Blog {Gustav Friis}

This is the last message from Sheffield. I’m leaving tomorrow at around noon after having handed in my third essay. I have almost packed my stuff and even made some cleaning of the room as well. Impressive! Now I am here to check up on my flight and the train schedule for tomorrow. I’m not good at being stressed, so I will leave the city as early as possible. I also have to check one final time, whether I have to do something else than just hand-in my keys at Sorby Hall when I return. I don’t think I have to. See you in Denmark!

Ending up with only one Danish final at the All England is highly unsatisfying. Hopefully Jens Eriksen and Martin Lundgaard will play a good game tomorrow.

I finished up my essay in Spatial Planning System, and I think that essay felt out quite successfully. Hopefully the tutor will say the same. I have shortly been to a party at the flat O of Crewe Flats. However, I was not at all in the mood for partying, so I have left early. Boring as it sounds, it is.

Tomorrow I will pack my things and throw out what I don’t want to take back to Denmark. I have only room for fifteen kg, so I have to be selective. I will also continuing working on my essay in Values of Planning. Very soon I can see an end on this semester. I Hope I will be a happy one.

Tomorrow morning Hantuchova will play Sharapova, and I guess this game will attract a lot of spectators. I still think Hantuchova will take the victory.

Yesterday we said goodbye to the Dansih mixed doubles. I had really hoped that Kamilla Juhl and Thomas Laybourn had made it to the final, like last year, but as I understand the preparations for this tournament have not been optimal. With no mixed doubles left, the only Danish players are Peter Gade, who is playing his semi/final at the moment, leading 12-3 after sixteen minutes played, and Jens Eriksen and Martin Lundgaard, who will play their semi-final in men’s double later this day. Still it is believable, that we have two finals tomorrow with Danish participation.

Today I’m to finish up my essay for Spatial Planning Systems, and hopefully I will be able to start up the essay for Values in Planning later today or at least tomorrow. I also have some packing to do, so I’m feeling quite stressful. However, when I have finished the essays up, everything hopefully will look better.

Today's matches in All England will not be played before the evening. Therefore I have turned towards Australian Open in Tennis. The champion of 2005 - Serena Williams got beaten today by young Daniela Hantuchova, who definitively seems to be back among the best in the world. She is seeded 17th, but is now among the last 16. In the next round she will play the young Russian comet Maria Sharapova. If Hantuchova can play to her best, she will be able to beat Sharapova, and I think she will.

I'm now finishing up my second essay. It is rubbish - and I just hope that I will pass the exam. In a way I doubt I will.

Following the Yonex All England intensively I will today give a brief summary of the results. The men played the second round yesterday with three Danish victories. Jonassen and Gade of course and Persson by accident as the second seeded player could not play the entire match. Kasper Ødum lost to Lin Dan, but won the first set, which is very impressing. Lin Dan has now played for more than 160 minutes. Hopefully he will be tired.

In the women’s single there are no Danish players left since Tine Rasmussen lost to Wong Mew Choo. That was disappointing, though she has recently been injured.

Today five men’s doubles and three women’s doubles will play. In this moment Pernille Harder and Mie Schjøtt are playing their first match. Their opponents are from Canada.

In the mixed doubles there are only eight teams left. Of them are two Danish teams. Pernille Harde and Peter Steffensen lost in the first round, and in the second round (the last 16) Jonas Rasmussen and Britta Andersen lost to Emms and Robertson, who we know especially well from the Olympics in 2004 and who also are playing in the Danish league. Lena Frier Kristiansen and Carsten Mogensen, who had qualified through the qualifying tournament, Tuesday, lost unfortunately to Jens Eriksen and Mette Scholdager. The second team in the quarter final is Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Thomas Laybourn.

I hope for three finals with Danish participation, and it is possible.

That was the time Tine Høy played today, and unfortunately all the time she will play at the tournament. She lost the first game to Juliane Schenk from Germany in a two-setter. How annoying. Camilla Sørensen, who played the other Women’s single didn’t perform much better and was on the court for only three minutes more. Only one more chance for Danish success in women’s single is left and belongs to Nanna Brosolat, who qualified yesterday.

