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Friday – my interviews went very well. So well, in fact, that I got a phone call fro my agency this morning saying they were very impressed and want me back for a second interview! WhooHoo! Will happen in week commencing 14 July. Will keep you posted.
Friday night out to dinner & movie with Miguel & Begonia. Went & saw Hancock – have to say I wasn’t particularly impressed. All the good bits are in the trailers. The first third is fun, the laughs die in the second third and the end is just a little confusing and a bit twee. Anyway, make your own opinion, but mine would be to wait for the DVD. Don’t spend your hard earned only to be disappointed.
Sat went to Norwich with Christine. Never been there before and although there were some very strange looking people about (the local 6-toed pesantry, no doubt) we had a lovely lunch in a brilliant tapas bar, then a bit of shopping in Primark that was good for the bank balance! No, really! Got 3 pairs of work trousers, a linen blazer, a bed set (doona cover, two pillowcases AND a fitted sheet) for £66. Brilliant! Missed the F1 qualifying, but entirely worth it. Norwich is a strange place. Full of very weird people, but great shopping and quite a pleasant vibe to the place.
Sunday, woke late in my new bedding (lovely!) and rose just in time for the pre-race warm up for the British F1 Grand Prix. And what a race! After Aussie Mark Webber kicked some serious ass in qualifying to get on the front row of the grid (WHOOHOO!!) he spun on the first lap in the seriously wet conditions (understatement of the year!) and ended up finishing 10th. But the wild & wet conditions drove Ferrari to distraction, with Massa having a hell of a lot of trouble keeping his car turned in the right direction. It seemed he was spinning every 5 mins! Raikonnen only managed 4th after a late attack at Alonso – the Ferrari’s just seemed to have a hell of a time maintaining pace, even in qualifying. With Kubica, championship leader, out of the race and thereby scoring no points, the way was clear for a stampeding, rampaging Hamilton to secure his first place and the vital 10 points. Hamilton was never really in doubt and romped away in the awful conditions to win by more than a minute – almost unheard of in F1!
After the F1 I went to Wendens Ambo for their annual Village vs Pub cricket match, which Christine and Anne (who runs The Pub in question) roped me into doing some scoring.. I think it’s because I actually know a little about cricket, thop never scored before. But it was fun! Good day out. Weather was crap, and the rain bucketed down for about an hour or so, but it held off long enough for the Village to win by 3 wickets. A fun (and slightly drunken!) afternoon, got home about 8pm to a hungry cat and brand new Top Gear – which seems to be getting better and better. Love that show.
Also got some ‘new’ music. A few weeks ago I bought the Desperado Soundtrack, and have been loving the hell out of it! I’m really into dirty mexican blues at the moment, dirty messy guitars and a vaguely latin americal feel. Anyway, got the From Dusk Til Dawn soundtrack and also Tito & Tarantula’s ‘tarantism’ to groove down to now. Brilliant! Happy musical days :)
Anyway, happy Monday everybody. Tho the weather’s crap and will be all week, I feel optimistic..
xx
Is it possible to put a curb on the dream of the United World of America? How the hell would we do it?
Easy! At least according to John Birmingham….
Teach Americans to play cricket!
“For one cannot have pretensions to mastering the universe when one is regularly undone by the likes of Sri Lanka or Zimbabwe. When one fears the re-emergence of the Caribbean as a world power, one is likely to face the re-emergence of a caliphate in the old Ottoman Empire with equanimity. “
Too true, John – too true.
What a classic, brilliant, and deceptively easy answer!
physio again this morning – very short session since I told her that monday something went wrong. she did a quick fix, was hesitant to do more since my headache is v weak at the mo and she doesn’t want to agravate it again. so she showed me how to find the ‘magic’ spot that takes away the pain, sold me a new pillow and sent me on my way. No problem – i’m glad we’re not wasting time. but i’ve got another 2 appts next week, so we’ll see how we go.
Friday again – boss is out so I’m messing about with blogs. Created a new one, one that’s going to be a bit more deep and reflective than this one. not telling where it is yet – let me get used to it first.
Mark the flatmate is going away for a week – down to cornwall camping, lucky bugger. but it does mean a week on my own, which will be nice.
Miguel & Begonia for dinner on Sunday – gotta find something nice to eat! perhaps a roast? anyway, Begonia’s a pa too, and she’s just scored herself a new job – but she’s having confidence issues and wants me to take her through business writing styles, so she can practice a bit. she hasn’t done pa work since she lived in spain, and she doesn’t think her english is good enough – but i think she’ll be fine. :) she’s coming around early so we can go over some sample letters/emails so she can get a grasp of business language. no worries. (psst! she called me a professional! HAHAHA!)
going for a haircut on sat – it’s been over a year so i figured it was about time. listen out for screaming about 2pm, huh?
