Catching Up

It’s been a little while since my last posting. Apologies for my absence, but sometimes real-life takes precedence over the blogosphere :) So, what’s been happening in the interim?

Well, I guess the big news was the announcement of the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton and the subsequent fixing of the date for the Royal Wedding. It’s been a while since there has been an occasion of this size in this country, certainly not since the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and probably not since Charles and Diana’s wedding back in 1981. Back then there were street parties across the country and a real mood of national celebration. I suspect that it won’t be quite like that this time round. Questions have already been asked about how much the taxpayer should be paying out for the wedding at a time when drastic cuts are being made to public spending, taxes are on the rise and people are fearful for their jobs. But the reality is that hundreds of thousands of people are going to want to be in London to see some of the wedding and it will obviously be a huge security operation for the police that is going to cost millions of pounds. At a time of such austerity in can sometimes be a positive thing to have an event such as this to celebrate and get people’s minds away from the daily drudgery. Whatever the rights and wrongs, I can only wish the couple every happiness in their life together.

We have also been doing some celebrating of our own over the last week. Of course, last Thursday was Thanksgiving. This year we had a quiet, though very delicious, celebration here in the Yellow House. Last year, you may remember, we flew over to Georgia to enjoy the holiday with Dori’s family. Well, plane tickets sadly aren’t getting any cheaper and so we stayed on this side of the Atlantic this time round – although thanks to Skype we were able to experience a little of the festivities over in America :)

The celebratory mood continued yesterday as we attended the christening of my nephew’s baby girl. The weather here for the last week has gotten progressively colder and icier with many areas experiencing heavy snow, so the thought of spending an afternoon in a cold and draughty church – even for such a happy occasion – was a little daunting. However, as it turned out, the church was quite small, not at all draughty and even had some very welcome heating! The service was lovely and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. Ironically, after the fears of getting too cold in the church, when we all decamped to the venue for the celebration meal afterwards, we found that the heating there was not turned on and it was frrrrrrreezing!!! Everybody was sat there, still in their coats and scarves for the entire time. It is always good though to have a story to relate to an event like that though – makes it even more memorable. :-)

The forecast looks like some of that snow I mentioned may be heading our way tonight. Hopefully it won’t be too heavy, although if it is we may be able to get some even better photos than we managed at the start of the year when the country was paralyzed for a couple of weeks! Here are a couple that we took at the time as we walked around on the first day of heavy snow.

Finally, can I wish the team bidding to bring the World Cup to England in 2018 every success over the next few days. FIFA will be announcing on Thursday the host countries of both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and England have thrown their hat into the ring for the 2018 competition. Football politics may scupper their chances apparently, but you never know. Everyone assumed that the 2012 Olympics would be in Paris and look what happened there! Good luck to everyone involved!

Two years, 1 day and counting.....

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is July 27th, and that will be exactly two years from the start of the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The five years that have passed since the announcement that the games would be coming to London have flown by, and I have no doubt that the next two years will pass by even quicker.

We were talking about this last week to some friends, and one was saying how much she is dreading it. She is not a sports lover, but it isn’t the wall to wall sports coverage that she fears, nor is it the influx of all the teams, athletes and spectators into our already over-crowded little island, or even the mass of Olympic merchandise that you know will flood every shop in the country. No, what she is apprehensive about is the impression of our country that will be given at the Opening Ceremony! This is not a view that she holds alone, I have to say. If you were unlucky enough to have caught the brief London 2012 section of the Closing Ceremony in Beijing then you will be aware of how badly wrong something like that can go!! And it is quite a widely held feeling that this will only be magnified when it comes to the Opening Ceremony in two years time.

Of course, it is part of the British psyche to put ourselves down – we are World Class at it! LOL Hold on, was that me boasting the Brits are good at something?? No, couldn’t have been! :-) Anyway, Dori tells me from her own experience, that it was the same with Atlanta before the 1996 games, but that it all turned out great in the end. The London 2012 organizing committee have appointed Danny Boyle, who directed Slumdog Millionaire amongst other films, as the director of the opening ceremony, which does gives some cause for optimism. I am sure (ish!) that it will be “alright on the night”!

But, whatever happens at the opening ceremony, I am sure the Games themselves will be a great success, and that is what is important at the end of the day. I am very excitedly looking forward to what will be the biggest sporting occasion this country has witnessed in my lifetime. And with the English FA also bidding to host the World Cup in 2018 (decision to be announced in December) it could be quite a sporting decade for England! Two years, 1 day and counting.....