Eight men are qualified to the second round, but both Kasper Ødum and Joachim Persson have very difficult opponents. Ødum is to play Lin Dan (seeded 1) and Persson is to play Bao Chunlai (seeded 2).

The doubles are playing from tomorrow. Pernille Harder is playing with the young Greve player, 21 years old Mie Schjøtt Kristensen in the absence of an injured Helle Nielsen, with whom Pernille normally plays in KMB. I don’t have great expectations for this double, and if the Danes are going to succeed I think it will be Jens Eriksen and Martin Lundgaard.

Found a short feature with Tine Høy from Danish television TV SYD. See the feature here.

I have been in Sheffield for two days now, and nothing has changed. But it is still different in some way. Or at least something is. When I got into my room Monday it was as if it was the first time ever I was there. On the other hand, when I was in front of the University the following day, Tuesday, it was as if I had never left the city. Time is so different, according to your perspective. Now one day later everything is the same again. The same routines as before I left for Christmas, the same food, the same people. It is good to be back, and it will be good to get back.

Tine Høy is playing her first game at the Yonex All England tournament in a few hours. I am going for a haircut. This afternoon I will finish my essay in Perspectives on Spatial Planning and Development and I hope to hand it in tomorrow. It is due on Friday. Friday I will finish my essay in Spatial Planning Systems and in the weekend I will work on my last essay in Values in Planning. Furthermore I hope to have some work done on my Master Thesis.

Today I have returned to Sheffield. I had before today thought about the scenario: me on a plane with all the players of the Danish All England Badminton Team. Especially the ones from KMB - my team. They were not there, sadly, only players from Horsens and Århus were present in the cabin. That was good enough for me. I could only recognize two persons at the time: Horsens’ young and very talented Tine Høy and the Danish legend Morten Frost, who is now coach of the Århus squad. In the train towards Birmingham I was seated next to former national coach Kenneth Larsen, who is now coach of a union between three legendary clubs in the Aalborg Area: Triton, Gug (Peter Gade’s old club) and Lindholm BK. Of course these northern talents should also be present in the NIA in Birmingham in a couple of days.

I am not someone who is spending a lot of time in an airplane. But when I do, I always meet celebrities (which I normally like). Lykke Friis, Jan Mølby, Morten Frost and several of the best badminton players in Denmark. That is something, isn’t it?

I am looking forward to writing up my essays and hand them in. In one week I will leave Sheffield for good.

First of all I want to apologize for not having written anything for quite a long time. I have worked very concentrated on my essays for Sheffield. I am still busy doing that, but I will cope with them I hope.

I have just heard something very weird in the national radio, and it was not about Ariel Sharon's brain hemorrhage, but about Danish politics. For many years the Danish newspaper Politiken has named the Danish Social Democrats the Suicidal Democrats. Yet today I know exactly why! The former leader of the party, Mogens Lykketoft, has said that the party has to accept the politic of the liberal government about not raising the taxes anymore. The Social Democrats has, according to Lykketoft, to accept this because they cannot convince the electors about their own ideas. In that way they adopt liberal politics and then hope that they are nicer to look at, or what? Not even the party itself will die. So will politics. Is the purpose with democracy to elect people or politics? I would definitely say the latter. If Thorning Schmidt (the leader of the Social Democrats) and Fogh Rasmussen (The Premier Minister) had the same opinions I would vote for Fogh Rasmussen, so in my case the tactic of the Social Democrats has already failed. Please stop populism, and concentrate on being active in convincing the general public about the strength in the welfare system as the one developed by various red governments since the second world war.

Lykketoft will turn 60 next week. It is pathetic to see a former minister suck up to the public, and for what reason? To promote himself and to lead a ministry again, and now in a liberal government? Please let values lead politics. Not the hunt for personal gain.

After a short abscence from the blog during the late Christmas days, I am now returning, wishing all readers a very happy new year. The sun is shining in Aalborg today and the ground is covered with about ten centimeters of snow. Behind me is the dish threatening me, something I will deal with very soon.

I'm looking very much forward to seeing your contributions for the multimedia collage.