Ippoippo

Japan beat Denmark to get through to the last 16 in football (soccer) World Cup. Great game. Honda was fantastic.

Wife (and me) very happy.

Wooohooo, beat one of the southern hemisphere teams at last…

As I type this, the roast is on the go in the oven, and myself and Yuko are about to chill out with a nice bit of sparkling white wine!

It’s been a bit of a busy week, despite me being on holiday since last Friday (and I go back to work on Tuesday). Yuko has been off since Saturday, and she also goes back to work on Tuesday as well.

Rugby

So, Saturday was rugby day with us watching Wales vs New Zealand at the Millennium Stadium.
The second half was a bit of a disappointment, though the first was quite entertaining. Behind us, we had two Welsh chaps who were exceedingly good singers and got everyone going.
One of the big talking points though was the showdown before the game even started!! As New Zealand started their Haka, the Welsh crowd got quite vocal and started singing Cwm Rhondda. Great stuff. Then there was the stare-off!! There had been rumours that something was going to happen. This time, the Welsh players refused to move away on completion of the Haka, and that seems to have annoyed a few New Zealanders. Indeed, it’s a bit of a talking point leading up to the England vs New Zealand game tomorrow.

Was it disrespectful? Hmmm, don’t know. I suppose I should do some proper research into it. However, at the time, the crowd loved it.

Chilling, and then down to business

After all the fun and games on Saturday, we had a bit of a pampering and chill out session. Well, it was both Yuko’s and my birthday so a bit of pampering at a Spa. Tense back and shoulders well and truly sorted out.
It was a shame then that work got all undone when Yuko and I headed up to Liverpool.
Grrrrrr, what a bloody horrible, badly sign posted one-way system.

We were up in Liverpool for the evening, since Tuesday morning was Yuko’s appointment with the immigration department. Hurrah, after two years of entry clearance, she now has permission to stay here indefinitely.

With all that done, we took the scenic route back through North Wales and stayed over at Dolffanog Bach.
Great location, great food and great hosts.

A small break from Kendo

It’s half term, so that means the school gym is closed… and that means there was no Kendo for me this week.
So, Yuko decided to drag me along to her Yoga class which she goes to with a friend from work, and said friends husband.

The yoga class she does tends to focus more of the stretching and breathing, as opposed to any underlying spiritial background to Yoga (there was none of that really).

Must admit, it wasn’t bad. Some of the excerises were relatively easy for me to do as it’s muscles I’ve started to exercise as part of the Kendo. There were a couple though which I’ve discovered would be a good warm up exercise which I should before I do kendo. Then there were a couple of exercises which I found just plain old difficult!

What I did find amusing though was Yuko can’t stop herself giggling when she see’s (or hears) something amusing. So much for Japanese being able to focus and block things out. So, there were we stretching away when the little old lady in front was obviously getting too relaxed and broke wind (a common occurance apparently). So, whilst I maintained my focus and composure, there’s Yuko giggling like a little school girl. Tscchhh.

Gordon… “Oiii, give us some more oil!!!”

Gordon Brown wrote an open letter in the Guardian paper, regarding the current oil and energy situation. There were some interesting ‘admissions’.

The cause of rising prices is clear: growing demand and too little supply to meet it both now and – perhaps of even greater significance – in the future.

Little, break it gently to the masses, kinda comment there?

And we are becoming increasingly aware of the technical, financial and political barriers to the production of more oil. Every country must find ways of being more efficient and diversifying supply. And as continuing high oil prices present us all with an immense challenge, the way we confront these issues will define our era.

Is this an admission of ‘Peak Oil’ (or getting close to it), without saying those dreaded words?

The BBC reported on it as well.

Now, if this is the PM coming clean (in a somewhat subtle manner) is it because they already know the came will be up come November when the IEA releases it seriously revised forecasts of future oil production? (See “IEA worried over oil supply”, where “Birol said the study, which will be released in November, was prompted by concern about the volatility of world oil markets and uncertainty about supply levels.”) Of course, any chance to blame somebody else for the problems regarding the whole tax issue as well was to grabbed too

Finally, the front page of the Independant newspaper was quite interesting on Friday too.