to drive one out into the yard to shoot some hoops. Whatever that means.

Big Bang and Fries, Please

The Referee has recently experienced what might euphemistically be called a "significant" birthday.

In the context of birthdays, "significant" usually means (i) that the second digit is zero, and/or (ii) that the first digit is quite large. In my case, both of these apply.

Now, I don't know about you, but in my experience of birthdays where the second digit is a 0, the first digit tends to be a 3 or, on one occasion I can still remember, even a 2. So when it is a larger number than either of these, one is entitled to be a little surprised, not to mention concerned.

But, as I was on the verge of becoming anxious about this situation, the good old New York Times came to the rescue.

This week, the Times reports that astronomers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, have come a step closer to proving what happened in the first trillionth of a second after time began.

As these experts estimate that the universe has been around for something in the region of 13.7 billion years, one could be forgiven for thinking that the odd second, let alone a trillionth of a second, was neither here nor there. Apparently not so.

The news is that there is fresh evidence to support the theory of "inflation" - ie, in the lovely words of the Times, that, in the first trillionth of a second following the Big Bang, the universe grew "from submicroscopic to astronomical size in the blink of an eye".

The journalist rather understates his case by comparing this to "the kind of growth spurt that would alarm any mom or dad". I should say so. You would hardly have time to take your receipts back to Mothercare before junior's waistline had to be measured in light years.

Now, I don't pretend to understand the science of how they work these things out, but apparently it involves mapping microwaves (the waves, not the ovens) in order to build a picture of what our 13.7 billion-year-old universe looked like after a mere 380,000 years, which provides clues as to what was going on even earlier than that.

One of the conclusions of this technique is that the first stars probably didn't start shining until 400 million years after the Big Bang. This is apparently something of a relief to many astronomers, who had been concerned that the previous estimate of 200 million years was "surprisingly early".

Enough to make you feel young, isn't it?

Who Will Rid Me of this Turbulent Mouse?

In case you don't do so already, I strongly recommend keeping an up-to-date mental list of things and places to avoid.

I have found this to be a very useful technique because, without such a list immediately to hand, or mind, one can easily be swept by circumstances into a situation in which one realises too late why it was that the thing in question was on the list which one has failed to keep to hand, or mind. I hope that's clear so far.

By way of illustration, the top three things on my list, in no particular order, are currently:

(i) hospitals, or any other facility in which medical things are likely to happen;
(ii) nightclubs, or other similar venues in which I am likely to feel insufficiently young and/or trendy (increasingly both);
(iii) theme parks, and any similar attractions at which having "fun" is mandatory.

Well, with the exception of a brief accidental appearance at a trendy downtown Manhattan nightclub - which didn't really count because I left at 9:30, having remembered why I hate nightclubs so much - I had done pretty well at avoiding those places on my list whilst in the US. Until last week.

Last week, I finally caved in to pressure from the rest of the family that we couldn't reasonably live in the US for any period without trying the quintessential American holiday/vacation experience - ie spending a few days at Walt Disney World in Florida. I gave in strictly on the basis, you understand, that this was a one-off experience and it would be best to get it over with (like having your wisdom teeth taken out or getting a vasectomy - see (i) above).

Well, I learned a lot last week, including about my tolerance to take-away pizza. But a more interesting thing I learned is that WDW covers roughly the same area as Rhode Island. That's right - the property owned by WD in Florida is as large as the smallest of the USA's fifty states.

I also discovered that most of the attractions at WDW are constructed from one of two key Disney components - plastic and cheese. Occasionally these two elements occur together, although usually only in the fast-food outlets.

To be fair, most of the attractions are well presented and we found something enjoyable in most of the several theme parks. Having said that, I wouldn't recommend the "Magic Blingdom" - I don't know about you, but watching people drive around in BMWs showing off their jewellery is not my idea of a good day out.

But, being serious for a moment, if I may - consider this. WDW is the largest theme park in the world. It is located in the sunniest and most visited state of the richest country in the world. Each year it welcomes hundreds of thousands of well-heeled visitors, most of whom are Americans, but who also come from every corner of the world. Relatively few of them are people from the north of England wearing football shirts.