Weekend at the Yellow House

I hope that everybody who celebrates it had a great 4th of July. Coming from two places, as we do, Dori and I get to celebrate the holidays from both places, which is great. We can celebrate Independence Day, as well as Bonfire Night, Memorial Day, St George’s Day, Thanksgiving and all the others. There is nothing like a good excuse for a celebration :-)

On Sunday we cooked burgers, corn on the cob and beans and bacon and had a great eat-out meal – although we actually had it indoors for one reason and another. As a Brit, I guess I shouldn’t really be joining in on 4th of July celebrations, but what the hey! It was a good day.

As we ate our celebration food, we also watched the men’s final at Wimbledon. Not unexpectedly, Britain’s Andy Murray failed to make it into the final and so it will be at least 73 years now between the last British finalist and the next! Both the men’s and women’s finals were a little one-sided and were decided in straight sets. But both were won by true champions of the game, and congratulations have to go to both of the deserved winners – Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal. It has been a great Wimbledon fortnight this year, with many a cracking match – not least the longest tennis match ever. And there was not a single rain delay in the whole two weeks, which is a very rare occurrence indeed! The Wimbledon fortnight is my favourite two weeks of the year, as I have mentioned here before, and this year was no exception.

Of course, this year I also had the added distraction of the World Cup taking place simultaneously, over in South Africa. On more than one occasion I found myself watching the football on the TV, whilst having my other eye on the tennis on my laptop! It’s not easy – even less so when you are also tweeting about both events at the same time!! Who says that men can’t multi-task!

Talking of the World Cup, we are now at the semi-final stage having seen some shock results in the quarter-finals. What was looking like a Brazil-Argentina final has now totally been thrown out of the window after both teams were eliminated in the last round. The quarter-finals also saw the end of the last African team in the tournament, as Ghana were beaten by Uruguay in a penalty shoot-out. This now leaves Uruguay plus three European teams in the competition. Tonight sees Uruguay take on the Netherlands, and then tomorrow Germany will play against Spain. The winners will meet in the final, to be played on Sunday.

Other than the sport, it has been a relatively quiet time at the Yellow House. Dori is now just about recovered from the jet-lag and we are slipping back into our routines. It is good to be back together again :-)

We have a wedding reception to attend on Friday, so that may prove interesting as it is being held in a hotel that we have been trying to find an excuse to visit for a long while. LOL You may hear more about that on one of our blogs at the weekend!

I hope that you all have a good week.

Crunch Time

Today is a big sporting day. At Wimbledon it is men’s semi-finals day, and in South Africa we have the first quarter-final matches of the World Cup. My place on the sofa in front of the TV is already reserved!

Just like last year, Britain’s Andy Murray has made his way into the semi-final at Wimbledon, and that means that the nation and the press in particular are now getting very excited about the prospect of a British men’s champion for the first time since 1936. Although Roger Federer has now been knocked out, it still won’t be an easy task for Murray, as he has to play world number one Rafa Nadal today. Should he reach the final (a big if) he will be the first Briton to play in the men’s final since 1938. The nation would, no doubt, go into complete tennis fever !!

That fever will be heightened because there is no longer a distraction being caused by the England football team at the World Cup. They were beaten – well beaten – last weekend by Germany, and left the competition in ignominy. England has perhaps the greatest club competition in the Premier League, in which many world stars compete, but the national side have performed nowhere near those levels. In fact, so poor were they that there has even been a call for a Parliamentary inquiry into their abysmal showing! I have to say it is the worst performance I can ever remember from an England team at a World Cup finals, but that may be taking things a tad too far!

Anyway, the competition continues, and today sees Brazil take on the Netherlands in what could be the game of the tournament, and unfancied Uruguay play against the even more unfancied Ghana. It would be wonderful if Africa’s first ever World Cup were to see an African nation in the semi-finals, and they certainly stand a chance. Tomorrow will see Germany play Argentina – another clash of the titans – and Spain will play Paraguay. It should be a very exciting couple of days, and I am sure there will be much drama. The semi-finals take place on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, and the final is on the following Sunday.

So, even with the inglorious showing of the England team, there is still plenty of sporting action to look forward to over the next 10 days. Now I have to go and claim that space on the sofa...

A Sporting Time

So, I’m in Brit Boy sporting heaven right now :-) The World Cup has been going for 10 days already and is reaching the end of the group stage. This is where the fun really begins as every match is absolutely crucial.

England’s campaign so far has been abysmal, but long experience has shown me that they nearly always start big tournaments slowly and then improve as the competition progresses. They have drawn both of their opening games, and so have to win their third group match on Wednesday to go forward into the knock-out stages. Their poor performance so far has been a major item on all of the news shows here, quite often being the lead story! The country is certainly getting itself into a bit of a lather over their below-par showing. So, I am keeping everything crossed that the players will rediscover their form tomorrow and be able to beat Slovenia.

