Other sports

Cat - Dreams - Family - Language teaching - Life :) - Other sports - Tennis

A little rascal

June 7, 2025 by 0 Comments

Today I had a free morning, giving me the chance to cycle to Sânmihaiu Român before it got too hot. But really it was already too hot. I was sweating like a pig and jumped into a cold shower when I got back. The sweet smell of tei – or lime – has now taken hold. Not helping matters was another bout of sinus pain – though not as bad as the one before, it sapped me of energy as always.

Yesterday I didn’t start till ten – unusually – but it was a busy day. It started with a two-hour lesson with a lady in her late forties in which I partly took on the role of a shrink, then I had four more one-hour sessions with kids aged 10 to 13. One of them meant trekking across the city on my bike. In between I took Kitty to the vet to get her latest jab, then got my car back after getting the air con fixed. They put freon in it and also replace a switch that had been playing up. That was an absolute necessity and it only set me back 700 lei (£120 or NZ$260). I’ve also had the battery replaced on my laptop. It’s been a good week for that kind of thing. I’m still waiting for someone to pick up my colour printer which has packed in well within its guarantee. With only a black-and-white printer, my options with kids are limited.

It was interesting talking to Mum and Dad after their trip down to Poole. They really took to their granddaughter. Their grandson on the other hand is proving to be a real live wire. Super intelligent (my brother wonders how he could possibly be so good with numbers and the alphabet) but pretty conniving with it. My brother could be a pain in the neck at that age – I can remember – but there was never any malice in him. So watch this space, I suppose. My brother has been extremely good with his son when a lot of fathers would lose their rag. They were relieved to get back to St Ives and not have to do very much for really the first time since they left New Zealand. (I’d wanted their time in Romania to be a relaxing one, but it didn’t quite pan out that way.)

When my parents were with me, Dad sometimes said “I don’t know how you do it” in relation to my work. He thought it was surprising that I have a job that has a large social element when socialising has never been easy for me. To be honest, the sheer amount of talking I have to do can be exhausting. Sometimes I’m not even talking in my own language. But the social aspect isn’t too bad – it’s hardly going to some packed trendy bar where socialising is the primary goal, I rarely have to interact with more than one or two people at a time (I’ve always been terrible in large groups), and I’m safe in the knowledge that after 60 or 90 or 120 minutes it’ll be all over. And I’m actually helping someone in the process, which is something most humans derive satisfaction from. The social side of an open-plan office is far, far harder for me, even if it involves less actual talking. So much fakeness and playing the game. And don’t get me started on Christmas parties.

It looks like Elena, the lady who lives above me, will feed Kitty during my nine-day stay in the UK. Dorothy just happens to be acquiring a kitten in the next week or two, so that wasn’t an option. I was worried that I’d be forced to find a shelter for her. As for my planned road trip to Poland, I may well end up taking Kitty with me. That thought made me think of the song Me and You and a Dog Named Boo by Lobo. It was a number-one hit in New Zealand in 1971 and they’d sometimes play it on classic hits stations. It makes life in those days seem pretty simple.

Off-the-pitch football news. Birmingham City’s already ambitious plans are going gangbusters now. They plan to build a 62,000-seater stadium in the middle of a sports quarter with transport links to the city. Potentially this could be huge. Blues are already a big club in terms of support – it’s a big city after all – but on the pitch they’ve been very much in the shadow of Aston Villa. This massive investment could turn the tables. They’ve got one trump card up their sleeves that Villa lack – having Birmingham in their name. A successful Blues team could really put the city on the map, giving it a real shot in the arm, as well as revitalising a pretty impoverished part of it. I just they hope they don’t totally down the Manchester City route; I stumbled upon one of their home matches on TV recently and I switch it off – I couldn’t handle the sheer scale of all the advertising.

Continuing the football theme, I had a dream on Tuesday night about a Championship (second-tier) club that lacked decent support or even a decent song. As a joke a supporter composed a song: “Keep the cat flying along” (whatever the hell that was supposed to mean; I think it was a mishmash of other football songs) that ended up becoming not only the club song but a major hit.

I’m currently watching the Roland-Garros semi-final between Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic, though it’s uncomfortably hot in the kitchen where the TV is. Sinner took the first set 6-4 and Djokovic leads 3-2 (on serve) in the second. There was an extraordinary point early in the second set in which both players scrambled to reach near-impossible balls. The winner will play Carlos Alcaraz in the final.

On Sunday I’m playing squash with Mark, and maybe his wife too.

Life :) - Other sports - Politics

The big break from life is over

May 7, 2025 by 0 Comments

Well, the snooker’s over. Seventeen days of blissful escape, and now I’m back down to earth with a bump, or rather a beep – I’m getting regular phone alerts to tell me the latest terrifying developments in Romanian politics.

