The Underhill Journal

I've created my own online "book shop" for my own work at Lulu. My Book Shop can be found here.
Enjoy.

According to an article in the Guardian today, the Swedish have decided to ban all religion in all schools in Sweden, even the Religious ones. From now on it must not be taught as if it were actually true. We should do the same in Scotland.

This from the bbc:


Argentines launch tomato boycott
A couple buys fruit and vegetables at a market in Buenos Aires, 19 September 2007
Consumer groups say basic goods prices have risen sharply
Consumer groups and hundreds of supermarkets in Argentina are launching a tomato boycott to protest against what they say are rising prices.

The groups have challenged official inflation figures, saying these are out of sync with market prices.

Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has defended official data that put inflation at just 0.8% in September.

Inflation has become one of the main issues in Argentina's presidential elections later this month.

The rest of the article is here.

My son and I are going to our Inter-Club competition tomorrow. I'll be doing 4 categories: Points, Light Continuous, Kata (I'm going to do Jitte) and Weapons Kata (Heian Nidan with Sai). Last competition I won the Weapons Kata with my Sai, but I didn't manage to get any footage of it in the end, so I'm taking my camcorder tomorrow.
With a bit of help from my other half I'll edit it and put the best bits up on here, so here's hoping I do another good Sai Kata, as well as the others. I haven't actually seen any real footage of myself doing kata so it'll be pretty informative. We've got some pretty good students and fighters at in our school, so hopefully I'll have plenty of good stuff to post!
Wish me luck!

This is a version of Enpi. I'm trying to decide whether to do Enpi or Jitte at our inter club competition on Sunday. Anyway, this is pretty close to the way we do Enpi, and once again it's well done.

A fascinating article with lots of videos about crow behaviour in the wild. These are interesting because the crows use tools, a behaviour that is traditionally associated with notions of Human Superiority to other animals. The article about crows is here.

The Women's World Cup finished last weekend, with Germany beating Brazil 2-0 in the Final. On the surface that sounds much like the same old story as the Men's game, with the two most successful teams meeting in the final, but it wasn't like that.
Until this year, during the World Cup there was no women's league in Brazil. The stunning thing about this is that the flow and style of the Brazil team was much like you would want to see from the Men's team. Marta, who is Fifa Women's player of the year, plays in Sweden where Women's football is alive and well. Many players play in the USA, or in Germany, but there is nowhere for these definitely talented women to play in their own country, the country that is most associated with the Beautiful Game.
Anyway, here's a recent article about Marta and Women's football from the Guardian.

The female footballer who's better than you

Women's World Cup star Marta has more talent than than most professional male footballers, and she's not the only one.
Steven Wells
October 3, 2007 4:30 PM

I'm married to an ardent Liverpool fan so, trust me, I get to watch a lot of mediocre football. Like a lot of ex-pats, we spend all weekend glued to the TV, watching Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea grind out one-nothings against the stalwart Premier League makeweights.

Now and then, of course, you get a flash of genius, of ability gone berserk. If you're really lucky, you get to see a game that reminds you why you fell in love with football in the first place. And why all the other sports are just sports.

The women's World Cup semi-final between Brazil and the USA was such a game. In the second half Brazil played the sort of football that makes you laugh out loud. The 21-year-old forward Marta stood over the ball, feinting and jinking while American defenders twitched like rabbits. Then she turned it on, ripping the US defence apart again and again with aggression, speed and moments of amazing skill.

There were glimpses of Zola, Best, Henry and Gascoigne. Behind her the rest of the Brazil team fell into an arrogant, relaxed, devastating rhythm. This was football beyond gender. This was magic.

You can read the rest of the article here, and I recommend a trawling of the comment forum underneath, although there is something to offend every point of view in it.

I had two thoughts regarding the article and the comments below.

Firstly, an awful lot of people were saying that women are to small and too slow to play with men. I disagree on the basis that if Robinho (who is only marignally taller than me at 5'2" ish) can play in Serie A, then I really can't see why Marta couldn't ( apart from FIFA regulations of course). Also the notion that women aren't strong enough ought to be discounted on the basis that Birgit Prinz (the german no 9) is as strong and powerful as a large number of men in the men's game. I am not saying that there aren't men out there that wouldn't brush her aside, but that is the same as any half way decent player who's strong and determined. Women play differently to men though, and they do have their weaknesses, but so do male players. Why, do you think, that we bother with labelling players as being "Defenders" or "Attackers"? It's simply because everyone is different and has a different role to play in a team game like Football.
My second point, which is gleaned from personal experience, is that women can compete against men in a physical environment. I do it every day, although most particuarly, twice a week at my Karate Club. We practice semi-contact Martial Arts, which is no more physical contact than is allowed in football. I, and other female members of my club, fight against the men on an equal basis, and I know from that that although there is a definite physical difference between me and them men that I fight against (they are all much bigger and much stronger than me), what it really boils down to is technique. I have my own advantages - my fists are quick and I am good at hiding my intention. I'm also pretty decent at picking up on little moments when my opponent has his guard down. I know not to be overawed by an opponents strength, because I know what I can rely upon in my own talents. This would be just as applicable to women playing against men at football, as well as against other women.
There are a lot of silly myths about the women's game - that women don't take shots from outside the box, that all the goalkeepers are rubbish, that women don't do good set plays and so on. Have a look at this - it's the top ten goals from the tournament. I've noticed rather a lot of great goals outside the box and there's a couple of very sweet free kicks in there. The only goal scored within the box is by England's Kelly Smith, and even I'll admit she used some good skill to score it.
The other set of myths that really annoy me are the ones that people float as ways of making the women's game better. Decrease the size of the pitch and the goals? I can't think of a better way to make the Women's game more restricted. Who's going to pay for all the smaller pitches and replace the goals? It's a ludicrous proposal which ignores the basic fact that it's only comparatively recently that Male athletes have been getting taller and stronger in such significant ways. I've even seen it suggested that women's games should be made shorter (again) which assumes that women have less stamina than men. This is patently absurd and blatantly sexist, because it has been proven in a number of scientific studies (including one conducted by the Marine Corps in the US) that women actually have more stamina than men, particuarly when you get into the 30+ age group where male stamina actually dips really quickly and female stamina continues to be strong, as a general rule.
Women are different, and as the French would say, vive la difference. That does not mean that we are inferior to men, we have different talents and in team sport we can demonstrate the value in that. I thoroughly enjoyed the Women's World Cup, and I noticed that in general (excusing Cristiane's rather awful behaviour around the sending off in the Brazil v USA semi-final) women play fairer, dive less, argue with the ref less, have a stronger team spirit and spend a lot less rolling around pretending to be in pain. In fact, generally most women just got back to their feet after tackles. Yes most women are slower, which makes the quick ones like Marta, De Vanna of Australia, Birgit Prinz and so on, and yes women aren't generally as strong - but this is Football, not Rugby and many male players aren't really that strong too. Good Football is about balance, quick thinking, good vision, quick feet and, more importantly than anything else, team play. These are certainly not things which women lack, so I really don't see why the Women's game is so inferior to the Men's.