you watched yourself gavotte...

I don’t like Cristiano Ronaldo.

Whilst he’s clearly a talented footballer, there’s something about his oleaginous smile and the way he preens and poses on the pitch that really gets my goat. He might be the best player on the pitch, but surely even the very greatest player understands that football is a team game, and he needs his teammates to succeed in order to succeed himself. It’s often said that the difference between Ronaldo and Lionel Messi is that Messi would give up all his individual awards for team success, and that Ronaldo would do the opposite. There’s something delightful about the fact that Ronaldo is statistically one of the greatest players to grace the game, but that he isn’t even the greatest player in the Spanish league. Does Ronaldo think that this theatrics on the pitch, where he berates his team mates when they don’t pass the ball to HIM, help or hinder? Nani has over 100 caps for Portugal, but he always seems to look terrified of what Ronaldo will think if he decides to take a shot himself.

I sat down to watch yesterday’s final, eager to see the French wipe the smile off his smug face. Portugal barely deserved to be there anyway, and wouldn’t it be a great story if the French could win their own tournament (not to mention the fact that I have a French wife who was wearing her French t-shirt and bellowing out the French national anthem).

And you know what? Over the course of the game, Ronaldo changed my mind.

It was the injury that started it: I might have been happy to see Ronaldo beaten, but I wasn’t ready to see him crying real tears as he was forced to leave the pitch on a stretcher early in the game because of injury. He’d tried to carry on, but it was quickly clear that he couldn’t stay on the pitch. He tried to cover his face, but his absolute desolation was laid bare. I looked at him and, rather than a self-regarding idiot, I saw a man who had worked unbelievably hard to get to this point and had his dreams and hopes dashed. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have a hard enough heart to feel anything other than sympathy for him at that moment.

In truth, my opinion on Cristiano Ronaldo began to shift earlier in the tournament. In many sports, the players often line up in the tunnel waiting to be brought out onto the pitch. They often have small children with them, mascots who are lucky enough to hold hands with the players and to walk out onto the pitch with them. I like to watch how the players respond to this: many are totally focused on the game ahead of them and are almost in another place as they visualise the game. These people barely notice the mascots at all, and it’s hard to blame them. Some players – and Chris Robshaw in the England rugby team is one of these – are able to step outside themselves and make an effort to ensure that these kids are okay and that they are having an amazing time. Robshaw will often crouch down with his escort and do his best to put them at ease. It’s lovely to watch. Whatever your preconceptions of the kind of person Ronaldo might be, he’s also in the Chris Robshaw camp with the player escorts, and will spend a couple of minutes chatting with them instead of staring, glassy-eyed down the tunnel waiting to be called out onto the pitch.

At some point during the game yesterday, Ronaldo came back pitch-side with his leg heavily strapped up, and he gave me more reasons to reconsider my view of him. As a player on the pitch, it always seems to be about CR7. The champions league final this season was a case in point: Ronaldo was barely fit and was a peripheral figure for the whole game, carried by his team mates to the penalty shoot-out. When Ronaldo scored the decisive penalty, he talked expansively about how he had a “vision” that he would score the winning goal… ignoring the fact that a penalty isn’t a winning goal, and that his team-mates had carried him for 120 minutes to put him into that position. On the sidelines of the game last night, Ronaldo could not influence the game on the pitch with his own skill, and so instead he threw himself wholeheartedly into supporting his teammates, willing them to success. When they won, he was crying tears of joy as the supposed one-man-team won the game without him. Yes he changed back into his playing kit, complete with captain’s armband, to pick up the trophy, but it was too late now… my view on him had shifted and I could no longer feel anything but pleased for him.

Sometimes we’re too quick to judge. Even if, for all this change of heart, I probably still won’t be rushing out any time soon to buy myself some CR7 underpants…

...tempting though it is.

But for last night at least, where before I had only seen an arrogant, entitled man-child, I was able to see the dreaming fan and the vulnerable human being in Cristiano Ronaldo.  It was a bit of a surprise to me to be honest, but there you go.  I must be gaining some empathy in my old age.

*opinion subject to sudden change when I next watch him preening around on a football pitch next season... 

meaningless and ridiculous...

Because sport.

I like sport and I've been lucky enough to be at some incredible sporting moments.  Off the top of my head: the GB coxless four winning gold by a whisker at the Athens olympics in 2004; Kelly Holmes winning gold at the same Olympics; England winning the Trent Bridge test against the Australians in 2005 on their way to winning the Ashes for the first time in a generation (and pretty much every other test match at Trent Bridge in the last fifteen years or so, including Stuart Broad's remarkable 7/15 this year); Europe just pipping the USA to the Ryder Cup at the Belfry in 2002 and then thrashing the same opposition at the K-Club in 2006; the London Olympics in 2012 but especially the humbling and inspiring Paralympic Games that followed; I've seen Real Madrid play at the Bernabeu and I've watched Milan play at the San Siro; England v Wales at Twickenham in the 2015 Rugby World Cup.... well, you can't win them all.

When you think about it though, it's all a bit weird, isn't it?  Wasting all that time and energy in the pursuit of something that is inherently pointless?  Watching it is surely even more pointless than taking part.  Camus doesn't strike me as an especially humorous man, but surely he was joking when he claimed that,  “After many years during which I saw many things, what I know most surely about morality and the duty of man I owe to sport.”  That's definitely overthinking it.

Orwell was probably closer when he suggested that it was "war minus the shooting".  Although, I think he maybe came up with that when he was sitting amongst some football fans (isn't it funny how rugby fans can be trusted to sit amongst their rivals and to drink beer in their seats, but football fans are definitely not?)

Sport is stupid.  No question.

And yet... and yet.... is there anything else that stirs the emotions in quite the same way? Does the fan not live and die and be reborn again with the rise and fall of his team? I'd even go as far as to suggest that it's the falls that make the rises all the sweeter.  Where's the joy in supporting a team that always wins?  Tell me that, All Blacks fans.

Well, anyway.  Sport is certainly ridiculous, but it's definitely fun.

Go Team A.

every man wants to be a macho man...

A new graduate trainee joined our team at the beginning of January.  She's a pretty bright spark and has been a welcome addition.  She has that fearlessness of youth where she says what she thinks without really understanding or caring about the politics of the situation, but at the same time without any of the cynicism that might come with greater experience.  I like her.

