Good news and bad news. So I've been coming up with all these good blog ideas, but haven't really been around the computer and so have been failing at updating. My apologies.
One day last week. Let's call it Thursday. There was a show on tv about immigrants in the UK. My 'boring' radar went off initially before it dawned on my a considerable time later that I was classified as an immigrant myself. While the show did deal with a what in this country is thought of the burdensome immigrants - those that come as asylum seekers who end up living in government housing, they did take the time to highlight the benefits of certain immigrant groups as well. They mentioned the 'invisible' immigrants (aka, those that people don't really think of), being Americans, Canadians, South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders.
Within this group, they chose Americans to discuss in more detail. There are 183,000 Americans living in Britain, making us the 8th largest immigrant group. They (as I don't earn nearly this much) earn on average 36,000 pounds a year and pay twice as much average tax as UK citizens. This is pretty good. Needless to say, we were used as a shining example of the benefits that immigrants bring. Yay America! We represent.
In sporting news, it's been a big weekend in the rugby world cup. It's the quarter-finals, and yesterday England was playing Australia. Four years ago, when England was theoretically better than now, they barely got past Australia in the final to win. Yesterday they were expected to get their, excuse my French, asses handed to them on a plate by the Aussies. I watched the game at 'the fest', the German bar about 50 feet from my front door. It was remarkably full of Aussies. Anyways, in an utter, utter nail-biter, England managed to pull out a 12-10 victory. It was a big victory. The game deciding who England would play in the semi-final was in the evening time. It was New Zealand-France and New Zealand was supposed to win quite easily. But alas, in further giant upset news, France managed to win. This is especially good news for England as they theoretically have a better chance of beating France in a semi-final than New Zealand. The game is next Saturday, so I'll have to keep you all posted on what goes on.
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5 comments:
i enjoyed watching the rugby with margo in the fest with our steins of Munich’s best beer! was made even better by the fact the bar was full of aussies! in a controversial call im predicting an england argentina final (no bias at all!)
Kathy could you please pass on my condolences to your kiwi colleague for me (little bit of banter cant hurt!)
I'm sure I'll be hearing a lot of muttering from Bernie with the words rugby, bloody, hell, bugger, etc., tossed in . Thankfully I won't be able to understand the worst of it!
Good show, England!!! By the way, do you folks name your teams and have team mascots?
er yeah at club level we do...for instance leicester rfc (rugby football club) are the Leicester tigers and their mascot is a tiger. same with football like derby county are the rams (mascot a ram). They also have songs/chants etc. international rugby is somewhat similar france are called les bleues, new Zealand are the all blacks, south Africa the springboks, Australia the wallabies. England’s symbol is a rose (normally English sport is represented by 3 lions which comes from the historical background)
The kiwi was sober and philosophical. He admitted that there was a bad call in the New Zealand/France game, but, being a ref, he wasn’t too hard on the guy. He’s dismayed that the press is calling the “down unders” a bunch of frauds, though. Just wait, he said!!
Now about that team name/mascot/logo thing. It just doesn’t translate. The kiwi suggested that the team mascot for England is really the queen. I have to admit that someone dressed as a larger-than-life queen on the sidelines cheering on the team would be fiercer than someone dressed as a rose, which, though very sweet, isn’t very fierce, unless one added thorns. And the face of a frowning queen (maybe like Gert Boyle, who headed Columbia Sportswear, looks on the cover of her book "One Tough Mother" on amazon) would be a tougher looking logo than the rose (which is very pretty, by the way). An announcer saying something like “the rose have intercepted the ball and are headed down field…” again, not tough. But “the queens have intercepted the ball…” wouldn’t do, either, I suppose. Perhaps England should promote the lion thing a bit more to represent their rugby team. Oh, I bet I’m in trouble now!!
the colours for the tigers are mainly green! there were some people dressed up as the queen at the game who did her funny wave thing which i found amusing! the rose for england is really just the symbol on the shirt rather than the nickname. i supose rather boringly there just called england - but the people down under call us the poms and the french les roast beef! we call them things too but i guess u guys call them similar things.
tell bernie i totally agree the referee was awefull and the second french try was a definate forward pass!
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