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Saturday I woke up at about the time the busses were leaving for the parade. I decided to skip that and catch a taxi with some people (who still haven't paid me back for that trip) in time for the games. Before that I must have had breakfast and juggled a bit.
A view of the campsite. A spread of tents to rival this years Glastonbury Festival. Oh, there isn't one this year. Exactly.
And I bought myself a set of 7 glowing hacky sack type juggling balls from Passe Passe. 35 pounds for 7, which is about the price of 1 aerotech glowball pro. Nice.
The Games in a bowl at Cardiff Riverside Dockland Type Place.
The last three in the three club gladiators. See the secret? Use white clubs. And if you want to win? Do what Malta did and stay clear of everyone else, never attack. The wimp.
The Grand Unicycle Race. No idea who won. But I got some good footage of someone falling off their yike that I might send into You've Been Framed for 250 quid.
The end of the 5 ball endurance. Did Ben Beever win? No surprises really.
Diabolo in a Bin/Box/hit Haggis. How hard can this be? I've managed to get the diabolo in the recepticle every time I've played this game. I know that has only been twice but I didn't have any problem with it and I don't even practice the diabolo. It must be in the technique I use but I'm not giving that away. Anyhow, this seemed to drag on for ever until at last someone managed to get one in the bin. In fact it was the second bin because the first one was broken by then.
The prize for the games were quite fun. As well as all the juggling traders trying to out do each other at every turn, loads of the restaurants around the bowl were donating dinner for two and ice cream vouchers. Nice.
High Diabolo Toss. Someone won, dozens didn't.
The Speed Balloon Model Hat contest. Funnily enough, the bowler hat wasn't made in the allocated timeslot, so it didn't win. The bloke on the right with the baseball cap is Charles Dancy, the host of the games. Talk about the dodgy dress sense of jugglers, what the hell is this guy doing wearing a baseball cap with a suit jacket? And sun glasses? Not exactly the choice I would have made for the main focal point for non-jugglers at a public juggling event. No offence, he's written a nice book about juggling but someone could have told him. Ok, back to the games...
 
There was the "new trick showcase" game. Highlights were upside down diabolo, fake back crosses, Malta's ring thing, head balance dropping into foot balance, the 3 clubs balanced on the face. Lowlights were 3 diabolos (not new or creative), Kayleigh failing off her unicycle the second time round (her first trick was good though) and the kid who didn't do a trick. And then, to my surprise, Kayleigh won. Something certainly not right there. Even my ear juggling ring trick was more creative than the trick she didn't manage to do. She must have been the "token female winner" at the games because every single other game was won by a bloke.
And before everyone starts calling that trick I did with the ring on my ears "Luke's Ring Trick" I've got some news for you. I didn't do it first. I was told that Ian Merchant has done it before. So there.
To the sounds of a live band there was a Unicycle Hockey game. I thought it looked good fun, not sure if I could ever mistake it for a serious sport though.
This is the finals of the long distance passing game.
We should have got the Russian kids to enter this one.
Then there was the 5 club endurance, I felt pretty bad after entering this, not realising it had started and throwing a club through someone else's pattern as a joke. Well, they restarted it and someone won. Hmmm, I'm not really bringing out the spirit of the games very well am I?
There were some headstand and club balance competitions that I didn't win. The the Juggling Monster game went on for ages and seemed ever so not worth the effort. Anyway, here is the monster I contributed my props to. Monster? No idea.
 
Unicycle gladiators didn't result in as much blood as I would have liked. Then there was the big toss up. Which is just as disappointing in real life as it looks in this picture. The best bit is finding all your props afterwards. Some people really enjoy it. Whatever pops your cork.
The main show.
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