North And South

What a shocker! Defending champions and this tournament’s underdog England beat the Wallabies on Saturday in their Rugby World Cup quarter-final meet. No tries and hence no conversion for England but four penalties finely taken by Wilkinson. This is the very same team that earlier scored nil and lost badly to the Springboks. And hours later, the host country and also another underdog, Les Blues overcame their earlier (defeat) blues to stun all-time favourites All Blacks - mind you, at one point, the All Blacks were leading 13-0. I was right about the All Blacks but wrong about the Wallabies. So both the neighbouring northern hemisphere countries respectively beat the two neighbouring southern hemisphere countries to set a semi-final meet next Saturday. Hmm, sorry host country, I’ll be supporting England.

The two other quarter-final matches resulted in the Springboks setting up a semi-final meet with another southern hemisphere country, Argentina. So the final encounter will definitely be between a northern and a southern hemisphere country.

Lewis Hamilton suffered his first retirement of the season in Shanghai. So the race for the driver’s title is still on literally. Let’s see if he’ll be luckier in the southern hemisphere country Brazil which is the last Grand Prix host for this year.

Arsenal fired a few blank shots much to my frustration last night but finally sunk Sunderland. I think Sunderland played pretty well though. So the north London club is back roaring at the top of the league while the visitor from the north, Sunderland, is err... at the south of the league.

And another piece of news that I just heard this morning: my uncle who is well into his 70s will be remarrying a week after Eid, barely a year after my aunt passed away. My cousin has been taking care of them since before my aunt passed away so he’s definitely being taken care of. Anyway, I won’t be joining any group heading south for the wedding.