Halo Stickman

As a 16th century poet might have said: Saturday is called the feast of Southampton: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Southampton. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say 'To-morrow is Southampton Day:' Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. And say 'These wounds I had on Southampton's day.' Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words Lambert the king, Lallana and Rodriquez, Schneiderlin and Cork, Fonte and Shaw, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Southampton Day shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember'd; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks That fought with us upon Southampton’s day. … or, as a 20th century poet once said:

100 percent this.

Spot on. It was great to see the magnificent travelling supporters rewarded with another fantastic performance. I expect many of those same loyal supporters were the ones travelling to places like Hartlepool and Carlisle a few years back. They’ve travelled many miles over recent years – literally and metaphorically. That’s why I’m so pleased that players who have shared that journey – K Davis, Fonte, Schneiderlin, Lallana and Lambert – are still contributing so much to the team. The supporters will always be the beating heart of the club, but, for me, those players are the beating heart of the fantastic team spirit within the whole squad; and both – supporters and team spirit – can’t be bought: they have to be forged over many miles and many matches.

In order to avoid the endless debate as to whether or not climate change is actually happening; and, if it is, whether or not it’s man-made, I reckon it might be better, for the time being at least, to just accept the fact that we have wet years. Perhaps then at least we could all agree on one thing, namely, that forsaking flood defences is likely to lead to an inevitable conclusion: flooding. Here is a Met Office link for precipitation in England and Wales from 1766 to 2013. I’ve reproduced the wettest 20 years below. They could denote climate change; they could denote the randomness of natural events – right now, it matters not one jot to people waist-deep in water. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/ranked_seasonal/HadEWP_ranked_ssn.dat HadEWP ranked seasonal precipitation - 1766 to 2013 20 wettest years (wettest first) 1. 1872 2. 1768 3. 2012 4. 2000 5. 1852 6. 1960 7. 1903 8. 1882 9. 1877 10. 1848 11. 2002 12. 1792 13. 1789 14. 1782 15. 1927 16. 1912 17. 1951 18. 1954 19. 1794 20. 2008

Then again... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-18728303

To be fair to the BBC, I thought up that first analogy myself – maybe I need to get out more. Here’s another Wembley one, to which I don’t claim copyright: If the nucleus of an atom is a grape seed on the centre circle, its electrons are orbiting around the outside of the stadium walls. As everything, and everyone, is made up of atoms, that’s a hell of a lot of empty space.

Stopped off for half a day in Brussels on way back from Bruges – the latter city is much more picturesque and architecturally very beautiful in my opinion, albeit perhaps, in a chocolate box sort of way. The thing I remember most from my, admittedly, short stay in Brussels was the Palace of Justice, which I think is the largest European building constructed during the nineteenth century – it certainly is a monument to the prevailing grandiose attitudes of that time.

The world’s richest 85 people own more money than the world’s poorest 3 billion – that’s equivalent to one double-decker bus load versus 33,333 Wembleys filled to capacity. If the solar system was the size of a CD, our Milky Way galaxy would be the size of planet earth. Next?

What I do remember very vividly is that the chanting between the rival sets of supporters was awesome. I don’t know whether that was more to do with the acoustics of the old stadium, or the fact that there were 100,000 inside – and, of course, there were still terraces behind the goals. When Man Utd started their ‘U-ni-ted’ chant it seemed to build and echo under the roof, then we would respond with OWTSGMI etc. The rivalry outside the stadium was quite something as well.

You sure it wasn’t: "C’mon you Yellow & Blue Maaachhhiiiiine"?

Our 76 Cup winning season: the road to the semis – the tension and then joy at the semi-final draw – victory at Stamford Bridge – the May Day departure of the Yellow and Blue Army – the knotted stomach as Wembley comes into sight – ‘Oh, When the Saints, Go Marching In’, ‘Yellows,Yellows,Yellows’ – McCalliog to Stokes, collective intake of breath, yes, yes, YES, GET IN!!!, you ****ing beauty!! – Yellow and Blue Mayhem – ‘We’re Gonna Win The Cup, We’re Gonna Win The Cup, And Now You Better Believe Us’ – seven minutes that last for seven lifetimes – the explosion of mental Southampton ecstasy as the full-time whistle finally blows – Man Utd fans filing out in silence – Rodrigues lifting the Cup – hugging my mate with tears in our eyes – the return of the conquering Yellow and Blue Army – the flyovers lined with Saints banners – strangers embracing in Southampton streets – horn-blowing cars streaming Saints scarves – overflowing Southampton pubs – celebrations long into the night – buying every Sunday newspaper – the bleary-eyed open top bus parade – buying every Monday newspaper – parading the Cup at Mick Channon’s testimonial etc etc These aren’t just my favourite Saints-related memories; they’re some of my favourite memories full-stop. Creditable final league positions – even our 84 runners-up spot – don’t even come close.

Shush, it’s a cunning Trojan dog with lots of little soldiers hidden inside – either that or it’s got a cruise missile homing device up its jacksie.