This being the case, WDW is in an enormously powerful position in terms of advertising and endorsements. Whoever Disney decides to get in to bed with, so to speak, is going to do very nicely. From my recent highly scientific survey, I can tell you that the two leading organisations benefitting from a conspicuous on-site presence at WDW are Coca-Cola and McDonald's. This is hardly a surprise, particularly to anyone who has tried to eat the food, but it shows a distinct lack of imagination.

Supposing someone high up at Disney decided to do something creative and daring. Supposing they decided, for example, to endorse fairly-traded coffee. Supposing WDW decreed that only fairly-traded coffee was going to be sold across its enormous estate of hotels and theme parks, and supposing it advertised to its hundreds of thousands of visitors what is was doing and why. I can't begin to put any numbers on it, but it's safe to say that the impact on the economic fortunes of independent farmers in South and Central America would be significant.

Is anything along these lines likely to happen soon? Not a mouse in hell's chance.

Do You Want Ice With That?

And so we have seen off another Winter Olympics, or "nationalism on ice" as the New York Times put it last week.

Of course, it's all about the taking part, not the winning. But those of us who are a little partial to winning now and again can't help noticing that Team GB (which should obviously be Team UK, but let's leave that for another time) ended with a single (silver) medal in the women's Skeleton. I don't want for a minute to diss (as young folks say these days) the brilliant achievement of Shelley Rudman, but the fact of the matter is that the British sporting history books will remember her medal principally for its lack of company.

In case you hadn't spotted this already, one silver medal put us in joint 21st place in the medal table, alongside Belarus, Bulgaria and Slovakia. Despite that, the post-Games quote from the head of the British Olympic team, as reported by the BBC, was: "Overall, we are delighted. But we need to scratch below the surface of the medals table. There is no place for complacency". How precisely, I wonder, does one scratch below the surface of a solitary medal?

In stark contrast, the US team performance - 2nd place overall with 25 medals in total, 9 of them gold - has received a mixed reception here. The American approach is to expect to win and not to settle for anything else.

OK, it's not exactly a level playing field to compare Team GB/UK with Team USA. But is there any reason why we shouldn't compare ourselves with near neighbours of a similar size, such as France and the Netherlands? They finished in joint tenth with 9 medals each, 3 of which were gold.

In discussing this with my kids at the weekend, they wanted to know what the Skeleton was exactly. Once I had fed them with the idea of sliding down the bobsleigh track on something like a tea tray, they suggested that it might be more interesting if the competitors actually had to make tea at the top of the course (see my message of 18 February), and then scored points for the amount of tea that remained un-spilled on arrival at the bottom. There, I thought, was an event where the UK could hit gold.

That led me to wondering whether our chances could be improved by other tweaks to the make-up of the events. For example, the Biathlon (cross-country skiing and shooting) might be problematic, but what about the Unathlon, in which we could do just one event that we were good at, such as curling? On second thoughts, that would just be curling, wouldn't it?

Better still, then, how about Unathlon Freestyle, in which each country could choose a different event and compete against the others doing what it was best at? OK, the scoring would be rather tricky. But we could send David Beckham to represent Team UK in the ancient winter discipline of taking free kicks from just outside the penalty area. On ice, of course.

The Only Teapot in North America

To misquote entirely the great Daffyd Thomas: "Mine is the only teapot in the village". In fact, it may be worse than that. It may be that mine is the only teapot in North America.

In the six months I have now lived in the US, I have seen only one teapot, and it's the one that sailed across the Atlantic with the rest of our belongings a few weeks before we arrived.

Now, you might think that it doesn't really matter how many teapots there are in North America. You might think that it's perfectly acceptable for the world's only superpower to be populated by non-tea drinkers, or at best people who think making tea involves dangling a tiny bag of Lipton's Yellow Label on the end of a string in the vicinity of a cup of hot water. Shame on you.

Consider this. The very existence of this country as an independent entity, the very gathering together of the collection of states which remains by far the most influential nation on the planet, was of course instigated by an argument with the British - about tea. Every American school child learns the story, and knows how it sparked a chain of events which led to the War of Independence. Why, then, do none of them have any idea how to make tea, or how to drink it?

Lest you think I'm exaggerating, a couple of examples from my highly scientific survery conducted over the past six months.

Whenever one asks for "tea" or, heaven forbid, "a cup of tea" from someone in the beverage service industry here, I can guarantee you that there will only be one of two reactions. The first is "Huh?", in which case one repeats the question until one arrives at the second possible reaction, which is "Hot tea"?

