FA 2014 Japan

The Samurai

The Japanese team under their Italian coach have had a choppy ride through to the final FIFA rounds.  They shone in South Africa in 2010 though, progressing to the second stage at the expense of the likes of Denmark and Cameroon. They came close to stunning Paraguay with the South Americans only advancing through a penalty shootout victory after regular and extra time finished goal-less.

After a somewhat lacklustre start to their 2014 campaign they managed to find their form and  drew 1:1 with Australia in the final qualifying round. AC Milan midfielder Keisuke Honda has quickly established his place as the team's new leader, 

These guys could provide a surprise or two and their determination and doggedness to achieve something should not be discounted.

The Conservative's Prayer

Takes courage (?) to fly in the face of scientists and evidence. Unfortunately the power of economics has the upper hand and under our present system this is understandable. The expense involved in making radical changes for all of us is quite a cliff to climb.
Progress is being made but it is slow and it's not clear that we have the luxury of time on our side. We seem to be delaying the inevitable. Time, unfortunately, will tell.

FIFA Germany

Always a powerful contender,  Germany has  reached the latter stages of the World Cup not a few times . Disciplined and strong in attack and defence, they have a good chance of "being up there". They are  a youthful side and have the potential to outlast many of their opponents. They never seem to give up and will try to the last second to win by an even greater margin or strive to avoid losing the match. I'm not much of a connoisseur but by all accounts they should doing well. The main disadvantage as with many European sides is that they will be playing in an atmosphere abuzz with South American temperament , where soccer truly is  King.

Excited chatter

The chattering classes

"I expect my senior front benchers to be ambitious. There's nothing wrong with ambition," so said Mr Abbott, earlier this week. (Below an excited executive).

Blowing things up "a bit".

Talk Back

 During a stoush about leadership challenges and on the airwaves ,  Malcolm Turnbull did indeed talk back to the yabbering of Alan Jones,  who mouthed off on air , accusing Turnbull , 

''No, there's no challenge to his leadership because you have no hope ever of being the leader, you've got to get that into your head but because of that you're happy to chuck a few bombs around that might blow up Abbott a bit."

Well!

Abbott ended up by defending everybody, Jones, Bolt and Turnbull. You can judge a man by the company he keeps. Jones and Bolt were singled out as being friends. 

However how does blow up someone a bit? Perhaps the cold war wasn't such a threat with the U.S. and U.S.S.R only dropping  "bits" of nuclear thingos on each other. The best commentary on Alan Jones is to ignore him completely and let him speak for himself..which he does, ad nauseam!

A "bit"of Alan Jones