A Game of Two Sports

-

Two games, two washing machines. The two games of course being the Wimbledon Men's final and the Euro thing in Germany. In the first, Spain's Carlos Alcararaz took the title again, beating Novak Djokovic in straight sets; in the second, England are playing Spain in the Euros. It is currently half-time, and the score is, surprise, surprise: 0-0. I honestly can't remember when the era of boring football began, but it's going back a few years. These days it really is a tedious game, and it comes to something when tackling a malfunctioning washing machine trumps what is laughably termed 'The Beautiful Game'. These days, it reminds me more of some endless corporate boardroom debate than a sport.

As to the washing machines, the one pictured is the outgoing, having exhibited software bugs, exceptions and/or anomalies in its microcontroller: the vast bulk of the machine being perfectly fine and capable of normal function. [By the way, Spain have just scored] This leads me to the conclusion that I can rescue this thing from the scrapheap fate that it otherwise would have faced. But not today, as we need a working machine in the cottage, stat. We'd ordered a replacement machine which arrived yesterday; and a cursory look at the old machine told me that an instant repair wasn't going to happen, so I plumbed in the new one, which is now working its way through its second wash since installation this afternoon; the backlog of washing now somewhat desperate in nature.

Anyway, back to the sport: it looks like it's Spain's day today, both in the tennis and the football [which I'm second-guessing], and I'm afraid The Beautiful Launderette has trumped The Beautiful Game in Rachub today, although the tennis wasn't half bad...

Addendum: England have just equalised: maybe not so tedious after all - unless it goes to fecking penalties, of course... Addendum the second: Spain are up by another, and the last quarter of the game has given me some hope that football could be interesting again... Addendum the third: final score 2:1 to Spain. There you go...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more