Cheerleading is probably not what you think it is. You may have visions of teenage dancers in two-bit skirts and coloured pom-poms whipping up the crowd at some sporting event. But it has become a tremendously demanding and technical competitive sport for real athletes. It is a mix of acrobatics, tumbling, stunts and dance glued…
Category: Being Human
Tribalism on the Terraces
They say that football has sold its soul to the media and to the middle classes. They say that it has become over-commercialised and lost its connection to the working class fan. I disagree.
Aside
I look back with renewed fondness at my interaction with the dog on a train. On Thursday, I experienced something far more distasteful – drunks on a train. And all of this in the so-called quiet coach.
Dignity
No matter what they take from me, they can’t take away my d-i-g-n-i-t-y . . . wailed Whitney. And in the end they didn’t. She managed to do that all by herself. Just like we all do, or don’t. Our dignity is ours to nurture or to dispose of, nobody else’s. Whatever life throws at…
Embracing Memories
It’s hard to remember. It’s particularly hard remembering those who have died. Our faculties fail us. How can so many thousands of days and millions of interactions generate so few moments of recall? And we can find it hard to get past the dark door of their death to remembering the extensive garden which was…
Dogs on Trains
Have you ever shared the quiet coach on the train with a dog? I did last Friday. I don’t really “do” dogs, so I have no idea what species or breed it was. It was quite large and yellow-ish with floppy ears. Does that help? It was – to be fair, and unlike most dogs…
Writes of passages
“Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe” I woke up on New Year’s Eve and decided to announce to a bunch of about 30 friends that I intended to “get published in 2012”. So, without a hint of irony, I wrote…
Canaries Christmas
Strange, in the third week of December, to be sat round a pool in the blazing heat, concerned about burning rather than work and Christmas presents. Work can manage without me (I have to accept). My blackberry is switched off and safely locked in the room safe. And the presents will take care of themselves…
Business and Pleasure Abroad
This is my second consecutive week abroad, with a brief interlude at home in between. In both cases I have been staying in posh hotels in warm sub-tropical climates. Last week was India, this week is Tenerife. But that is where the similarity ends. India was mainly business, Tenerife is entirely pleasure. Don’t get me…
My inner tubes
I am increasingly trying to travel light through life. Each week as I pack for my 2-3 days working away I try to be more minimalist. One day I wont need a suitcase at all. I am increasingly becoming a throw-outer rather than a hoarder. Maybe this is because the further we travel through the…
Unwrapping The World 