A Swimmer Has The Right Idea About the Boat Race
The Boat Race must be the most boring sporting event in the world. After all, the same two teams always get to the final for a start.
So now the race has been interrupted by a protester swimming about in the river.
On the restart, the Oxford cox lost her steering and a German rowing for Oxford broke his oar. And now he’s just a passenger.
The swimmer has finally made it exciting.
The Scheduler Strikes Again
After yesterday’s problems getting to Ipswich, I have vowed that I’ll always travel in a proper train again.
However next Monday, Ipswich play Leicester at home and guess what. It is the usual Newbury Park detour with a coach. So that’s a match I’ll miss unless I want to have a very bad arm after the journey.
On the other hand, they’re putting on another train for Norwich supporters to get to Tottenham.
Not the Best of Days
Yesterday, I went to the football at Ipswich.
Before I left, I checked on TfL’s excellent Countdown system to see how long I’d have to wait for a 21 or 141 bus and it said that there would be three within the next five minutes and then a ten minute wait. I just missed the last of the three and so I thought I’d text the bus stop to find out how long I’d have to wait. But of course, I now had my Blackberry, instead of my Nokia 6310i and I couldn’t send the simple message of just 5 digits. Another reason for chucking the sodding F*ckberry. So no information. The first 141 was obviously in a hurry and drove straight past, despite five of us flagging it down. I then walked to the next stop, where other buses for Liverpool Street also depart. In the end, I caught another 141 and the driver apologised for his colleague.
One of the pleasures of going to Portman Road by train, is that if you pick your trains right, you get a Norwich train, with comfortable Mk. 3 coaches and a real engine to push you all the way. But today, no trains were running to Norwich, so it was one of the old multiple units, with no tables or arm-rests.
So by the time I got to Ipswich my left arm was really giving me gip, as there was no place to rest it.
Ipswich did win a rather scrappy game by the only goal of the game, which was the highpoint of the day.
But going home was a repeat of the journey down in an old dirty train. I needed to go to the toilet and the conductor apologised before I went. It was one of the dirtiest I’d ever seen on a train.
At least, I got back to Liverpool Street on time and then I walkked through to Moorgate to get a 141 home. Because of Crossrail, the area is in total chaos and I had to walk a long way, as the normal bus stop was closed.
TfL should have thought out how they do the buses in that area better! The chaos will go on for years.
At least I was able to have a decent drink in the Northgate.
The first thing I did when I got home, was to put my Sim-card back into the Nokia 6310i
Getting Emotional
I can sometimes get very emotional and start crying quietly. I did this morning in Carluccio’s in Islington. I’ve talked of this before. All I was doing as reading the colour magazine in The Times and especially the piece about some of the people who had won medals at the 1948 Games after suffering badly in the war.
The star of those Games was the Dutch female athlete, Fanny Blankers-Koen, who won four gold medals. The Dutch presented her with a new bicycle.
One other competitor I’d heard of was the Hungarian marksman, Karoly Takacs, who after losing his right hand to a grenade accident, learned to shoot left handed and won gold. He also won gold four years later in Helsinki.
One amazing tale concerns Jim Halliday, who fought in the retreat from Dunkirk and later was captured by the Japanese in 1942. On release from the his POW camp, he weighed just 27 Kg. He then won silver or bronze, depending on the source, in the wrestling. Sadly he died in 2007, so won’t be able to present any medals. Perhaps, he has a son or daughter, who can be asked!
And people moan about, VAT on pies and pasties. They don’t know they’re alive.
To me though, the crying may also be about my eyes telling me that they have now wetted up and are not as bone dry as they have been in recent months. Two years ago, a nurse treated them and said they were the driest eyes she’d ever seen. She gave me some artificial tears, but I can’t put anything in my eyes.
It’s not as if this day is anything significant in my life, as my son died on the 23rd, not the 30th.
Perhaps, I’m just one of those people, who needs to cry!
A Saint Helenan at the Olympic Park
I walked across the Olympic Park from the ViewTube to Hackney Wick along the Greenway.
On the way I met this guy from St. Helena, who was visiting the UK, and had a chat, as we looked at the park.
Bryan Duncan from St. Helena at the Olympic Park
I’ve never met anybody from St. Helena before. Or indeed anybody from the other two islands in the South Atlantic of Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
He told me, that he’d got to the UK by taking a packet boat to Ascension and then a flight to Brize Norton. He’ll be going back by flying to Cape Town and the packet boat. That’s some journey.
Sorry, if you’re a Brian!
The Olympic Legacy
Everybody seems to be complaining that there won’t be any Olympic Legacy. I’ve just had this e-mail read out on Radio 5.
Just compare Manchester after the Commonwealth Games, Sheffield after the World Student Games and Liverpool after the City of Culture with Athens after the Olympics and Montreal after the Olympics.
You can’t say we don’t do legacy. We do it very well!
I could have added, where’s the legacy in Atlanta and my physio from Queensland, doesn’t think there was much legacy after Sydney.
London’s biggest legacy will be the Olympic Park. And no-one who’s ever been over just a few of the UK’s big parks, could not agree that we do parks well. So just as Victoria Park and Hampstead Heath became London’s lungs nearly two centuries ago, the Olympic Park will be London’s park for the 22nd Century.
It’s a pity though London has got no superlambananas or equivalent. They may be rather trivial, but Liverpudlians love them.
I’m Now on Lasix
Or a generic form of furosemide, which is the drug known as Lasix. As it helps stop racehorses from nose-bleeding, I wonder if it will affect my nose-bleeds. But then I haven’t had any in the last week or so.
Lasix is banned for racehorses in the UK, but it is allowed freely in a lot of states in the US.
Let’s hope it helps me go a bit faster and further.
Spurs Don’t Seem to be Lucky
I watched Spurs play Chelski on Sunday and they didn’t get any luck in the goalless draw.
That pattern seems to be continuing against Bolton.
Perhaps it’s Harry’s problem and he isn’t lucky. What was it Benjamin Franklin said?
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
So let’s choose an England manager who makes his luck!
The Fight of the Week Is Warming Up
I’m watching the latest instalment in the Glasgow Premier League.
Rangers have scored a goal and Celtic have had a player sent off.
I wouldn’t like to be the referee for the next few weeks.
The Anonymous Widower 