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Reply | Swimmable lakes in Suffolk
at 06:42 28 Apr 2025
Alton Water on Shotley usually allows people in for a dip - it had some sort of algae issue a few years ago but does host an annual swimming thing. |
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Reply | What team to support next season?
at 06:39 28 Apr 2025
Or, if you like constant moaning and you don't mind having a stadium that makes Layer Road look all mod cons, how about Bournemouth? |
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Thread | Watched Freddie Flintoff on Disney last night
at 11:24 25 Apr 2025
Poor bloke - they showed his injuries after that Top Gear crash and that looked horrific. TBH the surgeons did a bloody brilliant job repairing that. |
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Reply | In other 'Wood' news today
at 11:19 25 Apr 2025
No need for any court rulings on how you define a bloke in the Bayeaux era then? |
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Reply | Happy Birthday Warkytache!!! (n/t)
at 11:18 25 Apr 2025
Yeah - mate's just turned 55 and he's finding it difficult to adjust. You still feel like you're 30, only with bits getting stiffer, and not necessarily the good bits. |
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Reply | Based on Vappys thread - if you had a time machine
at 12:05 23 Apr 2025
My mum and dad went to Isle of Wight 1970 - saw Jethro Tull, The Doors and The Who.
They'd also been to - Cream at The Marquee 1968, Fleetwood Mac 1977, King Crimson at Hyde Park 1969, Stranglers at The Hope and Anchor 1977, The Rolling Stones 1967 and The Faces 1973.
I'd have liked to have seen any of them.... |
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Reply | Poor Mogga
at 09:12 22 Apr 2025
Alan Brazil looked cheerfully ruddy in the pub yesterday. Reckons Delap's off to Chelsea for £45 million. And we're after Hadji Wright and some Brentford midfielder on a season-long loan. |
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Thread | The Warky Premier Report: Arsehole (H)
at 18:24 20 Apr 2025
Welcome back. I've just walked in at home. Mrs Tel dropped me. They've returned to their saleable asset in Halstead for a late dinner of prime rib-eye steak cooked on their grill with mustard butter and served with chips and asparagus. I'm debating between M&S Quarter Peking duck, M&S cod fillet wrapped in parma ham and served with new season salad potatoes and local farm shop cabbage and granny smith coleslaw, or cauliflower cheese made with taleggio and Keens cheddar with a gammon steak. Might do the cauliflower cheese and gammon. The peking duck can wait until tomorrow.
I've sat with Tel since 9.30am. Mainly drinking pints and 'catching up'; his news, the gossip about Paula and her ongoing trials as a single parent, adrift in a world where independence seems to be a government-led punishment. My Dad is fine, I reassured him as he got my news out the way quick. My job is largely specious to him - it happens and I get paid from it, but as to the technicalities of it, well, it might just as well be brain surgery or rocket ship maintenance for Elon Musk; he doesn't understand it and so treats it with mild contempt.
It started in my kitchen and developed further as we caught the train from Manningtree; him moaning about the sudden incipient chill from the wind as we walked down the hill, me sanguine in my wind cheater and wooly jumper combo which he'd scoffed at around 9.30am. "S'not gonna be that bleedin' cold terday is it?" He monopolised the conversation. Sale of his home ("not 'ad a sniff yet, only two's come rand ter view it this week, still, Easta innit? It picks up agen on Toosdy, got free more by Fursdy"). My 51st birthday on Friday and his party for me next Saturday ("Come rand about six, we'll 'ave some beers before the Indian, don't open til 6.30 anyway"). Mrs Tel ("she's drivin' me nuts abart the 'ouse. Don't want 'arwich agen Tel. We've started lookin' at Ramsay. And Oakley, bofe of 'em"). On and on it went.
Mrs Tel is fine. I'm conscious I've missed a bit of her in the last few months and people who know me always ask how she is, possibly because I've not really 'fleshed her out' as it were in these reports much. Today she wore a neon pink Ipswich away shirt, a three-quarter length leather jacket in charcoal grey and a pair of indigo Levi's. The Ipswich shirt threw me a bit, mainly because I sold my season ticket back to the club for today's penultimate home game as Terry's neighbour in SAR upper couldn't make it and gave him his ST so I sat next to him. More anon. If you can stand it.
