13 July 2012: Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

I know, you'd all rather see a video of Hannah doing something cute rather than read my waffling views on a minority sport.


She was much more vocal before I got the camera out, of course, but it's still pretty funny.

Original video here.

13 July 2012: Continuing

So David Millar won stage 12 of the Tour, being part of a long all-day breakaway and pulling away at the end to win the stage. The fourth Tour stage win of his career, but also the fourth different British stage winner this year. And what with Wiggins still in yellow, Froome in second (and according to many commentators the stronger rider of the two), Evans seeming to struggle and Vicenzo Nibali seemingly offering the only real opposition, who's to say it won't get even better for the UK?

The Froome situation is the most interesting. Yesterday he seemed to struggle a little at times, then bounce back, but when Nibali accelerated it was up to Froome to bring Wiggins back up to the wheel of Nibali. He did so, and immediately Wiggins was on the wheel of Nibali, Froome accelerated himself and went off on his own. Then... he pushed his earpiece into his ear, slowed down and went back. Why? Because Wiggins had not been able to hold on to Nibali, so Froome had to go back and help again.

As discussed a couple of days ago, it looks as if team orders are the same as the Vuelta last year, which cost Froome victory in the race. Harsh, but that's what teams are about. Wonder what will happen in the Pyrenees...

Also Millar's victory points interestingly towards the Olympics, which remains Mark Cavendish's aim, although he'll have his eye on a couple of flatter stages left in the Tour, including Paris of course. Why interesting? Because the four different British stage winners this year (Cavendish, Wiggins, Froome and Millar) are the core of the five-man Olympic team - add new British champion Ian Stannard (I know we could do better - Geraint Thomas or a fit Ben Swift would be a better fit, I'd suggest) and that's the team that will try to get Cavendish to the line first in London next month.

And it's also the same core of the team that won Cav the world championship last year, Millar captaining the team on the road and Wiggins draggings the peloton through the last kilometer.

Final thing - of course Millar is only in the Olympics because the British Olympic Association had to change their rules on drug cheats. Millar took EPO back in 2003 (and possibly before) and was banned for two years, quite rightly. Since then, however, he's been one of the most vociferous opponents of drug use in sport and spends a lot of time working with young people to warn of the dangers of it. So - not saying the banning decisions are right and wrong, but Millar (unlike certain other people) has been open about what went on in those days (and probably still does to a much smaller extent now), and is trying to do something about it.

10 July 2012: Louisiana

So we moved again, only four and a half years after the previous move, which isn't bad going really.

This time (now with two little girls in tow, whether they like it or not) we've moved to a town called Monroe in Louisiana. Partly because my current job allows me to work from anywhere in the US, partly because it just felt like it was time but mainly because Gloria's dad and step-mum live here. Having grandparents handy, especially when there are two young children, is a very big plus, so 'Pop Pop' and 'Lu Lu' are helping out with occasional Hannah- and Amelia-sitting whenever the opportunity arises. Currently house-hunting down here, so if you have any good tips on houses in the Swartz area of town, please let us know.

Elsewhere in the world there was the astonishing predictability of the Euro 2012 football (England lost in the quarter-finals on penalties? Whoever would have thought of such a scenario?), Argyle failing to sign anyone decent, Saints not really making any early headway in the transfer market (J-Rod aside) and Greece still somehow having the Euro as their currency.

But the big news (for me anyway, in my half-awake zombie seven-week-old-baby state) concerns the Tour De France, about which I've been meaning to write for several weeks now and haven't had the time. As predicted last year, Mark Cavendish's move to Team Sky hasn't exactly been a raging success for him: he's won one stage and been a little unlucky in crashes and punctures to thus miss out on a couple of others, but overall it's kind of sad to see the world champion and clearly the fastest man in the race be given little or no support by his team.

Theoretically he has Bernie Eisal and Edval Boassen Hagen watching out for him, but last week in one of the few sprints Cavendish did contest, Boassen Hagen led him out to the front of the pack with one kilometre still to go, which is a suicidal technique for leading out a sprinter... Cavendish realised this and dropped back on his own, but then didn't have the legs for the final push.

And while it may be unlucky to be involved in so many crashes, the thing is that if he had a team and some actual protection around him, he'd be a lot safer. He wears the rainbow jersey of the world champion, he has won more stages than anyone else in the last four Tours and as such he's a marked man. For Sky to offer little-to-no protection or help must make him think, at least a little, 'why am I here and not at Rabobank with Mark Renshaw?'. Still, the main target for Cav seems to be the Olympics... let's just hope Team GB (roughly equals Team Sky here) can figure out how to do a leadout for him.

