For reasons which are complicated and also too dull to relate on a site as dedicated to thrills and entertainment as this one is (!), The Referee recently found himself at the Coliseum in Nassau, Long Island to witness the New York Islanders being hammered at home by the Ottawa Senators. The visitors from north of the border looked superior throughout, so much so that the Islanders were lucky to come second, as they say.
For those who have not already spotted it, I am of course talking about (ice) hockey. (Ice) hockey is known here and in Canada as "hockey", such that if one wants to refer to hockey, one has to say "field hockey". Luckily, I rarely want to refer to hockey, and therefore this additional requirement is not particularly onerous in my case.
I have nothing more to report about Islanders 2 Senators 5 that can't be derived from the score or the brief synopsis above. I do, however, want to relate some of the things I learnt about (ice) hockey that evening, a sport about which I had not previously thought or cared very much at all. Whilst not all, or indeed any, of these things might be accurate, they are at least heartfelt, and that ought to be more important.
And so, The Referee is proud to share with you, dear reader, his hard-researched 5 Things You Never Knew, And Still Don't, About (Ice) Hockey:
1. There are 250 players on each team, although each player is on the ice for an average of only about 10 seconds each. For some reason no one ever thought to build a door in the dug out, so substitutes have to fling themselves over a little wall, hoping to land on their skates rather than their rear ends.
2. All (ice) hockey players have elaborately broken noses. By this I mean that these are not common or garden broken noses, the sort of injury that could befall anyone. Oh no. These are noses so comprehensively and numerously broken that they appear to be marking out a new slalom route for the benefit of a passing downhill skier. How could I tell this from the stands?, you are wondering. Well, I was lucky enough to meet a legendary former Islander before the game. He had clearly once been a good-looking chap, before the slalom bulldozers had moved in.
3. All (ice) hockey players fight, all the time. Except in the game I saw, in which no one so much as raised a question about the masculinity of his opponents. Obviously, fighting is bad, and The Referee was not in the least disappointed not to witness any. Although this to some extent restricted his ability to research the full extent of the game of (ice) hockey for your benefit, gentle reader.
4. The following point might say more about the age and constitution of The Referee than it does about the nature of (ice) hockey, but for quite a proportion of the game I couldn't actually see the puck as it skimmed at high speed across the surface of the ice. It appeared that this was not a problem shared by most of the crowd, since there was a good deal of ooh-ing and aah-ing some seconds before your correspondent had worked out what was happening. Ho, hum.
5. All (ice) hockey players fight, all the time.
Just before his visit to the Nassau Coliseum, The Referee received the news that he was to be summoned to return to the Motherland, AKA the UK of Blighty, without further ado. Again, the reasons for this are much too dull for an entertainment-heavy organ such as this. Suffice to say that The Referee's US odyssey would soon be at an end.
As I left Long Island and contemplated an impending return to the green and pleasant hills of the Motherland, I allowed myself a small and appropriate celebration. "Jolly hockey sticks", I thought.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Phantom Tollbooth
I will say again here what I have said in a number of messages on this site: The Referee does not do politics. Or rather, he does not use this site to promote any particular political perspectives. That is not about to change.
It is, however, nigh on impossible to have lived in this country over recent years without taking at least a passing fascination with the oratory style, shall we say, of the 43rd President. As you, discerning reader, will be well aware, this a well-trodden path, which is not enlightened in the least by The Referee trampling it down a bit further. However, the following alleged quote came to my attention recently and I felt that it would be remiss of me, perhaps even churlish, not to share it with you.
It is alleged by some - not necessarily The Referee, you understand - that on 1 February 2000 the august news organ that is the New York Times quoted the 43rd President as follows:
"I think we need not only to eliminate the tollbooth to the middle class, I think we should knock down the tollbooth".
I don't think any of us could disagree with that.
It is, however, nigh on impossible to have lived in this country over recent years without taking at least a passing fascination with the oratory style, shall we say, of the 43rd President. As you, discerning reader, will be well aware, this a well-trodden path, which is not enlightened in the least by The Referee trampling it down a bit further. However, the following alleged quote came to my attention recently and I felt that it would be remiss of me, perhaps even churlish, not to share it with you.
It is alleged by some - not necessarily The Referee, you understand - that on 1 February 2000 the august news organ that is the New York Times quoted the 43rd President as follows:
"I think we need not only to eliminate the tollbooth to the middle class, I think we should knock down the tollbooth".