Mark Williams’ run to the final had been mad, uplifting, at times exhilarating, and I’d have loved him to have won his fourth world title, but alas it didn’t happen. Zhao Xintong, who became China’s first world champion (surely the first of many), could pot anything from anywhere, as he had all tournament. Williams wasn’t a patch on the player who had beaten Judd Trump in such gutsy fashion. He looked weather-beaten after four close matches, the balls didn’t exactly run his way either (he would pot great long reds but could never get on a colour), and he ended the first session 7-1 down. He shaded the second session 5-4 to give him a faint glimmer. Maybe, just maybe, the dream is still alive. I didn’t see the third session, apart from one frame in which Zhao fluked both the green and the blue. It didn’t go well. Williams only just took the match into the final evening session; he (quite preposterously) needed all ten frames while Zhao wanted just the one. Then came a glorious cameo, four frames of Williams brilliance. His break of 73 in the fourth frame – jam-packed with very difficult shots – was superb. With the pressure off, he was having fun out there. Then Zhao won the following frame to complete the victory that he richly deserved. Coming from the qualifiers, he’d had to win nine straight matches. He’s 28, but looks much younger. An immense talent, he displayed an almost Williams-like attitude to playing the game. He seemed a thoroughly nice guy too.

George Simion got 41% in the first round of the election. Nicușor Dan, mayor of Bucharest, squeaked into the second round on 21%, just ahead of Crin Antonescu. Dan, who is also an accomplished mathematician, would have been my pick, but I can’t see how he wins the run-off. The government has also collapsed. The parties who could have united to oppose Simion and his mob are instead fighting each other. The leu has dropped to less than a fifth of a euro. Most people I’ve spoken to in the last couple of days – people who have brains – think this is all very bad news. Romania has made very real progress in the time I’ve been here, but now runs the risk of throwing that all away – and more – in the blink of an eye. So sad, and in the long term who knows what it will mean for me.

This morning I took Dorothy to Buzad. No car issues. She gave me some elderflower and herbs from her garden to take back, while I gave her some pizza that I’d made. On the way, there were an impressive number of storks up lamp-posts, and not all nesting.

Mum and Dad’s arrival is just a day and a half away. They’re flying from Christchurch to Singapore, then to Munich, and finally a short hop to Timișoara. I can’t wait. I wonder what they’ll think of Kitty.

Family - Other sports - Politics

Excitement ramping up

May 4, 2025 by 0 Comments

I thought I’d forgotten how to get excited. But right now I suppose I am. First and foremost, Mum and Dad are coming in only four days. Just seeing them again will be great. There are still unknowables – how the flight over will affect them and what sort of trip (if any) they’ll be in the mood for. I’ve thought of three options: (1) Maramureș, which I visited last year and earlier, (2) the mountains near Brașov, and Brașov itself which I still haven’t been to, (3) the Danube Delta which would be amazing but would require some serious travel time. The most stressful part right now is what to do with my lessons. I have half a mind to simply cancel everything while they’re here.

Snooker. Damn. I haven’t got this excited by any sporting event in years. Seriously. And it’s nearly all down to one man, Mark Williams, the Welshman, my favourite. What a player, and what a man full stop. He was magnificent in his win over Judd Trump who was none too shabby himself. The first session was cagey and close with plenty of errors on both sides, Trump grabbing a 5-3 lead. Trump stretched further ahead early in the second session. I had a maths lesson at that point. Afterwards I checked the score, expecting Trump to have disappeared into the sunset. But no, he led only 7-6, having been 7-3 up. Williams won two wonderfully tense frames to close the session at 8-8. Yesterday I raced back from a lesson in Dumbrăvița to watch the snooker. To watch Mark. I was fortunate to have that gap in my schedule. Williams was absolutely sublime. He won a crucial frame to make it 10-10 at the interval, then took a 13-11 lead by the end of the session. Then on to last night. Williams took a 16-12 lead to be only one away, Trump hit back in the next two, but the Welsh wonder got over the line, 17-14, with a century. There was a heart-in-mouth moment early in that break as the black wobbled in the jaws four or five times before toppling – thank God – in the pocket.

