Category: sport

Old Lions

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With England playing football in a tournament in Germany tonight (I won’t be watching – I have a night out planned) (and before you get all antsy with me, please read this again), I was reminded of this Carlsberg ad from the 2006 World Cup – which was also a football tournament in Germany:

Some great names there, several of them sadly no longer with us. But how cool that they could assemble such a great line up. And what a privilege for the “Dog & Duck” guys to be involved. Can you imagine getting a call from some Ad Wizard or other asking if your team would be free to do a quick shoot one morning next week? And then finding out that it was this one.

Wow.

My team would have loved to have done this. We even play in black and yellow. And we could have easily lost with the same sort of ease and the Dog & Duck boys. We’re practically experts of late.

Look, if anyone from Carlsberg is reading this (112 people from Denmark read this blog in 2023) and you are planning a 20-year anniversary special of this, just drop me a line. Please.

One from the (long) weekend

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I mentioned our day out at the horse show on Monday. I was there as the photographer for the riders from “our” stables. But I was also there as a husband to, and a father of, a couple of the riders there.

I’m getting better with being around horses, although you won’t find me on the back of one.
My daughter, however…

Here she is taking it easy on this round – at least height-wise – having just last week conquered the frankly terrifying (to me, at least) 90cm mark of “things that horses jump over”. She’s surely old enough now to know better, for those devil-may-care days and juvenile lack of any fear to have passed.

Right?

But… eish…

I’m so impressed. And quite regularly quite scared.

Photo by 6000.co.za.
Thanks for taking the time to take it, edit and share it – all free of charge, too.
Much appreciated.

I must point out that all the riders and families (including my own) from the stables are always very thankful and grateful for the images.

Other people? Mmm. Not so much.

Long day, great news…

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A long day out at a horse ridery show, followed immediately by editing at least some of the 700+ photos I took.
That’s done now, and there were actually some really decent shots, but I’m more than a bit knackered.

However, when I opened my inbox to share the images I had processed, this was waiting:

Dear Prize Winner,

We’re excited to inform you that you’ve won $850,000.00 USD in our recent draw.

To start the process of claiming your prize, please provide us with your full name and phone number. Our team is here to help you through every step of securing your prize.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best regards,
Power Ball Online Customer Service

Wow. What an end to the day. I wasn’t quite sure how much $850,000.00 USD was in our local currency, so I asked a financial expert. And he said that it was…

Tomorrow, I’m going to have a nice sit down and work out how to spend at least some of it.

In the meantime, Austria v France beckons.

And that’s why I do it…

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Well, it’s one reason, anyway.

I regularly refer back to a post from 2008 on this blog. This one.

Brian Micklethwait’s words originally, but something that I live… er… blog by, every day.

And, if you can’t be bothered to click through, then you probably just need to know that despite commenting on everything from news to sport to weather to politics to whatever this falls under and everything else, this still remains – from time to time – a personal blog. And because this is a personal blog, I do occasionally put personal stuff on it. And then when I look back on it, I can be reminded of exactly how I felt about something back then. Whenever that was.

Like this post from last August:

And it’s a really good thing that I can be reminded of good stuff like that, because last night I played football and it was shit. Really shit.

Sore arse, 40km round trip through the traffic, some floodlights not working, ball with an egg in it, a whole 15 minutes game time, I was rubbish, our whole team was rubbish, the referee was a complete [censored] clown from start to finish and yes, we lost, but to be honest it would only have been very mildly better if we had won, such was the general attitude on display and overall crapness of the whole evening.

Worst game of football (that I was playing in – there have been a few United performances that would still beat it) that I can remember. I broke my rib in two places and tore ankle ligaments in one of them, and it was still better when you consider last night’s bollocks.

I came home and went to bed. At least that went ok.

So maybe I’ll look back on this post in years to come and think: “hey, things have gone better today than I thought”, because I’ll helpfully have the memory of yesterday evening with which to compare it.

Lap

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Busy day. Bit late with a blog post.

Thankfully, someone did this, almost knowing that I needed something handy and quick:

And Ah Jesus. Is this quick…

The first 90 seconds are just normal, and then he checks over his shoulder and…

IT SUDDENLY ALL GOES REALLY MENTAL!!

I know that time is valuable and you can’t always find 19:19 to watch a whole video. But if that’s the case, please flick through to a few random points in the video and just watch for a few seconds.

Totally worth it.

These guys are just next level nuts.