And, as well as the football still proceeding, yesterday saw the start of Wimbledon 2010. And what a start to the fortnight it was too! Six-time champion Roger Federer came extremely close to going out in the very first round. He lost the first two sets to Alejandro Falla, a Colombian ranked 60th in the world. But Federer isn’t the great champion he is just by accident. He drew on all of his reserves and experience to claw his way back into the match, and eventually ran out the winner, taking the fifth set 6-0.

That wasn’t the only near shock on the opening day either, with Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko both being taken to five sets to win their matches too. Djokovic’s match didn’t finish until 11pm local time, and was completed under Centre Court’s new roof that was installed last year. Late matches like this are a new thing for Wimbledon, having only been made possible by having the aforesaid roof put on the top of Centre Court.

I am sure that Dori was glad she wasn’t here yesterday as there was 12 hours of sport on the TV non-stop! And that is likely to continue for a while yet – as I said, Brit Boy sporting heaven!

The Greatest Show on Earth

So, the fun has now begun in South Africa. The 2010 FIFA World Cup kicked off on Friday with the hosts playing out a 1-1 draw with Mexico. 32 nations will be competing to be crowned World Champions on July 11th in Johannesburg.

The first round of the competition is played in 8 groups of 4 teams, with each team playing the others in their group once. The top two teams of each group will then progress to the knock-out stages of the tournament, which is when the excitement really kicks in!

England began their campaign on Saturday when they played against the USA. This could have meant for a very interesting evening in the Yellow House if Dori hadn’t been on the other side of the pond right now! :-) But, as she wasn’t here, I convinced Trevor to join me in cheering on the England team. After a very competitive match (and one goalkeeping howler) the match ended at 1-1, with honours even. Having subsequently seen the other two teams in the same group I would imagine that both England and the US team should have little trouble in qualifying for the 2nd round.

No team has shone out yet, though there are still 10 more teams yet to play as I write these notes. Tomorrow will see the first game for Brazil, who are the perennial favourites when the World Cup rolls around, and then Wednesday will mark the first game for Spain who are a lot of people’s tips to win it this time. Spain are currently the European Champions, and will certainly be a very big obstacle for the other teams to negotiate.

But, the beauty of sport is that nobody really knows what will happen. There will be favourites and underdogs, but there will also be upsets and surprises and a few broken hearts along the way. As an England fan I am well aware of how crushing an exit in the latter stages of the competition can be, and how hopes can turn into despair in a matter of seconds. But that, of course, is exactly why so many people love the game.

Now gotta go – I’ve got the Japan v Cameroon game to watch!

Tension Time

It is now less than a month to go until the start of the World Cup when all the best players from around the globe will come together to compete for the greatest prize in football.

Before that, though, the club season still has a few notable matches to play out. Last weekend saw Chelsea claim the English Premiership title, and yesterday the final of the Europa League saw Atletico Madrid squeeze a win against Fulham by virtue of a goal deep into Extra-Time. On Saturday, Chelsea will be aiming to complete “the double” when they meet Portsmouth in the FA Cup Final. And then next Saturday (22nd) will see the biggest single club game in the world when Bayern Munich take on Inter Milan in the Champions League Final.

But I’m not actually writing this post about any of those matches. If you have a very good memory, then you may remember that I mentioned how my team, Swindon Town, had been heavily defeated on the opening day of the season. At that point the prospects for the season ahead looked bleak, and 9 months of struggle loomed. But, just to show that “one swallow does not a summer make”, the form shown by the team since that day couldn’t have been more different. So much so that, if the results on the final day of the regular season this last weekend had gone slightly differently, then Swindon would have finished second in their league and been promoted to the Championship (that’s one level below the Premiership).

Swindon Town club crest

But all is not lost. Having actually finished 5th in the league, Town are now taking part in the end of season play-offs, the winner of which will be promoted along with the teams who finished 1st and 2nd. The semi-finals of the play-offs take place this weekend, with Swindon playing Charlton at home tomorrow night and then away on Monday night. If they win the semi-final then they will go forward to play either Millwall or Huddersfield at Wembley Stadium in two weeks time. So the next few days will be full of nail-biting and lots of frayed nerves. Hopefully the results will go the right way and I will be going on a trip to Wembley at the end of the month! Fingers crossed.

The Summer of Sport

Spring has finally sprung – both ’officially’ and in reality, and now is a time to look forward to the warmer months ahead. And for a sports nut like me, that means a host of great events to anticipate.