Australia are playing Wales in the Rugby World Cup on Sat – should be an interesting game! Should be more of a challenge than Japan at any rate. 91-3 was a bit mean. I thought we could have let them have just one try, but no, the boys were being mean! :)
Australia’s 20-20 cricket team aren’t doing too well – I haven’t been following this, but I heard on the radio this morning that we are playing England today and as long as England don’t lose too badly they’ll kick us out of the tournament! How the hell did that happen?! What? We got beaten by Zimbabwe?!? WTF?! You turn away for a minute and the whole thing goes to hell… c’mon boys – kick pommy arse!
on the F1 front, the McLaren team have been fined £50M over the whole spying thing, but Hamilton & Alonso get to keep their championship points and the race is still on. Phew!
that’s about it at this point. happy friday all.
Yes, good people of websville, I am proud to say that once again Australians are champions of the world. But honestly, could anyone not see it coming??
(photo: www.smh.com.au)
A stunning performance from Gilchrist’s massive 149 brought the World Cup to a close on Saturday. Although it seems to be a World Cup that most would rather forget, you can’t begrudge the Aussies their triumph – they didn’t lose a single match.
“We’ve dominated this tournament probably like no other cricket World Cup has been dominated before,” Ponting said. “To make some very, very good international cricket teams look pretty ordinary at times, everybody had to be proud of that.” And we damn well are, Ponters!
So farewell Glenn McGrath – you’re a real champion who’ll stay in the history books. And we’ll have to come up with another player-related, crowd-pleasing chant! (Ooo ah, Glenn McGrath!)
Having a tough old time at the moment. I’m depressed, tired all the time, still got my headaches.. I’ve got a general, multi-purpose malaise, an apathy of everything. I desperately need my holiday. At the moment I’ve no patience or tolerance for anything – I’m even finding myself snapping at the cat. So I’m off from Thursday til Mon 16th. I honestly think most of it will be spent sleeping.
One good thing is that boss is as tired as me at the moment, so he’s not pushing to get stuff done.
Briefly though, to catch you up – spent £65 and 3 hours on the weekend doing up a herb garden in my wee paved square out the back. Scraped up all the moss and lichen that had covered the pavings, collected lots of snails, cleared up lots of dried leaves and cobwebs and killed a few spiders. (I try to take a buddhist approach and not kill anything, just relocate – but I’m used to spiders being able to bite back and kill, so they’re slated to die when found. It’s a habit that I’m truly not to worried about breaking.) Planted:- dill, mint, chives, rosemary, thyme, parsley, lavender, tomatoes, cucumber, courgette, and strawberries. Also put in some catnip (but the little bastard doesn’t seem the least bit interested in it – more interested in my chives and dill!) sweet peas, peonies and lillies for a bit of colour and perfume, along with 3 little tiny fushias in shades of white and dusky pink (one of them already has buds on). Cheered me up a bit, but now I’m paranoid about slugs eating everything. There are a lot of slugs in my garden. They come up through the rain-drain-thingy, which I’ve now surrounded with salt so the little buggers can’t go any further. (Add slugs to the list of things I’m not bothered about killing.)
Watched the first episode of Dr Who Series 3 – with new companion Martha Jones. Fairly cool indeed – and will be worth watching on Saturday nights to come.
Cheered for our boys in the carribbean who are doing so well – and for the legend that is McGrath, newly crowned Champion Wicket Taker in World Cup Cricket. Go, you good thing!
Booked my next trip – Christine & I are off to Salzburg in early June. 2 days in Mozart’s birthplace for my 35th birthday. I wish I could feel more excited than I do at the moment. Perhaps when it gets closer…
STILL WAITING for our Occupation Health people to do a ‘workplace assessment’, after one was requested by the Occupation Health Nurse hired by our private medical insurance people, now 4 weeks ago. Honestly these people are less than useless. After the debacle of the fan though, I don’t hold out any hope at all that it will be done until probably somewhere around the summer – if at all.
Anyway. It will be really really nice to have a good 10day break from this place. And I might take a wee road trip or two. It’s been a while since I got out and about in the car.
So I won’t be around for the next little bit. But I don’t think my musings on my miseries will be missed. And I’ll (hopefully) be in a much better frame of mind when I return.
Be good.
:) Did we have any doubt?
I don’t think anything more than this needs to be said. :)
Except – damn well done Brad Hodge (123 runs – his first One Day Century) and Brad Hogg (4 out for 27 runs off 4.5 overs).
Australia meets South Africa on Saturday.
On the news front – England’s Andrew Flintoff has been booted out of his Vice-Capt position after a drunken night with a pedal boat! :) Hey, made me laugh. Apparently he and some teammates were depressed after their loss to New Zealand on Friday that they all had a bit too much to drink. The other players got warnings and fines, but Flintoff has apparently been warned 3 times before. What a bad boy. (Pedal boat! snicker snicker :)
Pakistan have been knocked out of the series (!) by IRELAND (!!!) and have had to bury their coach, Bob Woolmer, who died suddenly on the weekend.