Of course the reason Sky aren't doing much for Cav is that they're busy protecting Bradley Wiggins, currently the leader of the race by a pretty massive margin (almost two minutes, yes that is massive in this sport). Last year's winner Cadel Evans is in second, and creeping up in third is one Chris Froome, another Brit (although he's actually from Kenya and has British parents). In fact if Froome hadn't been delayed in one of the first-week crashes he'd be comfortably in second place right now. Wow, you might think, possible one-two for Britain in the Tour De France.

Maybe. But the problem is this: Wiggins isn't quite as good in the really high mountains as Cadel Evans and Chris Froome. At least, he's not shown that kind of form in the past, including this very excellent season that he's had. And so, here's the scenario: Evans attacks (or at least sets very good pace) on the high mountains that are coming up imminently (tomorrow, Thursday and also Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday next week), Wiggins and Froome stay with him but eventually Wiggins cracks and starts to drop back a bit. So what do Team Sky do with Chris Froome? Do they send him back to help Wiggins or do they tell him to keep going, because he can probably not only stay up with but actually beat Evans, probably both in the mountains and in the one remaining time trial? Received wisdom says he should go back to help Wiggins... but what will they do?

THAT, to me, is probably the key question remaining on the Tour (assuming Wiggins does crack on the mountains at some stage, which I think he very well might). The problem is that Sky have been in exactly this position before - in the Tour of Spain last year, Froome would quite comfortably have won the race (a Brit winning a Grand Tour! Amazing!) but the team ordered him back to help the ailing Wiggins in the highest mountains. As a result, Froome finished second in the Vuelta and Wiggins third.

Commentating legend Phil Liggett already stated a couple of days ago that Sky clearly made a mistake with those team orders. And given their aim of a British tour winner by 2014, will they do the same again?

I'm not sure, and I don't know that Sean Yates, Dave Brailsford and the rest of the decision-makers know yet either - but I will say this right now: I think, even at this stage of the game, that Froome is the better, stronger rider of the two and is much the more likely to beat Evans.

Evans meantime is looking to divide and conquer, and hope that Sky send Froome backwards when crunch time comes.

Oh, and we found Weetabix here at a local supermarket. And Rich Tea biscuits. Just to put things in perspective, ya know.

Postscript: one amazing thing already in the Tour for the Brits is that there have already been three different British stage winners this year - Cav, Froome and Evans have all won a stage. Considering years (sometimes decades) go by without a single British victory, it's already been the most memorable TDF Britain has ever had.

8 June 2012: Alike

My mum was digging through some old photos and found a few of her at Hannah's age. We've been commenting recently how Hannah's hair seems to be straight with gentle curls appearing near the ends - rather like I recalled my mum's hair being in old photos. But now we can compare on a to-the-nearest-month basis (17 months old), one photo from 1944 and one from 2012.
I think we can say there's a certain likeness visible, except of course that Hannah tends to wear her hair-bow on the other side.

And what's also nice is that we have photos of them together, although of course they no longer look quite as alike:

16 May 2012: Amelia Kay

That's Amelia Kay, born at 12.03pm on 16 May 2012, 8lb 5oz and 20.25 inches long.

She came by c-section - we had been planning a 'VBAC' but the scar was sufficiently hurting during the final week that Gloria in the end just had to ask the doctor to get her out. So in we came to the hospital at the thoroughly civilised hour of 9.30am (far better than 2.30am after four hours of labour!), prepped and went into the operating room around 11.40 - and she was with us in time for lunch.

Everyone doing well, including Hannah, who came down to visit with Pop Pop yesterday afternoon, and was pleased to find that Baby Sister (who we now know is named Amelia) had brought a gift for her. Here's the vid (HD available for this version, unlike the one we put on Facebook!) of Hannah meeting Amelia for the first time:



So far the consensus is that Amelia looks remarkably like Hannah, including lots of hair and eye colour, but in personality she seems to be a little more of a cuddler and also has far more patience when it comes to nursing, which this time seems to be an actual possibility.

More photos as we get time to deal with it, no news yet on going home but given standards for c-sections I'd think we're looking at Saturday morning. After that it's time to pack up and move to Louisiana, but that's another story...

