Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Qingdao

I can fully appreciate the frustration for sailors competing with the unpredictable weather - although judging by the conditions in Beijing I'm more than happy to be here.

At least you can see the sun!

We were supposed to have official practice races on all four courses today, similar to that in football with pre-season matches, but the sea was as calm as a millpond and most of the sailors ended up ashore sitting around waiting for some wind to kick in.

There's only so much tinkering, fine tuning or positive thinking you can do. Otherwise it's back to the hotel for guitar sounds, table tennis and DVDs.

There's serious competition on the front.

chopped down big time with the bat last night.

Morrison, however, would have you believe it was just birthday luck (it was Glanfield's special day on Wednesday).

He even tried to convince me in a text message this morning that Glanfield's performance was "far from normal".

In the past he's likened it to that from the "chop suey" school of ping-pong, trying to spin the life out of everything.

Morrison did try to get his own back by telling the tale of Joe's bargain basement purchase of a cheap, generic MP3 player in .

Glanfield's helmsman, , was also in on the act.

It came with 8GB of space and pre-loaded with Aqua's classic (I say that in the loosest of terms) 90s track . It also included a bonus video.

Nick's was black, Joe's was red, and they each paid Β£12.

However, without a useable it's quite difficult to operate, unless you prefer some serious button action.

I'm still recovering from the fact that Barbie Girl was released 11 years ago.

It was an absolute shocker back then and still is now!