April 2007

I’m leaving this afternoon for my 3 week round the world trip, 2 weddings, a boxing match and a few meetings later and I’ll be back in London sometime in the middle of May.

London-Johannesburg-Durban-Johannesburg-Sydney-Melbourne-Los Angeles- San Diego-Las Vegas-Dallas-London.

I will try and update as much as possible. Take the weather!

An American friend I know in Washington DC, we’ll call her Aliss Pyne, has just started writing a blog. It was strange how it all happened.

She has told me before how my blog led to her getting hooked on reading the popular girl bloggers in SA e.g. Peas on Toast, Champagne Heathen etc. Check her first paragraph

I know a guy who is a faithful blogger (wozafriday.com) and thinks I should take advantage of this medium of communication. Due to my profession and otherwise private nature (meaning I don’t want my life spread across the web), I have never felt compelled to follow his lead. I do admit that I rather enjoy reading the updates on his existence and have subsequently become addicted to some of the blog links from his site. Weird. . . I know! They are kind of like a daily mini-installment of Grey’s Anatomy. And, most of the blogs I read are South African (no, I’m not); it’s kinda like traveling and meeting other people. Yeah, that doesn’t make it any less weird.

She always swore that she’d never start a blog but then I flagged up a trackback to my blog one day and visited a new blog I hadn’t heard of. After reading the first post I was convinced it was her, so when we caught up in DC last week and I told her I had discovered her blog, she was mortified and stupidified at the same time. After discussing it further she realised an IT savvy friend of hers had set the blog up in her name and used a few of her emails as blog posts.

Finally she has taken over the blog as her own and I’m really glad she’s started posting, maybe now the saffa can stalk the american’s blog instead of the other way around.

Not really a topic I can pretend to know much about but I do know that I liked this poem. So in honour of National Poetry Month (h/t Ten Taxis) here is one composed by a friend who I really think should publish her work!

Valentine flower

The Orchid stands in her vase
Broken by sunlight and growling
At me with a protracted,
Wet tongue and a regal
Green stem leaning
To one side.
Her white petticoat, splattered
With running red droplets
Has opened,
No longer concealing a
Blushing crimson centre
Which now winks
Provocatively at the
Passerby like a harlot tease.

And I marvel how you
Knew not to send
Me a rose. ©

I have posted a few photos of the two baseball games I went to. The second game at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington was fantastic, the weather was great, the game was high scoring and the stadium is one of the best I have ever experienced.

The Rookie with Dennis Quaid was based on the true life story of a guy who made his major league debut very late in life, in the movie, as in real life, he makes his debut pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays against the Texas Rangers at Arlington. Exactly the same game as I watched!

Talking about stadiums and games, Truman has managed to get us tickets to see Collingwood v Essendon at the 100,000 seater MCG on ANZAC day. This is THE fixture of the AFL regular season and I’m really looking forward to it.

I think I might also try and take in a Padres game in San Diego or a Dodgers game in LA, and then in little under two months time I will be going to watch England take on Brazil at the new Wembley stadium! Still looking to get FA cup final tickets and obviously in 3 weeks time I have the big one - the De La Hoya v Mayweather fight in Vegas. The hype for this fight seems to be a little lacklustre on this side of the Atlantic but when I was in the States I saw quite a bit on TV and most people were well aware of it!

For 4 solid days during my recent visit to the USA one could’ve been forgiven for thinking that the entire world was in hibernation, there were no wars, no bombings, no court cases, no sports games, no elections etc! All I saw on TV, read about in the newspapers or listened to on radio was the hysteria following a three word phrase Imus used on a radio programme.

In a country where free speech is meant to be a protected right may Allah save your rascist soul if you’re ever caught saying the words “Nappy Headed Ho’s” when used to descibe a womans (multi-racial) basketball team. Don Imus is a big name radio DJ I’d never heard of who is allegedly infamous for being controversial and deliberately saying the wrong thing.

So I tried to find out what “Nappy headed ho’s” means, ‘cos like, you know, if, as the players themselves claim, it has left them “scarred for life” (direct quote) it must be pretty harsh. All I could find, I didn’t search that hard, was this.

These poor little basketball players will carry this with them for the rest of their lives.

Scarred for life, haha, as laughable as that notion is, it is also an insult to the millions of black people who were on the receiving end of apartheid and have subsequently forgiven , forgotten and moved on with their lives!

You won’t find exactly what he said in the papers or on the TV, yet trust me when I tell you that this fiasco was all you heard, read or saw in 4 days. R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S.

This now eclipses my favourite un-newsworthy story to date, the “Injured Parrot saved by Skateboarder in Park” headline I saw on the front page of an Aussie daily newspaper a few years back.

I had to post this photo, I’m still chiuckling while typing this. A friend in London’s Bulls/Stag/Bachelor party, he wore the outfit to the Boat Race, must’ve been seen by over 10,000 people. Read the full story here with more hysterical photos!

Sitting here with a hangover from a crusher of a night out in Dallas. I’m flying back to London in 2 hours.

I ended up getting my bags back from BA but it was a bit a drama, lucky tho because we went to the White Sox game and it was cold, like -2 degrees (or 28 F as you can see in the photo) with the odd snow flurry. People in Chicago are really funny, there were loads of people there in Bears gear shouting “Go Bears” sarcastically referring to the type of weather usually reserved for Bears games. Baseball is NOT a winter sport. Finally I got to see a game where more than one run was scored, still the game wasn’t exciting but at least the White Sox won 3-0 over the Twins!

