SINGING THE BLUES...

As you can see, the fat lady is singing at last. Yesterday`s televised humiliation saw Saints lose 3-0 to Wolves with the game being over really after 17 minutes. So that`s it. Saints must surely now be relegated to the third tier of English football for the first time in 49 years.

There`s no point in going on about the football, but yesterday`s events have thrown up one or two `interesting` things. For example, Wolves first goal was scored after 41 seconds by Sam Vokes, who is a lifelong Saints fan and was signed by Wolves from Bournemouth earlier in the season. When I walk from Town Quay to St. Mary`s Stadium, I pass a small park on the way. It`s called the Vokes Memorial Park....and I wonder if there is any connection with Sam. Interesting.

I then got to wonder about the fat lady and her singing. It seems that this phrase refers to Wagner`s Ring cycle - a lengthy opera finally concluding in a stirring aria sung by a heavy-set woman dressed like a warring valkyrie. The Ring cycle is a set of four separate operas (lasting about 15 hours), in which the final scene includes Brünnhilde singing, and then riding onto Siegfried's funeral pyre. The set collapses and the entire cycle ends up in the Rhine river, where it started. Sounds like a fitting allegory of Saints` season. The "fat lady" is often illustrated with a horned helmet, a spear, possibly a shield, and possibly blonde braids. One thing`s for sure - she ain`t dressed in red and white stripes but if she was, she would probably be singing the blues. Interesting.