I swim at Elie beach whenever i visit. The sea can be a little bit choppy if the wind is strong. But Earlsferry beach and Shell bay beach are very close by. When one beach is choppy, one of the others will be calm. Just pick and choose the one that matches the sea conditions you are comfortable with.
It was a beautiful day when I visited. The sea was cold (5C) so I didn’t go in for long but it was nice to have quick dip.
Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here
Blackpool
Nickname: The Seasiders
Ground: Bloomfield Road
Stadium Capacity: 16,007
Song: Blackpool
When Blackpool celebrate scoring you’ll hear ‘Glad All Over’ by The Dave Clark Five. A home win will be soundtracked by ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’ by Status Quo. And, if the club has lost, fans can cheer themselves by singing its official anthem: ‘Blackpool’ by The Nolans.
The Nolan family had emigrated from Dublin to Blackpool in 1962. Parents Tommy & Maureen Nolan became a regular part of the variety show circuits that were a feature of Blackpool’s nightlife entertainment. They sang as The Singing Nolans and enlisted their family to help. Their children, Tommy Junior, Anne, Denise, Maureen, Brian, Linda, Bernadette & Coleen, would join them on stage.
In 1972, The Singing Nolans recorded a tribute to Blackpool, their favourite team.
Although the song was played over the tannoy at Bloomfield Road it would be another four years before fans warmed to it. In that time the daughters would become more famous as The Nolans, whose biggest hit was ‘I’m In The Mood For Dancing’. The Nolans would sell 25 million records worldwide – including 12 million in Japan, outselling The Beatles.
Yet the fans were still ambivalent towards ‘Blackpool’. And when you know more about Blackpool’s fans you’ll understand why.
In the 1950s and 60s the best-known supporter’s group was The Atomic Boys, famous for their wild pranks and colourful outfits.
Blackpool superfan Stan Bevers had formed The Atomic Boys in the 1940’s. Stan wanted a group that would really stand out on the terraces. He encouraged everyone to wear costumes. Using a contact at Madame Tussaud’s waxwork museum on Blackpool promenade he and fellow fans would dress up to take part in daring pranks.
Before the 1953 FA Cup final Stan, wearing a flowing tangerine cloak and a silver head dress, talked his way into 10 Downing Street to hand-deliver a seven-pound stick of Blackpool rock to Sir Winston Churchill.
The Atomic Boys even adopted a live duck as a mascot – it led the team out, and wandered up and down the touchline during matches.
The duck had been a gift from the actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The Atomic Boys had tried to attend the premiere of the star’s new film ‘Mr Drake’s Duck’. The tables were turned on them as the Hollywood star (or, more likely, his publicist) knew of The Atomic Boys’ reputation and, in view of the film’s title presented them with a duck.
With such colourful fans, it should not be a surprise that the family friendly, safe and, worst of all, bland Nolans had their work cut out to persuade the fans to adopt their song as an anthem
It was only after a match programme against Millwall on 11th September 1976 included a “Blackpool Supporters Song Sheet” that the fans started to warm to it. Although the song continues to divide supporters, it has found one fan: the Bloomfield Bear, who took over as mascot after The Atomic Boys’ duck retired. Today, he can often be seen dancing to it before kick-off.
Film Friday is a weekly recommendation of one video to watch this weekend.
GQ has a series of videos called Above Average Joe where they takes on the challenge of trying to perform like a professional sportsman.
Spoiler – It turns out professional sport men and women are actually really good at what they do and an average Joe can’t compete with them. But its fun to watch him try…
Film Friday is a weekly recommendation of one video to watch this weekend.
“Amar Latif was told, aged four, that he would be blind by the time he was 18. However, his lack of sight hasn’t prevented him from experiencing the world. henever Amar travels he relies on someone sighted to guide him. In return he opens their eyes and all their senses to a completely different way of travelling.
Amar is joined by comedian Sara Pascoe as he attempts to open her eyes to the potential of travelling blind and ‘seeing’ the world differently.”