Now, I can't tell you how many times I've longed to say: "No, I'd like you to make it with stone-cold water, please, because I'm going to warm it up later by straining it numerous times through my rancid socks".

Needless to say, I don't say that. I say something more along the lines of "Yes, hot tea, please".

OK, I know there is such a thing as iced tea. But that's not the same thing as "'tea", is it? If I wanted iced tea, which I sometimes do, I'd ask for it by name.

Example number two requires me to brief against myself, as political types say. My wife claims to have spotted a second teapot in North America. But, in mitigation, I would point out that (i) I didn't see it myself, so it might not be true, & (ii) it was apparently a small Chinese type of pot, therefore not really the same thing.

Anyway, the mother of one of the classmates of one of my children invited my wife round for "tea". She had clearly gone out of her way to think about the invitation, including by dredging her kitchen cupboards for a "teapot" which had probably not seen active service for a very long time, if ever. This was an effort at reaching out to her new European neighbo(u)r in a spirit of cultural relevance, and all credit to her for that.

Anyway, having boiled the stove-top kettle - (the electric kettle hasn't made it into the New World either - don't get me started on that) - she proceeded to mix hot water and tea bags (with strings) together in the pot, along with - this is true - milk and sugar. After stirring all four ingredients for some time, she emerged from the kitchen and sheepishly asked my wife whether this was how it was done.

Independence, anyone?

Take Me Back to the Black Hills

Even if you, like me, have never been to South Dakota, an image will immediately spring to mind when I mention Mount Rushmore (which I just did) (look, left a bit).

We are all familiar with the image of the giant heads of the four former Presidents carved into the side of the mountain, otherwise known as the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. You might also be able to guess that two of the Presidents represented are George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, although the other two are likely to prove more tricky, so I'll give you a hand - Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

Just a little joke - a first, I accept, for this site - Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.

What you might not know, however, is that just 17 miles southwest of Mount Rushmore is another mountain-carving project so huge and ambitious that it will make the National Monument look like four blokes at a bus stop.

The Crazy Horse Memorial, depicting the revered Native American leader on his horse, will, when completed, be a massive 563 feet high (almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, including the pedestal) and 641 feet long. This will make it by far the largest sculpture or work of art on earth, a crown currently claimed by Mount Rushmore, where the heads of the four Presidents are each 60 feet high. Although Crazy Horse's head is 87 feet high, nothing beyond his head is finished, and that's where the story starts to get interesting.

Back in 1939, Korczak Ziolkowski, a Boston-born sculptor of Polish descent, who had been working as an assistant to Gutzon Borglum, the creator of Mount Rushmore, was invited to work on Crazy Horse. He evenutally began work at the site in 1948 and worked on it constantly for the next 35 years, always refusing to take a salary, until his death in 1982 at the age of 74. During that period, he also found time to get married and raise 10 children.

On Ziolowski's death, his family continued to work on the project. Crazy Horse's completed head was finally unveiled in 1998, at a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the project. Progress has been painfully slow and often dangerous, but the protagonists insist that they will continue working as quickly as funds and conditions will allow, until the memorial is finished. They decline to put a date on when that might be. For those familiar with the principles of project management, this is not so much a critical path as a yellow brick road.

I strongly recommend the official memorial website - www.crazyhorse.org - which has to be seen to be believed. Have a look at "The Story of Crazy Horse Memorial" to see recent progress and a painting of the vision for the finished article.

The penultimate word should go to Henry Standing Bear who said, in explaining the vision for the memorial in 1939, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes too".

Which leaves just one question: have they remembered to leave room for Neil Young?

The Tentacles of Doom

Have you noticed how many organisations there are with the name "[blank] Solutions"? Not "Blank Solutions", but "[---] Solutions". I think you know what I mean.

In which case, have you ever wondered whether there are enough problems to go round? Don't get me wrong, I know there are a lot of problems in the world, but I was starting to worry that they were in danger of being outnumbered by the exponential growth in the number of experts and consultants who could sort them out for us.

Until I arrived in America, that is. Over here, they know a thing or two about how to keep the problem plates spinning.