I don't think any of us could disagree with that.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Dames on a Plane
Everything that follows is absolutely true.
I make this point at the outset not because The Referee makes a habit of telling fictional stories on this site. He doesn't. When you live in this country, why make things up, when reality is so much more entertaining?
No. I make this point only because I want you, gentle reader, to be assured that The Referee had truthfulness and accuracy at the forefront of his mind, when recounting this tale.
The Referee often has occasion to travel to and fro between his two adopted cities, New York and London. Most of the time this journey is pleasant and uneventful. On other occasions, it is a little more memorable. The following recounts an example of the latter.
As a final preamble, I should mention that I tend towards a particular airline whenever possible because, in the humble opinion of The Referee (and he is, after all, The Referee) it is superior to any other airline making this journey. So as not to show favo(u)ritism, I will assign this airline a code name for the purposes of this message. Let's call it, say, Virgin Atlantic.
So, I was heading to London on an overnight flight from New York. I was planning to be very busy immediately on arrival and was therefore hoping for a quiet flight involving sleep and not much else.
Imagine my horror, then, when, immediately on arrival in the lounge, I noticed a group of about 25 or so New York ladies of, shall we say, a certain age, behaving in an exuberant manner and taking pictures of each other. As I sat eating a pre-flight dinner (in order to maximise the time available for sleep on the flight, you understand), all but one of the ladies in question launched into a rousing rendition of "Happy birthday to you".
I have to admit, in all honesty, that I was not thinking "How nice. I hope whoever it is has a lovely birthday". Oh no. I was thinking something much more along the lines of "Please God - I need some sleep - please don't let any of them be seated near me".
I dare say, dear reader, that you are already ahead of me.
As soon as I arrived in my section of the plane (I have to admit that it was one of the posh areas near the front) it dawned on me that every seat apart from mine was occupied by one of the ladies. Worse still, I was seated right next to the birthday girl.
To get a sense of what followed, imagine, if you will, a remake of that Hollywood classic "Snakes on a plane" starring the original cast of the St Trinian's films, and you won't be far out. Except that the ladies in this case were dripping with furs and jewellery. And - how can I put this delicately? - those who had left God's work intact were in a significant minority.
The ladies had no idea what to do with a seat belt. Some of them apparently had no idea that it was a requirement to sit down while a plane takes off. I was required to become the official photographer for a number of charming group shots, whilst the crew (ie the folk that used to be called "stewards" and "stewardesses", but now seem to be called something else) tried to wrestle them into their seats. I was told with some enthusiasm that there were another 25 ladies on another flight - perhaps I should be grateful, I pondered, that I'd only got half of them. I was told that some of them had never been to London before, and that they were off to Windsor castle - I wondered if it was strong enough to withstand the onslaught. I was asked if I was married, and, when I replied in the affirmative, the lady in question shouted "Never mind, girls, he's married!".
Although I consider myself a patient person, I thought that I might be about to lose my marbles. Just as I was starting to lose them - and at this point we had only just reached cruising altitude - a glimmer of hope emerged. One of the ladies reached into her handbag and marched around the cabin shouting "Who wants an Ambien?". (For those not intimately familiar with the world of American medical TV ads, Ambien is a popular sleeping pill.) To my great relief, she received a number of positive responses, and soon there followed a hysterical banter about who was going to take the pill first, and no, no, you take it first, and I'm not taking mine until you take yours. Five minutes later, the cabin was silent.
After enjoying blissful sleep for all of 3 or 4 hours, I was woken by sleepy chatter about the crown jewels and where they might be viewed. I decided not to chime in to assist with the answer to this question, since that would reveal that I was now awake again, hence drawing attention to myself. So instead I lay very still and listened whilst one of the ladies pointed out that one of the others was wearing some of the crown jewels, right now, on the plane. It turned out that she was not joking. The lady in question admitted that her husband had given her a necklace which he had bought from Sotheby's and which had originally been given to Victoria by Albert. I couldn't help thinking that the phrase "more money than sense" had been coined for this moment.
Imagine my relief when we finally reached Londinium and the end of my torment was in sight. I gathered my things and sneaked away as quickly and quietly as I could. As I did so, several of the ladies were engaged in trying to revive a lady for whom the Ambien had apparently been particularly effective. As I left, they had had no success.
