We'll keep a sort of welcome in the hillside.........

Without sounding like one of tv’s ‘grumpy old men’ I have to recount a bizarre episode we had earlier this evening. It was scary to put it in context with the current advertising campaign to bring visitors to Wales.

We went to a local public house for a meal. There’s a huge banner outside declaring ‘Thursday night is steak night between 5pm and 9pm’. So we called in at 7pm to be told by the waitress, ‘ you can have anything off the menu except steak, we haven’t got any’. Now by this time I quite fancied a nice rib eye, so we left and went to the next pub along the road where there’s a huge banner bigging up their food. After parking the car we got to the door to read that food is only served between 12pm and 6pm. So just when it gets to dinnertime and people are hungry, they stop selling food! Puts me in mind of the bakers in the Wrexham area I visited that closes between 12pm and 1pm for lunch!

If the weather wasn’t a huge incentive to holiday in another country, the reluctance to actually serve customers something to eat would seem to drive another nail into the coffin lid for Welsh tourism.


nick

A cheap way to win the Open

In the early 80s when Tom Watson was the world’s no 1 golfer, I really disliked him intensely. I guess he stopped our fellas from winning and he just grated by always smiling. Now I’m in the same decade as him, I am gutted he failed by one shot to win the Open outright and shame on Stewart Cink for grinding down an older guy like me by making him play so many holes in one day without a replenishing shot of Sanotgen Vital 50+.

A hollow victory indeed!


nick

Meaner than Ebenezer Scrooge

This outrageous expense expose and all its corporate ‘jolly’ connotations, somehow hit a really perverse note with me. I am not so outraged by the first class air travel, the expensive restaurants or the luxury hotels. Hell aren’t we getting used to tales of pigs at the trough, snouts buried in the free swill?

No, way more obscene than that is the tight fisted, morally corrupt little individual who claimed 89p in McDonalds! What festers within the mind of a civil servant who claims such a paltry amount? No doubt devoid of friends, they flipped out the corporate credit card for such a tiny amount and expected us to pay for their lonely lunch. What a petty minded and sad character they must be.


nick

Mansell was back at Silverstone yesterday

We went to the World Series by Renault at Silverstone yesterday. An excellent day of motor racing with the icing on the cake being the appearance of Nigel Mansell who drove several laps in his son Greg's car,



decked out with the famous red 5, at a blistering pace. Free tickets and free parking made motor sport extremely affordable for the estimated 130,000 who attended both days.

Looking back at my previous post, it brings it home to me the difference in hunger for success that Mansell displayed in his day and that shown by some sports personalities today. 15 years in Formula 1 and 31 victories marks him as our most successful driver ever. Shouldn't there be a role for him somewhere in our preparation for London 2012? Simply passing on advice on how to want to win may be a good start!


nick

Second is first loser!

Many years ago, 1973 to be exact, I attended the Wimbledon tennis final day. With a pal from school, we slept out on the street in sleeping bags to queue for the public ticket allocation. At about 7am, a bobby gave out numbered tickets so you could get some breakfast and a wash and return to your point in the line. There was probably less interest that year as there was a professional players boycott in the men's tournament. Heavy rain had postponed the women's final on the Friday and so we were treated to Billie Jean King's demolition of a very young Chris Evert and then saw Jan Kodes defeat Alex Metrivelli.

How times have changed and my sporting taste too. I wouldn't sit on the Centre Court today for love or money. I find it strange that after waiting so long for a British man to contest the final, the home crowd can be so gushing towards his opponent. Every aspect of a Wimbledon crowd's behaviour is exactly what I hate about British sport. If foreign players don't feel intimidated they've stepped into the lion's den, what's the point in having the tournament here in the UK?

During last year's Olympics, our eldest daughter was living in Australia. She noticed how the Aussie television stations would report that an Aussie swimmer had won a silver in the pool, but then completely ignore who won the gold or bronze. The Australian public simply weren't interested in who else was competing. Yet most of us with an interest in sport admire the Aussie will to win and their successes in relation to such a small population. We started to get the feeling of being the best from our magnificent Olympic cyclists. Winning is a whole lot better than losing, in fact winning is everything. Perhaps the LTA could print that on next year's Centre Court tickets?


nick