WINTER SPORTS: The Winter Olympics just get better and better. Last week I decided Snowboard Cross was my new favourite sport. But this week there’s been one even better - Ski Cross.
It is just carnage. I don’t think I saw a single race where all four competitors finished. I suppose huge congratulations must go to the UK’s first single gold medalist since 1066 - but you have to wonder what prompts a seemingly rational and normal human being to take up a sport that basically involves lying on a baking tray and throwing yourself down a track at around 100 miles per hour just to prove you can do it quicker than anyone else.
Another sport that has left me a little baffled is curling. I just don’t get it, don’t see how anyone could want to play it, watch it, or be in any way involved in it. It’s really just bowls on ice.
They could go the whole hog and just introduce regular sports but on ice. No-one can tell me they wouldn’t watch basketball on ice. Tennis on ice would make a great spectator sport, even if the competitors did end most games a little on the bruised side.
I have been enjoying the ice hockey - which is in truth just hockey on ice! - but have one simple suggestion for the organisers of the sport - make the puck illuminous pink so that television viewers can actually see the damn thing.
CURRY: In Llanymynech there’s a new Indian takeaway opening. It’s in an old toilet block and it’s going to be called the Curry Hut. Surely they’ve missed a trick. Vindaloo...
Not Vindaloo, how about Delhi Belly?
OTHER DRIVERS: First I’ll set the scene. I’m approaching some crossroads, about to turn left. There’s a Landrover on the other side of the crossroads. Possibly a Range Rover. Certainly almost brand new. And certainly driven by an absolute idiot.
Anyhow, I’m turning left. Because they are slightly awkward crossroads, I paused to see what the Landrover was doing. Then seeing a gap in the traffic I turned left, and headed on my merry way south.
Suddenly I was aware of the Landrover, almost about to cut me up. He stopped, thankfully, and I carried out. But then he spent the next few miles gesticulating wildly, before screaming past at the first opportunity, still shouting out the window about how he was there first and it was his turn to go.
Two points. Firstly, technically, it was my right of way. And as I said, I actually did pause to see what he was doing.
Which brings me to point number two. Most cars these days are fitted with this crazy new invention, situated either to the left or the right of a steering wheel, called an indicator. For anyone unsure what this controversial invention does, the clue is in the title - it indicates to other drivers what your intentions are.
And this driver, seeing as he wasn’t using this new-fangled crazy adaptation to his car - I presume Range Rovers have them as well - was presumably going straight on. I have many skills but I’m afraid mind-reading isn’t one of them.
I seem to be seeing more and more people who just don’t bother to use them. If you’re intending to turn right it’s kind of vital.
So, anyhow, if the driver happens to be reading this, perhaps it might give you food for thought. There’s lots of bits and pieces around your steering wheel, perhaps you should learn what they all do at some point soon?