padawanbeck84

Also, well done Alexander Zverev on winning gold for Germany in the men's singles tennis. He's the first German man to win gold in tennis - Steffi Graf won the women's singles in the 1988 Olympics. When Andy Murray won gold at the 2012 Olympics, that seemed to give him the confidence to go on and start winning Grand Slam titles, so maybe the same will happen for Zverev?

I finally found a book that I've been trying to find for years! I collect the Dune series, and have all of them except the prequel Navigators of Dune and the 7th book in the main series, Hunters of Dune. A local independent, mostly second-hand bookshop posted last week that they had some Dune books in, although they were not the ones I was looking for. But I put a message on the post that I was looking for these two. This morning, the owner of the bookshop messaged me to say that they had Hunters in stock - so I went and collected it. It was the first time I'd been able to get

Agreed, it is lovely to see Tom Daley finally achieve that gold. Well done to him and his dive partner. It feels like the British team are finding their stride now, in a range of different events. Also, can we give a shout-out to the women's street skate-boarding medallists, who have just made history for the youngest trio of medal winners? Gold and bronze went to Japan with a 13 year old and 16 year old, and the silver medallist from Brazil is also only 13. Amazing to be achieving Olympic medals at such young ages. And I haven't even mentioned Sky Brown yet, who'll be competi

It will be interesting to see what the opening ceremony looks like. Team GB have said that only around 30 of their team are likely to attend the athletes parade, due to concerns both about the competition schedule and Covid/the wisdom of crowding into a stadium with who-knows-how-many other athletes. It could be a much smaller parade than we're used to seeing, which is both understandable and a shame, as the parade is usually one of my favourite parts of the ceremony. I believe the emperor of Japan will still be attending, so that will at least make the ceremony feel suitably prestigious,

I wasn't able to get to a record shop at the weekend to try and find it, but I've discovered this morning that the Foo Fighters/Dee Gees album "Hail Satin" is available on streaming services And it's very good. I shall keep looking when I'm able to get out to record shops and see if I can eventually pick it up somewhere, but at least I can still dance around to it at home

46, 670 - Boiled counting. Me and heatwaves do *not* go together

My good thing for today is that our internet is back on - it was off for 2 days. Not sure why, but it was sorted out earlier this evening, so I can catch up now

I painted most of the bathroom today - and only made a *little* bit of a mess I still have a bit to do around the window, where I've had to stand on the toilet to reach one section and will need to stand on a chair to reach the other half. There's also the tricky corner down beside the toilet where I have to paint around pipes and there's not much space. But we got it painted last time, so I know it can be done somehow. Also, although it takes longer, painting with the brushes is very therapeutic. The paint dries to a nice dark green colour. It looked lighter on the tin and I was

I bought the Inhaler album at lunchtime More importantly, I stopped a small child from potentially getting run over As I got off the bus in the town centre, there was a lady waiting to cross the road with a 3-4 year old child. The road is a busy one, and there's a pathway in the middle so you only have to cross one lane at a time. I crossed to the middle, with the lady and her daughter (or possibly granddaughter) behind me. I stopped, but the little girl didn't. She kept on walking, and I had to put my arm out to stop her from walking into the road. I pointed out to her that there

I don't want to give attention to the racist morons who've been sending horrible words to our players. But I would like to highlight how the community in Manchester have responded to the defacing of a mural of Marcus Rashford. Not only was the abusive graffiti covered up as soon as it was found, but through the day, local people have been covering the covering fabric with hearts, England flags and supportive messages for Rashford and his team-mates. Which says a lot. Whoever put the graffiti there snuck along in the dark, but in the day-time, lots of people have been showing that they wil

England and penalties just don't go together Gareth Southgate has been through it himself and knows exactly how Saka (and Rashford and Sancho) will be feeling, so hopefully he'll be able to help them cope with it. Credit to Italy, they had a great tournament overall and are worthy winners. Although I was *not* happy with Chiellini's foul on Saka - that could have been a red card. But overall, they were the better team. Although England can be confident looking forward to the World Cup next year. We've done well, had a good run and hopefully that bodes well for the future.

