Saturday, September 13, 2008

Hotel Recommendation
I went to London last week and stayed at the Copthorne Tara hotel in South Kensington. It was very nice and not just because it had a free bar between 6.45 and 8.15pm and an Asian restaurant that did a mean Nasi Goreng. During the free drink session, I got chatting to an elderly man from Leeds who, from what I could gather, was some sort of food scientist. We were chatting about the current fortunes of the England team and in particular the hat-trick scored by Theo Waldcott in the game against Croatia. He said the last England hat-trick he could remember was scored by David Owen. I instantly registered the mistake. but I did not have the confidence or inclination to correct to correct a practical stranger.

Although he kept talking, I spent the following few minutes wondering how he could have possibly got Michael's first name wrong. He is constantly in the paper and is easily in the top ten well known English footballers. The conversation continued on to Andy Murray's chances in the forthcoming American Grand Slam Final; there was no sign that my companion had any knowledge of his previous slip and then out of the blue the self same thing happened again. He compared Andy Murray's dour personality to "Michael McEnroe". Michael! Again, the slip up struck me as if someone had just thrown a glass of ice water in my face. How can anyone get this name wrong, probably the most well known name in tennis. What sort of affliction involves getting the names of top sports people wrong with such regularity whilst showing no other signs of word blindness? What is it a coincidence that the first name given to McEnroe really belonged to Owen. The classic Two Ronnies sketch came to mind, where the contestant's specialist subject was being able to provide the answer to the question previously asked.

The free bar was coming to the end, and to be honest I was getting a little weary of my companion. Even though he was a fellow Northerner, he did seem to have a very fixed opinion on everything. He reminded me a little of Geofrrey Boycott, or Barry Boycott as my companion might say.

MrT 9/13/2008 10:44:00 pm [+] : Feedback!

Deja Vu hits as we beat the French again to get to the World Cup final. Jason Robinson has a storming game, catching everything, kicking to both sides, cutting through the french line and winning the all important penalty.

Jonny Wilkinson is still not firing on all cyclinders, but the last penalty and drop goal must give him a bit of lift before next Saturday.



MrT 10/14/2007 10:05:00 pm [+] : Feedback!

England have announced an unchanged team for Saturday's Semi Final match against France. Certainly Jonny Wilkinson, Mike Catt, Jason Robinson and Andrew Sheridan all looked pretty good in the game against Australia. Australia's scrum half George Gregan has sadly decided to retire following the game.

We enjoyed watching the Louis Theroux documentory about plastic surgery on Sunday night. I must admit Liposuction did look pretty tempting after a huge Sunday lunch with double helpings of bramble crumble.

          

MrT 10/10/2007 09:06:00 pm [+] : Feedback!

Photo and Picasa

Have been on a photo outing today around Paris....

Click here to view.

MrT 2/20/2005 12:12:00 am [+] : Feedback!

Sacre Bleur! - Blog is back

Have been scanning through the blog and enjoyed seeing first bath time ( for Jo not me ) and few other bits and pieces, so have decided to resurrect.

Have now been neartly a month in gay paris. Settling in reasonably well, with everyone at work friendly and helpful. Apartment is very nice, with ferocious heating system, temperamental washing machine, oven with no thermostat and very slippery wooden parquet flooring.

Lack of TV has not yet been too much of a problem. Vic has successfully sourced

1. Toys R us store
2. Local sparkly range - from 4euros upwards
3. Racous Irish Mum's club for recreational nights out

Soft cheese and bread becoming staple diet - although not sure about the cup o soup!

MrT 2/03/2005 11:23:00 pm [+] : Feedback!

It's all my fault.

Just finished watching the opening England game against France. The final result is all my fault, as I was already imagining what I was going to say at work tommorrow. I was going to talk about France giving up too easily just like in the Rugby, i was going to talk about England bringing home ANOTHER trophy this year. I was going to talk about England finally winning a major football tournament in my lifetime. And then it happened, clumsy Heskey bowls over someone and then Zidane proves that you don't need a tatoo on your neck to be one of the world's best footballers.

What's worse is that the live match time is 4.30am in the morning. I sensibly didn't get up to watch the game, and so at least my whole day wasn't spoiled. Over in Australia, the TV covers the game, but there's none of the post match analysis. Somehow after a game like that, you need to hear the comforting tones of Trevor Brooking or Gary Lineker or even heaven forbid Jimmy Hill. Without some calming football cliches from John Motson like "It's a funny old game" and "It's not over till the final whistle", we are just left to fester in our own post match depression.

Who would have thought that when the ball hit Fabien Bartez in the face when France were losing 1-0 and Brian Moore said "That will give Bartez something else to cry about" that it would actually be us crying at the end of it all. And this time, we can't even blame the strong onions.

MrT 6/14/2004 11:57:00 am [+] : Feedback!

Writers Festival
It turns out over the last few days the Sydney Writing Festival has been held on our doorstep. Yesterday evening, Alexi Sayle was doing a talk discussing his latest book in the new Sydney Theatre across the road. I should have gone and collared him after the show to ask how he intended his story to end in the End of Story competition. I'm sure he's never been asked that before.

Still we did get over there this afternoon and soaked up some of the literary atmosphere. There was a free creche and so Joseph got to play with some other children for a couple of hours whilst Mum and Dad discussed our childhood ambitions over a quiet drink in the Hero of Waterloo. We event got a free goodnight story book when we went back to pick him up - bargain. Better than a bargain in fact, as it was all free in the first place.

Vic and I were talking about how when you are young and at school, you seem to be able to try all these things like drawing, playing an instrument, playing sport and games, writing and photography. But when you get to a certain age, you sort of stop. I don't know whether this is because you just don't have time what with having to go to work everyday or changing nappies or cleaning the toilet. Or, really whether you realise as an adult, how hard it is to be a successful artist. Perhaps you think, well I'm never going to be a writer or painter or singer or actor, and so what's the point in even trying.

But the problem is, you get fewer and fewer opportunities to be creative. Maybe we should sign up in a night class soon.

(P.S Vicky if you are reading this, I know you will dispute the cleaning the toilet part)

MrT 5/23/2004 12:45:00 pm [+] : Feedback!