On the Receiving End

Aston Villa 1 Charlton 0

Mush and I stood in the freezing cold at the bus stop on Monday night. He said he'd been reading the blog; I pointed out that it was running behind time, partly due to the amount of marking and correcting I am having to do at the moment, but partly due also to the fact that when it is defeat all along the line, there is less incentive to put finger to keyboard.

Today, possibly as a result of waiting too long for buses on cold nights, I am also on the receiving end of a mild chest infection, if one can put it like that, and am thus confined to the house. So this is a good opportunity to bring things up to date before Charlton's game against Blackburn later on, which I might write about quite soon, if the result is favourable.

Apparently everything went wrong against Aston Villa, and Alan Curbishley has been criticised by the other regular writers for not realising that the other clubs are getting wise to Darren Bent, but also for returning to some of his favourites from last season, such as Kevin Lisbie, whom many of the commentators regard as not good enough for the Premiership. And why did Dennis Rommedahl not even get a place on the bench? Aston Villa were not very good, and indeed as last night's 0-3 exit from the League Cup at Doncaster demonstrates, are generally weak. So what does that say about Charlton on the day? The Inspector described their performance as the worst since the 0-4 drubbing by Manchester United last season.

Quiz Matters

As for the quiz team last Thursday, we were without Antony and John, who were asking the questions, and even though our friends Liz and Alison brought the team back up to six members, we ran in third, to Antony's amazement. We only managed 10 points out of 20 on his final round, Science and Nature, and while I admit that we shot ourselves in the foot over a couple of questions, I still don't think we would have been good enough. Edu's team were worthy winners. Last Thursday was also Thanksgiving, accounting for the absence of a recently-joined team of American ladies, and also of Luis, whose wife is from the USA. Not all Americans do Thanksgiving though, as the presence of our friends Maureen and Laura indicated.

Meanwhile the debate about Thursday or Monday continues, and seemingly we are not so pro-Monday as I believed us to be (though I myself am, as is Mush). Smoking, however, will continue to be allowed downstairs after the rules change in January, so that's something at least...

Kick off at The Valley in 15 minutes...