SNOWBOARDOM

Olympic snowboarding, with its arcane language, it’s slightly uninspiring events, its young slang, and it’s reproduction of pretty much all the skiing events, was a closed world to me at first.  But I’ve kept at it and I think I’ve now got the hang of it.  So, for those of you to whom it’s still a bit of a mystery, here’s a beginners’ guide to the usual commentary..

 ‘Here they go!  Whoa!!’

(They’ve started and they’re going downhill quickly.)

‘Oh, wow!  I think there was body contact there!!’

(There are 6 of them and it’s not a very wide slope.)

‘Whooooaa!!!’

(They’re still going downhill.)

‘Awesome!!’

(I like snowboarding.)

‘Oh, look at that!  Whoa!!  Awesome!!!’

(Don’t go and make a cup of coffee just yet.)

(And, by the way, I really like snowboarding.)

‘Ooooooooh!’

(Someone fell over.)

‘Oh, that is just so awesome!’

(Did I tell you I like snowboarding?)

‘Whoa, ho, ho.  Whoooaa!!’

(They jumped in the air and someone else nearly fell over.)

‘Oh, just look at that!’

(Come back; you can make coffee in a minute.)

‘Oh, wow.  I don’t believe it!!  Oh, awesome!!!’

(Yup, snowboarding is my thing.)

‘Woooooow!  Oh, noooo!!’

(Two more people fell over.)

‘I think he’s going to make it into the medals now!’

(There are only three people left in the race, so they will finish first, second and third.)

‘Oh wow!  That’s why this sport is so awesome!!’

(They did indeed finish first, second and third.)

(Oh, and I still like snowboarding.)

(Oh, yes, and you can go and make a cup of coffee now, if you’re still here.)

SEASON WELL

Last night was the AGM at our Japanese Society.  Afterwards we were treated to a display of flower arranging (ikebana) by a 2nd dan master of the Ohara school, which features highly seasonal arrangements.  There are up to 24 seasons in Japan, but because of the odd weather this year (it's still 11 degrees outside here), the main arrangement was winter/early spring ('risshun' in Japanese), which would in Japan be around the 4 February.

This is the main arrangement

A bit difficult to get a good shot with all the external noise, but I hope you can see it.  I think there are 10 different plants in the display.

 

As with other schools of ikebana, the containers are as important as the plants.  The Ohara style is what Westerners might call 'simple'.  But of course that's because it is easy for an expert to arrange.  Here is one which might be early March (when the insects wake up but the buds haven't burst).

And this is another which might in Japan be early January (before it gets really cold).

I have to say that it's nice to find so much colour in the present season which cheered us all up no end.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE ON MY SPOTLESS MIND

I thought I would warm myself up with some shots of Feurteventura.  Think of them as cups of  cortado.

Here is where I usually enjoyed my morning cortado.

 

There are four requirements for a January holiday - sun, sun, sun, and coffee.  Here I could enjoy them all.  Fuerteventura is known as the 'Island of Eternal Spring',with an average temperature of 23 degrees (although it did plummet to 15 degrees once, someone seemed to remember) and a rainfall of about a coffee-cupful a year.  It is the second largest of the Canary Islands, taking almost a whole day to drive from one end to the other and back, visiting every town and village (and taking a break for lunch) (and of course coffee). This cafe is on the marina quay at Puerto de Fuste, a Barcelo dominated resort with a great (imported) beach.  It is in the old lighthouse

 

and also serves fresh grilled fish in the evening.   This is the beach

You get a sense from this picture, both how deserted it was in January, but also how deserted permanently the island is outside of the resorts.  Can you see the mountains?On a couple of days, we walked into the next village.  This is the road.

 

And here's the main road heading north.

 

About an hour's drive out of Puerto de Fuste, you come to these sand dunes.  I assume all this sand has come over from Morocco.

 

And the interior of the island looks like this.

