Footballers are smart

I heard Stephen Gerrard on the radio this morning said that they shouldn't sack Steve McClaren, the England manager, if England fail to qualify for the Euro 2008¹, because the most important thing to a team is "Conituity. or whatever the word is."

Made me laugh, anyway.

I'm allowed to laugh, I didn't know where Greenland was until two days ago!

[1] - Basically, Russia have to lose/draw against Israel and Andorra, and then we have to win against Croatia. I think. This is because we have SUCKED massively in all matches played this far.²

[2] - My personal opinion: I think it's because while the England team is stuffed full of excellent players, they lack the ability to play as a cohesive team. Some say this is due to the intense competition in English football. I think this is unlikely, there's always been intense competition and we've managed to Not Suck before; also, if you play football, that rivalry ends with the whistle. It's the way it works. I personally think it's more down to the culture of the celebrity-fying of footballers, meaning that there are too many 'superstars' in the England football team that play amazing football, but can't play *together*. The right manager will be the one that can get them all playing as a team, and not a bunch of brilliant footballers playing on the same side. I'll stop talking about football now.

Still Learning...

I am continuing my geographic edjukation today by finally getting sorted in my head which end of the world is the Arctic (the top!) and which is the Antarctic (the bottom!) and confirming that polar bears really don't eat penguins, because Polar Bears live in the Northern Hemisphere and Penguins in the Southern Hemisphere (I already knew this from watching The Blue Planet etc, but still could never remember which was which out of the cold-bit-at-the-top and the cold-bit-at-the-bottom).

In the course of my research, I found a news article from 2003 about a polar bear with dermatitis. The treatment for this turned her purple! A purple polar bear! I think this may actually be the Cutest Thing Ever.



story here.

She turned back to a normal colour when the treatment was over ;)