46, 689 - Euro 2020/21 finals day counting! And now I need to get on with counting the words in my latest short story. I have a word goal to meet and it must be done by 7pm.

In terms of Wimbledon, it would be amazing if Berrettini could upset Djokovic, but realistically I can't see it happening. Which then brings us to the mind-boggling stat that, assuming he does win today, Novak would equal Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer on 20 Grand Slam titles - when the previous men's record by Pete Sampras was 13. Rafa has that many at the French Open alone! To think that all three of them have won that many, all in the same era (although Roger had a bit of a head-start being that little bit older)... It's amazing. And should emphasise how lucky we are to have these t

Brilliant news! I know you've been having horrendous problems with Covid in Brazil, so it's a huge relief to hear you (and other U2 friends) are starting to get vaccinated and protected

Sssshhhhh, don't jinx it!!! Seriously, I'm scared to even play "Three Lions" on Spotify in case that somehow does something to the universe and messes things up Although weirdly enough, playing "Vindaloo" is fine. Maybe because that was made for a World Cup and not a Euros? I don't know The first time in most of our lifetimes that England have made a tournament final... I should be celebrating, but I feel nervous. As if somehow, we're doing *too* well and it's all going to go wrong at the last moment. Maybe that's exactly because I'm not used to seeing us do this well and it feel

I went to the library and found some exciting books - including the latest by one of my favourite authors. It's *so* new that I'm the first person to borrow it I also found some tins of the new F1 trading cards - although I should remember to try and complete last year's set before I get too stuck into the new edition

England made it look easy this evening - I'm almost feeling optimistic! As you say though, I don't think anyone would have any hard feelings towards Denmark if they were to win the semi-final. It's presumably too early to know if Christian Eriksen will be able to play again after his heart operation, so they've got that incentive to do as well as they can for him.

Comiserations @Malahide Belgium tried their best. They were unlucky with injuries though - Nacer Chadli wasn't even on the pitch for 5 minutes when he got injured! Italy v Spain should be an interesting semi-final.

46, 688 - Middle of the night counting. It is nearly 1am, but I don't feel particularly tired. And I'm up to 139 playlists - I've added loads as part of my alphabet project. I'm trying to see which letters of the alphabet have the most artists' names, and which letters/words are most commonly used in song titles. Obsessive? Moi? What gives anyone that idea?

That turned out to be fairly straight-forward for England in the end As for Sweden v Ukraine, I'm glad it was settled in extra time. Some of the players could hardly stand by the end, they may well have struggled to even take penalties!

I received a lovely sketch card in the post this morning. And, for once, it wasn't Star Wars-related. One of the artists in our group worked on a card series commemorating actors who are no longer with us. One of them was a beautiful Heath Ledger sketch and I had to have it. I'm not ashamed to admit I got a bit tearful this morning, opening the package and seeing it in front of me. I'm going to sit the card on the bookcase near some books related to his films.

Of course not - it's England. If there's no drama, we're not doing it right Also, with regards to the timing of knock-out matches, having one kick-off at 5pm and the other at 8pm makes it a little tight for broadcasters if both matches are scheduled to be shown on the same channel. If Croatia v Spain had gone to penalties yesterday, it could have disrupted ITV's showing of the France match. By the time extra time ended, they only had about quarter of an hour between the two. Likewise today, the England v Germany and Sweden v Ukraine games are both scheduled to be shown on BBC1, one after

Well done Belgium. Also, there's an interesting stat doing the rounds: All 4 of the red cards that the Netherlands have ever had at European Championships have *all* happened when playing against either Czech Republic or the old Czechoslovakia... How weird is that?

46, 687 - Adding another number to keep the counting going. I've also been counting my playlists. There are now 117 of them. I think I have a problem...

As much as I want to be optimistic about England, I can't help the nagging worry that we'll probably lose to Germany in a penalty shoot-out... Belgium v Portugal is a tough one to call, although I expect Italy, France and the Netherlands to get through easily enough. Sweden v Ukraine could go either way, as could Wales v Denmark and Croatia v Spain. Spain will feel confident after thumping Slovakia, but have they got the consistency?