The great advantage of a blog is that you can write whatever and whenever you want and not have an editor breathing down your neck. I most certainly don’t have to be politically correct, but at the same time it is not my intention to offend anyone. Without editorial control, I may ramble from personal reflections on the year to my favorite topic of sport and there was a lot to talk about in that category.
However, the highlight of the year for me was the birth of our beautiful granddaughter, Emilie, on May 11th. But before further ado, I want to wish all my readers (am I narcissistic or optimistic) a happy and healthy new year.
January:
We returned from a two week cruise around the Caribbean having spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve aboard Celebrity Cruise Line’s Mercury. The cruise line attempts to nickel and dime you to extraction but there are ways of combating them. If you are contemplating going on a cruise there a three pieces of advice which may prove useful: invest in “rum runners”, pay the extra for a room with a balcony-you won’t regret it, and make sure the cruise line has a strict non-smoking policy aboard ship.
February:
Despite stocking the Olympic Village with 10,000 condoms — approximately 14 per resident — organizers had to import an emergency shipment when supplies ran low.
New Orleans won the Super Bowl by kicking Peyton Manning and his Colts off the park. The media darlings turned the other cheek proclaiming it was the Saints destiny win in the aftermath of Katrina.
Tiger Woods made his first public statement since a tabloid report and bizarre car crash unraveled a tangled web of marital infidelities that snatched headlines in late 2009. He said: “I was wrong. I was foolish. I don’t get to play by different rules. I brought this shame on myself. I hurt my wife, my kids, my mother, my wife’s family, my friends, my foundation and kids all around the world who admired me.”
Significantly, his much maligned wife chose to stay away from this carefully staged charade and Tiger could not find it in his vocabulary which is usually littered with expletives to actually say: “I’m sorry.”
Welsh Rugby Union forward Andy Powell was arrested for driving a golf buggy to a service station on the M4 Motorway while over the alcohol limit in the wee small hours of the morning. He was later suspended by the Welsh Rugby Union and banned from driving for 15 months adding further credence to the theory that the average Welsh rugby forward may prove to be the missing link between in the neanderthal chain.
March:
Tom Prydie became Wales’ youngest rugby union international; facing Italy aged 18 years and 25 days.
By a vote of 219-212, the House of Representatives passed the Senate version of ObamaCare, which the president signed into law immediately. Thirty-four Democrats broke with their party to oppose the bill. Comprising more than 2,000 pages, it was incredibly complex and immediately raised fears about its cost with a majority of the public opposing the law.
Fess Parker who starred in “Davy Crockett” and “Daniel Boone”, died of natural causes at his Santa Ynez home near the Fess Parker Winery. He was 85. Several celebrities died this year, but Fess Parker played an integral role in my childhood by initiating the “Davy Crockett” craze which swept Britain in the fifties in the shape of raccoon hats, bearskins, plastic pistols and rifles.
April:
Tiger Woods reportedly had a 90-person bodyguard detail at the Masters, presumably to prevent run-ins with any of his former mistresses. An airplane flew over the Masters trailing a banner that read, “Tiger: Did you mean Bootyism?”
On the same weekend in April and for exactly the same reason, Bradley Wiggins was forced to withdraw from the Amstel Gold cycling race in the Netherlands, Widnes had to postpone their rugby league Challenge Cup match against Lezignan and Steve Bennett was unable to referee the Manchester derby; the reason being Volcanic Ash.
Original Munchkin Meinhardt Raabe who played the Munchkin coroner in “The Wizard of Oz,” died April 9.He was 94 and was one of the few surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film.
Arizona passed the toughest law to combat illegal immigration by any US state, sparking protests in 70 US cities, though a majority of Americans supported the measure. It required police to question people’s immigration if there is reason to believe they are in the country illegally, prompting claims that police would inevitably profile Hispanics and persons speaking with a Welsh accent. An injunction halted the bill’s most controversial provisions and legal battles are set to run.
May:
In British politics, Conservatives won the General Election with a tiny majority and formed a Coalition with Social Democrats. Gordon Brown proved once again that No 2’s with the personality of a bloated haggis don’t necessarily make good Head Coaches and headed for the hills to live out the rest of his life in obscurity.
Inter Milan’s Jose Mourinho became only the third coach (Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfeld being the other two) to win Europe’s premier club competition with two clubs after the Champions League win over Bayern Munich
Chelsea became the first team to win the Premiership/League Championship with more than 100 goals in a season (103) since it was last achieved by Tottenham Hotspur (115) in 1961.
June:
Thirty women wearing dresses of a Dutch brewery that did not pay FIFA for advertising rights were kicked out of a World Cup game, garnering an enormous amount of free publicity.
The vuvuzela, the planet’s most annoying instrument, took centre stage at the World Cup finals in South Africa. Fans complained of headaches, and players claimed they couldn’t hear the ref’s whistle. FIFA bottled out of banning them on the grounds of cultural sensitivity.
South Africa’s Siphiwe Tshabalala scored the first goal of football’s 2010 World Cup; thus confirming that fame is fleeting. Shane Smeltz put New Zealand ahead against Italy in the World Cup. Who? Exactly! The match ended 1-1
Jorge Larrionda and Mauricio Espinosa became the most notorious duo in English history since Burke and Hare when they (the referee and his assistant) failed to see Frank Lampard’s shot crossing the line against Germany in the World Cup.
In tennis, John Isner beat Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 3-7, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68 at Wimbledon in a match which lasted 11 hours and five minutes, beating the previous longest contest in the sport by 41/2 hours. Regrettably, there were no English players in the men’s singles for the first time in 133 years.
To be continued:
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Jose Mourinho will likely be thought about among the most charismatic and excellent managers ever. Regardless of whether you actually appreciate him or loathe him, you should admire the levels of superiority that he’s brought to the Western european game. I realize some of you are likely to think that he is an overhyped, arrogant ego-centric nonetheless , if he is declared the winner the Champions League for Real this current year (which I in actual fact question) he’ll almost certainly be considered the very best on earth.
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