Final Day in Lille
It's been great to have three nights here in Lille. After a ridiculous amount of driving and short stops across vast stretches of Europe, I've enjoyed just being settled in one spot in a comfortable room. After the dramatic Wales v Belgium quarter final I slobbed about in the morning and caught up with all my blogging, did another wash and had a lovely video cam call to Leb who has just six days herself before she leaves for the UK.
Scars of Evolution
Last night, watching the fantastic Wales v Belgium quarter final, thoughts of Elaine Morgan were never far from my mind and her phrase "knock 'em cold kid" seemed especially apt considering the spirit the Welsh showed.
How bizarre, then, that as I was scrolling through my e-mails, I noticed one from Richard Owen, who I had forgetten was the producer of a BBC Radio 4 Documentary called "The Scars of Evolution" on Elaine Morgan's so-called "aquatic ape theory". The title of that mini series (just two episodes) was taken from Elaine's second book on the subject.
Apparently, Richard is doing another program on the subject, as a kind of update. Sir David Attenborough presented that program, broadcast in 2004, and is up for doing this one too. Very pleasing to me, this one will be entitled "The Waterside Ape" and he got in touch with me to ask if I'd like to participate. Of course!
He asked if I would consider going to meet him in Brussels but it really was a bit of a push by that time so we agreed that he would travel to Marseille next week to meet me.
It was really bizarre writing back to him combining two great passions in my life, football and human evolution. Strange year, this!
How bizarre, then, that as I was scrolling through my e-mails, I noticed one from Richard Owen, who I had forgetten was the producer of a BBC Radio 4 Documentary called "The Scars of Evolution" on Elaine Morgan's so-called "aquatic ape theory". The title of that mini series (just two episodes) was taken from Elaine's second book on the subject.
Apparently, Richard is doing another program on the subject, as a kind of update. Sir David Attenborough presented that program, broadcast in 2004, and is up for doing this one too. Very pleasing to me, this one will be entitled "The Waterside Ape" and he got in touch with me to ask if I'd like to participate. Of course!
He asked if I would consider going to meet him in Brussels but it really was a bit of a push by that time so we agreed that he would travel to Marseille next week to meet me.
It was really bizarre writing back to him combining two great passions in my life, football and human evolution. Strange year, this!
3rd Quarter Final
My only objective today was to have a few bevvies and watch the Germany v Italy quarter final. I got the metro into the city and found a bar full of drunken Welsh fans, still delirious from the night before. It's a bit awkward for me to say I support Wales, but most of their fans are happy to have the backing. A couple told me, with a similar kind of embarrassment, that usually, when Wales are not at a tournament, they support England. I tell them about Elaine Morgan and my love of the Manics and it seems to be enough. But there's still a bit of anti-English sentiment. Some of the chants include "Stand up, if you hate England" and "You're going home, you're going home. England's going home!".
Anyway, I had a did a bit of sight seeing, had a few craft beers and a nice meal of penne and duck before finding a bar called O'Scotland which was packed, again largely Welsh, for the Italy v Germany game.
Germany 1 Italy 1 (Germany win on penalties)
I knew it would happen. Germany (yawn) won through to yet another semi final. They were the better team to be honest but it was good to see Italy fight back from being a goal down to equalise and then take the game to extra time and penalties.
I sat next to a couple of England fans from Burton on Trent. One is a Derby fan and one now lived in Adelaide. We all had our say about why England keep failing and I vented my spleen about how England never seem to get lucky, unlike Germany, who always seem to have everything go their way, like winning on penalties.
Bah!
After that I walked across to La Capsule where I chatted to a nice bunch of locals about politics again before stopping off at the Kremlin for a quick vizhnovka before somehow staggering back here.
I'm off to Paris soon for the next big match France v Iceland.
Aljice
Lille
No comments:
Post a Comment