We were talking the other day, just shooting the breeze, when she suddenly blurted out that she found it really hard to imagine me taking part in any other sport but running.  I replied that, in fact, I used to play rugby for many years.  She just burst out laughing.

Slightly wounded that this seemed so inconceivable, I told her that, not only did I play rugby, but that I used to be a lock forward.

The essential qualities to be a lock forward (as listed here) are as follows:

- Height is great
- Lots of muscle is good
- Weight is good
- Handling ability is good
- Agility is good
- Mobility is good

The rugby lock is a mobile, skillful, agile, tower of strength!

This is a lock forward:

That could be me, right?

No?

Well it seems that I don't look much like a lock forward any more. When pushed on the subject, my colleague thought that I might once have been a scrum half.

A scrum half: the smallest, weediest man on the pitch.

Hmm.

Once again, it becomes clear that I need to give some thought to pumping some serious iron before someone kicks sand in my face on the beach.

Yeah, Arnold!  No pain, no gain!

Stop sniggering at the back.  It could happen.

pig...

Apparently, French football legend and president of UEFA, Michel Platini is risking the anger of the major European leagues by suggesting that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is held in winter rather than in the spring.

As the BBC reports:

The Frenchman's stance puts him in direct opposition to some of Europe's biggest leagues and clubs, who want the event to be staged in May. The World Cup is usually held in June and July, but Fifa has been told that Qatar's searing summer temperatures will put players' health at risk. Platini said: "It'll never be in April, May or June. It will be in winter." He added the 2022 Champions League semi-finals and final could be moved to June if necessary, saying the clubs would accept whatever decision was made. "It's not the clubs that are playing, it's the players and it's not possible to play in May when it's 40 degrees," said Platini, 59.

This is the same Michel Platini who was a steadfast advocate of Qatar's bid for the Summer World Cup in the first place.  This is also the same Michel Platini who has refused to return the £16,000 watch that was gifted to him by the Brazilian Football Confederation that even FIFA decided that the gift breached it's code of ethics.  Yes... apparently FIFA does have a code of ethics, and apparently even they thought a line had been crossed.  Platini disagreed.

"I'm a well-educated person. I don't return gifts."

Well, that's alright then.  I'm glad we cleared the ethics of that all up.

Of course, the real question in all of this is how a country with no football infrastructure or tradition, an appalling record in human rights and summer temperatures in excess of 50C was awarded the World Cup in the first place..... but we all know the answer to that, don't we?  It's apparently now a given that the tournament can't be played in the summer, but not that it should be moved somewhere more sensible.  The fat cats are prepared to turn the football calendar on its head rather than reverse their absurd decision that put them in this position in the first place.

Platini is apparently amongst the preferred candidates to succeed Sepp Blatter when that greedy, money-grubbing snake finally shuffles off this mortal coil,

But of course he is.  It sounds like he'll fit right in with his snout in the biggest trough in world football.  Champagne!  Champagne for everyone!

He was some player though, eh?

**update**

This.  The strange tale of Chuck Blazer.

"With the case of the former Fifa executive Chuck Blazer, happily, there is no such disappointment. The FBI appears to have verified that the erstwhile ExCo member and Concacaf general secretary retained two luxury Trump Tower apartments: one for himself and one for his cats". This man also ran up a $29m AmEx bill all in service to football and whilst zooming around on a mobility scooter made necessary by a fat cat diet of rich food in high end restaurants. You couldn't make it up.

the monkey wants to speak, so speak monkey, speak....

If you'll forgive the indulgence, a quick post about football.

I would describe myself as a follower of football rather than a fan.  I'm more than happy to watch it, and I have a team that I support... but I increasingly find myself distanced from it by all the hoopla that surrounds it.  It's not even particularly the way the clubs and the players behave, for me it's the way that Premier League football seems to command saturation coverage in the media.  Even more specifically than that, the coverage seems to mostly rotate around about five clubs at the top end of the table (and Manchester United).  It doesn't matter what else is happening in any other sport, if there's some top division football on, or a transfer or sacking in the offing, then the rest of the world might as well not bother for all the coverage they're going to get.

I like to listen to BBC 5 Live, and they're increasingly guilty of this.  Their anchor, Mark Pougatch is particularly guilty of this. I heard him the other day trying to put forward the theory that Arsenal have started signing English players because Arsene Wenger was stung by the "betrayals" of players like Samir Nasri or Baccary Sagna, who took lucrative contracts to play somewhere else, and thinks that English players -- who are apparently all great mates -- just will not behave in the same way.  Even allowing for the fact that this theory conveniently forgets an English player like Ashley Cole, it's complete and utter speculative cobblers.  And yet, there it was, being passed off as insight.

Gah.

Anyway.  England are playing Switzerland this evening, in their first competitive match since the World Cup, when we were eliminated in the group stages before most of the other teams present had played their second game.  The expectations surrounding the English national football team are remarkable: the only tournament we have ever won was our own World Cup, back in 1966. and we've never really been close since.  Has this stopped the expectation that we should be winning more, even when our world ranking would suggest that a quarter final is about the best we ought to be hoping for? No.  Of course not.  We went to Brazil with the media saying that we had no chance.  This quickly became a way of everyone saying "we have no chance", whilst all clearly thinking that somehow this meant we would slip under the radar and win the tournament.

In fact, we had no chance.  We were abject and thoroughly deserved to go home when we did.  So why is it then, if we really went to the World Cup with no expectation, why is the media suddenly all over manager Roy Hodgson's back and have the knives out for Wayne Rooney, probably our best player?  Listening to 5 Live over the last few days, and even the BBC seems to be sharpening the knives, saying that we're never going to achieve anything as long as he is manager.  Pougatch can barely stop talking about it.  I think he imagines that he's the voice of the fan, or somesuch.  He was rather knowledgeably suggesting the other day that Hodgson should be immediately replaced with Gary Neville and that Raheem Sterling is now England's main man and not Rooney...

The grim reality is that the England football team just isn't that good at the moment.  Many of our established internationals - underachievers at international level to a man themselves - have retired and the next generation of players are barely holding down first team positions for their teams in the English Premier League.  We look turgid, tactically rigid and inexperienced.  Frankly, what else is new?  When do you remember England being anything like the sum of their expensively salaried parts?

It's just tedious to hear the media jumping on the same old bandwagons and offering up criticism but not solutions.  It's boring and it does football no favours.  I just can't be bothered with it. Football might be the beautiful game, but it also really is the game that ate itself.

