5 on the 5th - October

It's the fifth of the month, which means it's time for Stephen's 5 on the 5th. This month the theme was "Round" - here's my contribution:

Car Fridge-Freezer Red Nose

Decorative water feature. N.B. Water channel is continuous from  middle to left of picture it's not a maze.

Basketball Hoop

Gates of Bristol General Hospital

at Bristol's Planetarium

Andrew

Victory for Europe - and Monty.

We did it!

As I write this, I'm watching highlights of today's singles matches. Having only been able to follow play via occasional glimpses of the BBC's live text feed, I'm looking forward to seeing the winning putt (or missed putt, to be precise) and celebrating a tremendous achievement by Europe's golfers.

The Ryder Cup is one of the world's greatest sporting events. It is also unique in that the nations of Europe come together to compete with the might of the US.

Golf is an individual game and, many would argue, also in some regards elitist. While Matchplay is, perhaps, less easy to explain to the uninitiated than Strokeplay, the Ryder Cup manages to reach out to those who are normally indifferent.

This year's event was no different - although the elements forced play into a fourth day for the first time ever and therefore reduced the audience for the singles matches. For all the disruptions caused by the weather, though, the final day was played in glorious sunshine.

As an advert for golf, the top-class competition didn't disappoint, with the session coming down to the final match. In the end Graeme McDowell held his nerve to beat Hunter Mahan and Europe won by the smallest margin they could have won by: 14.5 to 13.5.  It was a truly thrilling contest. That said, it would have been good, from a partisan point of view, if it hadn't been such a nail-biter!

Of course, as well as the players on the fairways, a large part of success or failure is the strategy adopted by the Team Captain, who is responsible for picking the pairings and the order his players go out in. Like a chess player, he has to try and second-guess his opponent. This year Colin Montgomerie rose to the challenge and became a winning captain. His victory is being tagged "Monty's Major" and will no doubt go a long way to compensating for the lack of a Major win in his illustrious career.

So Europe has regained the Ryder Cup...and the show is over for another two years... in the meantime, let's savour the victory and look forward to retaining it in Chicago!

Andrew

While you're here, why not have a go at my quiz? I'm keeping entries open until Thursday, so you've only got a couple of days!

C'Mon Europe

It's Monday morning. It's 9.05am. Weather permitting, the Ryder Cup singles should be teeing off. Can Europe turn their 9.5 to 6.5 lead into a victory? I do hope so!

I could go on, and may well do so later, but for now I've just one message:

C'Mon Europe!

Andrew

Good Tradition

For some reason on Friday morning, I ended up with Tanita Tikaram's Good Tradition running round my head. So, in the spirit of sharing here it is, in a video from 1988:

And you can visit her website here.

Andrew

The oneexwidow BlogQuiz!

Welcome to an experimental posting - an attempt at an interactive quiz!

Here's how it's going to work: I've set my comments to require moderation, so people can answer in the comments section without seeing the previous responses. I'll accumulate answers over the weekend before publishing them and announcing a winner at the beginning of next week.

Now, I know that this is the internet and you can easily go and get the answers but I trust you, dear reader, not to cheat. I also know you'll be wondering what the prize will be - as if playing for pride alone is not enough!!

So here goes with my first quiz attempt. I've gone for 5 relatively simple questions and it's a topical sports quiz, themed round the imminent Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup...

1.  As well as the Commonwealth Games, athletes from England and which other 3 countries can also complete in the Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships?
2. What is the "nickname" of the Commonwealth Games?
3. Where will the next games, after Delhi, be held?
4. Why did the Ryder Cup not go ahead as planned in 2001?
5. When was the Ryder Cup first contested between Europe and America?

Good Luck!

Andrew