The Life and Times of Neil

Well firstly, first blog in a while! About 4 months ago I moved overseas to start a new job and haven’t really had the time to blog so far. Am not going to say exactly where I am, only that it’s in the Middle Eastern region.

Anyway, now I’m getting a little more settled in am starting to look for other activities to get involved in; but it seems one of the most common ones out here is golf. Only problem is, most of this area is desert. Yes, some grass courses do exist, but my experience today was on one of the desert courses.

Now I have played golf on and off when I was younger. I used to play fairly often about 15 years ago. I also managed a round last year also on the desert course on a visit to the region before I ended up working here. It’s an interesting experience with its own unique challenges!

The main thing out here is the heat. On a golf course, you’ve very little opportunity to get into any sort of shade. Temperatures in the shade at the nearest known monitoring station were pushing the low 40s (degC), so I dread to think what it was out in the sun. Thankfully, the desert course is now very quiet since they opened the grass course next to it, so when you do come across shade you are able to have a sit down for a little while without holding people up or getting out of turn. It’s also an advantage given I’m unlikely to give Tiger Woods et al. a run for their money any time soon. The heat also means you need lots of water. Sadly, because the desert course is played by so few people it is becoming neglected and I am told there is rarely any water available. However, we were in luck today as there was a butt of water sat in a shaded position at the 5th tee. It even had water in it!

One thing that probably crosses the mind when talking about desert golf is “Well isn’t it just like playing in one huge bunker?” Thankfully not… The desert around here is more hard baked earth with a fine coating of dust, so you’re playing off a fairly hard surface. Of course, this does pose another problem – how do you play without wrecking your clubs. The fairly simple solution is that you carry a piece of astroturf around with you. You get to your ball, lift it, place the astroturf under it, the put your ball back down to play your shot. (The tee shots are taken off a fixed mat using rubber tees.)

So then we move on to the hazards. Bunkers do exist, usually marked with black/blue posts. The also look like bunkers from a distance, but when you get close up you realise a lot of them no longer contain sand. However, if you land in one, you have to take the shot without the use of your mat and just hope there is sand in there, or try not to ground your club too hard. There are even water hazards on the course! Of course, there is no water in them, but one is an open-topped tank that is sunk into the ground and the others are just ditches across the fairway; all of which are also marked with posts so you know where they are. Despite the fact there’s no water in them, you still have to treat them as if they do and so landing in one incurs the standard penalty and dropped ball.

Finally, you (eventually) get to the green; or rather the brown! Keeping in with the desert theme, instead of a lush carpet of green grass to put on you instead contend with an area of sand, compacted and mixed with oil. This has some interesting side effects. Firstly, the browns tend to be quite slow which means you need a fair bit of power in your putt, especially when putting uphill. Secondly, you end up with a nice trail showing where your ball travelled. This has an added benefit that if your opponent asks you to move your ball you don’t need a marker. All you do is tap your ball a short distance in a different direction and you end up with a nice V, the point of which is where your ball was laid. Finally, because every footstep leaves a mark on the brown once you have finished you are required to “sweep the brown”. This involves taking the 1m wide brush from the side of the brown and dragging it behind you, sweeping a circle centred on the hole and doing enough circuits to brush an area 2-3m from the hole.

Sadly, I can’t give you a final score from today’s round… It was too hot for me to complete the full round. I daresay I’ll acclimatise eventually, or it will start to get cooler as we head towards winter (relative terms out here), and hopefully my game will improve such that my scores will look like I’ve only played 9 holes instead of 18!

Posted July 3, 2009 Comments(0)

Well, is it weird. I’m having trouble thinking of a decent title for this post…

They say you should never talk about sex, religion or politics. However, every now and then a story appears that you just can’t help but have a giggle at.

My attention was recently drawn to the BBC headline ‘No God’ slogans for city’s buses. The story itself sounds fairly straight-forward… We’ve all seen the religious advertising out and about, so a campaign group decided to attempt to raise money to put forward the atheist/agnostic point of view in a set of adverts on some of London’s infamous bendy-buses.

First point of interest is that the campaign only set out to raise £5,500 but actually managed to raise six-and-a-half times this amount. Was this a case of underestimating, or is it a sign that as a nation we are starting to tire of religious debate dogging our daily lives?

But the part that made me laugh was the response from Christian Voice:
“Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.

I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.

People don’t like being preached at. Sometimes it does them good, but they still don’t like it.”

So let’s take it a line at a time…

Why are bendy-buses a danger to the public at large? For that matter, why is atheism? Surely a free society is about letting people choose; and when did you last hear of atheists persecuting other religious orders?

Given the amount of public support that is suggested by the size of the donations, I’d be very surprised if these adverts attract graffiti. In fact, if we stereotype for a moment and say that the people most likely to graffiti these adverts are the “yoof” of today, I’d say Christian Voice adverts are more likely to fall victim given how organised religion is becoming less and less important to today’s young people. And anyway, so what if the ads attract graffiti… This is a risk of any advertising!

But it was the last line that actually made me laugh… That people don’t like to be preached at… I’m sorry, but how many time do you see Christian groups advertising on billboards? How many “nutters” (and I use that term in an affectionate way) do you see in town and city centres spouting on about how we need to turn to Christianity to save our souls? Now think how many times you’ve seen an advert or heard someone preaching about how there is no “supreme deity”… Still thinking on that last one, aren’t you?

At the end of the day, in the UK your religion is a personal choice. I, personally, am quite happy for you to believe what you want; just as long as you don’t force your ideals on me or judge me for my own beliefs. Yes, religious debate can get emotional, but the fact that we can have these debates and challenge each other is surely a good thing; just as long as we don’t then go around feeding each other to the lions!

I think Christian Voice have probably done themselves a certain amount of harm and opened themselves to a great deal of ridicule with their reaction as it implies they feel that only Christianity should be allowed and that any debate on the matter should not be allowed. Yes they say “Sometimes it does them good,” but isn’t that just like saying “I’m not a [sexist|racist|etc] BUT…”?

And just remember, this is a country where 0.7% of the population claim their religion is… “Jedi Knight”! [2001 Census Report]

Posted October 23, 2008 Comments(0)

*sighs*

As much as I’m sure I said I would never have one of these things, and that people who did have them were “sad”, etc. I have finally decided to enter the world of the blog!

Not really sure what I’ll ever come up with to write about, not how reliable I’ll be at updating it, but I guess there’s only one way to find out!

Anyway, tea-stop over, so back to work! Will try and get around to ranting later. CAMRA meeting tonight, so that could give me some ammo!

Posted February 19, 2008 Comments(0)