RIP Richard Gallagher. Tragic to lose a parent at such a young age; Sam, my thoughts are with you and your family at this sad time.

The memory-as-a-compost-heap metaphor and the story about the psychologist are both referenced in “The Self Illusion: Why There is No ‘You’ Inside Your Head” by Bruce Hood. The psychologist in the story is Elizabeth Loftus. She is an American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory. She has conducted extensive research on the malleability of human memory, and is best known for her ground-breaking work on the misinformation effect and eyewitness memory, and the creation and nature of false memories, including recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. As well as her prolific work inside the laboratory, Loftus has been heavily involved in applying her research to legal settings: she has consulted or provided expert witness testimony for hundreds of cases, and has been recognized throughout the world for her work, receiving numerous awards and honorary degrees. – from Wikipedia. Interestingly, rereading Loftus’s story last night, I discovered that I had made an error in my post: her mother drowned in a swimming pool; there was no mention of her committing suicide. Yet when I posted yesterday, I was convinced that I was giving a true, accurate and reliable recollection of a story that I’d first heard less than 2 years ago; indeed so convinced, I would have been prepared to swear on oath. But as Loftus said, when discovering she’d fallen victim to false memories: “The most horrifying idea is that what we believe with all our hearts is not necessarily the truth.”

One of the problems with historical cases such as Roach’s is people’s perception of how memory works. Most of us are convinced we have perfect recall; for instance, I can remember what happened around me at Wembley when Bobby Stoke’s scored in 1976 as if it happened yesterday – or at least I think I can. But I read a while back that memories aren’t like dvds that we store away and retrieve at a later date in perfect condition: they’re more like stuff we place on a compost heap – some memories take a long time to decompose, whereas others break down and sometimes imperceptively combine with others. And every time we recall a memory it becomes subtlety corrupted by our current perceptions and prejudices etc. There is a story about a psychologist whose mother committed suicide when her daughter was just a young girl. When she was in middle-age the psychologist was chatting to her uncle when he suddenly mentioned that it must have been terrible for the psychologist to have been the one to have discovered her mother’s dead body. This was the first time that the psychologist had learnt that she had been the one to discover her mother – she had previously had no recollection of the event. However, over the next two weeks or so she had vivid flashbacks of discovering her mother – she assumed that these were memories she had subconsciously suppressed for all those years. But she later learnt her uncle had been mistaken: she had not been the one to discover her mother’s body – the sudden flood of recent memories, although very real to her, had been nothing more than false memories prompted by the power of suggestion. If I remember where it was that I read this, I shall come back and leave a reference.

I liked Gottried Von Strassburg’s ‘Tristan’ but Eschenbach’s ‘Parzival’ and whoever wrote ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ were my favourites. All of the legends, especially the grail stories, are intriguing, albeit quite a heavy read at times.

Going off on a tangent from the OP – as it was me who started this thread, I guess that’s my prerogative – do you mind me asking what sparked your interest in Arthurian Legend? For me it was ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’ book of the early 1980s.

We obviously need a dedicated Saintsweb Arthurian forum

I didn't spot that play on words. Nice one WG. Hey Windows, I’ll dust down my Arthurian Literature books and we’ll meet up for a chat – not sure about all that running though

Reminiscing last night about the various sports, pastimes and hobbies I’ve taken up over the years, I found myself regretting that I never seem to stick at anything for very long. If only I’d stuck with the golf, perhaps I’d be half decent at it by now, or, if only I’d maintained my interest in Arthurian literature – yeah, that’s right, Arthurian bloody literature! – perhaps I’d be the world’s leading expert in it by now. Does anyone else have the same problem sticking with things, or do some people maintain the same interests, pastimes etc all their adult lives; if so, what are they? Or, what are the things that used to interest you, but don't any more? By the way, I don’t count supporting Saints as a pastime, and I don’t count things that can be better described as a habit – unsavoury or otherwise.

That’s payback for you starting that thread on the Somerset floods, Batman.

Agree, it seems strange for the decision over KP – and, seemingly, the decision over Cook continuing as captain – to have been pre-empted by the ECB ‘committee’ prior to the new director being installed; unless, of course, the new director was part of the ‘committee’, i.e. Ashley Giles.

Oh well, that rules out the Cowes Week market; nevertheless, the West Wight is a nice spot, with, I should imagine, plenty of letting potential. I assume you've checked out the number of similar letting properties in the area. If you decide to go ahead with the project – and cut SWF members a good discount! – I might even let it myself. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Whereabouts on the Island is the house? Mrs Stickman and I used to let out our terraced house in Cowes to yachtsmen during Cowes Week for about a grand, but I heard of others letting out larger properties for 3 or 4 grand. Mind you, that was back in the mid 80s when the Admiral’s Cup was still a big international event, but I think there’s still good money to be made from properties in and around Cowes during that week. Can’t help you with tax and things like that I’m afraid.

Next stop for me will be my garden shed with a box of wet-wipes