Monday, April 18, 2005
Seven-th Heaven
- - - - - hideously boring rant below - - - - -
In one case, a group of very innocuous-looking youths were at the north end of the gallery during a Scotland game, with one of them blowing on bagpipes, which we all know is an instrument associated with the Scots. Not 5 minutes later, 2 policemen descended on them, and after having a nice chat with that disembodied voice over their radios and deciding that the bagpipes were indeed weapons of mass destruction containing deadly sarin gas, they confiscated them. It wasnt't half an hour later, in the middle of an ENGLISH game, when 2 teenagers in full Scottish garb suddenly appeared in the VIP stands, playing "Scotland the Brave" on their bagpipes. The difference however, was that these 2 jokers were PAID for by the organisers to create that "carnival atmosphere" in the stadium. Absurd? You decide.
Our dear friends in blue also managed to keep that very Singaporean tradition of treating caucasians as higher beings. I've nothing against caucasians, to be sure, and I think they're generally fantastically friendly and well-mannered people, and a whole lot more fun to talk to than many Singaporeans. Anyway our dear coppers, while doing their utmost, I'm sure, to enforce this "law", went about stopping all smokers from smoking their cigarettes. That is, if they were chinese. They conveniently ignored (or as we refer to it here, had absolutely no balls and SO ignored) the caucasians who were smoking. Unfair? You decide.
And my last grouse would of course be with a certain samba band, paid for by the organisers once again (carnival atmosphere, remember?). The band had absolutely no idea when to play and when to just shut up. It was in the middle of one of the matches when they decided to just let fly and given that the acoustics of the grandstand are really pretty horrible, the echo made the music really, really loud. Not only was it disrespectful to the players, it made it near impossible to concentrate on watching the game. Credit be given to them, they did improve on their timing as the tournament wore on, but they still did pose a bit of an irritation at times.
- - - - - end of rant - - - - -
Anyway, it's not to say that the cops didn't provide any entertainment. The was one particularly memorable moment of hilarity with the coppers when one of the spectators threw a plastic jug onto the grass patch beside the track. 3 men in blue immediately converged upon the deadly weapon, and spent close to half and hour pointing and deliberating, trying to decide exactly which drunken ang-moh had committed the dastardly deed. In the end, of course, as all police-led investigations go, they couldn't figure out a thing, and just slunk away, deadly jug in hand.
The tournament was also made much more enjoyable by a group of British bankers behind us on the first day, who were absolutely the most outrageously raucous and funny bunch you'd find anywhere. With a whole bunch of English together, you can bet that jibes aimed at other nationalities would be inevitable. I think the Brits are really funny when they just spontaneously break out in song (and sometimes, dance), one of those occasionsbeing when France couldn't score against Thailand, which prompted one of them to start singing "Are you Scotland in disguise". Ah well, jokes are a lot funnier heard than read!
All in all it was a pretty good 2 days, and I must say, the babe quotient at the tournament was bloody fantastic. Also, watching England score against Scotland whilst having only 5 men on the field? Priceless. I'm all for the Singapore Sevens becoming as big as the HK sevens, but judging by this year's standards, it's still a long way off. Anyway here're some photos I took... Didn't take many though.
A true Rugby 7s legend, Eric Rush. Yeah those are RJ boys in the foreground, they had some schools rugby as a sideshow to the tournament.
The All-Blacks, larger than life, in their warmup.
The all-too-famous New Zealand Haka. The kiwis were truly awesome throughout the competition, and thoroughly deserved their victory.
All right, end of long boring post, you might have noticed I'm suddenly capitalising all my words properly. I don't know why I am either, I just am!
12:02 AM
