Happy Childhood Award

This Chinese soccer player is going to have a lovely time in Australia.

Yet Another Random Post

Having become obsessed with swimming in the past month or so, I have taken to looking up snips of Olympic swims on YouTube. One really famous swim was the men's 4*100 freestyle relay at the 2008 Olympics, where, after talking gobloads of smack, Alain Bernard had his garlic scented backside handed to him by the Americans.

The point being, Jason Lezak (the guy who overtook Bernard and got the US the gold) swam his 100m in 46.06 seconds. The world record (according to Wikipedia) is 46.91 seconds. How is Lezak not the record holder !?!

A Band I'd Love To See Live

When I was about 12, I had a VHS tape (yes, I am ancient) of an old "Tom Brown's Schooldays" film. It featured part of the song Molly Malone (that some boys were singing in the common room). It was only a part of it and it hadn't anything to do with the story, but I remember thinking it was absolutely lovely. This was back in the day before the Internet and YouTube, so following up on it was very difficult (Indian/Saudi Arabian interest in Irish music was never very high). And so the song drifted from my mind.

And then, yesterday, I came across this.

The movie featured singers who sounded like choirboys (and probably were), and they sounded good enough, but this man's voice really seems to hit the spot. The gruffness of age lends an added element of nostalgia and "what might have been" to the song that really touches you.