Sepp Blatter is a venal, corrupt man who sits at the head of the worm-riddled organisation that runs international football.  It's hard not to wonder if football hasn't got exactly what it deserves.

dear old Glasgow town...

Thank you so much, Glasgow 2014.... you were awesome and I had so much fun.  We were only there for a few days and only saw a handful of events, but it's such a beautiful city with such amazingly friendly locals.

Oh, and excellent local beer too.  I should mention the beer.  On the culinary front, I didn't have a deep-fried Mars bar, but I did have an outstanding curry here, a really fantastic meal made with locally sourced ingredients here, and a brilliant full Scottish breakfast here - the oldest cafe in Glasgow, don't you know.

We even took in some culture.

Brilliant trip with some great friends and I can't wait to get back.  Glasgow, you're should be proud because you're doing a great job.

games.

Ten years - a whole decade! - since I attended the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, I'm on my way up to Glasgow to take in a few days of the Commonwealth Games.  We've got some tickets for a couple of sessions of stadium athletics, some hockey, some rugby 7s and a bit of weightlifting.  You've got to love a bit of lifting.  I saw the big men in Athens, the little women in London, and I'll be starting my games experience tomorrow watching the little men competing for a medal at the Clyde Auditorium.  Love it.

Rain is forecast, but apparently it's always sunny in Glasgow, so we'll see.....

See you on the other side.

leave right now....

Go on, be honest: will you maybe relax and enjoy the World Cup maybe just a little bit more once England have gone home*?

Yeah.  Me too.

(*And don't be giving me any of that delusional "but we're not out yet!" nonsense either.  No team in the history of the World Cup has lost their first two groups games and qualified to the next round, and it's not about to happen now.  In fact, we should probably leave right now, before the Costa Rica game,  tonight, even.  We should pretend like we're hipsters and we never really cared in the first place.... Roy could really work a hipster beard and some heavy framed spectacles, I reckon.  Perhaps a trilby?)

everyone seems to know the score....

I've been very much enjoying the magic of the World Cup over the last few days.  Global coverage and the financial muscle of the big European teams means that there aren't many players we don't know, but there's still something undeniably magical about this event.  We've been having sweepstakes and prediction competitions at work (I've variously drawn Ecuador, Ghana and Algeria, so I'm not expecting much of a return there) and it's great to get home to watch a game with my tea.  I'm not even that bothered about how England do.  Yes, of course it would be great if we managed to string a few performances together and had a bit of a run in the competition.... but I've been watching England for long enough to know not to expect that.

One thing has been bothering me though: the cost.  When the UK was awarded the 2012 Olympics, there was non-stop moaning for several years about how much the games were costing us to run.  Much of that moaning disappeared when the event was such an enormous success, but the fundamental truth remained: how could we spend that much money (around £9bn) on something so frivolous when our economy is in recession and so many people are genuinely struggling to make ends meet?

It's much more incongruous in Brazil.  Yes, the size of their economy has now overtaken that of the UK and they are now something like the sixth largest economy in the world, but how many slums do you see on the outskirts of major British cities to compare with the favelas in Brazil?  In a population of 200m people, the average annual salary is something less than £5000.  The average salary in the UK is £26,500... but I'd wager the poorest person in the UK is substantially better off than the poorest person in Brazil.

So how can they justify an expenditure of $11bn on a World Cup (with billions more money to be spent staging the 2016 Rio Olympic Games)?  That's approximately equivalent to one whole year of the cost of Brazil's welfare programme, the bolsa familia.  A whole year.  I know that football is a religion to the people of Brazil, and I'm sure that they will look back on this tournament the way that we Brits look back on the 2012 Olympics.... well, they will if they win, anyway.... but wouldn't more people benefit from the welfare payments and a direct reduction in poverty and hardship?

The study above, published this spring, suggests that the Brazilian people viewed the World Cup with similar scepticism to public perception of the 2012 Olympics before the Queen parachuted into the Olympic Stadium with James Bond and all bets were off.  Now that the tournament has started, I'm sure the host nation will forget all that and just focus on the football.  It's perhaps worth noting at this point that South Africa, hosts of the 2010 World Cup, recouped less than 10% of the cost of putting on the tournament (about $2bn.... a number that highlights quite how much money Brazil are spending on this tournament and how it's foolish to think they will make much of it back.

Thinking about these numbers makes me feel uneasy.  The World Cup is brilliant, and for all that us English like to sing about football coming home, Brazil is the spiritual home of the game... but how can a country like Brazil support this in the face of such poverty amongst so many of its population?  We'll sit at home drinking beer and hoping England don't embarrass themselves, and the in-no-way-corrupt executives at FIFA will sit in their marble and lapis luzuli encrusted HQ in Switzerland (or their luxury hotels in Brazil) and count their backhanders, but what of the legacy?  This may yet be the best World Cup ever (even as the Mexico hold the hosts to a 0-0 draw as I speak)... but at what cost?  Is it really worth it?  Aren't we better than this?  Can we really, honestly say that the money couldn't be better spent?

Middle class guilt, right?  Written as I watch a game from the comfort of my own home.  Never mind, I'm sure the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 tournament in Quatar will be both be humanitarian blockbusters where money will be purely secondary to football and the advancement of mankind.... right?  Right?

go ahead, jump...

Freestyle skiing and snowboarding, whether halfpipe, slopestyle or whatever, are basically ridiculous: as if throwing yourself down a mountain wasn't hazardous enough, you add a bit of jeopardy by throwing in some obstacles, rails and massive kickers that you then use to throw yourself through various multiple somersaults, twists and so on.  They've also been about the most gripping events on the Winter Olympic programme, bar perhaps the (oddly addictive) curling.  Yeah, alright, so perhaps GB's own Jenny Jones winning a bronze medal in snowboard slopestyle a few days ago has helped with the sport's profile in this country, but it's just brilliant to watch, hysterical commentary and all.

Slightly unbelievably, given our complete lack of convincing skiing in this country and no mountains worthy of the name, Britain is apparently becoming quite good at this stuff.... a whole generation of so-called "fridge kids" have caught the bug on dry ski slopes and indoor snowdomes and are actually really pretty good.  Go figure.  No other medals this time around, and Jenny Jones is right at the end of a long and distinguished career, but James "Woodsy" Woods (great nickname, dude), Katie Summerhayes, Billy Morgan and Jamie Nicholls and the like are really knocking on the door.

