I wrote a couple of posts for yesterday, but decided not to use either of them. After that I pottered about on the internet and forgot to post anything at all. Today I haven’t done much either. It’s 1.30am and I am only just sitting down to do some blogging work.
Last night I had a poem accepted for Cattails. I didn’t get round to submitting anything for the last issue so even though I was struggling last month I made an effort to submit some haibun and some tanka prose. I have had a haibun accepted. It needs a different title, which I’m struggling with, but apart from that it’s all good. This means I’ve had two acceptances from three submissions, which is good.
10p – B is for Bond
On that subject, I’ve just had one published in drifting sands haibun. I’m on page 42, with The Thoughtful Pig.
I’ve been wandering around the internet searching fro inspiration and notice that Nigeria entered the track cycling for the first time at the Olympics. It was a last minute thing, as places suddenly became available, and they had no suitable track cycles. The Germans lent them one for the race, which was kind of them, and a throwback to the South Africans and Eric the Eel. It’s good to see, amongst all the politics, technology and money, there is still time for a heart-warming story.
The backdrop of Paris has made this a memorable Olympics, though the lack of VAR in the clay shooting, the gender confusion in women’s boxing and the pollution in the Seine have all detracted from the event.
10p – P is for postbox
As for the results and our place in the medal table, it’s been a bit disappointing as we have constantly come out on the wrong side of narrow margins and haven’t quite performed as the pre-games hype suggested. We did, however, have a 51-year-old skateboarder. At the time I thought he sounded a bit American. It turns out that he lives in America, was born in America, but has an English dad. However, nationality and athletes is a complicated subject and I don’t have the time or the enthusiasm to go into it now. It was good to see someone doing it for the enjoyment and he was quite clearly enjoying himself.
10p – F is for Fish and Chips
There is no law that says that you have to pay attention to the commentators, experts or interviewers. I thought that an exceptional number of competitors seemed to be having fun this year as well as trying to win medals.
There’s no law says you have to listen to a dripping tap either, but I can’t help myself. 🙂 It’s difficult to tell sometimes. This year’s fashion seems to be telling people they are proud of themselves – I always distrust people who say they are proud, and ones who tell you they are passionate about things. You can see the passionate ones, you don’t need telling. All in all I enjoyed most of the Olympics. Now let’s see what happens at the Paralympics . . .
It is the ones who say that it shows what determination and a dream can do that bug me. All the ones who came second or worse also had great determination and fabulous dreams.
Agreed. Even to compete at the Olympics has taken determination and hard work
To say the least.
Congratulations on the acceptances, Simon! Many more to come. That is a very interesting haibun you wrote for Drifting Sands. You are on page 41, not 42, at least how it comes up for me.
The 51 year old skateboarder Andy Macdonald has an interesting story all his own. Thank you for that link!
Sorry, I’ll double check that. I was fortunate that Julia found the haibun funny.
🙂
Congrats on the acceptances. A 51-year-old skateboarding? I’m impressed, that’s for sure.
I have to sit down to put my socks on, so I too was impressed by his abilities. 🙂
Same!
🙂
I liked the haibun (No, WP, I don’t like halibut). It is such a shame that the Olympics is now all about medals – and you are a failure if you don’t get one. A bit like Henman at Wimbledon
I don’t follow tennis much, but was amazed at how successful Henman actually was when he retired. The press can be unreliable and unbalanced about such about such things.