As well as being extremely talented, Williams’ mindset is just perfect for snooker. Every time he comes to the table, he treats each situation as a puzzle to be solved, independent of the score or what he might have missed or some obscene slice of luck his opponent might have had. Unlike the crash-bang fireworks of Trump or Brecel, he strokes the ball in; the longer it takes to reach the pocket the more I enjoy watching it. Much was made of his failing eyesight (he’s 50) and a planned operation after the tournament, but y’know, I think he can see just fine. I like his dry sense of humour in his interviews; his Welsh accent helps there too. He now plays Zhao Xintong in the final, the Chinese sensation who had to start in the qualifiers after coming back from a ban. Zhao was superb against Ronnie O’Sullivan, whitewashing him in a session. The fourth session of their match didn’t even happen – Ronnie made damn well sure it didn’t happen. He was over it, though he was impressively graceful in defeat. I felt sorry for the spectators who shelled out something like £130 for tickets to that session, only to see an exhibition themed around the famous final from 40 years ago. That’s a lot of money for literally a joke. As for the final, Zhao has been so good that I expect him to win, but just imagine if Williams were to do it. He’s the oldest ever World Championship finalist. It’ll also be the first ever final between two left-handers.

I’d almost forgotten about the football. Birmingham did finish with 111 points. Playing at Cambridge with the scores at 1-1, Lukas Jutkiewicz (the huge fan favourite) came on and scored the winner in the 83rd minute in his last appearance for the club. I haven’t seen any clips, but I’m picturing bedlam.

On Friday I had one of my best lessons with the twins. In my ninth year, I still have to pinch myself that I’m doing this.

The first round of the Romanian presidential election takes place today. The eventual outcome could be extremely scary. The snooker is a blissful escape from this.

Other sports

Watching 50-year-olds poke balls into holes

May 1, 2025 by 0 Comments

We’re having beautiful warm, sunny weather to start the month. I wish it could stay like this for the rest of the spring and summer. The birds twittering away and the storks up the lamp-posts and the pungent smell of the lime trees and the ripe fruit, but still only 20-something degrees. You can dream. But no, before long it will be unbearably, brain-addlingly hot.

The snooker. Oh man. Yesterday’s match between the old guard – Mark Williams and John Higgins – was bloody brilliant, made even better by the fact that I was invested in it (not literally) and I really wanted Williams to win. Which somehow he did. Williams was unlucky to be 5-1 down, but had clawed it back to 8-8 at the end of the second session. I watched the final session while doing the cleaning. Higgins was well short of his best and Williams took advantage to win all four frames before the interval. Four up, five to play. Just about there. But Higgins was a changed man after the break. He played with such confidence and was deadly accurate even with his long potting. At 12-10, Williams finally got a decent chance. He potted the red, but the referee called a five-point foul. What? He’d brushed the blue while leaning over to take the shot. Higgins duly knocked in a century, then another sizeable break to make it 12-12. Ugh, this is horrible now. I was in the middle of preparing a maths quiz, plus I had an imminent online English lesson with a boy and the way the final frame was going I’d miss the end of the match. Even though you’re a very nice little chappy, do we have to meet right now? They were on the colours when my lesson started. I’d brought up a stream so I could keep one eye on it. Higgins stood over the not-so-easy blue that would win him the match. He tried to pot it at pace, but it rattled in the jaws. (Williams would have tried rolling it in instead, in that wonderful way of his.) Williams then potted the blue (which was just as hard for him), then pink and black for victory. It finished ten minutes into the lesson. The result put me in a particularly good mood, and I think the rest of my lesson went better than if the snooker hadn’t been a factor.

There’s always been lots to like about Mark Williams, who is now 50. (Higgins turns 50 next month.) His ability to see shots, his creativity, his smooth cue action, and his incredible unflappability. It’s like he doesn’t give a damn out there. I wouldn’t mind being like him. Plus he’s got a great sense of humour. He must be dyslexic judging by all the random letters in the messages he sends out. Or maybe again he just doesn’t care. He’s one cool customer, that’s for sure. Yesterday brought back memories of the Williams–Higgins semi-final in 2000 which I watched with my grandmother who was Welsh, like Williams is. The Welshman came from 15-11 down to win 17-15. Now he faces Judd Trump in the semis. It’s a repeat of the fantastic semi from three years ago which Trump won 17-16. This time I expect Trump will win rather more easily, though I hope I’m wrong. The other semi is between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Zhao Xintong. These are absolute marathons. It’s been an excellent tournament so far; I’ve enjoyed it much more than last year’s – it didn’t help that I was going through one of my tricky patches.

Today is a public holiday in Romania, so it’s not quite as busy as on a normal Thursday. I do wish Mum and Dad could have come earlier to take in Easter, the school holidays, today’s public holiday, and so on.

Yesterday the maths girl, who has now had dozen of lessons at my place, told me she was scared of Kitty. She must have been too polite to say it before.

Family - Language learning - Language teaching - Life :) - Other sports - Photos

At least there’s a this time (touch wood)

April 29, 2025 by 0 Comments

Just been checking all my payments for lessons. A horrible job because of all the different methods – pre-Covid when almost everyone paid cash was way easier – and I only get round to it every two months or so. But I’ve done it, so I can cross that off. Phew.