It's pretty dangerous, mind you.  As if the sight of a girl catching an edge and cracking her helmet in two just before Jones won her medal wasn't enough (always wear a helmet, kids!), how about these pictures of GB halfpipe skiier, Rowan Cheshire, taken in hospital after an accident in practice the other day:

Ouch.  She doesn't remember much, apparently and has now not surprisingly withdrawn from her event, the skiing halfpipe, on Thursday.  You can't be too careful, eh?

I'm reminded of a guy we met in a snowboard shop last year in Whistler.  He was busy telling us how he had only just started wearing a helmet (we had finally convinced one of our friends to buy one for herself after years and years of increasingly stubborn resistance).  Apparently, so this guy told us, he'd had dozens and dozens of concussions from doing tricks whilst boarding, and it was only when the doctors told him that he really ought to stop altogether because he was risking serious brain damage that he thought he'd start wearing a helmet.  Risking serious brain damage?  Clearly far too late for that kind of advice....

This is a young person's sport.  Rowan Cheshire is eighteen years old.  Woodsy is 22.  At 27 years old, snowboarding legend Shaun White is clearly past it.  Jenny Jones is 33, poor old girl, if you can imagine such an advanced age.  Didn't she do well?

....needless to say, this is not a sport I'm going to be taking up at the age of 39 - in fact, I'll be 40 by the time I next put on a pair of skis in four weeks time.

Shame really, I reckon my Corkscrew 720 and my Alley Oop Flatspin 540 might surprise you all.  Pyeongchang 2018, maybe?  The Jamaican bobsled driver is 46, after all.....

he's not what you'd call a glamorous man....

In spite of the glorious weather, I spent a good part of the bank holiday weekend shut up indoors watching the TV coverage of the final of the Snooker World Championships from the Crucible theatre in Sheffield.  Well, who needs a suntan when you can watch a sport as gripping as this?  At its finest, snooker bares the souls of its competitors like almost no other sport.  One of the players is always forced to remain in his seat, disconsolately sipping on a glass of mineral water as he watches his opponent notch up another massive break.  There's nowhere to hide and not a damn thing they can do to influence the result.  In those circumstances, the eyes truly are the window onto a tortured soul.  It's almost cruel to watch as their hopes slip away slowly, ball by ball, frame by frame.

At one point, the TV cameras went out into the crowd picking out famous faces: oh, there's Stephen Fry.  He's a huge fan of the game of course.  There's Phil Taylor.  He knows all about the pressure of appearing in a world final.  And so on.  Eventually, the camera came to rest on a pair of guys, sitting side by side and with the most remarkable, unbelievable haircuts perched improbably upon the tops of their heads.  They looked like they had come from another planet.

"Ah", said Willie Thorne, "There's Serge from the band Kasabian and Noel Fielding sitting next to him."  As if that wasn't quite enough information, popular culture guru Thorne (aged 59) then felt the need to add, "Kasabian are one of the biggest rock groups in the country at the moment and Noel Fielding is a very funny man indeed."

Erm.  Thanks for that Willie.

The camera lingered for a while, and I just marvelled at how incongruous they looked sat with the rest of the crowd assembled for the snooker.  I've been to the Crucible to watch the snooker a couple of times, albeit never for a final, and my lasting impression was that the whole place smelt vaguely of fags and stale bacon grease and had the clientele to match.  These two looked about as out of place as a pair of splendid birds of paradise sat amongst a flock of dowdy town pigeons.  They also, by the way, looked completely ridiculous.

I was reminded of the time - a few years ago now - that I was pushing a trolley around Sainsburys and I bumped into a bunch of guys who all clearly thought they were in Motley Crue in the Los Angeles of about 1988: you know, long hair, aviator sunglasses, ripped jeans, studded leather jackets and massive cowboy boots.  Big hair.  I can't emphasise the hair enough.  they had really, really big hair.  One of them was in the trolley and they were waving around bottles of vodka and cases of beer as they browsed up and down the aisles.

This was in Sainsburys.  In the middle of the afternoon.  In a retail park just outside Nottingham.  It was astonishing; a truly remarkable sight.  If Serge from Kasabian and Noel Fielding looked out of place in the Crucible theatre, then these guys looked suitably bizarre amongst the normal suburban, middle-class shoppers of your average Sainsburys.  Asda this is not.  They too looked like they had come from another planet - certainly from another era -  and I found myself wondering what they did for a living in the real world.  Serge is an actual rock star and Fielding likes to imagine that he is the comedy equivalent, but I suppose that at least both of them have day jobs that give them the permission to look quite that ridiculous.  What about this lot though?  Perhaps they all worked in a call centre and did their normal shopping after work during the week?  Maybe they only went the full powder-perm rock look at the weekend?  Maybe they were in a Motley Crue tribute band playing Nottingham that weekend.  Who can say?  I certainly didn't fancy stopping to ask them.  They were a touch rowdy.

Perhaps I should ask Willie Thorne?  I'm sure he'd know.

find yourself a girl and settle down....

the view from our seats...

I was at the rugby at Twickenham on Saturday. It was a pretty good day, in spite of the weather and in spite of South Africa inflicting a deserved defeat on a rather uninspiring England side, albeit by a solitary point. It’s a grand stadium alright, even if it is in one of the coldest, most inconvenient places in the world to get to and is filled with the kind of person who wears full-length Driza-Bone rain coats and either mustard or raspberry coloured cords.

My mate and I sat in the “cheap” (£56) seats up at the top of the South Stand, but a friend of ours was hosting a hospitality box in the ground and he was kind enough to invite us in for a couple of drinks after the game. There’s a hotel at the ground, and the box was set up in one of the rooms there, with a balcony overlooking the pitch itself. The box apparently cost something like £8000, and the guests were treated to a sit down meal, table service as much booze as they could drink and a prime view of the game from the balcony (although, actually I think we got a better view from our seats). On top of that, my friend’s company had the use of the bed in the room for the Friday and the Saturday night. Quite the set up.