We ended up eating Chicago style Pizza that night and then hitting my Chicago favourite, the duelling piano bar Howl at the Moon. What a riot, especially all the drunk people trying to sing and dance along, for once I can say I was not included in that group.

Went to DC yesterday, ended up down in Old Town for a few beers tried to keep it light because I had an important meeting yesterday. Now I’m in Dallas and back to semi-normal weather although it is still cold here, there were snow flurries this weekend….in Dallas, TEXAS!!!

Tomorrow night the Texas Rangers are playing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Arlington stadium, I am definitely going. The stadium was designed by the same architect who did Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles), which means, if you didn’t know, its gonna be a beautiful ball park.

I feel a bit isolated from the rest of the world here, Man Utd are playing in the Champions League and SA are playing in the cricket world cup today but trust me when I tell you that other than going on the net later there is no way whatsoever of finding the result let alone even watching the game.

Driving on the right hand side of the road again is fun and I know that over the course of the next few nights I am gonna have a riot out in Mid-town and Lower Greeneville. Dallas is a really fun place to go out.

Just arrived in Chicago, so happy to be here. The city looks great, so much better in spring than mid-winter. British Airways didn’t send my bag so I’m well pissed. Its -5 C outside and I don’t have any clothes - no jacket, gloves, hat etc. We also had tickets behind home plate for tonights White Sox game but the game has been called off due to the cold weather and possible snow flurries tonight! Probably a good thing as I would’ve got frostbite at the game courtesy of BA!

This photo was taken 5 minutes ago from the balcony of Denise’s apartment, in the shadow of the tallest building in America, the Sears Tower! Getting ready now to hit the town. Despite all the hassle, I am really stoked to be here, I get a huge kick out of the vibe here and we’re going to have a monster party tonight. I love this city!

We’re gonna go to the game tomorrow afternoon now instead. Tickets organised, as I type this.

I took this photo at O’ Hare Airport the last time I was there. It was pretty cool to see the SA flag flying in the airport. Weather report says its gonna be snowing when I get there, I’ll be miffed if they call off the baseball game, really looking forward to my first baseball game in about a year!

Last night I played a leisurely round of golf followed by a great dinner at the local Thai restaurant in downtown Rickmansworth, my home village! Afterwards we went to another local pub to watch the cricket/football and I made a remarkable discovery!

The pub has a live satellite feed which picks up all the SuperSport South Africa channels. This is the first time I have seen SuperSport broadcast in the UK having seen it before abroad in Vietnam and China. WOW!

This pub televises every Super 14 game! More importantly in Britain, they can televise every Premiership football game, whereas with Sky they will only get 2 games a weekend if they’re lucky. SuperSport coverage is undoubtedly the best in the world!

So I asked the bar manager how he did it thinking that maybe I could get it at home. He told me it was completely legal and was run through a company called Euroview Sports, whats more, the monthly subscription is half the cost of Sky! After checking the website it appears they only do pub license packages and no domestic installations for personal use.

If this company can do it, why aren’t there other companies in the UK offering domestic SuperSport satellite packages? And why the hell don’t all the Walkabouts etc. subscribe to this?

UPDATE: Just spoke to the M.D., he reckons he does supply the equipment for domestic use. £120 per month for the first year and then £45 a month thereafter. It also includes hundreds of movie channels etc.

I had a fairly eventful Saturday this weekend and managed to squeeze in a few necessary activities before flying out to the States this easter.

I started off Saturday with my mandatory poached eggs on toast and a quick Soccer AM session. Then it was on to Battersea park for a skating session, my first since last year, I was a bit rusty but hopefully by the end of this year I’ll be able to do a few London Rollers!

My knees are still sore from the half marathon the week before so I decided to head into East Sheen to a store called Up and Running and have my gait and running style assessed. I ended up leaving the store with a pair of brand (damn expensive) new Brooks Trance 6. The owner Chris was so confident of his diagnosis he told me if the new shoes don’t fix my problem I can take them back and get another pair!

So we got back to Carla’s place (she had also purchased some new shoes) and the three of us went for a run down to Hammersmith bridge and back. I realise my knees were still too sore to run too far so I only did 6km’s. Suitably cream crackered after the run we got dressed and ready to rock out with Zomes and Hayley in Putney. Downhill from there on really, met up with Dave, Wiggy etc. and only got home at 4am!

I had a killer hangover yesterday, which was only slightly improved by a Sunday Roast at the Sun in Barnes and the thought that in less than 5 days I will be in Chicago hanging out with Denise and Heather watching the White Sox taking on the Minnesota Twins!

Bring on US Cellular Field

The results of the SA Blog Awards are out. The Missing Link guys aka Jo’blog have put up a video of all the winners on the night and it looks like great fun was had by all. I missed out, got drilled by the Hollywood Reporter in best overseas blog category and out of nowhere Steve Hofmeyers blog walked away with the best political blog. Congratulations to all the winners, there are some really good ones in there and a few surprising results by  some newcomers. All the blogs on there make for interesting reading and I have certainly found some new ones I’ve added to my feed reader!

Bring on next year, and hopefully in the interim we can all have our say in improving the format. I believe the awards should be judged only by panel judges in each category and they should be guided by criteria applicable to their category.  I think the winners may have been slightly different, but, on the whole the outcome is good enough.

I wish I could have been there ‘cos I definitely would have won something, my foosball is smokin hot right now!