Yesterday I went back to the immigration office. It seemed I had everything in order – or pus la punct as they say here – and the guy (with a star on his epaulettes rather than a stripe this time) told me to come back at the end of May to pick up my new residence card which will be valid for ten years (not five, like my current one). I might then need to get a new ID card for my car so that its address matches what’s on the ID card for me; as always I’ll need to ask a Romanian who’s used to all this bureaucracy.

On a side street near me

It’s a shame Mum and Dad couldn’t have come over Easter. I did suggest that before they booked, but as always, Mum had made up her mind (something to do with the garden, probably) and that was that. I had a lot less work over Easter; now I’m having days jam-packed with lessons again. So while they’re here I’ll have to cancel a load of work, or else have my lessons and see less of them. When we go away for a few days, I’ll clearly have no choice and that’s fine. Obviously I’m very thankful that I’ll be seeing them at all, but, y’know, it would have been way more convenient if they’d come just two weeks earlier. I did put this to them when I spoke to them on Sunday. “We can spend more time with you next time we come over.” My brother and I think we’ll be lucky if there’s a next time. There nearly wasn’t a this time. (I’m still not counting any chickens until I see them in the arrivals lounge.)

Mark Carney’s Liberals have won the Canadian election. It looks like being a narrow win involving a confidence-and-supply type deal that often occurs in New Zealand, but it was a heck of a comeback when it looked like Pierre Polievre (the Conservative) would win. Trump changed all of that. He put the very existence of Canada in jeopardy. I really liked Carney’s victory speech. All that talk of humility and unity and being a leader also of those who voted against his party. What a contrast from Trump who basically says, to the half of voters who didn’t back me, fuck you. They said this morning that Trump had been in power for 100 days. Is that all?! Less time than I’ve had Kitty. It already feels like an age.

Round one of Romania’s presidential election takes place this Sunday. The second round is two weeks later, when my parents will be here. The president’s power is limited in Romania but the stakes are high all the same. What sort of country does Romania want to be? Electing George Simion (or somebody like him – there could be someone practically unheard of like last time) will make that very obvious.

At the end of last night’s online session, my student said “S-a mărit ziua” which means “the days are getting longer”. I took me a while to figure out what she’d said because she talks so fast. That simple phrase which is not so simple made me realise what a devil of a language Romanian is gramatically. I’m not improving; if anything I’m getting worse. Chances to speak Romanian for any length of time are getting fewer and farther between. For a short time, when Dorothy dropped out, my Romanian lessons were useful, but now that Dorothy is back (she’s much better than me) I’m not able to learn much.

Snooker. The quarter-finals are about to start. Six real contenders, I’d say, plus a couple of surprises. I’d put Luca Brecel clearly in the “contender” category after his ludicrous performance against Si Jiahui. It was just mental. The two matches I’m most excited about are Williams versus Higgins (the old guys; a century between them) and Brecel against Judd Trump. Yes, another Trump. Ronnie O’Sullivan I suppose is the favourite because, well, it’s him, and he’s playing Si Jiahui who didn’t look that great in his last match. The other match is Zhao Xintong (a huge talent) against Chris Wakelin who has already produced two upsets. The matches take place on two tables still. It’ll be a fun two days – this round tends to produce more mayhem than any other.

Football. Birmingham totally dominated Mansfield 4-0 on Sunday. If they win their final two matches (both away, so it won’t be easy) they’ll finish on a whopping 111 points, which will be a very memorable number and will blow all other professional teams’ totals out of the water. The record is 106 which Reading achieved 20-odd years ago. But mostly I was interested in the presentation of the league trophy after the match. A big delay, then finally the champagne. Yes, a few hundred fans got onto the pitch. Some people think they should be hung, drawn and quartered. For me it’s no big deal.

Finally, it looks like Spain and Portugal are back in business after their massive outage; 60% of Spain was plunged into darkness in five seconds. You wonder how something that could even happen, but our systems are now hyperconnected like never before.

Cat - Family - Life :) - Other sports

Permission to stay

April 28, 2025 by 0 Comments

Kitty showed some serious affection while writing this post. That was very nice, but it didn’t make the task any easier. She has been more affectionate of late; what a difference that makes.

Kitty on my bikes in front of Dad’s painting of Piața Traian in Timișoara

Some excitement now: the time until my parents get here is less than the time they’ll spend here. I spoke to them this morning; I asked about their travel plans in Romania – would they prefer a mountain trip or a valley trip or a city trip? – but we won’t make any decisions until they arrive eleven days from now. Who knows how they’ll feel after the flight.