This coming summer will see the biggest event of them all – The FIFA World Cup, which is being hosted by South Africa. This will be by far the largest sports event ever to take place on the African continent, and promises to be a spectacular tournament. The opening game will take place in Johannesburg on June 11th and will feature the hosts taking on Mexico. Some 32 nations will compete over the following month through the group stage, quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final itself to be crowned World Champions on July 11th. Spain and Brazil are the current favourites, but there are plenty of other genuine contenders to claim the trophy.

The first major tournament of this sporting season will be the US Masters, which as always takes place in Augusta, Georgia. This year the big focus will obviously be on Tiger Woods’ return to golfing action after his personal troubles that came to light very publicly on Thanksgiving last year. What price a Tiger win in his first event back? The Masters is my favourite golf tournament of the year and Augusta is a beautiful course. Getting to go there in person one year is definitely on my To Do list.

And then there is what is often referred to as the Great British Summer of Sport, featuring such events as The Boat Race, The Grand National, the London Marathon, the FA Cup Final, the Derby, Wimbledon, the British Open and the British Grand Prix.

Here are some of the important dates to note:

The Boat Race	The Thames, London	April 3
US Masters	Augusta National, Augusta, Georgia	April 8 - 11
Grand National	Aintree, Liverpool	April 10
London Marathon	London	April 25
FA Cup Final	Wembley Stadium, London	May 15
Football League Play-Off Finals	Wembley Stadium, London	May 22, 29, 30
The Derby	Epsom Downs, Surrey	June 5
FIFA World Cup	South Africa	June 11 - July 11
Royal Ascot	Ascot, Berkshire	June 15 – 19
Wimbledon	Wimbledon, London	June 21 - July 4
British Grand Prix	Silverstone, Northamptonshire	July 11
British Open	St Andrews, Scotland	July 15 - 18
England Test Cricket Series	England	July 29 - August 30

And then finally, and I accept this is way after the summer will have ended, there will be the Ryder Cup. This year it will be played at Celtic Manor in South Wales from October 1st to 3rd, and the Europeans will be out to avenge the heavy defeat that they suffered at Valhalla back in 2008. The captains this year will be Corey Pavin and Colin Montgomerie and I am sure the competition will be as white-hot as usual.

I just can’t wait

It's Been A While

You may have noticed that I haven’t been around for a while; in fact it is three weeks since my last post here. Firstly, of course, there was our trip over to the States for Thanksgiving, which was wonderful, and since our return back to these shores we have had to contend with jetlag, a broken washing machine, illness and an internet-phobic laptop! Life has been upside down for the last two weeks, and still isn’t yet fully righted.

Anyway, all of this means that there is some catching up to do. Dori is posting a full documentation of our Thanksgiving trip over at her blog, but here are my own brief thoughts. We were in Georgia for 9 days and that time simply flew by. We had a great time while we were there and we were able to catch-up with both friends and family. We did regular stuff like visiting the mall and going to the movies, and we also ate some extremely tasty meals – both restaurant produced and home-cooked. The weather was great, for the most part, and we enjoyed a couple of walks along the local nature trail. As Dori said a number of times, it was just like our own spa retreat! :-)

As I said earlier, the time flew by and we were barely able to believe it when the time rolled around for us to fly back to the UK. It was like we had only been there for a couple of days or something. Naturally, when we arrived back at Heathrow the weather was exactly how we had left it – cold and extremely wet. But we were happy in the knowledge that the trip “back home” had been so enjoyable. We had a fantastic time and really enjoyed kicking back for a short while.

My laptop died, or at least refused to do anything internet related, just before we flew out to the States. It is now three years old, which seems to be about the most you can hope for as the useful lifetime of a modern computer. So, we had to take the plunge and order a new laptop, which finally arrived three days ago. It is a shiny black Compaq complete with Windows 7 and all. Right now I am enjoying the novel feeling of things actually working in a timely manner and not freezing up every few minutes or so. Long may that continue!

So, what else has happened during my hiatus? Oh yes, the World Cup Draw. The general view is that the draw was very favourable to England, as far as their group is concerned, although I can see some tricky obstacles further along the path should they progress. But as Fabio Capello said himself, you have to beat the best teams if you are seriously considering yourself to be in with a shout of becoming World Champions. One interesting aspect of the draw is that England find themselves in the same group as the United States. That will make for a very fascinating match-day in the Yellow House come June!! :-) Trevor is already having panic attacks about which team he should support!