By the time we got there, a few people had already left, on their way to another bout of hospitality at the Robbie Williams gig at the O2. Those who remained were also starting to show the wear and tear of a busy day on the sauce. What struck me most, to be honest, was how young most of the guys there were: in their late 20s, I reckon. As we tucked into a glass or two or red wine, and some cheese and port, I chatted to one of these guys. He was a bit pie-eyed, but rather than perhaps discussing the short-comings of the England back line, he was most interested in talking to me about how difficult he was finding it to meet women. Not women, per se, you understand, but a keeper… someone he might have a decent relationship with. He was on Match.com, of course, but he was finding it a bit difficult as people aren’t always everything they promise in their profile:

“There was this one girl, and she comes from the area I live, and she’d marked herself as ‘very attractive’, so it all sounded very promising. The ratings go up to ‘perfect’, but obviously ‘very attractive’ is quite near the top of the list…”
“And she wasn’t ‘very attractive’?”
“No. And she was a bit tubby. I don’t mind tubby girls at all, but she definitely wasn’t ‘very attractive’.  Are you married? How did you meet your wife?”

...and so on.

I’ve got to be honest, it wasn’t really the conversation I was expecting to have after a major Rugby international, but it did give me a flashing insight into the difficult life of today’s high-flying young executives, as they sit weeping into their complimentary meal at a Rugby International match.

…as did the fact that these guys had been in that room since about noon, and by the time I popped into the bathroom a little after half five, none of the packets of soap or hand gel had been opened until I opened one to wash my hands.  Make of that what you will.

Mmm. Nice.

don't give up...

I promise I'm not going to go on about the Paralympics forever.... but one more story has touched me this week.  If you're British, then you'll probably know all about the amazing Ellie Simmonds. You might even remember that during the games, Ellie battled for most of her medals against the American swimmer, Victoria Arlen.  Simmonds beat Arlen into silver in the S6 400m freestyle, but then got a bronze to Arlen's silver in the S6 50m and came second to the American in the S6 100m.  Great races all.

Both are clearly incredible athletes, but I was struck especially by Arlen's story.  I was lucky enough to see both of them swim in the heats for the 400m at the Aquatic Centre at the London Olympic Park the other week, and I was struck by how physically different these athletes are.  Simmonds, of course, has achondroplasia, but the quirks of Paralympic classification means that she competes in the same races as the much taller Arlen... although Arlen does not have the use of her legs.  What I didn't realise though was what had caused Arlen's disability.  It turns out that Arlen developed transverse myelitis at the age of 11 and was left in a coma for 2 years.

Now, this obviously caught my attention because this is exactly what I was initially diagnosed with in 2005 and was my holding position until I was eventually diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2009.  For me, it only gave me numbness, loss of sensation and muscle weakness - still my main symptoms - but it gave me a bit of a jolt to read about how the same thing had affected someone else so dramatically and in such a life-changing way.

When she awoke from her coma, as well as losing an unimaginably large part of her young life, she no longer had the use of either her arms or her legs.  She only started swimming some 18 months ago as part of her rehabilitation, and gradually regained the use of her arms.  The fact that she's able to swim at all seems remarkable to me, never mind that she can swim fast enough to set world records and win medals at the Paralympic Games.

She's seventeen years old.  Can you imagine the fortitude it took her to reach this point and the obstacles she's had to overcome to get here?

As she says on her own website:

"One of the things I find in having a physical disability is that people tend to treat you differently. But in reality, people that have disabilities are not much different from those who don’t. It’s just that our obstacles are obvious!

Not having the use of my legs has made things challenging, but what I have gone through has taught me perseverance and patience. Obstacles are obstacles-whether it’s a wheelchair or any other circumstance that stands between you and your dream.

My message to all that will hear it, is don’t let your limitations define you…my wheelchair does not define me. Don’t focus on what you don’t have…use what you do have.

I may not be able to use my legs, but my arms are strong enough to break four World Records in the sport of Swimming. Above all, don’t ever lose hope.
If you must, readjust your goals."

I know it's only one remarkable story amongst so many others, but this one is kind of close to home and really makes me think how lucky I am.

Don't focus on what you don't have... use what you do have.  Inspiring, no?

and thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in...

I watched the Paralympic opening ceremony last night.

Now, on the whole I don't really like to think of myself as an especially emotional man, and I think my schooling did a pretty effective job of teaching me to keep my emotions under wraps.  It's true that, as I get older, I find myself wiping away the beginnings of the odd tear as I'm watching a film or the end of the Secret Millionaire or something... but I reckon that I've got as stiff an upper lip as the next Englishman.  That said, the Olympics frequently had me in bits.  All that endeavour and sacrifice, and those unforgettable moments of sportsmanship and/or raw emotion.  It's inspiring and humbling all at the same time.  If that footage of Gemma Gibbons looking up to the skies and telling her dead mother that she loves her doesn't bring a tear to your eye, then you've got a heart of stone.

The Paralympics.... well, I find the Paralympics to be even more moving.   As a celebration of the triumph of the human spirit against all odds and all adversity, the Paralympics are surely unsurpassed.  

The opening ceremony, for me, seemed to hit mostly the right notes: it celebrated mankind and our potential, and it exulted in science and in literature and in mankind's achievements.  We had Stephen Hawking acting as the very embodiment of the triumph of the human spirit over the weakness and frailty of the body, and we had Gandalf himself quoting Shakespeare and saying how books were humanity in print.  We even had a performance of Ian Dury's defiant, joyous "Spasticus (Autisticus)".  It was fantastic.

I did read a tweet from the BBC's Dan Walker last night that - a touch sourly, I thought - said:

Gold medal: paralympic opening ceremony (despite a little humanistic waffle) Silver: Laura Robson Bronze: Real Madrid

Dan is usually a pretty reliable, up-beat kind of guy.  I know he's a christian and a regular church-goer, and I know that I'm an atheist.... but I didn't see anything in that ceremony that ought to have threatened anyone's religious beliefs.  Humanistic waffle?  Really?  How is a celebration of mankind's achievements incompatible with a God?  I don't get it.

Anyway.

I've got tickets for the Olympic Park this weekend: some swimming on Saturday morning and both sessions of the stadium, and I'm also hoping to use my ground passes to see things like the tennis, goalball, basketball and anything else that is going on.  I can't wait.

It's going to be amazing, and I absolutely love that we are making such a big deal of these games. They're amazing.

O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

The Olympics were great, but the Paralympics are - for me - so much more inspiring

the will to fly is in your eyes...