For example, how did we ever survive with "Urine Gone" (urinegone.com)? Currently heavily advertised on TV here, this essential new invention is billed as a "stain and odor eliminator - for pet or people accidents". Now there's a pleasant thought. "But" I hear you ask, albeit rhetorically, "how will I be able to find all that stray urine sloshing around my house"? A good question. But never fear, the good people at Urine Gone are ahead of you. Because, included in the very reasonable price of $19.99 (not including shipping & handling), is a "stain detector black light". So, rather like a detective taking fingerprints, you can turn out the light in the soiled room and use your black light to track down the offending puddle. Then, when the puddle least suspects it, you pull the trigger on your ergonomic-grip bottle of UG and the urine is completely, well, gone.

If that example is a little grubby and domestic for your tastes, which would be understandable, perhaps the product for you is the Roll Up Piano (inventionchannel.com). This, believe it or not, is a 37 key electric piano, with built-in speaker, which can be rolled up and carried under your arm, so you can "play piano anywhere!". The website warns sternly that "other roll up pianos can sell for as much as $250". Which other roll up pianos? I think it's safe to assume that this market is not exactly overcrowded.

But my current favourite solution to a non-existent problem is the astounding Doggy Steps (doggysteps.com). "Does your pet have difficulty climbing up to his favorite spot? The solution is Doggy Steps. Doggy Steps gives your pet freedom from the floor - and more companionship than ever before!"

Now, I don't for a minute want to be considered callous, or indifferent to the problems faced by the smaller or overweight canine. But, without returning in any detail to my favo(u)rite topic of the moment (see my messages of 25 November and 26 December), I like to think that, when God invented the evolution of species, He knew what He was doing. So, for example, giraffes are not 20 feet tall so we can gawp at them in the zoo, but because they happen to live in a place where the only vegetation worth eating is 20 feet off the ground. Extending the same rather basic principle, if little, fat dogs needed access to lofty locations, they wouldn't be little and fat, would they?

Problem solved.

Another Annus Horribilis

At this time of year, nothing fills one with dread like the arrival of a round-robin family newsletter. (If this statement doesn't apply to you, look away now.)

The various evils of these cheese-laden reviews of the family year are well documented and I don't intend to dwell on them all. But, just so we're on the same page, as they like to say here, I suggest that the two leading evils of round-robins are that they are (i) pointless; & (ii) designed to leave the reader feeling inferior.

They are pointless because the information they offer is either (a) important (births, deaths, new jobs, etc), in which case family and friends already know it, or (b) inconsequential (eg Veronica's grade 3 nose-flute exam), in which case they don't want to know it. Authors of round robins who are still with us please note - your family and friends love you very much, but this does not necessarily mean that they feel the need to know all the details of little Derek's post-modern reinterpretation of Bottom in St Kevin's end-of-term A Midsummer Night's Dream. Sorry.

But perhaps the greater evil of these upbeat summaries of blissful family life and "quality time" is their ability to leave the average reader feeling that his or her disfunctional and/or frustrated existence is somehow inadequate, rather than simply normal. And so, in an effort to redress this balance as we start a new year, The Referee would like to offer you an honest but heavily-edited review of his key failings and ongoing inadequacies during 2005:

1. For the second consecutive year (as far as I can remember), 2005 saw at least one day in which I bought the same newspaper twice on the same day, having forgotten I had bought it the first time.

2. My son's football team (see my message of 21 November) lost every game last season, with the exception of a 1-1 draw, thus ending the season with a solitary point.

3. For the ninth consecutive year, 2005 saw very few days on which I didn't lose patience with my children, and thus get into trouble with my wife, who is a much more patient and composed parent than I am.

4. Last year was also the third, or possibly fourth, year in which I have failed to meet one of my nieces for the first time. This is probably unforgivable. I used to live 300 miles from her and now live 3,000 miles away, so the situation is hardly improving.

5. Last year was yet another in a long line in which the large majority of birthday cards sent by me included the word "belated" and sent wishes in the past tense.

6. In the autumn/fall of 2005, on the way home from a work weekend away, I got lost trying to navigate to my own house, thus delaying a bus full of colleagues, most of whom consequently arrived at their own homes after 1am. This is true. As are all the others. And these are just the edited lowlights.

I hope you feel better now. I know I do.

Happy New Year's. (New Year's what?)