by It’s much cooler now than when I last wrote. Today it even felt autumnal – in early July – and honestly that’s fine by me. Cooler weather makes an enormous difference at night, although last night I slept terribly all the same. It’s warmer in western Europe – Mum and Dad weren’t particularly enjoying the heat in St Ives today. They’d been watching lots of Wimbledon. My brother called me a little earlier. Neither of us had a lot to say. We talked about Nigel Farage and Count Binface, who may be the only candidate to stand against Farage in the farcical Clacton by-election. It was great to see my brother in a much better mood. Finally he has some certainty over his future.
I’ve now got my new Lenovo laptop, which I’m happy with so far, though I still need to change one or two settings and remove even more annoying bloatware. As I type (still on my old machine), I’m in the process of copying all my documents and photos over to the new one using flash drives. I’m not a fan of the cloud. It isn’t taking quite as long as I feared.
Last week – from Wednesday to Sunday inclusive – they had the Festivalul Inimilor in Parcul Rozelor. I went the last three nights. It’s a festival of traditional music from Romania and elsewhere. Some of the performers are literally from just down the road, whereas others have come thousands of miles. When I lived at the old place, I’d see them all parading past my flat in their costumes; it was a great display of sound and colour. This time there were even country singers who had come from the US, which given that the festival coincided with the 250th anniversary celebrations kind of made sense. There were groups from Slovakia, Albania, and even Colombia. My favourite of all was the group from Georgia, which I saw on both Friday and Sunday. The music was just… different. I felt that I was listening to something from a faraway land. A bagpipe featured heavily, as it does in a lot of places (Romania has a type of bagpipe called a cimpoi) and there were instruments similar to a lute or mandolin. After to listening to the music I was thinking it would be interesting to visit Georgia, but then a quick look at the map tells me that it’s rather close to some places I’d prefer to avoid, so I’d have to do some more research. A big part of the festival is the food and drink available on the street. I had a very overpriced pottle of anchovies. I couldn’t complain too much though because watching all the singing and dancing didn’t cost a penny. I may post some pictures next time.
It was good to wake up yesterday morning and see that the US had been thumped 4-1 by Belgium following the overturned red card that stank of the sort of corruption that you expect from FIFA. That must have motivated the Belgians like you wouldn’t believe. Red cards do get overturned occasionally, but usually not after a phone call with the president of the country concerned. There are backhanders all over the show. Just look at the World Cups awarded to Russia and Qatar. This time around it’s all far too big and there’s far too much money involved and as good as the football has probably been, I can’t bring myself to watch any of it. My brother and I agreed that maybe we’ll watch the final if England make it. England haven’t been in the final for 60 years, so we’ll kind of have to in that case. (Like me, he hasn’t seen a single ball kicked so far either.)
I’m getting promoted in the Scrabble, back to the third division, with a record of nine wins and five losses with a healthy positive points spread. I may well finish second in the league. And that’s despite a pair of quite painful defeats by just two and five points. How was I to know that QUARK took an S in front of it (that was responsible for my five-point loss) or that BIRLINGS might be a word (my opponent in my two-point loss landed that on me at the end, after I’d had a huge lead late in the game)? I squeaked by that 16-year-old Australian guy by 25 points after I remembered from somewhere that PYIC was a word. In that game, I played a late bingo of ABETTORS, but apparently that was a huge error and I should have played IT instead (seriously, just IT) and I was lucky to get away with my play. All in all, I was pretty lucky to draw so many Xs and Zs which are simply great tiles and don’t require great skill or experience to make the most of. I will surely face relegation again soon; there are just too many good players. The big question is whether or not I should go over to the dark side and actually play a real-life tournament sometime.
