What to do today instead of going to a hockey game.

Kudos to my dafter for her excellent report elsewhere on the internet about the huge weather event going out outdoors.

This is what I get for yawning in the face of chaos.

And special thanks to my brafter (I just made that up) who is scanning his slides and provided us with this excellent photo of TOPWLH and I with TCWUTH taken the very first day that she came home and started living with us.No mail delivery today. So much for "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night blah, blah, blah . . ."

Of course, the mere fact of physical impossibility of reaching us in one of those little mail vans probably should be noted before anyone gets very critical.

This seems like a good time to post this again.

It is not a fit night out for man nor beast.

In November of 2007 I spent some time exclaiming at some length over the once in a lifetime opportunity being experienced by an amateur side (U.S.S.A. Vertou) from the suburbs of Nantes playing in le Coupe de France against FC Nantes in the big stadium in Nantes.

The continuing mediocrity of FC Nantes means that this year they are for the third of the past four seasons stuck in Ligue 2. FC Nantes spent the 43 season before that in Ligue 1. Because Ligue 2 teams enter the draw for le Coupe two rounds earlier than Ligue 1 teams it is much, much more likely for a very low level amateur side such as the unpaid players from Vertou to match up against a professional side from Ligue 2 than to play against a Ligue 1 side.

Today in Nantes history repeated itself as a once in a lifetime opportunity occurred again only after a lapse not of a lifetime, but of a mere three years. This time quite a few fewer people think it is a big deal.

FC Nantes 2:0 U.S.S.A. Vertou.