Before I begin let me reiterate that I don’t have cable television – hence I couldn’t watch the whole match. However, I listened to the Aussies bat thanks to BBC online radio, and kept in touch with score updates at home. At 11:25 last night I watched the 35min highlights on BBC One. So this report is how I saw/heard it.
Scorecard on Baggygreen.com.au
Firstly, bloody well done to Australia. The commentary said that it’s only the second time in World Cup history that a team has won by more than 200 runs (unverified fact – don’t come looking for me if that’s wrong). And they did it in such style…There’s nothing like the one dayers to get the blood pumping! I love the World Cup!
The Aussie innings began with losing the toss, being sent into bat and a gutsy knock from Adam Gilchrist. This is the Gilly we know and love. Very ably partnered at the crease by Matthew Hayden, these two ‘old school’ gents proceeded to whack Scotland all over the ground. The ground was apparently slow, the fence was apparently short, but honestly does any of that really matter to an Aussie batsman in full stride? They’re gonna hit and go over the fence, whether it be short or long, fast or slow. And when Gilchrist fell for 46 off 55 balls, with 7 boundaries, Ricky Ponting stepped up to the plate and proceeded to pound the Scots even further into the dust.
I don’t think the Scotsmen really knew what bowling to Aussies is like, especially Ricky Ponting. Ponters saw the come and go of his 1000th World Cup run, and his fourth World Cup century. He joined a select list of prolific batsmen, and by the end of his 113 run knock he had moved to number 2 on that list. With 113 runs off 93 balls, 9 boundaries and five sixes – although his face didn’t show it, you could tell he was enjoying himself. Ponters was finally bowled out with a real winner from Scottish Captain Wright, he had to be happy with his innings.
The Scottish bowlers, though, didn’t have it all bad. The Aussies were out with 2 LBW and 2 straight bowl outs, as well as a stumping and a catch. Not bad bowling, when they shone – but they just didn’t seem to shine enough. Haq was their best guy – a spinner who left the field yesterday after getting the crucial wickets of Hayden and Clarke and stats of 2/49 off 7 overs. Blain had a bit of an episode. As BBC web and commentary reported: “Blain has done himself a mischief running in to bowl. He throws the ball away, has a chat with skipper Wright and then disappears into the stands. As Damien Fleming points out on commentary, that’s one of the shortest spells he’s ever seen – five steps.” Perhaps Ponters gave him the evil eye and he spooked? :) Blain ended up with stats of 0/29 off just 24 balls, so perhaps he was spooked by the Aussies. Hey, it’s happened before, right? :)
Australia finally saw out their 50 overs with a score of 6/334. Definitely a hard slog for the Scots.
I love watching the Australian’s field. They have so much energy, and seem to take absolute joy in the game. They throw themselves around and full-on launch into the ball, the boundary ropes, the grass… :) There was a distinct difference between the Scots on the field and the Aussies.
Anyway, Scotland got off to a poor start, and it just seemed to get worse from there. It was 5/42 before Brown and Smith stepped up and tried. Smith was Scotland’s top scorer with just 51 – and he was a good 30 runs above any of his team mates. Scotland just plain crumbled under the Aussie attack.
Glenn McGrath was again a stand out for the Aussies. Who says Pigeon has lost it?? Check out 3/14 off 6 overs, brothers, and rethink yourself. Then check out his World Cup Stats. The only reason he’s second is that Wasim Akram has played more matches. But thank god Glenn’s decided that the streaks in his hair are history. :)
Shaun Tait seems to be a worthy acolyte to McGrath – though he seemed to give up some accuracy for pace by throwing wide a few times. And with an Economy rate of 5.62 (to the rest of the Aussie bowlers are 2.something) he was expensive as well. His final stats were 2/45 off 8 overs. But if he was going to be expensive, this was the game to do it. Hopefully he’ll settle down over the course of the series…
A good game, and I think Scotland might have learned a few things – which will stand them well against South Africa.
My only problem with this game was that there were only an estimated 2000 people in the stands! It has got to be the smallest crowd that the Aussies have ever played for. And looking for a reason why, the commentators discoevered World Cup Ticket prices, which are just plain disgusting….
Australia v Scotland – USD$25 to sit on the grassy hill, USD$90 to sit in the stand. $90?? Is it really that much??
And the upcoming, more highly rated, Australia V South Africa? USD$80 to sit on grass, USD$130 to sit in stand.
No wonder the stands are empty – the locals can’t afford to go! Hell, I can’t afford to go!
Wake up ICC and reduce your prices – or you’ll have quite a few empty stands, I imagine.
