Doldrums ...

At every championships there are a couple of days when you wonder what on earth you are thinking of, being here and not at home, and why on earth do you do it ! Well, that's where we are now - it will probably pick up in a day or two, as the general excitement builds up towards the end of the competition, but at the moment, to be honest, all I want to do is get on a plane and come home! Not helped by the fact that I have toothache - not drastic but enough to be a bit of a worry ! Everyone is starting to look decidedly jaded though ... it isn't just me. It is a long and hard schedule. Many of us start before 8 in the morning and work till 8 in the evening without any days off, and the playing schedule is also heavy. I am sure we will all perk up in a day or two, it is funny how this tends to happen at every tournament though.

Anyway, the transnational teams are coming to register and pay now, which is giving us plenty to keep us occupied. There are the various committee meetings being held ready to report back to the final Executive Meeting next Thursday, so Carol is busy with sets of minutes etc. 

Tonight I am going out as a member of the Press (well I write blogs !!) to the International Bridge Press Association dinner - it is their 50th Anniversary as well, and so it should be quite fun I think. Anyway it will make a nice change from eating in this hotel ... I am told we are going to a South American Restaurant which seems bizarre here in Beijing so it will be interesting to see what it is like!

For those of you waiting for Sim Pairs to be finalised, I can only apologise for the delay, but doing it from China isn't so easy ! I will do it all as soon as I can I promise. I think holding the Olympics here must have worn out their internet connections, because ours is decidedly slow :-))

Time to go and do a bit more work before heading off for the dinner ... more soon ...

Another blue sky day ...

It looked glorious out of the windows this morning - brilliant blue skies after all the rain yesterday. Everyone is hoping it will be nice again tomorrow as it is a free day for the players and I know a lot have trips planned to places like the Great Wall.

For us it is the big Meeting - the WBF Meeting of Congress, attended by delegates from all the countries present, and followed by a cocktail. It takes a lot of organising and we are going to be running around from quite early in the morning I expect ! Carol has been photocopying agendas and papers all day, and we have all been working on making sure everyone knows about it.

As it is the 50th Anniversary of the WBF we will be showing some wonderful old photographs of the players as a slide show - you can see some of them by clicking here (you will need to download and install Silverlight) as Mark has done a special Deep Zoom application with them. We are running the slideshow on a computer here in the office, and it is fascinating to see the pictures!

After some initial problems of the computers not talking to each other properly and thus not displaying all the scores, this seems to have been sorted out finally, and that side of things is running smoothly. The noise levels in the corridors between sessions is rising as the players get more excited because of the tension ! You hear them coming with very animated discussions going on about who should have bid or played what differently :-) I am so glad I don't play any more !

The time differences are disconcerting  as Mark only comes on line in the afternoon local time, but it is early in England ... my daughter Vick and son in law Nick come on channel at about the same time and we all have a nice natter (Vick is a dance teacher and one of my favourite things is to see her and my granddaughter dancing ...) through MSN. Then come about mid day their time it is time for me to think about closing the lid and going off to get some food and a night's sleep! It seems very strange.

So - it is 6.30 pm now, and I am going to stop, do a little bit more work (having messed up an important import into the main database, I have had to delete all the records I imported and do it all again, so annoying and so very stupid). Once that is done I am going to stop for the day ..

more tomorrow ...

Monday Monday ....

It seemed a bit calmer today somehow, though the office was humming most of the day. The problems seem to be lessening a bit, and we are getting into the swing of things. Carol had meetings again, but only in the morning as in the afternoon they all went to the other Centre where the Youth Games are being played, so she was back in the office with us and the "witches coven" was complete again :-)

The sun shone in Beijing today - it was what they call one of their "blue sky days" which I gather are few and far between because of the pollution ... the rain yesterday settled it down and the sun today really shone. Shame I couldn't get out in it really as it looked beautiful. 

By the way, on the Beijing information page I have put various links to the results, vu-graph and other blogs, so do go and have a look at them - and if you are doing a blog from the Championships, send me the link and I will add it.

Last night I went to a fabulous Indian restaurant with some friends, mainly from the Bridge Press ... we all ate far too much but it was delicious. Quite a long taxi right to "downtown Beijing" but at least we could see something of the city by night and that was good. And we were lucky to find a taxi on the way back with a driver who actually knew where our hotel was - it was built for the Olympic Games and very few of them can find it !! We know people who have been in taxis for over an hour as they try to get here on a trip that should take about 10 minutes :-) 

So - now it is the end of a long day so I will once again call a halt ... more tomorrow !

Long and tiring day ...

So, it is Sunday - it has been raining most of the day though obviously that hasn't affected us. There seem to have been a lot of niggling problems today, that have really prevented us getting much real work done. The technical problem of no results being available on the web until last night was duly solved thank goodness, though there are still some glitches - getting different systems to "talk" to each other seems to be the problem!

The venue for the Youth Games  is quite a distance away, and that in itself causes problems with the shuttles and makes it difficult for people getting here ... the traffic is very heavy but we are told it will improve this week now that the Chinese holiday is over - it seems that the world wanted to visit the Olympic site during their holidays and it has been incredibly crowded and busy.

I assume the bridge is going well - the playing rooms are enormous as I know well, since I have to cross them to get to the area where we can get our lunch! It seems like miles.

I am sad to be here today, though because I am missing Mark's birthday - again! I was in Shanghai last year and this year it is Beijing. The good news is that next year, when we are in Sao Paolo, it is much earlier and I will be back in good time to celebrate with him ! So - HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mark!

The Executive Meetings started today, so Carol (Carol von Linstow, the WBF Secretary) was in the meetings all day "minuting" which Christine Francin (the Assistant Treasurer) and I dealt with the various things that came up during the day. 

So now I am quite tired. And I am off out of the hotel for a change, going with some members of the Press to an Indian Restaurant they have found and I am really looking forward to it. I hope I won't be too late to bed, as it will be an early start again tomorrow (07.30 in the office this morning - yuk! )