Suddenly, the American obsession with unnecessary prescription drugs didn't seem so bad after all.
I make this point at the outset not because The Referee makes a habit of telling fictional stories on this site. He doesn't. When you live in this country, why make things up, when reality is so much more entertaining?
No. I make this point only because I want you, gentle reader, to be assured that The Referee had truthfulness and accuracy at the forefront of his mind, when recounting this tale.
The Referee often has occasion to travel to and fro between his two adopted cities, New York and London. Most of the time this journey is pleasant and uneventful. On other occasions, it is a little more memorable. The following recounts an example of the latter.
As a final preamble, I should mention that I tend towards a particular airline whenever possible because, in the humble opinion of The Referee (and he is, after all, The Referee) it is superior to any other airline making this journey. So as not to show favo(u)ritism, I will assign this airline a code name for the purposes of this message. Let's call it, say, Virgin Atlantic.
So, I was heading to London on an overnight flight from New York. I was planning to be very busy immediately on arrival and was therefore hoping for a quiet flight involving sleep and not much else.
Imagine my horror, then, when, immediately on arrival in the lounge, I noticed a group of about 25 or so New York ladies of, shall we say, a certain age, behaving in an exuberant manner and taking pictures of each other. As I sat eating a pre-flight dinner (in order to maximise the time available for sleep on the flight, you understand), all but one of the ladies in question launched into a rousing rendition of "Happy birthday to you".
I have to admit, in all honesty, that I was not thinking "How nice. I hope whoever it is has a lovely birthday". Oh no. I was thinking something much more along the lines of "Please God - I need some sleep - please don't let any of them be seated near me".
I dare say, dear reader, that you are already ahead of me.
As soon as I arrived in my section of the plane (I have to admit that it was one of the posh areas near the front) it dawned on me that every seat apart from mine was occupied by one of the ladies. Worse still, I was seated right next to the birthday girl.
To get a sense of what followed, imagine, if you will, a remake of that Hollywood classic "Snakes on a plane" starring the original cast of the St Trinian's films, and you won't be far out. Except that the ladies in this case were dripping with furs and jewellery. And - how can I put this delicately? - those who had left God's work intact were in a significant minority.
The ladies had no idea what to do with a seat belt. Some of them apparently had no idea that it was a requirement to sit down while a plane takes off. I was required to become the official photographer for a number of charming group shots, whilst the crew (ie the folk that used to be called "stewards" and "stewardesses", but now seem to be called something else) tried to wrestle them into their seats. I was told with some enthusiasm that there were another 25 ladies on another flight - perhaps I should be grateful, I pondered, that I'd only got half of them. I was told that some of them had never been to London before, and that they were off to Windsor castle - I wondered if it was strong enough to withstand the onslaught. I was asked if I was married, and, when I replied in the affirmative, the lady in question shouted "Never mind, girls, he's married!".
Although I consider myself a patient person, I thought that I might be about to lose my marbles. Just as I was starting to lose them - and at this point we had only just reached cruising altitude - a glimmer of hope emerged. One of the ladies reached into her handbag and marched around the cabin shouting "Who wants an Ambien?". (For those not intimately familiar with the world of American medical TV ads, Ambien is a popular sleeping pill.) To my great relief, she received a number of positive responses, and soon there followed a hysterical banter about who was going to take the pill first, and no, no, you take it first, and I'm not taking mine until you take yours. Five minutes later, the cabin was silent.
After enjoying blissful sleep for all of 3 or 4 hours, I was woken by sleepy chatter about the crown jewels and where they might be viewed. I decided not to chime in to assist with the answer to this question, since that would reveal that I was now awake again, hence drawing attention to myself. So instead I lay very still and listened whilst one of the ladies pointed out that one of the others was wearing some of the crown jewels, right now, on the plane. It turned out that she was not joking. The lady in question admitted that her husband had given her a necklace which he had bought from Sotheby's and which had originally been given to Victoria by Albert. I couldn't help thinking that the phrase "more money than sense" had been coined for this moment.
Imagine my relief when we finally reached Londinium and the end of my torment was in sight. I gathered my things and sneaked away as quickly and quietly as I could. As I did so, several of the ladies were engaged in trying to revive a lady for whom the Ambien had apparently been particularly effective. As I left, they had had no success.
Suddenly, the American obsession with unnecessary prescription drugs didn't seem so bad after all.
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