There was a busy crowd. I used the gents, washed my hands and thanked another patron for wandering out of the way. Wearing bright orange, he recognised my accent as European and we got chatting, as you do. (Especially you, ladies.) A little later, he asked me whereabouts in Britain I was from, and I replied Middlesbrough; another patron who had recently entered said "No way, I'm only from Stockton-on-Tees" - just six miles away. Meg and I eventually got talking to this other gentleman and his wife originally from Alabama. It's not on the cards in the foreseeable future, but we could move to Atlanta if we wanted to now we know there's a Teesside expat community :-)
Other than that we have continued to eat, mostly barbecue brilliantly cooked by Meg and her folks, and went to Atlanta to see the Braves - Red Sox game, not least in part as a Father's Day present for
I have just been watching Championship Dominoes on ESPN 2, of all the things. It was very strange and is not something I would look for, unlike TV poker or TV Scrabble. I didn't end up really appreciating why a play was particularly good or particularly bad, which is a problem. Perhaps, like backgammon, it's just played too quickly to be able to commentate on move-by-move? In any case, it reminded me more of bridge than I expected it might; both are partnership games where being able to communicate your hand to your partner is crucial, but heavily restricted. The dominoes tournament purportedly banned all coded communication gestures, but I have a suspicion that coded communication gestures are officially banned but practically prevalent in British tournaments. Who knows? Either way, it led me to think about all sorts of sight-screens, bidding boxes and other bridge communication-prevention paraphernalia and their possible adoption in dominoes.
England v. Sweden tomorrow. Why is everyone being so negative about Peter Crouch and Paul Robinson who are legitimately doing the business at the moment? Admittedly Crouch's goal should have been disallowed for a hair-pulling foul, but he looks like our most likely scorer by far. That said, I would start Rooney and Owen tomorrow, who need match-fitness desperately. There's always the possibility that they might get injured, but (though they need not to lose and have things go against them) Sweden won't be going all-out.