{"id":750,"date":"2010-02-17T07:50:16","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T07:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/?p=750"},"modified":"2020-10-26T14:17:51","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T14:17:51","slug":"friday-the-12th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/blog\/2010\/02\/17\/friday-the-12th\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday the 12th"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>&#8220;Where is my bag? Where the &#8212; &#8212; is my bag?\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cWhat&#8217;s in the bag?\u201d, I asked.<br \/>\n\u201cOhhhh, nothing important&#8230; just my filofax, my passport, my credit cards. Everything.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ironically, we&#8217;d just been listening to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, whose cover says &#8220;Don&#8217;t Panic&#8221; in big friendly letters &#8212; but I was panicking. Christian seemed to be panicking too&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The sun had been shining and we had been making good progress towards Valencia. The Ball seemed happy enough too: it was still on a high after rolling around on the grass pitch-side at the Nou Camp yesterday.<\/p>\n<div class=\"captioned_image alignnone\" style=\"width: 640px\"><span id=\"attachment_777\"  class=\"wp-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-777 size-full\" title=\"Vilanova pitch\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch.jpg\" alt=\"Vilanova pitch\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch.jpg 640w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch-200x112.jpg 200w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/span><small class=\"wp-caption-text\">A random pitch in Vilanova<\/small><\/div>\n<p>We had stopped earlier as we were leaving Vilanova, a random football moment had suddenly appeared. Out of the car, camera at the ready, Christian put his bag down to kick The Ball. Elaborately-dressed children enjoying carnival season marched by singing and chanting. 150 kilometres later, ready to feed our caffeine habit, he realised he&#8217;d left his bag back there in the park.<\/p>\n<p>After back-tracking to Vilanova, a friend who speaks Catalan called the police. And you know what? Someone had turned in the bag&#8230; And, nothing was missing&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"captioned_image alignnone\" style=\"width: 640px\"><span id=\"attachment_776\"  class=\"wp-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_great_news_chris.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-776 size-full\" title=\"Christian savours the good news\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_great_news_chris.jpg\" alt=\"Christian savours the good news\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_great_news_chris.jpg 640w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_great_news_chris-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_great_news_chris-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_great_news_chris-200x112.jpg 200w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_great_news_chris-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_great_news_chris-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/span><small class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christian savours the good news<\/small><\/div>\n<p>Bill Hicks liked to say that \u201clife is a ride\u201d&#8230; but our ride has taken us up and down this toll road two too many times today. As I write this we are speeding off along the coast towards Valencia &#8212; again. Adreneline is still rushing like the gusts of wind outside. What a ride it&#8217;s been today.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not Friday the 13th is it?\u201d, asks Christian as I type away. He suggests paying a <em>Homage to Catalunya<\/em> for lettting him off so lightly for such a grave lapse of concentration&#8230; I tend to agree. The ride continues as we head south.<\/p>\n<p><em>Friday the 12th &#8212; lucky for some.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Where is my bag? Where the &#8212; &#8212; is my bag?\u201d \u201cWhat&#8217;s in the bag?\u201d, I asked. \u201cOhhhh, nothing important&#8230; just my filofax, my passport, my credit cards. Everything.\u201d Ironically, we&#8217;d just been listening to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, whose cover says &#8220;Don&#8217;t Panic&#8221; in big friendly letters &#8212; but I was panicking. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[206,18,232],"tags":[50,48,49],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spain","category-the-ball","category-the-journey","tag-honour","tag-peril","tag-rescue"],"geo":{"latitude":41.22541050000000240061126532964408397674560546875,"longitude":1.7063140999999999447567233801237307488918304443359375,"description":null},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_villanova_pitch.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3438,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions\/3438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}