31 Jan 2007
Posted in News at 3:45 pm by alby
There’s been a wonderful story in the news today. It’s about a group of British folk who moved into houses in Spain being threatened with having their houses knocked down because they were built without planning permission. So they had a demo at the local town centre.
The footage I’ve seen of this is that they put all their signs (or should I use the word “placards”; I like the word “placards”) up in English. Magic.
That’ll help their cause then.
Have fun.
PS 100 posts on here as of now!
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28 Jan 2007
Posted in News, People at 11:05 pm by alby
Nice one Shilpa.
I’d also like to note that “the BB audience will never vote for anyone not white” malarky has been well and truly plutoed by this result; and with Jermaine second too.
Have fun.
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25 Jan 2007
Posted in Life, Work at 10:03 am by alby
is turning out to be a bit shit really.
I just got an email from the IT company that I’m due an interview with next Tuesday. They’ve called the whole thing off apparently as they’ve had to reduce the forecasts for sales (and hence income) in the current NHS climate. Sigh.
On the other hand I’ve had another email from the Anita Anand show on radio 5 and they’re keeping my details for another potential listener panel thing. So fingers crossed.
Have fun.
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23 Jan 2007
Posted in News, Rants at 9:51 am by alby
There’s a big boat that nearly sank somewhere off Devon the other day. It had a collection of containers on it and some have fallen off and ended up on a nearby beach.
Cue huge numbers of filthy scum heading down to the beach to basically steal anything they can get their hands on. And they claim it’s tradition.
It’s not scavenging it’s theft. As a recent victim of theft I’m enraged by these idiots. I’ve just heard that not only were they nicking whatever they could find but they were just dumping stuff that they didn’t want thus, according to the man on the radio, the environmental damage on the beach has been increased by a trifling 800% by the greedy bastards just ripping off whatever they can get.
I can’t express my disgust and anger in a way that’s acceptable on a family website like this one.
There is a phone in on the radio now and people are phoning in and actually defending this sort of behaviour. Some are using the old chestnut of “Well it belongs to big companies and they’ve been ripping us off for years”. For god’s sake, what is wrong with these people?
Some woman from Sweden was watching the news and saw someone dumping her private possessions on the beach as he sifted through it looking for anything of value to him. How can that guy do that? She’ll never get her stuff back; and she’s hardly a “big company”.
What with this and the CBB debacle it shows the UK to be full of mentally deficient imbeciles with no moral sense whatsoever. How terribly depressing.
[edit: My god I've just discovered that the Mail agrees with me. I must be wrong somewhere then]
Have fun.
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22 Jan 2007
Posted in Self-indulgence at 4:52 pm by alby
I like my job.
On days like today when I’m in a real strop the opportunity for causing pain to people is an excellent release valve!
Have fun.
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20 Jan 2007
Posted in Life, Rants at 9:57 pm by alby
Well this was going to be a nice post full of nice things than happened on a nice day.
It isn’t now though.
I had a lovely day with my parents where we went on a walk around Leicestershire for about 10 miles. Nice weather and nice company too.
Got home to see my juggling clubs in the middle of the floor. I didn’t put them there. Then I saw K’s bag for work and that was open. A: she’s away at the mo and B: she never leaves things that untidy.
Hmm? Oh look the back door’s been kicked in. Check front room – no laptop, no Wii, no games or controllers. Bugger. Back into first room. No effing external hard drive: you know they say that you should back stuff up? Well I did – onto the external hard drive.
I haven’t checked my old PC yet but even if I haven’t wiped that hard drive then I’ve lost about 18 months of recordings and music.
Oh and the DS has gone too. Along with Ossu Tetakae Ouendan (or whatever). I got it a day or so ago. Piss.
I’m actually not too fussed about the Wii and DS as they’re easily replaced. But the hard drive means I’ve lost a substantial part of my comedy and music collection (possibly all of it if it’s not on the attic PC).
I’m not after sympathy but if anyone reading this has any BBC comedy shows that they recorded and feel like sending my way I’ll be eternally grateful.
Bad day.
PS The post title was going to be “You don’t like cheesy baps”.
PPS I asked 2 companies to come and secure my back door. Both said they would then phoned back an hour later to ask if Monday would be ok. Honestly!
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19 Jan 2007
Posted in Music at 9:04 pm by alby
This is magic!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi4QHNKSwQE
Have fun.
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Posted in Grammar! at 9:18 am by alby
You decide.
These are some examples I’ve seen today.
“The trains from london to manchester were a nightmate”
“I saw the tree blewed across the neighbourhood in the storms “
“I am usually a critque of Easyjet”
Marvellous!
Have fun.
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18 Jan 2007
Posted in Games at 8:41 pm by alby
An evening of games today.
Wario Wii is quite good and ripe for multi-player fun soon.
I’ve also got the original Japanese wotsit that became Elite Beat Agents. It’s utterly mental and this feeling is perhaps emphasised by my inability to read Japanese. I’m going to have great fun with this one.
I imported Phoenix Wright 2 too, again the Japanese one. Turns out it’s cheaper to import the thing from asia now rather than wait a couple of months and pay more. The magic of a strong pound. Handily this one comes with a full English translation. Not had much of a look at this one yet.
Fun to be had.
Have fun.
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17 Jan 2007
Posted in Work at 10:23 pm by alby
I decided to write to someone in a Sports dept at one of the local universities. The brief was “Warm-up? Why?” and she responded wonderfully. Here’s her reply in full: (I’m not going to name her as I didn’t say I would post this publically)
I am an exercise physiologist, hockey coach and mother of a child who swim trains. My view is that the main importance of the warm-up relates to familiarization with the environment. For example in hockey it is important to get a feel for the run of the ball on the pitch, as every pitch is different [this bit was new to me, good idea though] and in swimming it is crucial to have tried backstroke starts, used the block got a feel for the water and the walls on turns [as I’ve mentioned before it’s a good idea to make sure your body bits will do the movements you need for the task ahead].
Also as you mention it is a crucial time for phychological preparation. In terms of imporving performance I don’t have any published papers on this but we have undertaken a lab class at the University for a few years where we heat the students legs passively in a water bath or have them warm-up physically or do not warm-up at all before a 2 30 s cycle ergoemter sprints. generally the peak power output is a little higher (perhaps 10 watss after warming up). This could obviously be a crucial performance difference for sprinters. However there is also a tendency for a little greater fatigue over the 30 s and in the second sprint after warming up.[so a slight performance improvement but more fatigue afterwards]
In terms of injury prevention I have not investigated this at all, but over my own intenational hockey career spaning 16 years including junior hockey and watching my own chilren play sport I have never seen an athlete or child injured early in the session (adults who don’t notmally exercise though can be injured early in a session simply because they are undertaking an unaccustomed exercise for which they are not physically prepared). In my view injuries come when the athletes are fatigued and injury prevention is therefore due to fitness, strength, flexibility and good technique. [so again injury is caused by unaccustomed exercise, as I said I don’t know how many times]
Hope these thoughts are of some interest. In my view the warm-up is best used to work on something the athlete needs to work on anyway such as good footwork [so use the time to practise drills, seems reasonable to me as that’s probably the only time you’d bother to practise such, eg how many kids would bother with flexibility training away from the class or session?]
I’m impressed. A shame there’s no proper full-on research to quote though. I’ll have a go at condensing this to the UF boards soonish. I’m impressed. A shame there’s no proper full-on research to quote though. I’ll have a go at condensing this to the UF boards soonish.
Have fun.
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