Mrs Tel is fine. I've said that already, haven't I? She's still a full member of Thorpe-le-Soken's finest establishment The Lifehouse, and she still goes regularly with Sandy as they did yesterday, for facials and swims and general women-style pampering and the odd strangely-named mocktail as neither now drink the hard stuff, probably for fear of replacing those sweated calories. She gave me a kiss on meeting and smelt lady-like. Thierry Mugler and a passing shot of Anais Anais hand cream. She's looking forward to Marbella in June. They're having a weekender in London to see that Abba thing fairly soon.
The conversation from Tel changed to all things footy as we entered the pub. He watched the scum lose 5-3 on Friday and was confident we'd redress the balance of Town on top next season. He related the Pompey goals like a man describing a new train journey; details were innate, the hint of a funny thing never far from the tone. He sank his new pint quickly and went for another for us both.
We left at one-forty. He was eagerly eyeing the side dishes of roast spuds they started serving for lunch. We'd had light snacks, him some loaded chips, me a dish of chicken wings in bourbon sauce. No Broadhead. Delap on the bench with someone called Boniface. He looked hopefully at me and I shook my head. Some kid we'd promoted to taste the tears of a heavy home defeat? We took our seats, him puffing at the climb up the stairs, me feeling a bit precarious in the upper SAR, as though encamped on the side of the Eiger.
You all saw the game so I'll spare it again. Tel snorted, sang a few songs, looked pained when Davis was red-carded "Whaffor? Thass a yellow all day! If that'd been Rice, he'd've got a bleedin' yella. Ref's a tosser". But we were clearly, keenly second-best all game. The late arrival of Chappers was the only bright spot.
"We need a few in fer nex' season to make that a team" said Tel afterwards. He'd have also played Woolfy rather than Greaves, who he seems ambivalent about. "Don' mind if we sell 'im to be fair, never seems to be readin' it right. Mind, who'd pay the money?".
Collected at Manningtree by Mrs Tel who'd had an Easter Sunday at home, tidying up. Tel gave her a smooch and said "Lost four-nil" as she opened her mouth to ask. He said it quickly, as though heading off any further comment and, to be fair to him, it worked. She had the radio set on Classic Gold or one of those channels that plays Fleetwood Mac a lot and Supertramp came on with Breakfast in America, which used to be one of my late Mum's favourites, so we all sang along. I was surprised Tel knew most of the words, thinking him an old punk and therefore immune to the pleasures of Supertramp and ELO and that. Just goes to show you can't ever tell.
To paraphrase ELO, it's a Strange Magic in the Prem. I've not exactly enjoyed it, but I have enjoyed some of it, especially the wins against the odds. Just Brentford and West Ham to go at home, two of the games Terry is most looking forward to before we drop back into the more settled waters of everyone being able to beat everyone else and the expectation from the fans starting to ramp up high again. I hope for two wins but, to be honest, I've hoped for two wins before and it didn't happen.
C'est La Vie |
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Thread | Blimey - Sheffield Wednesday might not be competitive next season then
at 18:15 16 Apr 2025
Just heard from a friend that they had a supporters trust meeting yesterday with their owner, Dejphon Chansiri, and 'may be going into administration with at least a 15 point deduction before the season starts'.
He can't afford to pay players all summer apparently. Sounds like we got off lightly with Marcus Evans? |
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Thread | The Warky On a Thursday Report
at 21:24 10 Apr 2025
A Warky Report on a Thursday? What? Yes. I know. But it's been a while and I have some news.
The biggest news is that Tel and Mrs Tel have put their house in Halstead on the market. The honeymoon period wore off, sadly. They didn't like Halstead as a town. Tel frequently moaned to me before the footie that he couldn't stand it. They were driving to Braintree and Colchester a lot for shopping and to meet with her brother and his wife. He missed the closeness of the sea and his old friends from Dovercourt. They're both well into their sixties now, no kids, and I think the relationship with Tony and Sandy has cooled a bit from his point of view, although Mrs Tel seems to spend more time with both.
