Trail of the Lion King

Apologies for the lack of updates but I’ve been away from Korea for the last six weeks. I had a holiday in the UK sandwiched between a couple of longer than normal visits to Oman for what is ostensibly work but in reality is little more than a desert based detox.

The UK part was good though. Gig-wise, Jen and I managed to see British Sea Power close the opening evening at the Voewood Festival and Boo Hewerdine play a hospice fundraiser in a church in Cambridge. Boo was good, although he was sharing a stage with Eddi Reader and didn’t get as much time in the spotlight as I’d have liked. The only song of his that he got to sing on his own was Muddy Water. He’s written a fair bit of Eddi’s decent stuff for her and whilst she has a fine voice I prefer to hear him singing his own songs rather than accompanying someone else, particularly with something like ‘Patience of Angels’.

Ms Reader also likes to rattle on a bit between songs. Her patter was entertaining enough, although I imagine the anecdotes would grate after a while if you saw her regularly. The downside of her incessant yapping though was that it cut down the time available for music and as a result Boo didn’t get to play my favourite song of his, ‘Geography’. It wasn’t quite as annoying as last year when we saw The Wedding Present and they didn’t do ‘Kennedy’ but it could have been better.

Eddi and Boo not doing ‘Geography’ at some other gig.

BSP played at the Voewood Festival, which is at High Kelling in Norfolk and is without doubt the poshest festival that I’ve ever been to. I’d imagine that they will have been paid in Guineas and there will have been quail eggs and swan fritters provided backstage.

Whilst it’s not uncommon for me to be the scruffiest bloke in whatever company I find myself in, unless of course the company is clad in a faded Ramones tee-shirt, it was far more noticeable than normal at Voewood. I’ve been to weddings where there were fewer waistcoats and cravats.  The food and drink was good, though. They sold wine by the bottle and the on-site food was provided by a Spanish caterer that must have been tipped off in advance that we usually snack on cured ham and sheep cheese.

As for BSP’s set list, well I had to look it up afterwards, which is generally an indication that I had an excellent time.

Voewood Festival.

On the hiking front Jen and I managed a couple of days walking in The Lakes and then we fitted the forty-eight mile Norfolk Coastal Trail from Cromer to Hunstanton around the British Sea Power and Boo Hewerdine gigs. The Coastal Trail is an interesting walk in a part of England that I’ve not been to before. There aren’t many hills and it was an enjoyable four days taking a varied route of woodland and marshland sections interspersed with clifftop strolls and the odd trudge through sand dunes or along stone beaches.

This was about as undulating as it got.

I didn’t see much in the way of UK sport this time. I was there during that lull between the Olympics finishing and the Paralympics starting, there wasn’t any convenient horseracing going on and of the Boro’s five games the only one I managed to get to was the home victory over Burnley. Three long-range goals, including a late Luke Williams winner from thirty-five yards made it more than worthwhile as did a few pints with my son before, during and after the game.

So, that’s the ‘what I did on my holidays’ stuff out of the way and it’s back to Korean sport and the baseball game between LG Twins and Nexen Heroes. The regular season is into it’s dying throes with the two teams in this fixture fighting it out with Kia Tigers to determine fifth, sixth and seventh places. None of them can make the play-offs, whilst Hanwha have already made the bottom spot their own.

Jen and I were late setting off and it was already seven o’clock when we got there with Nexen leading by two runs to one. We didn’t have any trouble finding somewhere to sit with the thirty thousand capacity stadium being no more than a tenth full. Nobody likes a loser in Korea.

We hadn’t missed much.

Brandon Knight was the starting pitcher for the visitors. He’s into his second season with Nexen after previously turning out for Samsung Lions. He’s had some decent moments in his career, including starting for the New York Mets at Shea Stadium and picking up a bronze medal for the USA at the Beijing Olympics.

Brandon Knight

Lee Seung Woo was the starting pitcher for LG. As far as I know he has never played for the New York Mets, nor been to Shea Stadium, unless it was to watch a concert. He doesn’t have an Olympic medal either. I’m lead to believe that he enjoys spending his spare time growing giant leeks and completing crossword puzzles.

Lee Seung Woo

Mr. Lee didn’t have the happiest of evenings, getting the hook after three innings. It seemed a bit mean to me in a game where the result didn’t really matter, although he had pitched seventy-eight balls by that point and conceded four runs. I suppose we could have been there all night if he’d been allowed to carry on. Brandon Knight did a lot better, pitching almost all of the way through for just the two runs.

The Nexen fans seemed happy enough.

We stayed until the eighth, by which time Nexen had moved into a seven-two lead. They added one more in the ninth, sealing a victory that took them four games ahead of LG in the standings and leaving them only half a game behind fifth placed Kia Tigers.

This entry was posted on September 21, 2012 at 11:41 am and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.