“Yes—and afterward?
Well—what? and what did this new question mean? Afterward: why, of course, there was the startled puzzled surrender to the incomprehensible exigencies of the young man to whom one had at most yielded a rosy cheek in return for an engagement ring; there was the large double-bed; the terror of seeing him shaving calmly the next morning, in his shirt-sleeves, through the dressing room door; the evasions, insinuations, resigned smiles and Bible texts of one's Mamma; the reminder of the phrase "to obey" in the glittering blur of the Marriage Service; a week or a month of flushed distress, confusion, embarrassed pleasure; then the growth of habit, the insiduous lulling of the matter-of course, the dreamless double slumbers in the big white bed, the early morning discussions and consultations through that dressing room door which had once seemed to open into a fiery pit scorching the brow of innocence.”
Live Blogging Germany v. Spain Pierre / June 28 Set your alarm clocks, prep your laptops, give your chihuahua a swift kick in the arse and stock your fridge full of Carlsberg: This is the place to be Sunday afternoon for completely pointless, malinformed and likely inebriated live-blogging of the Euro final. Unlike 2004, we won't have an undeservedly dull upstart (Greece) playing a collection of Deco-Ronaldo whiners (Portugal). This time it's two goal-oriented powerhouses of football who, Turkey's Jannissary-like displays and the Netherlands' joyfully premature peaking aside (I wanted to see those two go head to foot), earned their place in the final. Somehow finding time for a little football between their inquisitions, their new-world genocides and old-world holocausts, Spain and Germany have played each other 19 times. Germany has the advantage with eight wins against Spain's five. They've tied six times. Germany has the goal-scoring advantage too, 26-21, although this time it looks like Spain is slightly favored. Coming into the game, Germany is 4-1 at the Euro, losing to Croatia, 1-2, and scoring 10 goals while conceding six. Spain is undefeated at Euro 2008, beating Italy on penalty kicks for its quarterfinal victory and scoring 11 goals along the way while conceding just three—and not one in its last two matches. Keep in mind that in qualifiers, when Germany faced its only true challenge (the Czechs), Germany lost 0-3, at home in Munich. (To be fair, the Germans defeated the Czechs earlier in the Czech Republic, 2-1). Germany has won the Euro three times, tops on that continent of warmongers. Spain faced no competition in qualifiers (unless you can call provinces like Iceland, Latvia and Liechtenstein competition. Spain won the European Championships once, in 1964. Anyway, be sure to tune in right here, the live-blogging should be fun with this new tool that I discovered while keeping up with the Supreme Court's Valdez-guzzlin, child-raping, gun-toting decisions. Go figure. No need to refresh your page: it's all really live. You can stay here on go to the dedicated page.
