Come on, Hearts

As I type, the most important Scottish club match of the last forty years is being played at Celtic Park, where the hosts must defeat league leaders Hearts to retain the title. Only Celtic and Rangers have won the title since Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen did, in 1985.

It’s almost halftime, and the score is 0–0.

I watched Celtic and Hearts play other teams earlier this week. Hearts looked the better side. But Celtic are at home.

I can’t stream the match. The browser won’t load. It must be that so many people are watching, Paramount+ can’t handle the volume.

That can’t be right. Paramount+ broadcasts the Champions League.

Well, some things are bigger than the Champions League.

Update: Hearts have scored.

Update: Celtic have equalized. Halftime.

Update: Celtic score two late goals.

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Disheartening: publishing a book with Oxford (!) now involves negotiating with robots.

Pacho vs. Piero

Happy birthday to Mary.

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Some old-ish news:

For the second straight year, an Ecuadorian will win the UEFA Champions League. Paris Saint-Germain (the holders) and Arsenal will contest the final. Willian Pacho plays for PSG, and Piero Hincapié plays for Arsenal.

Both play for the national team, and they used to be teammates at Independiente del Valle.

I don’t care which club wins the Champions League. Arsenal once were purists; now they’re pragmatists. PSG are delightful to watch, but one can only take in so much enthusiasm for a propaganda arm of the Qatari state.

What about the players? Should I cheer more for Pacho or for Piero? Pacho won last year, and Piero hasn’t won. (Advantage: Piero.) But Pacho is likelier to play more minutes. (Advantage: Pacho.)

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Recent news:

CR7’s club failed to clinch the Saudi league title because of this very late “own” goal:

May’s poem

… is from Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees (the poem, “The Grumbling Hive,” was first published in 1705).

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The worst of all the multitude

Did something for the common good.

This was the state’s craft, that maintain’d

The whole of which each part complain’d:

This, as in music harmony

Made jarrings in the main agree,

Parties directly opposite,

Assist each other, as ’twere for spite;

And temp’rance with sobriety,

Serve drunkenness and gluttony.

The root of evil, avarice,

That damn’d ill-natur’d baneful vice,

Was slave to prodigality,

That noble sin; whilst luxury

Employ’d a million of the poor,

And odious pride a million more:

Envy itself, and vanity,

Were ministers of industry;

Their darling folly, fickleness,

In diet, furniture, and dress,

That strange ridic’lous vice, was made

The very wheel that turn’d the trade.

Their laws and clothes were equally

Objects of mutability!

For, what was well done for a time,

In half a year became a crime;

Yet while they altered thus their laws,

Still finding and correcting flaws,

They mended by inconstancy

Faults, which no prudence could foresee.

Thus vice nurs’d ingenuity,

Which join’d the time and industry,

Had carry’d life’s conveniences,

Its real pleasures, comforts, ease,

To such a height, the very poor

Liv’d better than the rich before.

And nothing could be added more.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(Lines 167–203)

Speaking of changes in fashion: time was, there was a market for satirical political philosophy written in verse, and now there is none.

Dory

The kitten – now named Dory – is still with us. She came through her surgery just fine.

She’s a sweetheart. The children love her.

This photo is cute, but it doesn’t show how long-bodied and scrawny Dory is.

We mostly confine her to the bathroom. We’re introducing her to the house and to the other cats a little at a time, as advised in books. We’ll keep her if: (a) she and Jasper and Ziva get along, and (b) we don’t find anyone else who would like a cat.

A photo of Karin and Dory:

As you can tell, Dory already has ruined some of our blinds.

Cat people

My 2025–2026 reading cycle has ended. On the last day, I finished reading six books. I came up three books short. (The final tally was fifty-seven.)

I thank Karin for her tolerance.

I caught Samuel trying to put one of my books on its shelf. He couldn’t slide it into the space; he was jamming it in. I stopped him before he could wrinkle the cover.

He’d brought the book downstairs from his play-room.

“Why did you take my book upstairs?” I asked.

He said: “I just wanted to copy out some of the text.”

I didn’t object to that answer. Indeed, I was rather pleased.

We have a new cat in our house: a young “queen” that Karin rescued from a gang of “toms.” We’re keeping her in our bathroom. The plan is to get her spayed ASAP; we’ll then consider whether to give her up or keep her. She’s starved but friendly, a year or so old. She may be the offspring of the winsome, irresponsible cat that lives across the street.

The “toms” have been prowling outside our house all day. I just saw them have their way with another “queen.” One can’t save them all.

Jasper and Ziva are none too pleased, perhaps because a new cat is in the house, perhaps because Karin medicated all three cats against fleas.