Table Tennis at the Duke of Wellington
I did try to play table tennis a few months ago, but my eyesight wasn’t good enough.
Tonight though, I went down the Duke of Wellington in the Balls Pond Road and played a couple of games for charity. I was a lot better.
I also had some very good Wye Valley asparagus with a poached duck egg on top. I did have a chat with the manager and they know their gluten-free.
The strange thing about the pub is that it is a few doors away from where some my ancestors lived in the 1850s. I just wonder if, I’m not the first member of my family to drink in the pub. I’m certainly the first to play table tennis.
My First London Marathon
C and I akways said that one day we’d go and see the London Marathon. But we never did!
So today, I took the East London Line from Dalston Junction to Shadwell and walked through to The Highway to see the leaders of the men’s race and a lot of the other runners pass. Interesting I talked to a couple of people, who were using the line for the first time. They were impressed. I should also say that the line was crowded, but it appeared to be coping wioth probably the busiest Sunday of the year.
It was a very good atmosphere and I enjoyed it. Quite a few of the pictures were taken by standing on the wall outside St. George’s Gardens. At least my balance must be getting quite good.
I also took this video standing on the wall, as the elite flashed by and the others jogged towards Canary Wharf.
I always said that one day, I’d do the marathon. But I suspect after the stroke and with my dodgy heart valve, it’s now out of the question. Unless of course, I can persuade a good cardiologist to run, or more likely walk, with me.
Part of the reason was always that Chris Brasher was one of my heroes. In this post, I explain why and also say a bit more about the London Marathon.
My New Trainers
I got my new trainers on Friday from Runners Need.
I wore them all day yesterday in Bristol and in the end we had to walk all the way from Ashton Gate to Temple Meads, which took about thirty minutes.
This morning, I have no stiffness or soreness!
I’ve not had any cramps in bed either.
So perhaps everybody should get their trainers properly fitted.
Josh Carson Does It Again
The football wan’t the best although in the end the result was what I wanted. Lee Martin got himself sent off and then the ten men of Ipswich attempted to hold on for the rest of the match.
The deciding goal had a touch of good fortune about it, as Josh Carson intercepted a stray pass and then beat David James from over twenty metres. I felt at the time, that it might have been a goalkeeping calamity, but it appears it was just a well-placed shot, that James couldn’t reach.
Carson has now scored three times in three starts and when Ipswich have won in those three games, he’s scored all the goals.
How many world-class strikers have started their career with such a record? Not many I suspect!
M1 Closed on Busiest Sporting Weekend
The M1 is closed on the busiest sporting weekend of the year, with two FA Cup semi-finals and the London Marathon.
But it probably won’t be as bad as it could be, as Manchester United fans won’t have much trouble getting up to Wembley from Surrey.
It does though illustrate the folly of not allowing an extra rail route into London from Manchester via the East Midlands.
Is There A Need For An Evening Football Rail Ticket?
When I’ve gone to football at Ipswich evening matches lately, I’ve had to go by Cambridge for other reasons, so I’ve had to buy a ticket from Cambridge to Ipswich and then one from Ipswich to London. I’ve never had a problem buying the last ticket and the ticket has been reasonably priced. Last night, I booked a seat on the 18:10 to get to Ipswich, as I was travelling in the rush hour. I didn’t want to go earlier as Ipswich is a gluten-free desert. But I was unable to buy a reasonably priced ticket in either London or Ipswich. I then thought, that this might be due to the hour change and there were no late trains, so I left the match at half time and then got a ticket to Colchester for £6.20, where I duly arrived at about nine o’clock on a train that was returning to London virtually empty. At Colchester, I bought a ticket to London for under a tenner and then caught the 21:30 to Liverpool Street. Again the train was virtually empty. So the trains were running and I could have seen the whole match. But the machine wanted to charge me £24 for the ticket, as against the £19.80 I paid to get to Ipswich in the rush hour.
Next Thursday, it’s the Norwich match and I’ll be going. I can get up for £19.80 in the rush hour and back for £5.30 after the match on any train.
It all just blows my head in.
Why couldn’t I get the £5.30 ticket last night and in the end travelled in an empty train?
What is needed is a special football ticket, that applies to evening matches outside London, at places like Ipswich, Norwich, Reading, Watford, Milton Keynes and Brighton.
If you travel out by train, you should be able to buy a much-reduced ticket for the journey home on production of a valid match ticket. After all the return will probably be on an empty train.
Incidentally, some Ipswich fabs don’t buy season tickets because of the difficulty of getting to evening home games by train. So both the train company and the football club are losing out.
Open House for the Olympics
I’ve been thinking about doing this for some time, but I’m now declaring a sort of Open House for the Olympics. With the ticket sales, a lot of friends have said they will be buying tickets, but they have nowhere to stay, if they are outside London.
So on a first-come, first-served basis anybody who has a direct link to me is welcome to stay for a night. By direct link, I mean, relatives, except the black-sheep, Alfred, ex-Metier and others who I’ve worked with and those who are my e-friends outside London. I am convenient for Stratford and will actually be going today, by taking a bus or train a couple of stops to Hackney Wick and then walking along the Greenway. To walk all the way takes 90 minutes along the Regent’s Canal and Hertford Canal via Victoria Park. There will also be a good bus service from just up the road at Dalston Junction during the games.
I suspect it will get chaotic, but we’ll only see one Olympics in London in our lifetime, so why not have a two-week party?
The house is fairly small but I do have a spare double-bedroom and a single one, but then I do have a warm living room with a large carpet, so kids could camp indoors on the floor. It’ll probably be the only Olympics they see, so a bit of roughing it wouldn’t matter.
I also suspect that there will be a big party in Victoria Park for the Olympics, as they are setting up large screens there. It might be where the real East Enders hold their Olympic celebration!
Did Jack Warner Ask for a Bribe?
Read this story from the Press Association about a possible meeting between Jack Warner and two of the leaders of the England 2018 World Cup Bid team.
I thought when I read the article in The Times this morning that Mr. Warner might consider it to be a libel. Let’s hope he tries to prove it in a UK Court of Law! I’m sure Rupert Murdoch would enjoy the challenge.
I’m very much against libel tourism, but in this case I might be prepared to make an exception.
Applying For London Olympics Tickets
I have just completed my application for tickets for the London Olympics next year.
It was not a complicated process for someone like me , but I could expect people like C to have lost patience with the system, as there are just so many tickets to apply for in the initial ballot. I’ve tended to go for between two and four tickets for a large range of events, going for slightly higher price tickets in events I really want to see. I’ve also put in a bid to see some tennis on the centre court at Wimbledon, as there is no other way, I’ll ever get to see anything in that iconic venue.
It will be interesting to see how many tickets I get! In some ways I’m not bothered too much, as I suspect that the best way to see some events will be to go to the Olympic Park or Victoria Park and watch it on the big screens.
Remember too, that modern stadia such as Wembley and The Emirates don’t have many poor seats, so you can probably expect that even a seat in the Gods in the Olympic Stadium will be a lot better than some I’ve paid a lot of money for in various football grounds this year.
How To Relax Before Football
I took this picture before the match at Ipswich against Crystal Palace yesterday.
Waiting for the Football
Is there a better way to wait for proceedings to start?
It was a good match too, with Josh Carson scoring his first two goals for Ipswich. When did we last have two good seventeen-year-old strikers, who’d come through the Academy?
The Anonymous Widower 