I guess I’m a bit of a fair weather patriot when it comes to sporting events. I actually watched (well, sort of, I was playing Gran turismo at the same time) the Rugby final, and have to admit, it was a nail biter. Yay for our boys!

Though I wouldn’t be even this interested if it had been football. The sports minister was on telly last week saying that we had lots of world class athletes, just not in sports the public is interested in. I take issue with this. I’d like to see more mountain biking, a sport we have a couple of world class downhillers in. Instead of Ski Sunday (or whatever it is nowadays) during the winter months we could have Downhill Sunday almost every week. Duals and BikerCross would make for good short attention span telly. It might have something to do with sponsorship. At the moment, the main people funding fun sports are Red Bull. Perhaps they’re not big or swish enough to get attention often.

Not so extreme, more of a long slog. I rode the Northern loop of the Bogle route yesterday. I felt better at the end of the 27 miles than I did after the first 2. Only got one picture, of the war memorial at Clifton, because I didn’t want to risk my muscles siezing up by stopping too often.

At least I’m not the only one confused by the start and end of Ramadan. It seems Eid starts today not, as I had thought, on Thursday (though I may still stay off the beer until Saturday). And yesterday I was told that the Sunni and Shia ramadans are different lengths. All too confusing, but at least I also found I wasn’t the only one off alcohol for the duration.