I’ve made two bike trips to Sânmihaiu Român in the last week. This morning I grabbed a coffee there. People were already drinking beer; a raucous game of cruce (the popular card game with the Hungarian deck) was in progress in the corner. Frogs were chirruping away on the banks of the river, as they do at this time of year.

My street on Wednesday night

The new patriotic bridge at Sânmihaiu Român

Probably the biggest thing for me in the last week has been renewing my residence permit. I went to the office on Wednesday – remarkably there was no queue – and was told to apply on their website. Their site, or portal, was hard to make head or tail of. I didn’t know which of the many application options to choose, and when I did select one, it told me I had to upload seven separate documents, some of which were unknown to me. To top it all off, the first available appointment was on 4th September, which would get more delayed as I got my documents together. On Friday I went back to the office. A short queue this time. When I reached the front, the young bloke (he had just one stripe on his shoulders; I’ve seen up to five, and some even have stars) told me it should be fairly easy because I’m in a special “Brexit” category. He went away for some time, then came back with a list of documents I needed. Best of all, I can make my application at the desk rather than the inscrutable mess of online. And it shouldn’t take until the autumn. (Ideally, I wanted to get my updated permit, which runs out next April and currently has the wrong address, before the upcoming election. I was worried that I might not even get it at all before my current one runs out, and I’d be unable to get back into Romania if I left.) The immigration office now has two people on the desks rather than just one, making it a lot less awful.

Last Friday I sent off the introduction for the book that may or may not ever get published. I really don’t like having to write about myself. (Yeah, I do it here all the time, but it’s not at all the same thing.)

Snooker. They’re now approaching the end of the second-round matches, which are all first to 13 frames. Last night’s action was some of the best I’ve seen. They had the first session of Luca Brecel (winner in 2023) and Ding Junhui (a former finalist and the first of the Chinese players to really hit the scene). Ding rattled in a 141 break in the first frame. What a start. But then Brecel won the next seven frames in electrifying fashion. He went for and got everything – doubles, plants, you name it – and Ding hardly even had a shot. He even knocked in a three-ball plant that moved so many reds I couldn’t figure out what had just happened. It was like, I don’t give a shit, I’m going for this, and it was mesmerising. He was spot-on positionally, too. He did the same thing to Ronnie O’Sullivan the year he won it. Seven frames, just like last night, against the best player ever. What’s even more remarkable is that the intervening two years he’s done nothing of note on the snooker table. He has a private jet, which is interesting (it’s not like he’s got mega-rich from the game). He jet-setted off from Sheffield to sunny Portugal in between his first two matches. He’s a highly unconventional character, that’s for sure. Brecel and Ding are about to get under way again.

After that lightning session, on came John Higgins and Xiao Guodong to finish their match in an unscheduled fourth session. Higgins was on the verge of winning 13-10 within the scheduled three sessions, but he missed a simple (for him) red and Xiao cleared up to make it 12-11 and they had to come back. The 24th frame was lengthy and tense. This time Higgins missed match ball. Xiao cleared again; 12-12. Finally in the decider Higgins got over the line at 12:30 am my time, but not before suffering an awful kick. Great value for money for those who were there. The match as whole took over ten hours; there was a 63-minute frame amongst them. Higgins now plays Mark Williams who had a marathon of his own against Hossein Vafaei of Iran, winning 13-10.

Family - Life :) - Other sports - Politics

The new religion

April 23, 2025 by 0 Comments

In this morning’s weekly Romanian lesson, the presidential election came up. It is now looming large once more, after it was declared null and void in December. One of the frontrunners is George Simion, from the anti-everything party. He came fourth in November, but the Georgescu business may well have helped shore up his support. Our teacher said that, thankfully, the president has limited powers in Romania, but if Simion were to win it would at least give Romanians a “cold shower”, as she put it, which is probably what they need. A reality check. Electing a Simion won’t cure Romania’s ills. It’s amazing what guff I get from boys of 11 or 12, which of course they’ve got from their parents. Romania has gone to the dogs. We need Simion, or even better Georgescu, to fix it. They may well then mention God. Romania hasn’t gone to the dogs, at all. With all the uncertainty surrounding the election, I’m trying to get my residence permit updated. I’ll go along to the office at 8:30 tomorrow morning, armed with paperwork. God knows if I’ll get to the front of the queue, or whether my paperwork will be adequate if I do. (If it turns out they started an overnight queue like two years ago, I’ll just go home.)

Yesterday as I was cycling to Sânmihaiu Român, I got six loud beeps from my Biziday news app. Six beeps mean something major has happened, so I pulled over. The Pope had died at 88. I’d been a supporter of his, I suppose, like many outside the church. As we’ve headed down a darker path, he had been a rare bright spot. He recognised the massive failings of the modern economic system. I’m just looking at some of his quotes now. Here are four:
“Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities.”
“If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, ‘What are we going to do?’ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing.”
“More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.”
“You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.”