There are actually farms in there.  Here's one

The walk out of town north is very nicely paved, with a cycle track and even street lights.  There's still nothing there, but I was impressed to see that there was probably a vision with this infrastructure already provided.  The main industry on the island of course is now tourism.

 

There are a couple of little villages in the interior which are attractive to see.  This is Betancuria.

 

And this is the old fishing village of Corallejo.

  And nowhere was there any snow!

GAMBLING IN THE SNOW

I sat down twice last week to write something and then ended up writing about something else.  I wonder what it is I originally intended to write.  Do you ever do that?  Sit down to rant about something and then find yourself starting to write something else?  That's what comes of having so much to say that's important and world-changing I suppose.

I think I was going to comment on the boom in online gambling in this country.  Of course telephone gambling has been around for a while.  I believe betting on anything other than a set number of sports is still illegal in the States.  Here, you can bet on anything.  And I think it's legal for Americans to bet in the UK.  When I was working in London almost 20 years ago, I needed to keep abreast of public mood in the US during the Presidential elections.  One good indicator was the telephone betting from the States on one or other candidate.  I had a contact in one of the betting companies, through whom I 'knew' before many others that Clinton was going to win comfortably.

But the advent of mobile phone betting has transformed the industry.  I was going to say how interesting I found it that casino gambling is promoted by attractive young ladies, but football and poker is promoted by rugged males.  Bingo on the other hand is promoted by suggesting that there is some sort of fun community involved.  The truth is that it's a lonely old game - you lose your money in sad isolation, not in company with partying friends, or rugged men, and certainly not attractive females (family excepted of course).  Anyway, that's presumably the demographic - mature men gamble on football and poker, women on bingo, and young men on roulette.  The only issue here (apart from the morality of inducing people to gamble away their money) is that it appears to be legal to advertise on TV before 9pm.  I was trying to watch the Africa Cup of Nations this afternoon and was constantly bombarded with ads for gambling.  So kids are exposed to these ads too.

There has been an extraordinary increase in the gambling industry, perhaps underlined by all the ads.  If you watch football on TV, almost every ad is for gambling.  During early evening TV, most ads are for bingo sites.  And so on.  So no surprise to learn that Brits now spend £2b on online gambling (I'm not sure about the period of that payment, perhaps this is just the value of the industry?) and that there are now 500, 000 addicts.

Anyway, that's what I was going to comment on.  Despite the £2b industry, and the 1m people at risk of addiction, advertising has become even more seductive and frequent and earlier.  I don't know anything about the millions who do gamble online, but I suspect there are many young and many who can't really afford it.

I was also going to post some pics of my road.  Here are a couple and one on the main road.  I thought they were pretty.

 

 

 

I haven't, in the process, mentioned my holiday.  I'll try too post something later.

HOT PURSUIT

I've had enough of this weather.  When it's not raining, it's cold.  It's even cold sometimes when it is raining.  I did catch sight of the sun today, but I don't think it saw me.  My skin is pallid and waxy looking; my blood is the consistency of readimix Polyfilla (and it may set anytime).  I am still coughing (two months now).  My trench foot is playing up and I fear I am contracting rickets.  I was born to live in temperate zones, not the Tundra.  I am fed up with wearing waterproof clothing and fleeces.  And I haven't even unpacked my short sleeve shirts from last year's winter storage yet.  I NEED SUN!

So, courtesy of LastMinute.com, I am off tomorrow to the Canary Islands.  We are staying this time in Fuerteventura, which I don't know and which may be overdeveloped and awful, but it's January, kids are at school, and the island is known as the 'Island of Eternal Spring', which sounds nice.  The hotel has a pool, there's a beach nearby, the cafe's open, there's a national park and a mountain to climb, . . . what else do I need?

I gather that the weather is likely to turn even worse here next week and it might even snow.  I'm so sorry to hear that, all you who have to stay at home, and I feel really guilty that the temperature in Fuerteventura will be 25 degrees higher than that in the UK; if I could do anything about it, I would.  Honest.  I'll be back in touch if when I return.