Déjà vu

Belgium 12 - 43 Canada

So, umm. Gosh! Fancy seeing you here! Long time no see...

Many, many things to report from the last mumble mumble months, but as it happens I've recently made a return visit to Heysel for another rugby match. This one was Belgium v. Canada, apparently the first time the two teams have met. There was a much bigger crowd this time round - the stadium was absolutely packed, so much so that it was difficult to see the pitch at times! The weather was pretty miserable, but the atmosphere was great, despite the fact that Belgium took a complete battering (it probably didn't help that the previously mentioned Alan Williams wasn't playing). No punch-ups this time, though, which I think I'm probably supposed to think is a good thing...

We certainly didn't see anything that could match up to this beauty (about 50-odd seconds into the video):



And what do you reckon the chances are that I'll get round to posting about anything else before, say, Christmas? Yes, that's what I thought.

Touch, pause, engage!

Belgium 29 - 8 Poland

Belgium is not exactly renowned as a great rugby-playing nation. Nor is Poland. Nonetheless, they do both have national teams of a sort, and last Saturday was the culmination of their 2009-10 season: the final match in Division 2A of the European Nations Cup. Gosh, I hear you say.

The European Nations Cup is a sort of sub-Six Nations, divided into seven divisions. Division 1 is made up of teams like Romania and Georgia, which fairly regularly qualify for World Cups (where they then get completely spanked), so Belgium, in Division 2A, are officially almost mediocre :-) The team is known as the Diables Noirs/Zwarte Duivels - the Black Devils - and they do indeed play in black, with little red and yellow stripes.

So, Saturday's match. It was held at the Petit Heyzel stadium, which is a small (capacity around 6000, at a guess) stadium next to the main Stade Roi Baudouin, which itself rose from the metaphorical ashes of the old Heysel stadium (yes, that Heysel). There was a bigger crowd than I'd expected, at around 4500 - mostly Belgian, with a fair contingent of Poles and at least a few neutrals including me and a Greek friend.

And it was a pretty entertaining match. Actual quality of rugby, not brilliant, but there were a couple of tries right beneath our noses and a very amusing punch up involving the majority of both teams. Most of the points were scored by Belgium's fly-half, a chap by the very Belgian name of Alan Williams who plays for Castres and has a very Jonny Wilkinson-esque penalty-kicking style. At the end of the match, there was a mysterious fracas at the other end; we couldn't see what was going on, but I later heard that one of the Belgian supporters had headbutted one of the Polish players. Which seems like a logical response to seeing your team win.

And the upshot of all that was that Belgium finished second in the division, just one point behind Ukraine. Allez les noirs!

Here Be Dragons

Temeraire (aka His Majesty's Dragon) was sold to me as Patrick O'Brian with dragons. It... isn't.

Don't get me wrong - it's a good book. It's a very interesting premise, pretty well executed, and I enjoyed it a lot. The genius of Patrick O'Brian, though, is the sheer density of historical detail - he was writing in the 20th century, but Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin feel as authentically Regency as, say, Elizabeth Bennet. Temeraire, in contrast, is looking at the Age of Sail through a thick 21st-century lens.

Trying to avoid spoilers here, but I thought the outcome to the climatic battle was a bit deus ex machina. In hindsight, it kind of was foreshadowed, but the thing about Chekhov's gun is that you know it's a gun. There was nothing to indicate that this, umm, thing could be used for the purpose it was used for. Clear as mud? Excellent!

I'm not selling this very well, am I? Really, though, all this is just nit-picking: overall, it's very good. It's well written - it flows well, and is neither too simplistic nor too dense; the characters, particularly the dragons, are sympathetic; and there are some lovely little details in the way the dragons are woven into the real historical events.

So, if you like alternate history and historical fiction, read it. If you only like alternate history, still read it. If you only like historical fiction, or more medieval/mythical fantasy, probably don't bother.

April is the cruellest month

More poetry, just because:

from The Waste Land by T S Eliot

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

Incidentally, when I Googled for this, I got the following (click to see a bigger version):

Google, you fail English Literature for ever.

!!!11Eleven11!!!

Doctor Who is back! Like, properly, for 13 episodes! With someone decent in charge!

It's kind of hard to tell what the new doctor's going to be like on the basis of one episode, but I'm pretty optimistic. He seems to have the best bits of Doctors 9 and 10: he's bouncy and a bit manic like David Tennant, but has a really menacing edge, like Christopher Eccleston.

I'm liking Amy Pond too. I really wanted to like Martha and Donna, and they were OK, but I didn't particularly warm to them. Both young Amelia and adult Amy, though, were instantly charming.

Other stuff: the new Tardis looks cool; I smiled like an idiot at the little flashback through all the previous doctors; and the remixed title music is ace. But what are the Daleks doing in the trailer? Haven't they been killed off enough times already?

Epic Fail

So, yeah. I fail completely at this whole blogging thing. I'll try to put some more interesting stuff up soon, but in the meantime, have a poem!

Easter by Edmund Spenser

Most glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!

And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,
With love may one another entertayne!
So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought,
--Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

Overambition

As usual at this time of year, I have a long list of resolutions. This time, I'm publishing them here in the hope that you lot can help me actually stick to them...

In 2010, I will:

• read at least 50 books. Progress can be tracked here.


• go to bed before midnight on weeknights. Feel free to tell me off if you see me online after that.


• join a gym and actually go to it on a regular basis.


• eat less sugar, less fat and more vegetables.


• update this blog more regularly. You know, like more than once every three months.


• do at least one thing every month that I've never done before. I've done this for the last couple of years, but always forget to keep track of whether I've actually managed it.

So, there we go. I suspect this is going to work about as well as every other year, namely not at all.