I asked where they'd be looking to move, but Tel couldn't answer that and, instead, took refuge in the age-old distraction of belittling Halstead to me once again. "No bleedin' shops, not any yer'd wanna use in yer right mind anyway". I wondered if it was just him? "Nah, the wife can't stand it eiver. Iss 'er that wants the move". He chewed reflectively on his beer and said he could feel a cold draught somewhere. We were sat in a pub in old Harwich. He'd come to look at a house in Little Oakley. He invited me. It wasn't suitable. That much became clear before we'd even met the estate agent outside (he was running late and Tel nearly b*ggered off without even giving him the courtesy of an audience when he saw the house).
"Tony wants to move ter Spain" said Tel as we drank on, the light in the pub flickering as a cloud drifted over the sun. One of the bar staff crept into the hiatus and asked if we wanted a menu. Tel shook his head and then said, almost an afterthought, "fanks anyway" to her retreating back. I asked him if he knew where and he said "Place called Carmona, near Seville". I asked him if he'd been and he shook his head again. "Nah. Seville's not our cup'o'tea. Surprised it's theirs to be 'onest. Well, 'is anyway. She's always been a bit la-di-dah. Architeck stuff an' all that. She loves it". He sipped again and added "She was one of the only folk I've met who enjoyed wotchin' that Time Team". He shook his head at the iniquity of it all.
So the house is on the market. Ipswich are heading back to the Championship. We're both renewing because, as Tel said, "Why wouldn'tcha? Best bit of goin' up if yer can't stay there is comin' down wiv cash and the chance of whipping a few". He reflected as I went to the bar with our empties, looking for another refill as it was only 4pm. "Specially the scum" he added with a seraphic grin that exposed brown teeth and five 'o'clock shadow on his cheek.
I don't know. It all seems a bit hasty. Mrs Tel didn't come with him on the house viewing and he only saw one house, so it's hardly urgent. I can't imagine he'd buy a property without her say-so. We took a cab back to mine from the pub later and passed by his old bungalow and I noted he pressed his face against the side window as we passed, a longer-than-uncaring glimpse. And I felt sad. I don't know why. This was the place of memories, the first official 'item' dinner with Paula all that time ago, the scene of parties, sleep-overs, piss-ups, emotional meets and tears and laughter, And now it's just someone else's home. Almost a warning to the curious.
Life does carry on, just the same. We just get older and more reminiscent and nostalgic for things that, in the moment, were actually the cause of great pain and ongoing confusion. Terry remembers things in a negative way that I only remember being positive, and vice versa. He ages ungracefully, as though dragged unwillingly through the years towards his epitaph. His black has long-since turned grey. Sometimes I think he's aged alarmingly, and I worry. Then he opens his mouth and I realise he's still in there, the barrack-room-barrister without a jury. I'm fifty-one soon. I feel it. Blokes died in their late forties when my Grandfather was a nipper, not just through war or pestilence, but of age worn stuff. It was accepted. I'm still hanging on. Barely.
Thanks for listening. Or reading. Dunno why I told you all that now? Oh well. Match reports will come back eventually, but the constant beatings do get on yer wick, as Tel has said, so perhaps we'll be a bit choosy until the Championship starts in August? You never know your luck.
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Thread | Oh well......
at 18:09 5 Apr 2025
roll on Coventry at home in August.....should be a cracker! |
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Thread | Apologies
at 16:54 16 Mar 2025
Got a bit too into the old drink yesterday
I was just so angry, disappointed, pissed off and generally too drunk to post anything decent. Hope this hasn't ruined reports for you all.
Cheers
Warkers |
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Reply | Is it 1995?? (n/t)
at 16:06 15 Mar 2025
Can I have 1976 - warmer as well? Pint was about 5p. Admittedly, mainly Watneys or Double Diamond. Or Tolly Cobbold mild. |
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