Things I learned at the London 2012 Games last week:

-> Not everyone knows everyone.  C. overheard a couple standing outside the BBC studios in the Olympic Park taking pictures of Beth Tweddle - the tiny bronze medal winning gymnast - as she was being interviewed.  "Who's that?" says one.  "Ah," says the other authoritatively,   "that's one of the GB Show Jumping team".   But you know, that's okay.  54 year old Nick Skelton / 27 year old Beth Tweddle.  Anyone could make that mistake, right?

-> Handball is an amazing spectator sport, but facing the Brazilian media after a surprise defeat to the hitherto under-performing Norwegians is something of an ordeal.  Better luck in Rio, ladies.  

The Norwegians, meanwhile, inspired by their incredible goalkeeper, went on to win the gold medal.

-> Everyone loves a cheerful volunteer in the ladder chair with the big smile, playing the Chariots of Fire theme and doing the Bolt.  Alright, so we were a captive audience as we filed into the park, but he was a legend nonetheless.  They pretty much all were - many in much less glamorous locations than that.  You have to feel for the guys directing people to the ExCel arena next to the fish canning factory.  Man, it stank down there.

-> Forget G4S, the guys from the armed forces doing the security checks were amazing: good humoured, efficient and a damn fine advert for this country.

-> There aren't many police forces in the world that will - without any prompting - take their hat off and pop it on a passing toddler's head so that the parents can take some photos.

-> The Olympic Stadium rocks.  Even for a morning session.

-> The massive standing ovations that the crowd gave the Palestinian athlete who finished more than a lap behind Mo Farah in his qualifying heat for the 5000m but still got a personal best, and to the Saudi lady who ran in the 800m heats in a full hijab and finished comfortably last, show that sometimes winning isn't everything.  For some people, being there at all is a triumph.

-> Taekwondo is a gripping sport, but the demonstration before the start of the competition - all flying jumps and wood smashing kicks - showed that they haven't yet found a formula that captures the dynamism and grace of the martial art into a sport.  Also, being picked to represent your country in preference to the world number one puts tends to rob an athlete of his sense of humour.  Massive props to Lutalo Muhammad for coming through that pressure and battling to a well-deserved bronze medal.

-> Gurning in Olympic venues never gets boring

-> Usain Bolt is quick, alright, but he needs to have a close look at Muhammed Ali's life before he starts comparing himself as a legend.  It ain't just about the sport, kid.

-> I'm in pieces almost every time I see a clip that's even vaguely emotional: those skullers who didn't even realise or really believe that they had won; the judoka offering up a thought to her recently deceased mother after winning a medal.... hell, I've spent most of the last 16 days welling up more or less at the first sound of any vaguely emotional instrumental soundtracking a montage.  It's how we know we're human, right?

-> I miss the Olympics now they're gone... even if the closing ceremony showed just how good the opening ceremony really was.

-> David Cameron's attempts to gain political currency out of the Games are pathetically embarrassing. 40 minutes after this picture was taken, he was in a suit and at a function trying to squeeze money out of millionaire retailers.  Yes.... my wife was there.  Srsly though, Call Me Dave, that's lame... even for you.  Well, it could be worse... you could be dad dancing to the Spice Girls.  Oh....

-> gurning really never does get boring

What am I going to do until the Paralympics? It's been marvellous and I've had a great Olympics.  Rio 2016, perhaps?  Shall we?

harder, better, faster, stronger....

So, I've been at the Olympics.  Unlike some of my friends, I wasn't lucky enough to be at the rowing on Saturday morning to watch 2 British Golds and a Silver AND in the stadium that same evening to watch those three amazing GB Golds.... but I have been to see some really cool stuff and to experience the atmosphere for myself at first hand.

Obviously, this has mainly resulted in lots of photos of me gurning at Olympic events... see exhibit A at the Archery at Lords Cricket Ground above.

So, we've been busy: six hours of Women's Individual Foil at the ExCel Arena on Saturday morning (absolutely gripping, incidentally); some archery on Sunday morning and then some 53kg women's weightlifting on Sunday afternoon (including a World record by an amazing 19 year old Kazakh); table tennis on Monday; hockey - including the GB ladies 5-3 win against Korea - at the Olympic Park on Tuesday; Badminton on Wednesday morning - the session before the quarter-final games they cancelled and then Volleyball at Earl's Court on Wednesday night.  That wednesday was pretty hard work and meant a 20 hour day, but it was worth it just to be introduced to the concept of the "Bongo Cam".... play some bongo music; superimpose some cartoon bongos on the big screen and then go out into the crowd.  The chinese looked a little baffled, but the Brazilians in the house were all over it.  They knew what to do, alright.

More gurning, this time in front of the Olympic Stadium.  We're back on the Olympic Park for some handball on Tuesday morning, but we're in the stadium itself on Wednesday morning, with some women's Taekwondo on Friday (featuring Sarah Stevenson)....and then that's us done.  Not the glamour sessions, perhaps... but I'm happy that we've done this well.  GB medals are nice - I saw us win lots in Athens - but I just love the Olympic Games full stop, pretty much regardless.  Wherever you look, there are stories that make you want to well up at the drama and endeavour of it all.  I'd never heard of Valentina Vezzali before I went to the fencing, but she was competing in the women's individual foil for her fourth consecutive gold medal.... she won bronze.... but at the grand old age of 38, she's already planning on fighting on to Rio, and won another Olympic gold - her 6th - in the team event a few days later. She's clearly a great Olympian, Italy's equivalent to Steve Redgrave, perhaps, but I'd never even heard of her until I saw her fight on Saturday last week (and actually, did you know that Italy are so dominant in fencing that they have won more than 20% of their entire Olympic medal haul in the sport?  More medals in fencing alone than Spain has won full stop!).

The Olympics are a brilliant idea.  Great Britain's men's football team lost on penalties last night in the quarter finals.... and barely anybody cared on a great night for British sport.  As it should be.  The rowers and cyclists and runners slog their guts out for four years with very little reward or public attention, and the contrast with the pampered footballers could barely be more stark.

It's been pretty good so far.  Tiring... but good.  Travel in London has been a breeze, people have been superb and the volunteers in particular have been amazing. We've been making a point of talking to them as often as possible.

No. It's not what you think!

We talk to volunteers of any gender.....I promise!  (besides, C. has been busy chatting up the soldiers who are manning the security gates... so I'll be sure to get a photo of that for y'all next week).

How are you enjoying the games so far?

jeux sans frontieres...