Well, I think I’ve covered more than enough ground for one post – and I haven’t even got around to talking about Christmas yet! That will have to wait for another day. Have a good weekend everybody.

The Price of Progess ....Part One

So, as Dori mentions in her blog post today, it was a relaxing weekend in the Yellow House this week. We watched some DVDs, worked on a project, and did a bit more organizing of a couple of trips we have coming up before the year’s end. We got some things done that needed doing, but they were done at our own pace and without any self-imposed pressure or timelines. It was a good weekend – despite the weather!

I was also able to watch the highlights of the Ukraine v England World Cup qualifier on Saturday evening. You may not think that is anything remarkable, but there has been a controversy raging here for the past week or so concerning this match. To cut a long story short, the TV company who had the rights for this match went bust a couple of months back, and no other UK TV companies were either able or wanted to step into the breach. As a result, the company to whom the TV rights had reverted decided to screen the match live on the internet with no live TV coverage at all, and charged up to £12 (about $20) for the privilege.

Thankfully, England have already qualified for the World Cup, and so there was no burning need for most people to fork out a portion of their hard-earned dosh to view the game. But the thought of this being the way of the future is not at all appealing. I would certainly not appreciate paying £12 only to spend two hours watching a message say “please wait....buffering”. And, whilst having an option to watch sport online is a good thing, restricting live sport to only the internet is far from it. I hope this isn’t the start of a slippery slope. Anyhoo, the highlights of the game were screened on Saturday night by the BBC, but they had been prevented from advertising the fact that they would do so until after the end of the game (just two hours before their show started). Presumably this was to ensure that everybody who may be tempted to pay for the live coverage would do so and not just wait for the free-to-air highlights on the BBC a couple of hours later. So, it was only by pure luck that I saw the listing for the game on the Electronic Programme Guide as we were flicking through to see what was on.

As it happens, all of this fuss was for nothing as England had their goalkeeper sent-off after 15 minutes and went on to lose the game 1-0. Ho hum.

South African Dreams

Yesterday evening Dori and I went our separate ways as Dori had some study to do for her course, and I settled down in front of the TV to watch the World Cup qualifier between England and Croatia at Wembley Stadium. This qualifying campaign for the England national team has been somewhat unusual in that they have not had any of their usual mishaps or freak results. In fact, prior to last night’s game, they had won all 7 of their group matches in the quest to qualify for next summer’s tournament in South Africa. Victory in the match against Croatia would guarantee England their place at the World Cup Finals, which, as you can see from the Countdown Timer on this page, starts on June 11th 2010.

There was a little history to this fixture too, as just two years ago England were again lining up against Croatia in a match that, if they had won it, would have meant they had qualified for the European Championships of 2008. In a bizarre performance that night, England somehow contrived to slip to a 3-2 defeat and hence failed to qualify for a major tournament for the first time in 14 years. That result also led to the sacking of manager Steve McClaren who was later replaced by Italian Fabio Capello. So, last night was an opportunity to put things right and re-establish England as a major force in world football.

Wembley Stadium

And the match could not have gone any more smoothly, from an English point of view. The team went ahead after just 8 minutes when Aaron Lennon was tripped in the penalty box and Frank Lampard smacked home the resulting penalty. Then, just 10 minutes later, it was Lennon again who played a crucial role, this time providing the inch perfect cross for Steven Gerrard to power home a header to make the score 2-0. Although the score remained the same for the rest of the first half, England were dominating the play and the result was already looking a foregone conclusion. The second half saw England score another three goals (Lampard again, Gerrard again and Wayne Rooney). David Beckham made a cameo appearance to notch up his 114th International cap. The only blot on an otherwise flawless performance was a momentary lapse in the England defence, allowing Croatia to score. But a resounding 5-1 victory meant that England have now qualified in some style for next year’s World Cup Finals, with two qualifying group matches still left to play. It is the first time ever that the national team have qualified so early for a World Cup, and they have scored 31 goals on their way to doing so – more than any other European team.

So, now the countdown to June 11th really starts, when the world’s best football teams will gather again to battle it out to become World Champions. England have won the World Cup just once before – in 1966, before I was born. Every four years, when the World Cup rolls around again, the expectation that England might just do it this time is ramped up, and each time they fail to live up to that expectation – more often than not going out at the quarter-final stage. But could this time be THE time? Capello has got the team playing impressively, and he is a manager with a proven track record. I am not going to predict an England win, as there are teams such as Spain and Brazil who have much stronger claims to be favourites for the crown. But this qualifying campaign has renewed belief in the national team and given me, and several million other long-suffering England fans, that little bit of optimism that means we dare to dream once again.

Just 273 days to go! Yay!