Vice-president JD Vance met the Pope on Easter Sunday, just hours before Francis died. How and why?! To force a meeting with someone so gravely ill is just crass and cruel.

There’s a chance that Francis’s successor will send the Catholic church heading in a more sinister direction. As for religion as a whole, its influence has plummeted in most Western countries, but I predict we’ll see a resurgence. There’s some evidence that we’re already seeing it among young men. But I don’t expect it’ll be church as I know it, with a rambling sermon and an aging congregation and that churchy smell. It’ll be a modern version but ultra-primitive at its core, fuelled by social media and money. The new churchgoers may be the same young men who “invest” in crypto – that’s pretty much a religion anyway. Dorothy shocked me on Sunday by saying she donates 10% of her income to the church, and has done since she was 18. Just imagine. Where does that money even go? She even used the word tithe, which I consider prehistoric.

I’m still reeling from Robert F. Kennedy’s comments on autism. In a similar vein, Linda McMahon, the 76-year-old WWE promoter who is for some bizarre reason now the Secretary of Education, gave a speech in which she twice called for more A1 (“ay one”) in schools. She meant AI (“ay eye”), or artificial intelligence. The mind boggles. She really seemed to think it was called that. Apparently A1 is the name of a popular American steak sauce.

Snooker. On Sunday, after doing my church bit, I sat down and watched the concluding session of Mark Williams against Wu Yize. Williams won 10-8. The session took more than three hours, which was great. Late afternoon, into the evening, watching the snooker, drinking a beer, with no immediate obligations apart from maybe feeding Kitty. Wu Yize was brilliant – his long potting was exceptional – but Williams’ vast experience just got him over the line. There was one shot in particular at 8-8 where Williams used the spider and had to contort himself in an almost excruciating fashion to pot a red. Today they’ve had the first session of Ronnie O’Sullivan against Ali Carter. Good to watch; Carter won the last two frames to be only 5-4 down.

Some family news. My aunt accepted the offer on their property in the end. The eventual buyer came up a fraction. Not as much as my aunt had hoped, but I’m pretty sure she made the right call there.

Books - Family - Life :) - Other sports - Politics

Halfway to ninety

April 20, 2025 by 0 Comments

Great news – Mum has booked their flight from Timișoara to Luton in the early hours of 22nd May. So it looks like they might actually come. The only negative is that Mum has broken a tooth. If she can’t get it repaired in Geraldine before they leave, I’ll book her in somewhere in Timișoara. There are loads of dentists here, and they’ll all be cheaper than in New Zealand.

Easter in Romania is huge, so when your birthday coincides with it, it’s a bit like having your birthday on Christmas Day. I did my church bit this morning – hopefully for the last time until Christmas, even if a lot of the churchgoers seem really nice. I remembered the Easter etiquette this time – “Good morning” or even “Happy Easter” is what you don’t say on Easter Sunday, inside or outside church. You say “Hristos a înviat” (Christ has risen); the response to that is “Adevărat a înviat” (Indeed He has risen). The sermon was all about how you deal with death – pets or maybe grandparents dying when you are younger, and fear of death as you get older. A great subject on a birthday that makes me feel pretty old. But the priest told us that death isn’t the end of the story, as the resurrection proves, so there’s nothing to fear. That’s fantastic news, I must say. There were hymns, with the “lyrics” appearing on an overhead projector. I wish they could have chosen a font where the upper-case I was distinguishable from the lower-case l. They both exist on their own as pronouns in Romanian. No problem if you’re a Romanian who regularly goes to church, but I was left guessing. In the middle of the service, ten kids of various ages and levels of shyness each said an Easter-related line. After that, they were each given a Boomwhacker (I’ve just learnt the name) which is a coloured plastic tube that you literally whack against the floor. These tubes are tuned to different notes (they’re different lengths); if each kid whacks their tube at the right time, they can produce a passable melody which they sort of did.

There was some chat outside after the service. The large Australian lady, just a few months shy of 45, shocked me by saying she was pregnant. There was another lady, much much thinner and heavily pregnant, who clearly had problems. Dorothy told me that she was homeless and was having perhaps her fifth child, a daughter this time. Like the others, she won’t be able to keep her; she lacks the wherewithal to look after a child. All very sad. There was a boy of about eleven who spoke excellent English and talked (at serious length) about some game he’d been playing where, weirdly, he built transport links between East Anglian towns like Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Harwich.

