Friday 3 December 2010

World Cup Joys

I am not upset that England lost the world cup charge. Russia and Qatar have never hosted the extravaganza.

Jolly good luck to them. They have deep pockets and that is necessary to lay on a lavish show.

Russia doesn't have a brilliant record on race relations and will need to redouble their efforts to make the country alluring.

Qatar isn't exactly a haven for workers' rights and so that might change.

Sepp Blatter, the president of world football's governing body, has been a recalcitrant bureaucrat on a plethora of issues but sending the tournament into new territories has been his grand flourish.

Earlier this year it was South Africa. In 2018 Russia will have the fun and in 2022 everyone will roast in the Middle East.

A new meaning to the phrase hot tickets.

Gut Feeling

There I was feeling like it was sour grapes. I had been saying in a few blogs that the Eurostar trips were not as punctual as usual. Only once in five trips had the train been on time. Well on Thursday I received an email telling me that Eurostar was tackling this by cutting the service to 50 per cent.

However everything they say will be back to normal on Sunday. This is good as I am supposed to be travelling to London to do some work.

The Eurostar bosses have asked for all non essential travel to be delayed. This always strikes me as bizarre. How many people travel between the cities for non-essential purposes? That would be a fascinating survey.

Obviously somewhere there are lots of non-essential voyages taking place. I would love to get to that position in my life where I could take a non-essential trip.

It is not here yet.

Saturday morning's football match has been deemed non-essential. The opponents phoned our captain this afternoon to tell him that only five of them would be available. Since they are a good team they still might have won.

Since the pitch is booked for 11-1pm we could have a kick around. But the captain has suggested that exertion is a non-essential and has urged his troops to gird their loins for further exploits next week.

As the match was called off at the last minute, we will probably be given a 3-0 forfeit win.

It is quite a handy outcome. I have been invited out to a party tonight and I was going to leave early so that I could get enough sleep to run around in the morning.

I still might leave early to get some sleep.

At my stage of life it is essential.