Thursday 2 December 2010

Russia 2018

Russia were clearly deserved winners of the race to host the 2018 World Cup. Why the BBC decided to annoy FIFA 3 days before the vote with their Panorama programme puzzles me. Clearly FIFA are a corrupt organisation, but expose them after the vote, not before. We have no right to host the competition just because it's "our turn", and it's fair to allow countries to host the Finals who haven't done it before. It was rather arrogant to assume that sending Prince William and David Cameron would be enough to convince the voters.  I thought the Belgium/Netherlands bid would be a good choice, but FIFA don't like "joint bids". As for Qatar, they will dismantle many of the stadia they will build for the Finals in 2022, and reconstruct them in Third World countries, which seems to be a great gesture.

Hot in Oz, Cold in Wycombe

It's going to be in the low 30s (centigrade) in Oz for the 2nd Test tonight, whilst it was 14C in our house when I popped home to check on the boys today at lunchtime. No-one cared what the temperature was when Australia were 2 for 3 after 15 minutes though. I like to think Olga is the lucky mascot, she only got home from 4 days in Oslo an hour before the game started, and look at the result. Since she went to bed, we've not taken a wicket.

We've only had a sprinkling of snow here, which has been just as well really, as it would have made the mornings a lot more complicated this week while Olga was away, as the boys still need walking before Lara can go to nursery. We got the routine sorted this morning, just in time for Olga to come back! Olga's likely to travel more with her new job than she does currently, so I had better get used to it, although at least then I'll be working from home so I won't have to worry about the commute to work.

It seems I'll get my wish of snow in the Lake District next week, which is good. Hopefully the roads will be fairly clear, but the car has been serviced 2 weeks ago, and I had the tyres checked today, and it's been given the all-clear, so I'm happy that we'll be able to deal with most things Mother Nature will throw at us. I really hope we can go on a few nice walks where we can let the boys run about in the snow with no-one else around, then head back to the cottage, fire up the woodburner and cook a lovely dinner.

Lara has recovered from a cold she developed over last weekend. I had to stay home with her on Monday, which was interesting when I had to have a video call with my soon-to-be-boss whilst sat in the car on our drive while Lara had a lunchtime nap after we'd been for a quick drive.  She made me laugh today when I came into our lounge this morning wearing my Russian-style hat that Olga's mum bought me in St Petersburg last year, she smiled a lovely smile and cracked: "Nice hat, Papa", followed later by "Cool dude".

Where does she learn these things?!

48-3 now. It's all Olga's fault for going to bed. I joked with her that it could be 311-3 by the time I wake up in the morning....