Yesterday I went to Dorothy’s house in Buzad. It was a beautiful sunny day, just like today. It really is a lovely place she’s got there, though the garden (seven-eighths of an acre, full of trees) is a lot of work. Dorothy does plenty of planting and seeding and weeding herself, but employs various men too. We went for a walk around the village. Dorothy knew many of the villagers (being the only foreigner there, she’s semi-famous) and sometimes she’d stop for a chat. One of the women was extraordinarily chatty; she was with her husband who could hardly get a word in. Though the village is beautiful, I don’t think I could live there because I wouldn’t be able to hide. I then drove Dorothy back to her actual home in Timișoara. I drove 100 km there and back without any juddering at all. However, since that guy “diagnosed” all of my supposed issues and gave me that enormous quote, my brakes have been squeaky.

Robert F. Kennedy, the Secretary of Death (as I call him) has made some monumentally stupid comments about autism. He clearly knows nothing about it. “Perfectly normal” kids “regress into autism” at the age of two as a result of “environmental exposure” – it’s sickening stuff. He went on to say that autistic children will never go on a date, will never play baseball, will never pay taxes, and most baffling of all, will never write a poem. What. The. Fuck.

What a match yesterday on day one at the Crucible. I couldn’t stay awake for all of it. Kyren Wilson, last year’s champion, played Lei Peifan, one of the many Chinese. From Wilson’s point of view, the match oscillated from 0-2 to 6-2 (and almost 7-2) to 6-9, then to 9-9. The Chinese player then pulled off the upset in the deciding frame. Quite a surprise. Lei Peifan didn’t miss a thing in the first six frames of the evening session. I see another Chinese is already through and a third – the extremely gifted Zhao Xintong – is well on his way.

Football. On Good Friday, thinking Birmingham’s game with Crawley might be a non-event with so little at stake, I tuned into the Championship match between Norwich and Portsmouth instead. I’m glad I did – it was wonderfully chaotic from start to finish as Portsmouth (whose away form had been terrible) ran out 5-3 winners and have probably done just enough to avoid relegation. Portsmouth (the football club, the navy base, even the town) are known as Pompey. Nobody quite knows why. Fun nickname though.

On Friday I finally finished A Town Like Alice. Great story, brilliant writing, thoroughly enjoyable, even if Kitty mauled the cover of the book to pieces the second day after I got it.

Cat - Family - Life :) - Other sports

God it can be hard sometimes

April 19, 2025 by 0 Comments

My brother and I got an email from our aunt to say that Mum is indeed better. She also said that their deadline sale didn’t go as hoped – they got only one offer which much less than what she wanted. She’s in a tricky spot – they could really do with moving before my uncle goes downhill much further.

I’d hoped that Mum could have got the flight from Timișoara to Luton booked today, but it got complicated with all the baggage allowances and so forth, so I may end up booking it myself. I spoke to my brother last night; we talked about how technologically unsavvy both our parents are. (I’m not even that great myself, but I can at least do the basics.)

I had a surprise Good Friday lesson this morning. That one with the twins went well, but I had some tricky ones earlier in the week. Easter can make discussion awkward because of the religious aspect. People can’t talk about their Easter meal or egg painting or trips to see their family without also bringing religion into it. I often get asked whether I’m Catholic or Orthodox, as if only those two options exist. I sometimes say I’m a Catholic to make my life easier. (I did go to a Catholic church until I was 15 or so.) One boy mentioned the word atheist this week (or rather the Romanian equivalent ateu), practically shuddering with disgust as he said it. The more I think about it, the more I like Mum’s attitude to church – she keeps up the family tradition by going through the motions of attending the weekly service, then chats to her friends over coffee afterwards. I don’t think she really believes. Church certainly doesn’t get in the way of any other aspect of her life – whether to take a vaccine, for instance. Right on cue, Dorothy has just messaged me, inviting me to the Easter service at her church on Sunday.

Watching the last two Crucible qualifiers on Wednesday bordered on being painful. Both of them reached a deciding 19th frame at the same time and were shown on a split screen. Both final frames were extremely cagey, such were the stakes. There were three re-racks between the two of them. Seeing Matthew Stevens miss out was a real shame – he reached the world final in 2000 (back in what I think of as my era) and again a few years later. Having built a good lead in the decider, he potted a superb red but then instead of playing safe and gaining a tactical upper hand, he went all-out for an overly ambitious black. He missed, and Wu Yize, one of ten Chinese to make the main tournament, took advantage. The other decider was between Matthew Selt (who has serious issues, it seems) and Jimmy Robertson, who was a perfectly nice bloke as far as I could see. Robertson, who had been way ahead at 8-3, had a difficult pink to make it through. It didn’t find the pocket, and Selt (bugger him) potted pink and black to qualify. The phalanx of Chinese qualifiers made the post-match interviews interesting. Some had a smattering of English, but others didn’t speak a word and needed an interpreter.

