Bev is Australian. She lives on a bit of land outside of the city. It's quieter there, which suits her. And having a hobby helps also. Bev has been collecting stamps for most of her life. She found my contact details on
All Stamps Paradise, which she is using for the first time.
To get the ball rolling, she sent me a couple of dozen of stamps from a quartet of countries. I'm going to run with that theme and analyze the stamps from a footballer's point of view. We'll imagine that Norway, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands have reached the semi-finals (at the time of writing, Germany and the Netherlands actually have). As a fair and impartial observer I'm going to referee/judge those stamps to decide which team wins the 2010 World Cup.
Norway wins the kick-off, but there's a long way to until the final whistle. They're a team with a lot of experience (receding hairlines and baldness) and a fine pedigree with their numeral stamps of which there are four. Their control of the ball is moderate (5 or so stamps have a good circular postmark). They get a yellow card for a repeat-stamp infringement. But they are awarded 3 free kicks for some very fine stamps: the 3.50 and 4.60 in the second bottom row, and the middle stamp in the bottom row of a kayaker.
The Netherlands, as might be expected from a team that invented 'total football' have an unorthodox formation. They are led by Johan Kruijf, the Van Gogh of soccer. Their play is more playful - they seem to be in a merry-making mode (stamps featuring clowns and people in fancy dress). They have fantastic ball control as about 10 of the stamps sport a circular postmark. But no one player really stands out, and the numeral and Queen stamps have a dull day on the field.
Much is expected from the Germans. They have a solid team (stamps that feature buildings). However, they are a little unsure of themselves (it is hard to read their country's name in the typically small font used. Again, like the Norwegians, they have a few older players. The commemorative stamps indicate that they may be feeling overwhelmed by a sense of history. They played well against the US of A and Japan, but today is another day.
An upset! The Finnish team starts their game facing the wrong way and, as a result, score an early own goal. But they regroup and recover quickly. Four stamps have a sports theme, and several stamps have excellent graphics. They go on to win deservedly, the first time ever that Finland wins the World Cup.
The three of us visited Japan recently. I stayed for the month of September, and Mami and Sachi stayed on for October as well. There is plenty that I could write about our experience, but I'll confine myself to the topic of stamps.
My sister-in-law, Rumi, had collected a number of recent Japanese stamps for me and kept them safe in an attractive container. It didn't take me too long to work out how to take off the lid.
I hadn't brought my collection with me, so I wasn't sure just which of them I already had, but many of them looked new to me. After admiring them for a while I set to work.
A nice tepid bath is always the first step. 
A good number of them have perforated attachments which look interesting. One in the middle seems to be a stamp featuring Bobby Fisher, the chess player, but that can't be so. The man is known to have had some strong anti-Semitic views.
The other day, Mami, my wife, tells me, "I think I've got some some stamps for you, from a box of old letters I've been saving".
She gives me permission to go through them and take the envelopes, either to soak off the stamps, or to save them in their entirety. How wonderful is that?
"Now then," says SuperMario, "What exactly do we have here?" The other week Miwa's twin sister, Misa-chan had also given me a similar number. They get letters from home at least every couple of weeks, but often the post office uses stickers instead of stamps. You have to ask the staff if you prefer stamps.