This is a great show in which you can’t help but warm to both of them as they learn about the world through their time together.
Either you will instantly recognise the image above and be glad you don’t have the umbrella, or it will mean nothing at all. The only difference is whether you’ve watched Squid Game on Netflix. If you have, then you know exactly what happens when you have 10 minutes to to carve out the triangle with nothing but a needle – a challenge known as Dalgona in South Korea.
The triangle itself if made from melted sugar and baking soda. You melt the two together in a frying pan and then pour the mixture into small discs. You then press a cookie cutter lightly into the surface to create the shape to be cut out by the player.
The player’s challenge is to then cut it out without snapping the shape.
However, if you want a real challenge, don’t just try and cut the shape out of the cookie – you need to eat it too.
WOOOOOAHH!!!!
Sugar RUSH!!!!
I have never taken class A narcotics but I can’t imagine that crack cocaine could be as good as pure sugar mixed with baking powder. A combination that requires a dentist on hand before you even take a bite.
BLIMEY!
It tasted good.
If you want to try it yourself then I found this video really helpful with tips on how to make it.
And if you want to recreate Squid Game then I’m afraid you’re going to have to find your own guard with a gun to stand over you – sorry, I can’t help you with that one!
Four years have passed since the last time I ran the Allow Half Marathon. You can read (linked below) about my previous attempt to run it…and my attempt try and find anything interesting to say about Alloa.
The course had a new start and end point. So unlike previous years it did not finish next to a supermarket. Which meant I did not get my shopping done afterwards. But other than that, the change meant there was more of a start village and a better finish line.
To get to the start I used one of the provided shuttle busses. There is lots of parking in Alloa and the bus only took 10 minutes to get to the start.
Once at the start there was the usual long toilet queue. Please, will race organizers actually figure out how to manage a toilet queue! Its not difficult, just have a couple of folk who know where the toilets are and point everyone at them. In this case the long queue was because no-one in the queue knew there was actually a number of different toilets in the venue so everyone was queuing for just one.
This meant I was still in the loo at 0859. The race started at 0900. I managed to get to the start in plenty of time which means my watch must be telling the wrong time!
The route had changed slightly but nothing major. Starting out of town was quite nice as it got some of the boring road section out of the way early.
I had done al ot of training during the week and I had an injury. So I wasn’t expecting a great time. My hope was sub 1hr 50min but I’d have accepted anything up to 1hr 55min.
I felt fresher than I thought I would be and I ended up completing my run in sub 1hr 45min…just. 1 hr 44min 55 seconds.
Andrew beat me by 30s but he had rested before the race. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
The finishers goodie bag contained a t shirt, a medal and a covid test kit! I’d have preferred a Mars bar.
Overall, its an enjoyable race that is always a good test of Spring fitness.
My eyesight isn’t very good. It’s not as bad as Al Pacino’s vision in Scent Of a Woman but it is getting towards a Mr Magoo level of poorness. Thankfully I’ve not crashed my car… yet!
I suspect anyone reading this who understands either of these references is also old enough to be experiencing similar vision related problems.
My vision has deteriorated to the point where I am unable to read a book at night. As the low light means I struggle to get the letters on the page to focus.
I tried every fix I could think of – turning on all the lights, using a Kindle, reading whilst wearing a head-torch.
None of them helped. After a few minutes the words would go out of focus and I’d have to stop reading.
So I threw money at the problem! I decided to spend more money on one lamp than I have spent on all the lamps I have ever bought in my life. I bought a serious reader lamp – https://www.seriousreaders.com/
And all I can say is that is worth every penny I paid for it because for the first time in years I can now read in the evening. I can read for hours without any eye strain or issues. It is life changing. Since getting it at Xmas, I have read four books. That compares to the zero books I read before Xmas.
This review is not sponsored by Seriousreader but if they want to send me a free lamp then please get in touch!
Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here
Blackburn Rovers
Nickname: Rovers
Ground: Ewood Park
Stadium Capacity: 31,154
Song: The Wild Rover (Trad)
Blackburn Rover’s anthem is, naturally, ‘The Wild Rover.’ It’s probably the most widely performed Irish song around the world:
“I’ve been a wild rover for many a year, and I’ve spent all my money on this seat right here.
So there’s no point in saving for a rainy day, ‘cos I’m a wild rover, and here I will stay.
AND IT’S NO NAY NEVER, NO NAY NEVER NO MORE!
‘COS I’LL STAY A WILD ROVER FOREVER AND MORE!“
(Source: trad.)
The song tells the story of a young man who has been away from his home for many years. Returning to his former alehouse, the landlady refuses him credit; until he presents the gold he gained while he was away. Finally, he sings that his days of roving are over, and he intends to return to his home and settle down.
To some, it’s a temperance song because it celebrates the end of his wild days. To others, it’s a drinking song, another drink before heading home. But, to Blackburn fans, it’s the perfect choice because Rovers fans were once known for their ‘wild adventures’ on the road – or, to give ‘adventure’ another name, hooliganism.
Today, football hooligans are more often found on satellite television shows presented by English actor and Eastenders’ landlord, Danny Dyer, than rioting in row D of the family stands of Premiership grounds. However, fans of Danny’s shows might not be aware that football hooliganism is not a modern phenomenon – it’s older than most clubs in the football league, and the first record of crowd trouble is linked to Blackburn Rovers.
Teams from the Home Counties surrounding London dominated footballs early years. The first team to break this southern monopoly was Blackburn after they won the FA Cup in 1884.
The Blackburn fans had a bad reputation. For one game in London, they terrified the locals by being “northern” (working class). A newspaper at the time, The Pall Mall Gazette, described them as:
“A northern horde of uncouth garb and strange oaths – like a tribe of Sudanese Arabs let loose.”
It was unfair to pick on Blackburn’s fans for being northern and working-class when its opponents that day weren’t just ‘northern’ – they were Scottish. Moreover, Blackburn was due to play Queens Park from Glasgow.
This wasn’t the only incident. In 1888, Preston refused to play a match against Blackburn because the club didn’t want to face Blackburn’s fans.
Preston and Blackburn have long been rivals, and there’s no love lost between the two sets of fans. Both groups of fans have an unusual tradition. When they are relegated, they bury a coffin decked out in the club’s colours. Once the side is promoted, they go back and ‘raise’ the coffin.
Unlike most teams, Blackburn Rovers has only ever had one design to its home kit. The distinctive blue and white halved jersey is widely acknowledged as the “town colour.” Although the design has remained the same, the side in which the colours fall has often changed. This is because blue resided on the wearers left since 1946. Before that, blue and white often switched over almost yearly.
In recent years there has been unrest between fans and the club due to unpopular decisions made by the club’s owners. The owners tried to get the fans back by consulting them over a choice of music for the team to run out. The options are the regular selections of stadium anthems, but they missed a trick by not including some of the more unusual Blackburn inspired songs.
First up is the metal band Frenzy with their simply named tune – Blackburn Rovers. A song about watching Blackburn play on TV. It’s not just metal bands who like Blackburn. The Norwegian band Seven released a song called ‘Blackburn (Always In My Heart)’. The true story of a former band member who lost his heart to Blackburn Rovers, and lost his girlfriend. And then, heartbroken, we can only assume he went to the pub and got very, very drunk while singing ‘The Wild Rover’.
Every year thousands of people cycle from John O’Groats to Lands End or the other way around. Riding from one side of Britain to the other is one of those cycling challenges that many people have on their bucket list. Yet, in Iceland, a smaller island, no one had ever crossed it from north to south before last year when an American cyclist, Payson McElveen, mades an attempt at being the first person to cross Iceland from coast-to-coast in one go.
Twin brothers swimming, cycling and running in Scotland 