Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Dutch rugby

Still in Johannesburg where Spring is bursting out and sports fans are bemoaning South Africa's bottom place in the Tri-Nations Tournament in spite of being the only team to beat the New Zealand All Blacks. Whenever I am here and talking rugby I ponder one of the mysteries of the world. Why isn't Holland a major rugby-playing country? With respect to the Dutch Rugby Union Association Holland makes almost no impact. And yet...sponsorship would be huge (internationals are played in Dublin, Edinburgh, Cardiff, London, Paris and Rome - why not Amsterdam?); the fans would love another opportunity for rugby chauvinism; the Dutch team could be filled with Afrikaners and nobody would be any the wiser from a language or a physique point of view - and if by a miracle Holland were to win the Northern Hemisphere tournament then I'm certain that Germany would have to join in, thus adding a further 100 million to the rugby-watching world.

We're still working through the plans for our Southern African businesses for the next few years. The most surprising thing to me has been the realization that broad-band technology has so far had so little penetration and the debate about this is hot. When it does happen, as it surely will, there will be an explosion of digital creativity, learning and publishing adventure. It will happen fast and Macmillan in Southern Africa will be the leader in the new world as it has always been in the traditional worlds of publishing and education.

Flying back to London on Virgin this evening all being well.

#    |  Comments [2]  | 
9/27/2006 7:51:42 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Why aren't the Dutch a major rugby nation? Some obvious and very fundamental problems; 1. incorrect proportion of people to sheep 2. incorrect proportion of glasshouses to rugby pitches (complete lack of slopes at grassroots level) and 3. as demonstrated by Scotland at RWC99, the inability for serious rugby to be played while dressed in tangerine.
David Bugler
9/27/2006 8:29:37 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Broadband in South Africa (and the rest of the continent for that matter) is out of reach for most of the general public, that's why. Perhaps Macmillan Africa should involve itself with the wider debate and lobbying of controlling media suppliers on the continent who should be providing affordable internet access. More people would use the technologies available if they could - look at the rapid expansion of the fabulous and free UBUNTU linux package as a case in point. In the meantime, I don't post photographs on my blog here, because back home in South Africa everyone would be waiting into next week for it to download.
Equiano