As sure as night follows day, since the announcement that London would be hosting the 2012 Olympics, there has been almost constant moaning about it: how much it costs, the siting of the stadium, the ticketing arrangements, the sponsorship exclusives, the impact it has on the rest of London... even the non-selection of David Beckham for the GB football team.  Every possible aspect of the Games seems to have been up for examination and for complaint.

The opening ceremony is now almost close enough to touch - it's next Friday; athletes are starting to arrive and the papers are full of stories of the buses that got lost between Heathrow and the athlete's Village and, more seriously, the apparent failure of G4S to provide sufficient security cover for the games.  Even my Facebook feed seems to be filled with more people carping about the Olympics than it is people getting excited.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm excited.

I love the Olympic Games.  I can barely remember anything about Moscow in 1980, but I remember Daley Thompson and Carl Lewis from Los Angeles, and by the time the Seoul Games arrived, I was getting up early to watch that 100m final and the GB men triumph in the gold medal match in the hockey.  Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell in Barcelona; Michael Johnson in Atlanta; watching Jason Queally winning our first gold medal of the Sydney Games as I lay in bed one Saturday morning... and throughout it all, Steve Redgrave winning gold medal after remarkable gold medal in the rowing.  I was lucky enough to spend 10 days in Athens for the 2004 Games, watching Kelly Holmes with her eyes on beanstalks as she won the 800m in the stadium, being mildly underwhelmed by the men's 100m final but thrilled by the Decathlon in spite of the fact that it mostly took place at odd times of the day in front of a mainly empty stadium (see picture above...).  We watched the badminton, the beach volleyball, the weightlifting, some football, some table tennis and lots of great athletics in the stadium.  Best of all was watching Matthew Pinsent dragging the men's coxless four across the finish line mere centimeters in front of the Canadian crew.  I can still hardly believe that I was lucky enough to be there and to see it with my own eyes. We knew we had the gold before the crew in the boat knew.  Right up with the 2005 Ashes at Trent Bridge as the best sport I have ever witnessed first hand.

Yeah.  I love the Olympics.  I watched "50 Great Olympic Moments" on the telly last night, and I was in pieces several times: if Derek Redmond doesn't get me, then you can be pretty sure that watching Muhammed Ali lighting the flame in Atlanta will.  Even Erik the Eel has that effect on me, for heaven's sake.  It's spine-tingling stuff and I can't wait for the next installment.  I've been wearing the Team GB lanyard I was given for my birthday and I've ordered a Team GB t-shirt.  Trust me, I'm all over this Games.

I don't have tickets to watch many medals being won this time around, but I've taken some time off work and I'm delighted to have tickets to watch anything at all and to just feel a part of an Olympic Games taking place in my own country.  It's really very exciting.  Taekwondo, handball, volleyball, fencing, archery, table tennis, weightlifting, hockey, badminton and a morning in the stadium.  Bring it on!  I hope GB win a hatful of medals, but I'll be cheering like a lunatic for anyone and everyone regardless.

I'm also very much looking forward to the weekend in September when I have ground passes to watch the Paralympics in the Olympic Park and some tickets to the swimming.  If the endeavour and sheer drama of the Olympics has me in bits, just imagine what the Paralympics does to me.

Athens got a really bad press in 2004 and was widely criticised for not being ready for the games.  I thought it was fine.  Sure, there were one or two rough edges, but the Games themselves were brilliant.  Sydney 2000 is remembered as the best Games ever, but how many people remember the carnage when they got the height of the vault in the ladies gymnastics wrong?  One or two buses might get lost, and I'm sure a host of other things won't run as smoothly as everyone would like... but I think London 2012 is going to be amazing and I'm going to be there.  You could be too... there are still tickets on open sale on the Olympic ticketing site.

Believe.

london calling, yes I was there too....

Lots of people seem to think that I'm cynical.  Maybe they're right, but when it comes to the 2012 Olympics, I've been right on board from the moment that they announced that the Games were coming to London.  Well, to be honest, I would have been onboard anyway.  I love the Olympics wherever they are and I spent two brilliant weeks in Athens in 2004 watching some incredible sport that I will never forget.  If Paris had won the games, I'd be more than happy to spend a couple of weeks on the other side of the channel (and I bet it would have been easier to get tickets too).  But the games are coming to London, and given that we have never been awarded the games in our own right, that's pretty special.

The carping started almost immediately, of course... the games will cost too much, the tickets will be too expensive and too hard to get, the sponsors are too heavily involved and getting too many tickets.  Blah, blah, blah.

Beneath it all, though, I think people have been pretty excited.  All that moaning about the ticketing system was really just a very British way of showing how much everyone wanted a piece of the games and what a great sense of ownership we seemed to feel for OUR Olympics.  I would have loved to have seen some rowing, some swimming, some cycling and perhaps a bit more athletics, but I've got tickets to things like the hockey, the 53kg Women's weightlifting, handball, table tennis, volleyball, fencing, archery, taekwondo, a morning in the main stadium.  It's going to be great (and I'm going to watch some Paralympics too, which I think might be even better).

Ever since the Olympic flame arrived in the UK, there's been a lot of excitement and media coverage of the torch relay.  Apparently the flame will pass within a couple of miles of the homes of the vast majority of people living in this country, and today the flame passed through West Bridgford on the way into Nottingham.. within half a mile of my house.

My immediate reaction was one of mild annoyance: roads were being closed at around 4pm, and it looked like I might be trapped in my office until really late.  But, you know, how often does something like this happen?  How could I possibly be so curmudgeonly as to begrudge people the chance to see the Olympic Torch Procession at a time when schools would be out and kids could go along and see this once-in-a-lifetime event for themselves.

...plus I decided to just leave work at 3pm.

The weather has been pretty stormy all day, but right on cue, the sun came out.  I went out for a run at around 5pm, and it was really heart-warming to see that thousands and thousands of people - mostly kids - were making their way towards Trent Bridge and the Embankment to get a good slot to watch the procession.  On a whim, about 3/4 of the way through my run, I stopped to join them and to watch the torch go past for myself.

We had to wait a little while, but the atmosphere was really good, with people smiling and waving their flags.  It was good.  Heart-warming, either.  Soon enough a convoy of the sponsors came past - Coca Cola, Samsung, Lloyds bank - but then a phalanx of police motorbike riders, a few coaches and finally the torch itself, carried by a young blind guy by the name of Matt.

