The Koetsy Capers

On Thursday, we spent a few hours in the morning at Camden Market – the girls seemed to have a good time, as one would expect when they are let loose in a shopper’s paradise. This place is a bit like Victoria Market in Melbourne, except that the bit that we were in was spread along both sides of a street. There was a lot more that we didn’t see – it seemed very large.

I took the plunge and purchased a mens shoulder bag – yes, a man bag. Eily assured me that the gays would now find me uber attractive now that I had accessories! Two out of three blokes has one of these over here – they were very noticeable on our last trip. Those that didn’t usually had a backpack – those without a bag at all were very, very few.

The bag is large enough to carry items such as a bottle of water, camera, sunglasses, mobile phone, reading glasses and still has room for a little more. The train tickets sit in a little compartment that seem designed for that very purpose and it has quite a few little compartments with zips on it. I can tell you that it is a lot more comfortable with the bag over your shoulder than trying to fish all these things out of your jeans pockets, let alone jam them in those same pockets.

During the afternoon, we met Murray at the “Nearest & Dearest Lounge” This place is provided by the Great Britain Paralympic organisation for a place for the athletes to meet up with their families. It should be remembered that the athletes and their support staff live in the Olympic Village and families do not have access to that place, so consequently a family may not see their son/daughter, brother/sister, mother/father, aunt/uncle or any other relation or close friends for the duration of the Games. Access to the Lounge is very tightly controlled and the athlete has to nominate who will visit her/him on specified days. Murray was extremely annoyed because he only had one day that he could invite family and friends whilst the basketballers had the opportunity to have visitors on every day of the games. It does seem rather odd when they share the same living facilities and have exactly the same restrictions – none of us could understand why the coaching staff was treated like this. The lounge was on the 10^th floor of a building adjacent to the Olympic site with spectacular views. Once inside the lounge, you were able to help yourself to tea, coffee, juice, soft drink and a large variety of finger foods as well as items such as chocolate bars whilst one sat down and took in the view and chatted with their group. It certainly gave us the opportunity to catch up with Murray in a much quieter environment than the ones we have had to cope with since we arrived here.

After our time in the Lounge we proceeded to the basketball where we did experience the highs and lows of sport. Firstly, we watched Australia proceed to the gold medal game by comfortably accounting for the USA 72 – 63. They never looked like losing.

Then the disappointment – GB lost to Canada 52 – 69 after matching them for the first 2 and ½ quarters. Canada won quite convincingly in the end, but unfortunately seemed to have the assistance of one of the three referees – he gave foul after foul against GB but didn’t award them any – the other two did and the poor refereeing really marred the game. The GB crowd certainly booed him on a number of occasions and I would have thought that he needed an escort to leave the stadium. I hope he doesn’t officiate in the bronze medal match that GB now has against the USA. Murray was very unhappy with him. I don’t think GB would have beaten the Canadians – they were sinking baskets whilst the GB team just couldn’t seem to do it, but the Canadians were certainly helped by a very lopsided free throw count by the courtesy of that ref.

This means that on Saturday night UK time, we will be watching Australia compete for gold and GB for bronze. It will give us plenty to shout about.....