August Poetry Competition

By the time August draws to a close the holiday season will almost be over, London streets may be returned to the overtaxed residents and even the French will be back at what passes for work.

Our subject will be “My Summer Holiday”.  It does not have to be this year’s event, just something memorable to the participant.  Some of my most remembered are the annual Sunday school day trips to Porthcawl via GWR in the fifties. (It always rained).

If you really did spend your hard earned at the Olympics, (or watching cricket) that’s OK but your offering will be judged accordingly, as will entries submitted on currency or negotiable instruments.

Any form or scheme.  Closing at midnight EDST on August 31.

And there’s more

While most of the world’s TVs were full of Olympic stuff, some more ‘GB and N Ireland’ fellas were winning – in fact four of the top six golfers at the PGA Championships in the US of A qualify for the description. Rory McIlroy carries a British passport and claims to be Irish too, while the others hail from England: David Lynn, Justin Rose and Ian Poulter. Something in the water obviously!

Cricket is all about statistics, so’s Ireland

It’s all Eoin Morgan’s fault. He was the catalyst for this blog.

While reading an article about the talented “English” cricketer Eoin Morgan in the Cricketer magazine (I know, I know, I need to get a life) the Irish diaspora was mentioned in figures. Eoin Joseph Gerard Morgan was born in Dublin though when selected will bat in the middle order for England. Before we go any further I would like to say that Eoin is pronounced own or Owen, if you prefer. Don’t ask me to pronounce diaspora. Too many variables for a public schoolboy like me. Die-Asp-Or-A. Di-A-Spora. Is it something like aspirin? Och, I give up.

Anyway, It seems there are 70 million Irish diaspora worldwide, 34 million residing in the United States alone. Contrast this with the British expats that number 6 million worldwide. This means that the Irish abroad, if they had remained like the resolute second piggy and stayed at home the old country would have a population density to rival Bangladesh. The Irish that left definitely took the “Go forth and multiply” scripture to heart.

On the Olympic stramash, apparently

DISCLAIMER.  I shall qualify the following by saying that I have the utmost respect for all the athletes (bar one or two) who get up at OFFS o’clock to put in another interminable stint of training on the track or jumps, in the pool or gym and then set records or personal best times, heights or distances in their events, winning a medal or not.

I have the utmost respect for our Armed Forces who stepped in at short notice to cover the security of athletes and spectators alike. I also have the utmost respect for the 70,000 unpaid volunteers who made the whole thing tick and the seven million spectators who paid good money for tickets to support their teams.

All the above deserved better than be tainted by the Gallery of Shame to come. You all know by now that my fur rests for the most part in ‘standby’ mode on a very short fuse, rising in clumps of hackle when things irritate me until I succumb to yet another full-blown frizzy fur attack. So, in dumbest celebrity TV countdown fashion and with all statutory Mackie-esque warnings about subjectivity, flash photography and the need to wear a hard hat, here are the top 20 things that did it for me.

Continue reading “On the Olympic stramash, apparently”

The Perseids

Having endured the most mind numbing tedium for the last fortnight one felt well overdue for a little entertainment.

The weatherman told of the meteor shower tonight arriving at just after midnight in the NE sky.  This happily represented a deal sight more entertainment that has been available for the said fortnight so I duly sallied forth. There, coming from Orion’s Belt straight towards the Big Dipper were streams of them, every minute or so.  All of a sudden they weren’t heavenly bodies anymore, they were coming over no more than a couple of thousand feet!  Well I suppose they have to land somewhere but appeared a bit close for comfort!

Tomorrow, as it is hot, we will visit the mountain, hopefully we shall miss the end of the whole London olympic thing, I really don’t think I need to witness any more claptrap like the opening ceremony.  Interesting really, however hard humanity tries it really cannot even begin to rival the natural world.  Shooting stars outbid fireworks by a country mile!

Pass it, doh!

Stratford,London, UK, 10/08/12 Picture by Graham Chadwick. London 2012 Olympic Games Men's 4x100m relay heat 1/2. Team GB

I’d like to offer OZ this incident for his much-anticipated Olympic rant: the failure (yet again) of a British relay squad to pass the baton. Now I know that as mere runners they are not used to communicating with others or controlling themselves in confined spaces – or even holding things in their hands – but p-lease! All the other teams practise and manage to do it without mishap – why not you? Btw, the girls are just as bad, in case you wonder.