Friday 29th

Whats with football? Not a game I watch, since childhood the idea of chasing a ball round in whatever form has never appealed.  But there is FIFA wrapped up in corruption to do with money laundering, tax evasion, etc, etc.  Blatter the president and head of these bunch of cronies  fumbles and stumbles and says yes it is a good thing this corruption has been found out.  For heavens sake, extradite them to America put them in jail for fraud, and then please can the news media turn to more important things!

But once in my 'mother hen' role of looking after students, had the daughter of one of the FIFA directors from Brazil.  She arrived with her friend, one cold January afternoon, the Brazilian students always seemed to come in the middle of winter, from a  hot climate that was somewhere in the region of 40 degrees.  She arrived tearful, 18 years old, blonde and attractive, and somehow her mother in Brazil must have known the state of her daughter, for the phone rang at that precise moment and a long conversation ensued.  Pot of tea round the table and she soon settled in, a week later she was off up to London for the weekend to a party and there I was worrying about buns and ovens, hated to think I might send one of my students home pregnant because I had not read the 'riot act' or its equivalent.