Category: General

Why on earth does Australia interrupt a major international sporting event, leaving two of the world’s top tennis players sitting on the sidelines for 10 minutes, getting cold and stiffening up, for a firework display? I’m referring to the match between Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open tennis tournament.  A little reorganisation next time perhaps?

I’m now wondering what is in store for the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix. Now there is to be no refueling of cars  during the race, perhaps a coffee break to refuel the drivers?

As you know I’m a veritable Pooh when it comes to techie stuff.

I have replaced my handsome mugshot with a pic of our local Dom in my profile but my mugshot won’t go away!

Help!!

A quick test to see if changing a ‘display name’ requires re-approval as an author

picture test

Bill Maclaren was perhaps the last of my Saturday Club of companions from the days when I followed sport in the company of my family.

It’s a select gathering: Bill Maclaren and Eddie Waring, John Arlott and Brian Johnston. Like favourite pieces of music or songs they conjure up cameos of some old times worth remembering. Catch phrases too that added spice to their soundbites.

And I was reminded of them only a few weeks ago when my youngest daughter sent me a text from the All Blacks match v. the Barbarians at ‘Twickers’. She was recalling some girlhood days when we’d watched such games together with the help of these special voices.

Thank you, Bill. RIP

The realisation when one lands in Gibraltar that the whole place is only about six square kilometres and that a road has to be closed when a plane is landing or taking off because it goes across the runway is surprising.  The first impression is of a bigger town, though of course it’s hard to judge properly with that enormous rock in the middle.

Gibraltarians speak English and Llanito, which is apparently so close to the Spanish of Andalucia that it takes a native Andalasusian to tell the difference. Relations with Spain are now more relaxed than they were. But if a passenger aircraft cannot land at Gibraltar because of weather conditions, the departing passengers go through all the formalities here and are then bussed to Malaga airport where they are decanted straight into the aircraft. Arriving passengers are bussed straight off the tarmac at Malaga with baggage to go through all the formalities here.  This is an improvement on the previous arrangement whereby the plane had to fly on to Tangier and sit on the tarmac until permission was obtained for it to land at Malaga.

We experienced one of the bad weather conditions on Friday when a thick mist called the Levanter, settled on the top of the Rock lowering the temperature considerably. Whether it was that that drove some of the apes down to sea-level, I don’t know, but I had my first meeting with one of them, sitting on a wall by the roadside chewing  something and totally uninterested in passing humans.