The best laid plans

I had good intentions today to do the long post about the days out enjoying the good weather, but I've forgotten to bring the camera with the pictures on. So I'll write random crap about something else. Our national obsession with all things weather related continues in rivalry to the wall to wall world cup coverage. Even I, as a football fan, am finding 3 live games a day a little too much. The weather is continuing to be hot and humid, and the newspapers rejoice in telling us that the weather here is warmer than Los Angeles and other far flung places. What they seem to forget is that we are unable to cope with the extremes of weather conditions. Too warm and we don't cope due to lack of airconditioning, (our office is meant to have it, but it never works) too much rain and we suffer flooding. Snow and the roads are blocked, if not by snow, then by accidents caused by drivers unable to drive in the conditions. On a personal level I find generally that I adapt fairly well to whatever conditions are prevailing at the time. Rain doesn't really bother me, and heat is ok, as long as it's dry heat. I really don't like the hot, sticky conditions that we currently have - you can't do anything without feeling uncomfortable. So it seems like a good excuse to stay indoors and watch the world cup. But for once I am finding it hard to actually get into the tournament. In previous years I've watched almost every game, to the detriment of my college degree - bad timimg to have a world cup on when you should be revising for your finals, especially coupled to easy access to cheap alcohol at the student bars! I'm also finding it fairly incredible that the nation has become draped in flags of St George, almost from coast to coast. The numbers of cars flying flags is beyond belief :

My personal best is 6 seen on one car.

I do find it more than slightly ironic that people wish to symbolise their patriotism by flying an English flag on what is inevitably (since the ultimate destruction of our car industry) a foreign car!

Although it does make quite a refreshing change to see people actually backing our nation, instead of the usual grumbling, apologetic approach we take to these things.

In another football related finding, I came across this - the wee goal:

The football dangles on a thread, with the intention that the man using the urinal focuses his, ahem, stream, on it to "score" goals. The idea is that there will be a lot less mess, which seems to me to be a winning idea.

Apparently a similar approach was tried in Schipol airport just outside Amsterdam. They embossed their urinals with a "fly", giving men something to aim at, and their cleaning costs reduced by 80%.

More information and the chance to buy one of these little gems can be found at :

http://www.wee-goal.com/