Rubber bands, boats, football and Le Tour.

Our grandson really enjoyed learning to play the cornet at school. They have a specialist music teacher who comes in once a week and teaches groups of children to play. Half way through the year they changed from brass instruments to recorders. The boy was singularly unimpressed and stopped trying. Whether he thought the recorder was not really a boy's thing or what the problem was, we will probably never discover. However, the teacher decided to introduce incentives. Knowing how children all over the country are currently obsessed with loom bands, she started to offer packets of these small rubber bands to those who excelled in effort, enthusiasm and general progress. Suddenly, the child who had become the clown of the class turned into a model pupil, organising his little group to play well and even writing little compositions himself. What a transformation! 

I don't entirely see the attraction in wearing bracelets woven out of rubber bands but they have been spotted on the wrists of the famous; even members of the royal family have been photographed wearing them. Our grandchildren get commissioned by their m other's friends to make them in specific colours and patterns. Odd! 

Now it seems you can even make clothes out of loom bands as well. Someone has made a dress and put it up for sale on eBay. By Friday afternoon bidding had reached £169,000. I regularly express my amazement at what people will pay for haute couture. Comments along the lines of, "What? I would expect a whole wardrobe for that!" have been heard to escape my lips. But at least those are proper garments. This is a collection of rubber bands looped together. How uncomfortable must that be?! I don't suppose anyone will ever wear it. It'll probably become a museum piece eventually. Life is strange. 

Children in Bolton were featured in their local newspaper when they made a huge loom band bracelet that went around the whole school. They're not the first though. Our grandchildren reported two girls at their school doing that. It's just that no-one told the newspapers. 

I wonder if you could make a flotation device out of loom bands. Over in Italy they are working at re-floating the Costa Concordia, the cruise liner that sailed too close to the rocks and went down. Last year a salvage team managed to get it upright but they are afraid that it might break apart when lifted from the metal platform that has been supporting it. Surely no-one will ever really want to sail in it again, even if they get it back in working order. It must be haunted! 

Last night we watched the final of the World Cup. The German and Argentinean teams ran up and down the football pitch, working very hard and trying their best but not managing to score any goals until Germany finally managed one in extra time. The tension was evident in the bar where we watched it. People groaned each time a goal was saved. One elderly chap was accompanied by his daughter who clearly didn't want to be there. She paced up and down the length of the bar muttering for most of the match. Then she made the old chap leave before they played extra time, so he never got to see Germany's victory after all. 

Meanwhile, in France, the yellow jersey has been worn today by a Frenchman, Tony Gallopin. As today is Bastille Day, the French must be very happy about this. Richie Porte and Alberto Contador are still contenders, in 5th and 9th place respectively at the end of yesterday. 

Everything to play for. That's what I wrote this morning but I've just read that Contador has had a bad fall today and has pulled out of the Tour de France. 

Spain is seriously not having a good year for sport - Nadal failed at Wimbledon, la selección failed in Brazil and now the little madrileño is out. What else can happen?