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Published: June 20th 2010
Still feeling angry after the performance of England last night. The big consensus over here, apart from the feeling of total let down, is that Joe Cole should start and Heskey goes home, Rooney should channel his aggression onto the pitch and Super Frank should go back to basics and learn to pass a ball.
The cobwebs were blown out of our system on the boat ride to Robben Island. Again, we met some interesting people on the crossing. One couple were staying in the same hotel as some of the National Teams when they were playing in Cape Town, including England and Italy. They said the Italian Team were charming, signing autographs for the fans whereas the security around England was so tight and children were being ushered away by minders , if they got to close to the players. On the news here, they reported on the incident with the supporter gaining access to the England player’s dressing room. They said that they were looking for someone in a red top dohhhhh they only have 20,000 plus English people to sift through. Ha ha.
Robben Island was quite a bleak place. It seems to have been used as a
dumping ground for many countries for centuries. It has been home for leprosy sufferers, mental health patients, convicts and most recently political prisoners including Madiba - Nelson Mandela. The sad thing was some of the buildings were built in the 1960’s when you would have thought people would have been more civilised and mindful of human kind. Not so. The prison Madiba was in, for 18 years, was no bigger than 6ft x 6ft at a rough guess. It was tiny, as all the cells on the corridor were. Until the International Re
d Cross donated beds in the 70’s the inmates slept on a thin hair type mat on the floor. We were shown around the prison by an ex political prisoner who had been incarcerated in the prison for 7 years. He had been detained in Jo’Burg for 6 months before going to the Island and had suffered unspeakable torture. He was such a gracious person.
I have said in an earlier post that I thought this was going to be a month of surprises. Well I was correct. We walked into a random bar off Long Street and came across our Anglo-American friends ,whom we had met
at the Rustenburg match. They were killing time before flying back to New York. We reminisced about the Rustenburg match. At the time Australia v Ghana was on the tv. None of us could recognise the venue as Rustenburg which just goes to show how “merry” we must have been in Rustenburg. I hope our friends had a safe journey back to the USA and hope they get time to read of our further adventure in South Africa.
Tomorrow we head for Knysna where we are staying overnight in the elephant park.
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Pete and Bev
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Loving the Breen Bulletin
We are loving the daily news - good to hear you are having a fab time. Cape Town looks fantastic - images from Robben Island and views to the city and waterfront remind us of San Fran. Fingers crossed for Weds and total agreement re Joe Cole - the system ain't working! Stay safe and try not to get lost in the elephant park ......... xx