This morning I saw the result of last night’s Europa League second-leg match between Manchester United and Olympique Lyonnais. They’d drawn 2-2 in the first leg, so this was a straight decider. United went two up, but Lyon scored twice to force extra time and then led 4-2, only for United to score three in the final few minutes and run out winners in extraordinary fashion. I saw Lyon play a bunch of times when I lived there in 2000-01; they had an exciting team. (Tickets were way cheaper than in England.) That match last night sounds amazing, but what even are Manchester United or Olympique Lyonnais, really? Brands, badges, entities? Are they even the same things as they were, say, in 2000 or even further back? I’ve always struggled with that, and that’s why I like individual sports (as much as I even like sport at all, these days).

I bought that water pistol, from the toy shop down the road, straight after I wrote my previous post. It’s worked a treat, so far. Kitty has cottoned onto it very quickly. Already, just brandishing the thing does the trick. No squirting needed.

Cat - Other sports

Kitty: the first hundred days

April 16, 2025 by 0 Comments

It’s actually a bit over 100 days. So has it been worth it? Kitty is a lovely little thing with a beautiful soft coat, and that’s probably what made me take her on in the first place. It’s fascinating just to watch her. Cats – especially young ones like her – are amazing animals. I often marvel at how well designed she is, with her speed, strength (those back legs!) and flexibility. As I lumber around my flat, I feel utterly pathetic in comparison. I’ve also become acutely aware of how few places on my body I’m capable of licking. (She can get to almost anywhere, and for the few places she can’t, she’ll just lick her paw, then wipe her wet paw on the desired area.)

So, Kitty is great to observe, but is there any benefit to actually having her? After all, there are cats all over the show in Timișoara. I could just watch them. That’s a tough question. She knows where to pee and poo, and she hasn’t wrecked my furniture as I’d feared, so really she hasn’t been a problem. The real disappointment is that she hasn’t become a friend. She loves to play, but not really when I’m involved. Expressions of affection – or even interest in me – are extremely rare. Some of that must be down to her start in life. The only time Kitty seems halfway friendly (and only sometimes, even then) is when she’s purring away in an inactive state. If I come into the living room at night, she’ll sometimes rub up against me. It’s lovely when she does that, but all too rare. At times I feel sorry for her as she looks longingly out the window. I bet she’d love to be on the other side. I’ve got used to the zooming which took me aback at first, but I really wish she wouldn’t jump on my desk so much. My desk is a place for work and concentration, not a place for Kitty to play. I often end up manhandling her off my desk, but she usually jumps back on anyway unless I lock her in the living room – I so sometimes resort to that. I’m going to invest in a water pistol.

In short, Kitty is fine and I don’t regret having her, but if someone (a student, say) told me they really wanted a cat and had some outdoor space at home, I’d probably palm her off onto that person.

Last night I watched the Champions League quarter-final second leg between Aston Villa and Paris St-Germain. I almost never watch football at that level, but by golly, what a match it was. So open and so fast. It was like a different sport from the other games I’ve seen lately at a lower level, or even the top-level games I’d watch back in the nineties. The sheer pace was dizzying. Villa, already 3-1 down from the away leg, conceded twice to go four goals behind on aggregate, and surely it was done. But they got one back before half-time and though they still had a mountain to climb, the game was so ridiculously open… They got two more early in the second half. Madness. Just wave upon wave of Villa attacks against perhaps the best club team in the world. And they still had ages to level things or even win it. Villa had some great chances, and some superb saves from PSG keeper Donnarumma basically made the difference in the end. I have no idea why they played only three minutes of added time. PSG had a player called Désiré Doué. What a name. Doué means gifted or talented in French. It was a night that will live long in the memory of Villa fans, including Prince William who was there (no idea why he supports Aston Villa – the name?) but it was nearly one of the all-time great comebacks in the sport.

Snooker. Drama, as expected, in yesterday’s last-round qualifiers. The best match was between Zhao Xintong (a supreme talent; he’d just come back from a suspension for match-fixing – ugh) and Elliott Slessor who had the misfortune of having to play him. They both played at such a high level; Zhao won 10-8. There were also two 10-9 finishes. I felt sorry for Irishman Aaron Hill who had been well in front but was pipped by David Gilbert – he was just about in tears at the end. You could tell how much it meant. Eight more qualifiers today. The tournament proper starts on Saturday.

Can he keep the black out? This was a crazy tippy-tappy exchange. Wells (in the picture here) did eventually sink the black and Wilson won the frame, but Wells was the winner in a decider.

After watching both football and snooker, I’ve decided that snooker is more my thing. It has a nice mix of drama and relaxation.

We’ve got warm weather in store for the next little while.