After the citizens of Split had failed to mark Kostelićs’ triumph with some noise, something else did it for them. Few hours later Split was hit by the worst storm in this year. There was very little damage, but power grids reacted in the same manner their Solomon Islands had reacted to the recent cyclone. So, for some twenty minutes or so the city was again in Dark Ages. This was the first such instance in 2003.

The weather continued to play tricks on Split. Only a hour later I went out only to encounter torrents of rain being replaced by bura - strong and cold wind that blows from the northeast and tends to lower temperature for couple of degrees. It happened just in time – with 11-15 degrees Celsius, this New Year was one of the warmest in recorded memory.

I returned home to turn on the TV set and watch FA Cup match between Newcastle United and Wolverhampton Wanderers. The game was good, just as English football games are supposed to be. Magpies were unpleasantly surprised by Wolves and had to compensate two goals deficit in the first half. They managed to do it only to get the third one in the beginning of second half. The score remained at 3:2 until the end, but the game was nevertheless exciting to the very end.

The fun of watching this game was spoiled by one of my annoying habits. I like to channel surf and I simply couldn’t prevent myself for interrupting the game with two “Breaking News” alerts on CNN. Both had to do with the apparent terrorist outrages. First one – mysterious plane over Frankfurt – proved to be the false alarm, nothing more than desperate act of an insane mind. The other was more serious and familiar – Palestinian suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, the very first such atrocity in new year.

In the evening I decided to put remote control as far away from myself as possible during the game between Real Madrid and Valencia. This one, played in heavy rain, was also very good, but also more predictable. Valencia managed to compensate one goal deficit only to collapse after their key player Aimar being sent off in the second half. The number of goals was the same as in the Newcastle – Wolves games, but the result was more one-sided (4:1).