the inches that we need are everywhere around us

U13 League 2
Team P W D L F A Diff B Pts Pts Adjust Old Rutlishians U13 4 3 0 1 121 55 66 3 19 0 Effingham & Leatherhead U13s 2 2 0 0 70 38 32 2 12 0 Sutton & Epsom U13 A 4 1 0 3 54 141 -87 1 8 -1 Guildfordians U13 2 1 0 1 55 32 23 1 7 0 Camberley U13 2 1 0 1 41 22 19 1 7 0 Old Reigatian U13 2 1 0 1 48 39 9 1 7 0 Reeds Weybridge U13s 1 1 0 0 27 19 8 1 6 0 Haslemere U13 3 0 0 3 40 110 -70 1 3 -1
Last Updated: Dec 30 2013 11:34AM

As you can see, the boys are still top of the table going into Sunday’s game despite losing last time out with a depleted team.

The Ruts are playing at home against Old Reigatians, who have only played two league games this season compared to our four.

They lost 34 – 14 to Effingham and Leatherhead (the team who beat us 36 – 24) and beat Sutton and Epsom (who we demolished 45 – 7) by 35 points to 5.

It looks like it will be a close game. On the positive side we have got all the A team squad available, but we haven’t been able to train or play since before Christmas because of the rain and floods.

tragedy plus time

1. Bob Mortimer questions Oxbridge bias in comedy

2. Cambridge University backlash at Duke of Cambridge's 'free pass' to study there.

Ho ho, very satirical.

Nine

Telegraph

Summly, the news summary app sold by British teenager Nick D'Aloisio to Yahoo! for $30m last year, is to be revamped.

The 17-year-old joined Yahoo! chief executive Marissa Mayer on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday to unveil Yahoo! News Digest.

The new app will give users news summaries twice a day. Each summary is comprised of nine stories, with each article constructed from multiple sources, which will feature tweets, videos and maps.

"Our goal with the Yahoo! News Digest is to make sure you're always in the know," said D'Aloisio, who is now a product manager at the tech giant.

The app will also record how many stories you have read that day, giving you a score out of nine.

It gives you nine stories, the app records how many you read and gives you "a score out of nine".

Brilliant! I wonder what algorithm is used to calculate the score?

Deckadance

Since the Bomber introduced me to FL Studio (Icons passim) I have also discovered its sister product Deckadance DJ software, and I am now as gangsta as it is possible for someone mixing Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb's Guilty with Abba's The Winner Takes It All to be.

In a similar vein, I have also come up with an idea for rebranding Sophie's coffee shop.

Myself: Word is Bond.

Prodnose: Word is Brooke Bond.

Better the Red Devils you know

I can't help but think that Manchester United would have been better off appointing me, rather than David Moyes, as manager because there would have been no night of the long knives for Sir Alex's tried and tested back room staff.

I would have called a meeting with Mike Phelan, Rene Meulensteen and the rest, and said "I'm not entirely clear on what you do but keep on doing it."

"Any problems, the door is always open. Otherwise I'll be in the governor's old office teaching myself card tricks from YouTube and trying to find if he has left any of his legendary wine collection behind."

I bet they'd be in the top four in Premiership and still in the FA Cup.

Windows need be no more than an archaic touch

Back in 1964, Isaac Asimov imagined the world, or more accurately the World's Fair, of 2014 - fifty years into the future.

Bridges will also be of less importance, since cars will be capable of crossing water on their jets, though local ordinances will discourage the practice.

I predict that in the world of 2064 we will not be able to laugh up our sleeves at announcements like that above; the government will mandate that we appear with bare arms so that drones can read the bar codes that have been tattooed onto our biceps. For our own good.

A description of an absence

Rory Stewart is an interesting man. 2014's chastened version makes some valuably modest observations in this interview from Friday's Grauniard.

Stewart came home when he realised that even the least-educated Afghan housewife in a mountain village knew more about the country than he did. Fluent in Dari, along with nine other languages, he'd thrown himself into the coalition mission with great conviction, but had to conclude that: "In the end, the basic problem is very, very simple. Why don't these interventions work? Because we are foreigners. If things are going wrong in a country, it's not usually that we don't have enough foreigners. It's usually that we have too many." 

Ten years ago he would have listed 10 things Afghanistan needed to build a new state: rule of law, financial administration, civil administration and so on. "And, then you would say, well, how do you do that? Well, I'd say, by a mapping of internal and external stakeholders, definition of critical tasks – all this jargon talk. And I've only now just begun to realise these words are nonsense words. I mean, they have no content at all. We should be ashamed to even use them." 

They are nothing more, Stewart now acknowledges, than tautologies. "They pretend to be a plan, but they're actually just a description of an absence. Saying 'What we need is security, and what we need to do is eliminate corruption' is just another way of saying: 'It's really dangerous and corrupt.' None of that actually tells you how it's done."

In some ways it's a companion piece to yesterday's evisceration of the thumb-on-the-till merchants pushing the internet snake-oil.

I'm against it.

I find myself curiously drawn to Evgeny Morozov.

