{"id":10,"date":"2002-04-01T17:39:00","date_gmt":"2002-04-01T16:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/blog\/?p=10"},"modified":"2010-01-18T13:58:48","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T13:58:48","slug":"the-quest-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/blog\/2002\/04\/01\/the-quest-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quest Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Talking Balls<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In the beginning was the Whistle. In this World Cup year, it sounded for me in Battersea Park on the first day of Spring. I had prepared myself for the quest in London, knowing that I would be travelling far from by birthplace, but now that I was in motion, the momentum was starting to build around me.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/uk\/greenwich\/ball_crosses_meridian.jpg\" style=\"width: 320px;height: 240px\" alt=\"The Ball crosses the Prime Meridian\" \/><br \/>\nThe Ball crosses the Prime Meridian<\/p>\n<p>At Greenwich, my presence was ill-received by the Custodians of The Line. &#8220;It is more than my Sacred Duty is worth,&#8221; one of their number warned me. &#8220;You must have the Written Word of the One in Authority.&#8221; Nonetheless, I crossed secretively from west to east, for I was drawn by the gravity of my task, and they were not vigilant.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/uk\/dover\/ball_off_cliff.jpg\" style=\"width: 320px;height: 240px\" alt=\"The Ball leaves the UK\" \/><br \/>\nThe Ball leaves the UK<\/p>\n<p>I picked up speed rapidly in Brighton, and by the night of the Full Moon was rolling ever faster through the Kentish countryside to greet the Channel at dawn. I reached escape velocity at the white cliffs of Dover, flew low over the 22 miles of water, and, with a single bounce on the beach at Calais, proceeded to Ypres for my first official engagement.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/belgium\/bel_ypres_field.jpg\" style=\"width: 320px;height: 240px\" alt=\"The Ball finds the field in Flanders\" \/><br \/>\nThe Ball finds the field in Flanders<\/p>\n<p>As the Guardians of the Documentation returned me to 1914, I rolled to a rest on the ground where, on the Christmas Day of that year, German and British troops on the battlefield had made time for me. A German soldier had raised a christmas tree above the parapet of his trench, and, in the ensuing truce, I was kicked around Nomansland until the Germans won 3-2. Bitterly disappointed at the outcome, the British asked me to return on Boxing Day, but a new outbreak of fighting banished my presence forever.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/belgium\/bel_ypres_mem.jpg\" style=\"width: 320px;height: 240px\" alt=\"The Ball remembers\" \/><br \/>\nThe Ball remembers<\/p>\n<p>I retired injured to Amsterdam, and immediately sought solace in the local customs, hoping to ease the pain of my rejection from the field of war. In a manner which befits the dignity of my progress, I shall keep my own counsel on this matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><b>Talking Balls<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In the beginning was the Whistle. In this World Cup year, it sounded for me in Battersea Park on the first day of Spring. I had prepared myself for the quest in London, knowing that I would be travelling far from by birthplace, but now that I was in motion, the momentum was starting to build around me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-england"],"geo":{"latitude":50.9581031999999964909875416196882724761962890625,"longitude":1.8520545999999999953189444568124599754810333251953125,"description":null},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}