Cardiff/Caerdydd

On Friday I will be crossing over a border into a place where they write the road signs twice. Not Cornwall, whose road signs are soon to become bilingual.

But Cardiff. Capital of Wales. And quite possibly one of my favourite places.

I was last there in May, for a rugby match with my friend. And once again I’m going there for the rugby, this time Wales vs Argentina (and Wales v Australia the week after).

I love Cardiff because it’s so compact. It takes you about 10 minutes to get from Cardiff Central Train Station to the Millennium Stadium, and then another 15 minutes to get you to the SWALEC Stadium by going through the park with the bouncy bridge (in joke, we were rather drunk when we realised this).

It’s also quite cheap. From the tour of the Millennium Stadium – well worth going on, to entry into the Doctor Who exhibition at Cardiff Bay – so much better than the travelling Dr Who exhibitions that you get, and of course the price of cider, you do get a lot for your money.

And the views from the top of the castle and the top of the Millennium Stadium are well worth those admission prices alone!

But having done Cardiff once, and doing it again this weekend, what else is there to do?

What hidden gems are there that I have yet to find out?

When is something not new?

I recently won a pair of tickets to see Saracens play South Africa at Wembley Stadium. My second thought after “Woo hoo I’m going to the rugby” was “Woo hoo I’m going to the New Wembley”.

Now the “new” Wembley has been open for 2 years now, is it still classed as new then in building terms? I mean is a tree still “new” at 50 years because that’s relatively young in tree years?

I remember when the local radio station BRMB went through a big change and the display in the car was “New BRMB” and it stuck around for ages until one day it just went, it stopped being new. Who decided that?

Should there be a length on how long something is “new” for? Should it differ depending on the average life of these things, such as buildings and trees.

England Injured XV

I’ve loved coming up with XVs (15s to those who don’t know their Roman Numerals) ever since I became rugby obsessed. I’d sit at my Grandad’s with his copy of the Guardian Sport whenever the England squad was announced for the Autumn Internationals/Five or Six Nations/Summer Tour and debate the inclusion of someone like Richard Hill over Joe Worsley (Richard Hill always won, how could you drop him?). I even wrote a piece of coursework on the starting test XV for the 2005 Lions squad and got most of them right.

So with England’s injury list ever growing, you can probably get an XV out of it. If anyone can fill in the blanks then add the names to the comments.

Here’s my go:

1. Andrew Sheridan (Sale Sharks)
2. Lee Mears (Bath)
3. Julian White (Leicester Tigers)
4. Simon Shaw (Wasps)
5.
6.
7. Tom Rees (Wasps)
8. Nick Easter (Harlequins)

9. Harry Ellis (Leicester Tigers)
10. Danny Cipriani (Wasps)
11.
12. Toby Flood (Leicester Tigers)
13. Riki Flutey (Brive)
14.
15. Delon Armitage (London Irish)

The ones that didn’t make my XV but are still injured: Phil Vickery (Wasps) and Olly Morgan (Gloucester)

That sweet smell of success

David Campese scored 64 for his country
Rory Underwood scored 49

And I have now scored ONE try in my rugby playing career.

I wasn’t going to post about this, I was going to post about Jonny Wilkinson being England’s saviour again, and then come up with an England injured XV but maybe next time. It’s my blog so I’ll do what I like.

I haven’t been playing rugby for very long, I’ve always watched it as a kid – coming from a place like Moseley with a rugby obsessed father and grandfather you’re bound to, but I only took up playing when I was 18. Having watched my brother, a scrum half, play from the ages of 6-18, I thought that I would have a good go.

I started off as a back row forward (shirt numbers 6-8) but moved to the front row (1-3) at the start of the 2008 season with my university side as we didn’t have enough players to form a back row, so I took on the number 3 jersey, the one of the tighthead prop. I’m not fast enough to be in the back row anyway.

It was there that I discovered my love for scrummaging, we didn’t have contested scrums today so am yet to take part in one of those this season. It’s just a completely different world in the heart of the scrum, new things to learn, different things to do from my time on the flanks. Instead of focussing on what’s going on with the backs and getting ready to break it’s just war with the second rows as the tanks.

I now watch rugby paying more attention to detail with what the props are doing. The likes of Julian White, Martin Castrogiovanni, Andrew Sheridan and South Africa’s Tendai Mtawarira aka The Beast are my icons of choice at the moment, but if anybody has any other suggestions of who I should pay more attention to then comment away.

Needless to say, I would never move to the back row again. The front row is just so much fun, even if my dad and brother say that I’m mad for liking it!

So my moment of glory with all the journalistic spin put on it possible: It was half way through the second half, our winger Ami went on a run, I thought “Oh she’s going to score” so I held back a little but she didn’t and she needed support. I managed to get my hands on the ball coming down the line and there was a gap. So I took that gap, handed off one of their players, which knocked her over, and ran the 10 yards to the posts where I put the ball down to score my FIRST EVER try.

It’s one I’m not going to forget for a long time. I’m just determined now to get out of the one try club.

My uni won by the way, 27-22.

Debutant

Seeing as this blog is starting one day ahead of another one, I feel that I should mention it on here in my first post.

I first found out about Seven Reasons when it appeared in my followers list on Twittera few days ago and I had no idea what it was on about.

Then I saw the light in my friend Jon’s post on the same topic: Evidence Item A, where he explained that they’re going to be giving 7 reasons for different random things each day.

I like this idea. It sounds fun and quite interesting, and I will be reading it. Especially if they go on about 7 reasons about something to do with gingers because it would be fun to see what Jon puts for that

Just like I hope you’ll read this blog, which I plan on making quite interesting and also quite fun.