Update:
Some more photos from day one:

Quick photo with Hannah and one of Baby Sister's outfits before going to the hospital.

Birth weight in kilograms, equivalent to 8lb5oz.

Hannah sees Baby Sister Amelia for the first time.

When asked "would you like to hold her" she says very clearly "yes please" - you can see that moment on the video!

Baby sister brought Dora toys and stickers, a guaranteed winner with Hannah.

Later on, Hannah kept climbing on chairs to check on Amelia. Possibly to see if she had any more Dora merchandise for her.

Pop Pop (Gloria's dad) made a valiant attempt at getting both grand-daughters in one chair, but it never really worked out.

Duncan wore a Saints shirt for the occasion. Amelia, like Hannah, may turn out to be a Saints girl rather than an Argyle girl, but we'll see.

Ryan, Alyssa and ten-week-old Emery pay a visit and wonder how it is that Amelia already has much more hair than Emery.

14 May 2012: Nearly

Becky quite rightly asks why no comment on the football.

Answer: we're about to have another baby, currently at the point of counting contractions when they happen and looking for various other signs that things have actually started and we have to go to the hospital!

Also, Gloria's dad (known to Hannah as 'Pop Pop') is here and that's making Hannah very excited:


(That one's available in HD by the way, courtesy of our exciting Sony HDR-CX160 camera that is so small you'd think it's incapable of doing anything yet it records in 1080i/p and has 16GB internal memory as well as an SD card. But enough specificationing.)

The thing about Argyle staying up is that it seemed so amazingly unlikely back in September. There's an old saying in most sports that you can't win the title in the first month of the season, but you certainly can lose it. And back then, Argyle had the worst start just about any club has ever had - clicking this link will take you to a match report and league table from 17 September, nine games in to the season. Argyle had just lost again and had amassed (if that is the right word to use here) a mighty one point from those nine games, and that was due to a miraculous last-minute equaliser from soon-to-be-manager Carl Fletcher, one of the very few players who didn't leave. Argyle were regularly fielding teenagers to make up the squad and it looked bad.

In fact it reminded me of something Danny Baker once joked about regarding a league table once - Argyle would be the team this time who would not just finish bottom, but they would finish SUPER-bottom, so far adrift at the foot of the table that the Football League would have to send out search parties to try and find them.

But, James Brent came in, got a few players in, replaced Peter Reid (who frankly did his best) with Carl Fletcher, happily removed Peter Ridsdale (never trusted him) and the results slowly, slowly turned around such that the final 37 games of the season yielded 45 points, not wonderful but enough to keep Argyle up with a couple of weeks to spare.

Meantime Saints were at the opposite end of the Football League - in the top two of the Championship the entire season and despite a couple of wobbles, made it back to the Prem. Saw the final day 4-0 win over Coventry and very much enjoyed it. Curious thing is that the core of the team is the same one that struggled under Alan Pardew at the start of the League One season the previous year, Billy Sharp and Jack Cork (and possibly Steve De Ridder) being the only notable additions, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain the notable absentee. So, a settled squad but one that did, for a while, struggle in League One. I dunno. They say Hooiveld and Fonte are a good central defensive partnership, but frankly Saints shipped a LOT of goals, especially in the second half of the season. Just as well West Ham forgot how to win games...

Anyway - so baby sister coming sometime soon and who knows what fun we can have with the HD camera after that!

15 March 2012: Quick

Got five minutes, so wanted to post a couple of things. First, this headline, taken straight from the BBC News website this afternoon:

"Legal challenges against the scrapping of a tax loophole that allowed the Channel Islands to sell low value goods VAT-free fail."

Now I don't mind that Jersey used to offer VAT-free goods, or that this was due to a legal loophole, or that said loophole was to be scrapped or that there was a legal challenge against said scrapping or indeed that said legal loophole had failed. What I objected to was that I had to not only read the sentence four times, but actually work it out piece by piece to figure out what it was saying and determine if it meant things would be cheaper or not. (Answer = "not cheaper").

And secondly, looks like the Save The Hobbit campaign, which got support from the likes of Stephen Fry and Ian McKellan (Gandalf himself, of course), has succeeded. Hurrah! Not that I get to go there much these days, but there's something reassuring about knowing that not all unique pubs go the way of the Old Black Cat.

Happy Thursday. Time for another meeting.