North Korea at the World Cup #3 UPDATE!!

Well, what could I be updating? You guessed it, the North Korea shirts situation. As pressing an issue as we'll see at this World Cup.

As noted earlier, I emailed as many people as I could about the Legea shirts that the North Korean team is wearing. Here is the briefest of exchanges I was rewarded with:

Time: 12:10pm

Subject: North Korea World Cup shirt

Hello. Is there any way to get ahold of a North Korea World Cup jersey?

Cheers,

Brenton

and the response came a mere 2 hours and 42 minutes later, from peppefalanga@live.com:

Dear Mr. Brenton Walter we close the deal with Korea DPR only a week before the 2010 World Cup and because so the merchandising will be available in one month. If I will get anything before I will let you know. By the way how many jerseys will you need?
Thank you for contacting us.
Best regards

That's is. I've got a contact that can get me North Korean World Cup shirts!

North Korea at the World Cup #3

And returning to our favourite segment here on Brenton writes, it's time for Round 3 of "North Korea at the World Cup". (See numbers one and two.)

Over at the World Cup Blog, they have a page for each team at the World Cup, including North Korea. I assume the other teams have actual fans writing, while they probably had to find someone willing to have a bit of fun with the North Korean page, including posting this supposed photo of the Great Leader (or whatever he's called):

That's nice. Could that really be him? Is this really the guy whose birth was foretold by the appearance of a swallow and marked by a double rainbow?

Jerseys, uniforms, kit, shirts, whatever you want to call them

Interested in showing your support for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? Unfortunately for you, there's been some trouble in getting ahold of the current North Korean kit. This store's link, which looks promising (but doesn't even have the right shirt), leads only to a store offering retro shirts from 1966. And that's it. Here's a shot of the shirt, just to tantalize your senses:

The website of the Italian company Legea that has produced the shirts* acknowledges their sponsorship but doesn't include any links or information. I've emailed as many addresses as I could find in hopes of a response; I'll keep you updated.

* This might be interesting for you Canadian footie fans: Legea also produces the uniforms of the Montreal Impact (but they're not listed on the Legea website... too small?), rivals of our Vancouver Whitecaps. Interesting company they keep.

New Years resolutions - Mozart and my grandfather's cuff links.

I'm not sure I've ever made a New Year's resolution. N and I were discussing what we would like to do differently in the new year, and I came up with one idea:

I'm going to listen to more classical music.

I've largely stopped listening to most forms of music, though I'm not sure exactly why. It may be the demise of the cd; I don't like playing around with iTunes that much to make playlists, and find myself listening to the same thing, or I put iTunes on random and let it go.

This fall, though, we finally hooked up our record player. I've got a decent collection of records, mostly classic rock, and having a working record player is a treat. I also have a small but varied collection of classical: one or two records of each of the greats.

I remember Mozart blasting as my mom and I baked in the kitchen, or read in the living room. So, I've decided to listen to more classical music. So far I'm dong pretty good. I've played Beethoven's 6th a few times, and a mish-mash of Tchaikovsky. Mozart can wait.


I also want to buy a shirt with French cuffs. I have some cuff links that I inherited from my grandfather, and they're just sitting there in the brass box on my bedside table. I almost bought one while in Toronto, but at $150 it was a little pricey. I'll start looking.