Poi

On a sunny sunday with nothing to do I decided to visit London's free "Rise" festival at Finsbury Park. It was pretty busy and people were huddled fairly close around the various stages dotted about the park; the close proximity of people offering a perfect time to witness some of the 85 percent. The first of the 85 I saw were the obligatory gentlemen playing football in the centre of about a hundred people sat on the ground chatting. I've seen it happen pretty much any time I've visited a busy park for whatever reason and I've never undersood what spurns them to think it's a good idea.

Firstly the distance available for kicking the ball before it landed in the back of someoene's head was about 8 metres; not the ideal playing space for a game which involves a relatively heavy object moving at speed. In a perfect world I'd hope that the idea "Maybe we should play on the grass over there where it won't inevitably hurt people or annoy them" would come into play. However this never seems to be an important issue.

Secondly the people playing weren't actually very good at it. They were attempting so do some clever kick ups to each other with I imagine if carried out be people who could do more than about three would look quite good.

But these weren't the main 85ers that took my focus at the park. After the footballers had left to presumably find another heavily populated area to play on I was finally able to spend a few minutes watching the stage. That was until one of the men in front of me got up and decided to do something that always leaves me amazed. From the floor he pulled up two little balls things tied to the end of some string with streamers attached. and started swinging them around in obscurring veiw of everyone sat within about a hundred meters of the stage.

Now since seeing him do this I have done a bit of research into it and apparently this hobby is called "Poi" and basis heavily in the lives of the Māori people of New Zealand. They also will set light to the balls and create a sort of firework dance show, which I imagine looks quite good when carried out by people who can actually do it.

What doesn't look good is some fool swinging around two neon streamers when I'm trying to watch a stage show. Especially when he's rubbish at it and keeps getting the things trapped between his legs.