Not so Late Shift

It's not as late as it has been but it is still late.Must stop this. Now in Nelspruit pronounced as far as I can tell Nelsprayt.

Got picked up at the airport by chance by the assistant manager of the hotel.

She was there collecting someobdy else and we simply tacked outrselves in. Just as well, the hotel is up in the hills. I have started taking my malaria tables as it is a possibility.

Quite honestly if mosquitoes want to come out in this sodden weather, they're idiots.

Have gone throught two days of spectacular absent mindedness; First in Johannesburg on Saturday I failed to pick up my Orange freebie handout bag which had recording equipment in it. I didn't think I'd put the stuff in there because my normal bag (the bag I'd set out with that morning) still felt so heavy.

Oddly, there was an Orange freebie bag right where I was sitting and I thought that was mine rather than the one plopped on a seat nearby.

Odd thing is the back stayed there until someone realised it was in need of an owner. I luckily got an honest person and it found its way back to me.

Left my glasses case at a press conference this afternoon. Had to go back and get that.

The conference was held in the chapel of the hotel. So I guess that dissuaded any would-be thieves.

I assume these lapses are to do with lack of sleep.

Stupidity sets in. So on that note I will finish. Though my feeble state could generate oodles of incidents over the coming days.

Not a good idea.

Late Shift Idiocy

It is so late that it is too late. This is a shame as it has been a very interesting day.

The press conference was fascinating. The chief executive of the local organising committee lost his rag. Really went up in flap. Some idiot journalist asked him if he was disappointed that they'd only sold 563,000 tickets out of 850,000.

"We said our target was 500,000 which takes you above two thirds," he boomed. "We've gone beyond that but you're getting these questions. I really don't know what will satisfy the media."

And then he went on about other things like the Olympics and the Euros not being sell outs.

He has a point but clearly someone had been getting at him long before I asked for a breakdown of sales at the venues.

On the subject of idiocy. I feel rather bad about being up so late. But I'll doubtless be out late after the two matches on Saturday. The second one starts at 9pm. That means that I won't be out of the mixed zone until midnight.

I'm leaving for Nelspruit on Sunday. The plane leaves at 1110. And there'll doubtless be queueing.

At least there's no queue to get into bed.

The Flight

Arrived in Johannesburg in one piece. But at what cost to my equilibrium? Not the greatest of air flyers, me.. And each time the atrocity seems to be worse. Must be old age.

Queue to check in at Charles de Gaulle. Queue to get the passport checked. Not so much of a queue to see if I had anything dodgy in my bag.

Queue at Johannesburg airport for passport. Queue near Sandton Library to get my accreditation.

All in all it is time to retire.

The flight consisted of a meal at 1am … really used to eating hoki and mashed potato at that time.

Strangely I had the coffee and then wondered why I managed to watch so much of the Dark Knight Rises.

Compelling rendition of the genre. I thought I’d grown out of my Anne Hathaway thing. But I still have my Anne Hathaway thing and that probably explains why I couldn’t go to sleep.

Men in Black 3 did the trick though. And I was thoroughly resurgent watching Back to the Future.

I couldn’t resist it. The chance of seeing Brucie Willis in Looper or Michael J Fox in Back to the Future. Well nostalgia wins out.

It is such a good film or is it the conceit or the memory of the time when I saw it for the first time?

Probably the latter. But it meant that I gave scant consideration to being 40,000 feet up.

Now firmly back on the ground and stirringly adorned with my accreditation necklace, I prepare for the tournament.

There is a press conference at 1pm on Friday involving the local organising committee and the Confederation of African Football, the overlords of the shindig.

 I will go along and learn. This makes sense really since I have come all this way.

But if I have to queue to get in …..

On the Way

It is a shame that there's no controversy. I'd like to write: 'This is the blog that dared to tell it like it is'. But I can't.

Off in a few days to South Africa to watch the Africa Cup of Nations. Will have to do lots of work while I'm out there.

But since that is the reason for being sent, it would be churlish not to chip in.

Once ago I wrote blogs for the radio station website. While I had fun composing them, the editor of the website was less enthusiastic. And since he's the head honcho, he calls the shots.

Since that kind of rebuff, I've taken to writing in a more limited form. "Five things we learned from yesterday"; and I've gone on to recount the highs and lows of the previous day's football action.

This has got lots of hits. And that's what it's all about.

I'm hoping that my month away in the South African sun will also help my football. Of late it hasn't been brilliant.

Worst thing was playing five a side game a couple of weeks back and injuring a calf muscle. During my absence the team won. Played yesterday and the team lost.

Perhaps in the interests of team progress, it is best to be away for a month. When I return perhaps the boys will be soaring at the top of the table and I can help them descend to mid-table obscurity.

Last season there was more than a flirtation with relegation to division 3. That was avoided thanks to a iconic 7-2 victory in Bagneux on the southern outskirts of Paris.

I dragged the entire family to that one. They were all piled into the hire car and I played while the rest of them went off for coffee and cakes.

And then off we went to the Loire.

This season's league form has ensured that there shouldn't be any repetition of last season's travails.

There probably won't be any danger at all until I start playing again.

