This counts for news in GB

So Brett Favre is retiring. This news delivered to me by dad as he hands me the phone (it's Grandma, telling me our trip to Appleton for lunch with the great-aunts is off due to snow), his tone of voice as matter of fact as if he was observing the weather. All of the local channels have suspended programming so they can bring you Brett Favre's Life and Career. It's a very weird feeling, watching Favre retire--I don't really care about football, but since it's Green Bay, the Packers are bred into you. And Favre has been around for sixteen years, more than half my life. When he started for the Packers, I was nine, I had a dog, my teacher was the evil Mr. Banana-man and I was big into New Kids on the Block. Now I have two degrees (and still no grammar skills, take THAT evil Banana-man!), no dog, and a pretentious love of that greatest of American art forms, but for the first time fall will see no Brett Favre take the field. Weird. Dad is being stoic, noting that he has seen several quarterbacks come and go ("when Bart Starr retired, the flags flew at half-mast!"), and I'm sure deep down inside he is relishing the prospect of arm-chair administrating next year as the team tries to hire a "replacement."

Godspeed, Brett Favre, and good luck.

Did anyone else watch the special on the Royal Family last night? Okay, just me then. Part of me was really interested in the day-to-day life of the Royal Fam, and part of me was being really cynical thinking "oh yeah. This is obviously catering to the Americans who love to see all the pomp and ceremony of a monarchy we don't have." Then of course realise I was chastigating myself. Because, seriously, this show was like porn for royalists. Loving snaps of the silver plate being polished. Interviews with HRH's horse guards who gushed about being in the processions. Lingering shots of the crown jewels being readied for the royal head. And the money shot--Queen Elizabeth II in all her finery opening Parliament. Drool. Even though there were a few annoying interviews with President Bush about the Queen's visit (which I didn't hear, owing to an odd hissing sound emanating from my mouth), the show was brilliant and made me long for the days when pomp and circumstance was only one timed-entrance ticket away.