England are currently 52/2 in their World Cup cricket match against South Africa.
What is funny is that currently there isn’t a single Englishman on the field. Both English batsmen, AJ Strauss and KP Pietersen, are South Africans by birth.
Makes for fierce slagging though with bowlers, fielders and batsmen all trying to outdo each other for national pride.
St. Patrick’s day yesterday was absolutely massive. I was part of Waterford’s St. Patrick’s Day parade onboard the ACSE boat which was a new and fantastic experience for me. Then it was off to the pub to watch Ireland hammer Italy in their Six Nations game. The 51-24 result meant France had to score 24 points more than Scotland in the following Six Nations game. That seemed a big ask and with Scotland doing well out of the gates we all thought Ireland had a good chance of winning the championship. France though started pulling ahead and at one point looked good to win. Somehow though Scotland pulled a try back and left Ireland in the lead. The pub went wild, celebrations about to begin when France in the last move of the game went over the line. But a Scottish defender had an arm under the ball and not even on the replays could anyone see if the ball was down. Somehow the TV ref gave the try and France won.
I have to say I haven’t felt that gutted over a sport’s result since South Africa failed in a Cricket World Cup years ago against Australia.
The day wasn’t over though and we happily watched Wales beat England.
Then the most amazing thing happened; Ireland beat Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup. Ireland beat Pakistan, who are ranked fourth in the world. Absolutely incredible. Easily the biggest shock of the CWC so far and probably for the rest of the tournament.
A pretty incredible day.
England 13, Ireland 43. What a match, what a day.
I just watched a Welsh women swing burning balls of fire from her rather impressive breasts. This was a minute after watching an Australian birth himself as Elvis from a green baloon.
The Charlotte Church show is a touch weird. A lot better than most of the celebrity backed shows out there to be honest. She has Ruby Wax on tonight and made an ex-Emerdale star seem interesting. Now that is impressive.
This while sitting on my nice bed in the Thistle Marble Arch hotel. At £250 a night it had better be nice. Strangely there is no WiFi in the hotel rooms, just old-style ethernet cabling. It works but using it from the bed is not as much fun as the wireless I had in the £130 Holiday Inn Express I found at 11pm last night. Finding hotels at the last minute in London is… well it is a job for LastMinute.com which I completely forgot about till 1am today. Earlier in the night you would have found me wandering down the back of Victoria station in the rain past literally hundreds of homes-cum-hotels looking for the Holiday Inn I had booked by telephone a few minutes earlier.
It was the last room in the 40 Holiday Inns in the whole of England. Crazy.
So LastMinute.com works. Though I am not sure this hotel is worth the extra money. The Holiday Inn was dodgy everywhere except in the rooms which were large, clean and well appointed. This hotel is a lot closer to the Rails conference however.
Daily bits...