Do you know what?  It was properly inspiring.  Lots of people will be watching Torvill and Dean with the torch in Nottingham town centre tonight, but I'm really glad that I got to see Matt carrying the torch.  I had a lump in my throat and everything as the crowds cheered him past.

I think the London Olympics are going to be okay.

the new diana....

[this - cross-posted with CUAS - was a difficult one to write.  I found it so hard to judge the tone, but I wanted to make the point without seeming gratuitously offensive.  I hope I've managed.  Let me know what you think]

Before I say anything else, let me just make it clear that I think that Gary Speed’s death yesterday, at the age of 42, is unquestionably tragic; an awful, shocking piece of news. It’s difficult for me to imagine a circumstance so terrible that hanging myself seemed the best option, and I hope I never experience anything remotely approaching it. At the moment it seems pointless to speculate on the circumstances surrounding Speed’s death. For me, it’s enough to know that another human being reached the point where he took his own life. Horrible.

Gary Speed was an excellent footballer: you don’t make 840 domestic appearances (including a once-record 535 Premier League games) or win 85 caps for your country without having some talent. Listening to the hysterical coverage over the media yesterday in the wake of the news of his death, however, and you’d imagine that he was one of the most remarkable people ever to live. Mark Pougatch was anchoring BBC Radio Five Live’s coverage, and his reaction was typically overblown: he remarked that he had never, in the whole of his broadcasting career, which includes presenting current affairs programmes, covered a story so remarkable. I can understand why friends and colleagues of Speed – people like Robbie Savage and Shay Given – would be stunned by the news of the sudden death of someone close to them. But everyone else? Was it really a stop all the clocks moment?

If – and it’s apparently by no means certain – Speed was suffering from depression, then we can hope that this news serves to help spread understanding and awareness of an awful condition that can strike anyone, no matter how famous, wealthy or happy they may superficially appear to be. There have already been a number of high profile footballers who have suffered from depression in recent years: coincidentally, Stan Collymore wrote movingly about his own experiences of the illness on Saturday, at more or less the same time as Speed was appearing on the BBCs Football Focus programme, talking brightly of his plans for a future. Less then 24 hours later, Gary Speed was dead and that future - his future - died with him.

It’s only a couple of years too since the German International goalkeeper, Robert Enke  killed himself in 2009 at the age of 32 after battling with depression for six years. It’s an awful, often invisible condition, that strikes without warning and without discrimination and that we understand so poorly.

Speed’s death was sad; the tragedy of a life snuffed out too soon. A tragedy for sure, but also the kind of tragedy that happens every day. Every death is a tragedy in its own way: every soldier or civilian blown up in Afghanistan, even those who don’t receive a funeral procession through Royal Wooton Bassett, every child in the third world who dies of a treatable illness, every cancer victim, every road traffic accident, those Russian sailors not rescued by Prince William… but not every passing will be marked by minutes of silence or of applause, or by tearful fans tying scarves to the gates of football clubs or by special phone-in programmes on the radio. Gary Speed was clearly a much loved and respected man, but it should not lessen the tragedy of his death on Sunday to acknowledge that he was just another human being in a long list whose lives ended too soon. In the UK alone, the statistics tell us that 15 other people took their own lives on the very same day that Speed took his (more than 6,000 each year in the UK and rising). The fact that those other suicides may be less marked does not make them less significant. Crying more loudly doesn’t make the tragedy any greater or the loss any more deeply felt by the bereaved.

Football is a strange sport: it is resolutely hard-nosed and yet also incorrigibly sentimental. The death of such a well-respected football man, especially at such an age and in such circumstances, was always likely to provoke an outpouring of emotion around the country, especially at those clubs where Speed played or in the country he represented with such distinction, both as player and latterly as manager. What has surprised me, however, is the apparent depth of our emotional incontinence, the sudden outpouring of feeling and an apparently nationwide desire to wallow - and judging by the radio this evening, we're still wallowing -  in what seems like a disproportionate level of grief. A tragedy, yes….but a cause of nationwide mourning and gnashing of teeth?  According to the media - and we are led by the coverage of events like this in the media to set the tone - then yes, it is.

I can’t help but wonder, if that other famous recent football suicide, Justin Fashanu, had been found dead in that Shoreditch lockup in 2011 and not in 1998, would he have got the same sort of reaction?

Gary Speed, human being. 1969-2011. R.I.P.

one way ticket...

How about an Olympic ticket update?

When last we left this saga (which you can find here and here), I was picking over the bones of getting absolutely no tickets in the ballot and marvelling at the anger and entitlement being felt by the many millions of other people who were in the same boat.

I've provisionally booked as holiday the first two weeks in August next year. I was hoping that I'd be spending that time watching a series of Olympic events at a number of different venues around London. After the ballot, it looked as though I might be watching the 53kg women's weightlifting, but precious little else. Never mind, I thought, I am still going to take that time off and just enjoy the games with my friends, even if we are only watching them on the telly.

As someone who got none of the tickets I applied for in the ballot, I was (with millions of other people) at the front of the queue for the first come, first served release of the remaining tickets.  I wasn't hopeful.  The very detailed email that the London Olympic Team sent me showed exactly what tickets remained, but experience of things like this has taught me to be dubious that the system would be able to cope with the demand well enough to enable me onto the site to buy the tickets at all.  Apart from anything else, the ticket window opened at 6am last Friday... at which point I was hoping to be asleep in my tent at Glastonbury.

Luckily, my friend John's dad stepped up to the plate and gamely took on the responsibility of trying to get us a few more tickets to add to the meagre haul we already have.   Loads of us applied for tickets in the ballot, of course, but our hit rate was so low that we've decided that we're going to pool our resources and try to share out what we've got as fairly as we can.

So, before heading down to Somerset, I handed over my London Olympic account and credit card details, and then mostly forgot all about it.  I woke up on Friday morning to the news that the whole thing had been very difficult and confusing and prone to crashing (surprise, surprise)... but that we very well might have got some tickets.  It's by no means entirely in the bag yet, but I eventually received a confirmation email and my account is showing an application for 6 tickets to two separate morning athletics sessions in the Olympic Stadium and six tickets to a qualifying round in the Women's hockey.

Result!  Roy did some pretty good work there as we slept off a skinful of cider in our tents.

Fingers crossed that we actually get allocated those tickets, eh?  I've no idea how that process is going to work, but although the tickets are sitting on my account, they haven't been billed to my credit card yet..... so we wait.

I get a feeling this saga has some distance left to run yet.....