Cadet Winton 2009

This is probably of interest only to the fencers amongst you, but I've posted some pictures of my West Midlands team in action. They aren't very good, to be honest: the lighting was awful and I'm not yet quite skilled enough with my (rather good) camera to get good sporting shots.

West Midlands came 4th, and my Women's Epée team won their event 9-0, which obviously was brilliant. Here's the full team (minus one fencer who went home early, ill) and the Women's Epée team with their medals.

Kids today, eh?

A while back I read some sour comment in the Guardian by a vicar, of all people, whinging about children all being violent delinquents and it pissed me off at the time. This weekend I was refereeing and chaperoning at the Junior Winton Cup, an inter-regions fencing competition. There were 200+ kids from all sorts of places and backgrounds, and nobody was stabbed (except on piste under controlled conditions) or robbed or anything untoward. Nobody got drunk, lost or pregnant (I think) and all the teams mixed well, whatever the rivalries in the hall. Most people are like this, and those who aren't can become so. But I suppose this isn't the stuff of headlines in the bloody Daily Mail.