The Rugby World Cup comes to London. The novelty goalposts are immediately declared “tragically kitsch”.

My mind was set on writing about budgeting, but then the goalposts got moved. So blame someone else for this strange post… I just write them. Whether there is any point to them, depends on reader reactions.

Staying with budgeting and money, our personal situation hasn’t changed much since last week when I wrote A Day Late and Dollars Short. My ‘generous’ brother is still remaining silent, no doubt plotting the next excuse for being unable to lend me my own money for our US move.

I call that moving the goalposts, if not changing the rules of the game, maybe even the type of game.

His financial evasion also means that we are having to modify our house requirements, but without really knowing how much we really have to spend. But we do know that the prices of wheelchair homes are rising.

As for the budgeting, I try to manage ours with room for the unexpected. I’ve learnt over the decades that a contingency of a reasonable size is invaluable… or should I say crucial. That is a lesson that too many people learn too late in life. So please, friends, and family, learn how to budget now – and make sure that there is sufficient to cover emergencies. We can’t bail everybody out forever.

I have to admit that I am responsible for moving some goalposts though. Writing ones. Having created a new victim in my WIP, I was forced to change the deadline for when my draft would be completed. This time I blame the devious antics of my antagonist, who manages to charm everyone into seeing only innocence – or at best creates circumstantial evidence that won’t ensure conviction.

[That was impressive – I wrote that without giving any clue to her or his sex. Not bad.]

However, the ending is proving an exciting challenge, and the first version is changing in interesting and unexpected ways.

But none of the above were the goalposts that triggered this post. That was… let’s say somewhat unexpected, or maybe inconsequential in the scheme of world affairs.

Unless those affairs include Middle Earth.

However, I’m a gamer for my sins, and always will be – even if my characters get killed at periodic intervals. Lately, I seem to have had some issues loading games; first Rift and then SWTOR, which I had been playing without any issue. Anyway, I finally logged on okay, intending to collect my daily rewards from each game… and then it happened.

One game, Defiance had a festival for the holiday season. One that I was looking forward to, as I needed some of the items that the game dropped. Of course, the game developers had introduced yet another synergy – not the one that I needed. So that means abandoning the old weapons, and forging new ones with the new synergy. But that’s typical of all game, I fear.

Goalposts indeed. At least they don’t move them for the World Cup, or the Superbowl – just the pitch for cricket.

Or did I hear a rumour that the media had changed another sport?