Back to Life

Back to life, back to reality .... as Soul II Soul put it ages ago when I were a lad.

After a dozen or so days in London and nearly a week without the brood, I returned to Paris.

Chores, administration, duties. The stiff stuff of ordinariness.

Went out on Monday night in London with a mate from work. A pub called the Fellow. Fine place. Should be fined for the prices. A bag of crisps? £1.50.

I still think that is a lot of money but perhaps people who live in London don't think it is. Maybe I am cheap.

Anyway it was good to go out and do what journos are supposed to do. Gossip with colleagues.

Cycling to south London wasn't scheduled but that is probably good for me. Don't want to be too rigid. Not with The Guardian looking for voluntary redundancies before turning the wheels which could bring compulsory redundancies.

Stay flexible. Be ready to get on the bike to look for work as the tough talking Tory Norman Tebbit bellowed when I were a lad.

Back then I didn't have to wear glasses. Now I do. I picked up the new pair yesterday just before playing tennis. They are beautiful. But they were not cheap.

No wonder I complain about the price of crisps.

Remembrance

It has got to be something significant to stir me to my blog.

Of course that shouldn't be the case. I should be at it every day. But there has been a lapse.

It shouldn't have happened and I will make amends.

The first reminder was a piece in The Times about blogging. It said that bloggers - if they are serious - should get on with it and produce every day. If it can't be much, it has to be something.

Right. And with that logic there's no excuses.

The second jolt - and this was slightly more tectonic - was church this morning and a little trip out onto the green patch outside the church for the Remembrance Day laying of the wreath.

I didn't look at the memorial. In fact I never knew it was there. But the congregation stood outside and sang a hymn ... Our rock in ages past ...and then we said a prayer or two to hail those who sacrificed all during the world wars so we could proceed to dishonour their efforts in our greedy, selfish society.

During two minutes silence, there was a little toddler who was being anything but silent. She was jittering around walking up to the wall and back again.

I thought where are the parents. Get a grip. But then I thought that really is a bit crusty. Internal tut tutting.  And ironic as we were marking people who'd died so that we weren't all living in year 70 of the thousand year reich.

Fortunately that game ended well before half time.

And during the moments of contemplation on the church green, I thought of school and my French teacher there. A bloke called Vic Baker. The mildest of chaps. He imposed no order in his lessons and they were boisterous affairs. I remember getting threatened by the bloke sitting next to me to give him the answers to a translation - otherwise he'd punch me.

It was a strange affirmation of my excellence because he knew that I was going to get the answer right. But - here's the thing - he didn't want all the answers because if he got too many correct, the teacher would have known that he'd been looking at my work. I later heard the boy had become a police man.

But Vic Baker probably knew what was going on. I once mentioned the disorder in the class to a school mate's dad.

The dad said that he was letting us all get away with it. And then recounted how back in a war day, the mild mannered French teacher was some top behind-the-lines commando.

Even though he was getting on, he could have wiped most of us out before we'd got to nous sommes.

Maybe it was just a story. But it was a good one. And one that I've kept with me all these years.

Vic Baker is probably long gone from this earth. But I smiled wryly at the toddler girl.

I've not been asked nor told to fight in a war. And probably am too old now to do so.

The fight - as the vicar later expounded - is to make sure that we strive as much as possible for peace.

I'd like to think of Vic as a youthful ruthless assassin, it contrasts so vividly with his meekness.

I won't forget.

The Rest

I swapped shifts with a colleague and it has been instructive. I worked for him on Tuesday and so I've been off today.

'Off' is a loose way to regard things. Clearly I should have been off on Tuesday because I woke up this morning - no this is not a Blues song - and was so exhausted by the amount of administration that was looming into sight that I went out for breakfast.

I came back, opened a few files, arranged a few bank statements - the children seem to have more money than me - and then decided I'd had enough.

I went back to bed and slept. Obviously all too much for a frail petal like me.

But since my restart I've felt energised. Lunched well and in the still quiet before the wars (the children) arrive, I can dally with my blog and feel there has been achievement.

Perhaps I felt enhanced by a note from one of my doctors to his colleague.

My main doctor - let's call her Dr Chaumie - since that is her name - was away one summer and her replacement Dr Dumazy - no not made up - was her replacement.

When he met me you could see the euro signs roll round in his eyes. I said I needed a doctor's note because I wanted to play in the Roland Garros journalists' tournament. I also required a note to say that my heart was OK for football.

Dr Dumazy whipped out his cardiogramme and before I knew it I looked like one of the Borg.

The squiggles weren't right. "This calls for expensive testing," I muttered to myself and sure enough I was steered towards a cardiologue.

Now any self-respecting man of a certain age should have a cardiologue. And this one put even more terminals onto my extremities.

As far as I remember there was something which wasn't right but it wasn't wrong. I was sent away and told not to worry as it could be my ethnology.

Ah that be serious then.

Three years later. Doc Chaumie was on her summer hols and when I made the appointment with Dr Dumazy, I thought he'd dust off the cardioscam.

Not even. We chatted Olympic games as he cut to the chase and wrote a note to the cardiologue of yore.

At least he put in the note that I was 'sportif'. Which is probably Hippocratic oath code for you book the table and the drinks are on me.