Spain win Euro 2008

Spain beat Germany last night to take the Henri Delaunay trophy as they were crowned winners of the European Championships. Liverpool striker Fernando Torres scorred in the 33rd minute beating the German keeper Jens Lehmann. It was only the second time in the history of the tournament that the winning team won every match in the group stage; the other team to do so was France in 1984.

Coach Luis Aragones who has stepped down from his position prased Torres’ speed:

“Fernando is a great player for Liverpool and for our team and he can go anywhere because he has really extraordinary speed and he knows how to dribble,”

It was Torres’ speed which allowed him to take the lead for Spain who, despite lots more chances only scorred once.  Germanys only shot on target was saved by Casillas. Spain had 6 shots on target in one of the most one-sided Euro Finals in recent times.

Wimbledon Information

You can’t failed to have noticed that yesterday was the start of The Wimbledon Tennis Championships. It’s that time of year when we all think about buying a racket and venturing out to find a court. It’s also the time of year when we start debating Tim Henman’s chances of winning (I would say slightly less than usual this year).

Ana Ivanovic relaxes before Wimbledon.

Here is some interesting facts about Wimbledon as well as some information about who will be playing.

• 28,000 kilos of English strawberries and 7,000 litres of dairy cream will be consumed this year. Even more if Johnny Vegas turns up again (who writes this crap?).

• Four teams of six ball boys and girls are selected to be responsible for Centre and No.1 Tennis Courts. They are selected from local schools and have to undergo hours of training.

• The Wimbledon Mens singles championships have been won by the United States 33 times , the British Isles 32 times,  Australia 21 times and  France 7 times.

• The dress code for Wimbledon requires players to wear “almost entirely white” clothing during matches.

• The first Wimbledon Championships took place in 1877 as an amateur competition.  There were 22 competitors and the championship was won by Spencer Gore. Several hundred spectators turned up.

• Ana Ivanovic is the top seeded female player this year. Five-time champion Roger Federer is seeded number 1 for the men.

Some useful Wimbledon related links:

You can watch tennis matches online on the official Wimbledon Video Site.

See who is playing who here.

Find out more about the Championships on this Wikipedia page.

The history of tennis can be found here.

Up to the minute news on the tournament can be found on the BBCs Wimbledon site.

List of Wimbledon Men’s singles champions:

How to watch the NBA in the UK and online.

Watch NBA basketball in the UK and online.

Want to watch the NBA play-off’s from the UK? Well it is possible, here’s how. You can watch it on terrestrial tv, if you are willing to stay up late or set the dvd recorder, here:

Channel 5 (terrestrial and Digital):

NBA LIVE 01:00 - 03:30 AM Wednesday mornings.

Or if you have a freeview box you can also watch a show called NBA 360 on Five US (freeview digital):

NBA 360 19:00 - 20:00 PM Tuesday evenings.

Another option is to watch clips on the internet at broadband.nba.com (requires hi speed connection and Windows Media Player).

Other clips can be found on the NBA’s youtube channel.

Driving Offroad

I’ve never driven a car off-road. Unless you count the time I skidded onto a verge in the rain. My car had already cut out 5 times on that journey alone (due to the rain and an undiagnosed problem that has since vanished). I was trying not to change gear as this this involved taking my foot of the accelerator, which meant the engine would cut out. That’s my excuse anyway and I’m sticking to it. Either way my car didn’t cope to well off-road probably due to the fact that it’s an old Vauxhall Nova not a nice new Landrover.

This looks like a lot of fun. Its nice to see these 4×4s in action, in their element. It must be handy to know that you will be ok if you run into a frozen mud-pit. Its probably not going to happen on the way to Tesco’s but you never know ; )

More information about off-road driving can be found at Land Rover Owner.