To say that Morozov has gone out of his way to irritate powerful and influential people in the tech world doesn’t quite capture it. Doing so is his primary occupation. In the Morozovian worldview, New York University professor and social-media theorist Clay Shirky is a “consultant-cum-intellectual”; Google’s mission is to “monetize all of the world’s information and make it universally inaccessible and profitable”; and Tim O’Reilly, the Silicon Valley publisher and venture capitalist who coined “Web 2.0,” is an Orwellian “meme hustler” and the main culprit behind “the enduring emptiness of our technology debates.” To millions of viewers, TED talks are inspirational speeches about “ideas worth spreading” in science and technology. To Morozov they are a “sinister” hyping of “ideas no footnotes can support.”

Or try this passage. It’s a takedown of a work of technological triumphalism called Hybrid Reality, but it doubles as a summary of his thinking about the entirety of the tech discourse: “[P]erhaps this is what the Hybrid Age is all about: marketing masquerading as theory, charlatans masquerading as philosophers, a New Age cult masquerading as a university, business masquerading as redemption, slogans masquerading as truths.”

The entire Morozov aesthetic is in this sentence: the venom, the derision, the reverse jujitsu of his opponents’ sanctimony, the bald accusation that all the talk about a new age of human flourishing is nothing but an attempt to vamp the speaker’s consulting business. Tech enthusiasts channel hope. Tech skeptics channel worry. Morozov channels anger, and this can be a very satisfying emotion to anyone unconvinced that everything is getting better.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

March 7 is the diary date for all us UK based Wes Anderson fans.

the dock of the day

I just bought a Plugable UD-3900 USB 3.0 Universal Docking Station with Dual Video Outputs for Windows 8.1, 8, 7, XP (HDMI and DVI/ VGA to 2048x1152, Gigabit Ethernet, Audio, 2 USB 3.0 Ports, 4 USB 2.0 Ports, 4A AC Power Adapter) to use in the office with the Surface Pro 2.

I looked at Microsoft's offering, but the fact it uses the Mini Display Port would have meant me buying a separate VGA adapter as well.

Fascinating eh?

That Was The Year That Was

I was eleven pounds lighter this morning than I was on the last day of 2012. Not great, but not bad and a move in the right direction. My peers in general seem to be going into the credit rather than debit side of the avoirdupois ledger.

Come January 10th, I will be in my eighth year of recording my exercise every day, and on June the first I will have been going to Virgin Active regularly for nine years.

Where does the time go?

Kung Fury

I  think we have to get this made in 2014. Kickstarter is aptly named in this regard.

dibby dibby sound

Today, I am mostly listening to DJ Fresh vs Jay Fay feat. Miss Dynamite. I wonder which one is Pink?

Resolution

Andy H, an Arsenal season ticket holder, invited me yesterday to go and see them play Cardiff City at the Emirates on New Year's Day.

Yesterday was also the day that the mercurial Vincent Tan fired Malky Mackay as Cardiff City manager.

I'm still going.

Accessorize after the fact

I'm sitting in the office with in front of my main workstation with an iPAD to my left and the Surface Pro to the right.

I have bought a Touch cover now. It is a necessity I would say to work on the legacy desktop.

I still can't work out what the pen is for.

I foolishly bought a mini HDMI to HDMI cable before I realised the connector on is is a Mini Display port. I think maybe I will need all the adapters to get the most out of it.

I am very intrigued by the Surface Music Kit (though it doesn't seem to be in the UK) and its associated remix contest.

to do is to be

Neil; Lord of all he surveys...... you think?

Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit

The immortal Wodehouse's Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit is 2013's entry in my annual collection of Christmas stories, read on .......

Parenting skills

I have been playing a lot of Quizup (hat tip Sophie) over the festive break. He knows everything about The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother.

Good or bad? Discuss.

Aladdin Sane

'Tis the season to be jolly and suddenly our appointment with Wimbledon's panto on January 12th seems to be bearing down on me with unseemly haste.

Caroline's wedding

all surface

Good morning. I am writing this on my new Surface Pro 2. I haven't bought the highly rated cover that comes with a keyboard and touchpad. The idea being that I would learn to navigate it without.

I'm beginning to regret that, and I've left the stylus that comes with it downstairs. Early days I suppose. Watch this space.

250

As we were walking to the pub after work yesterday, the Burglar tripped on an uneven pavement and crashed to the ground like a sack of potatoes, cutting his lip, grazing his cheekbone, mashing up his hands, hurting his knee and breaking his glasses. He couldn't even get up unassisted, I took him back to my place so he could clean up and sat with him until he was feeling well enough to go home.

At 6:30am this morning I went to my 250th yoga class. It struck me that while I keep doing that I am extremely unlikely to fall if I trip, that if I do ever fall I'm mobile and supple enough to be at a low risk if injuring myself, and that even if I did stumble and graze some flesh I would certainly be able to get up again straight away.

That is enough motivation to persevere. I'll let you know when I get to 500. Namaste.

Winning Ways

The Bomber got all eleven of the tries his house team scored in winning Monday's tournament in school.  I know that I drone on and on about this sort of thing but it is good to have a place to store these memories up for the future.

Also, we grown ups won the quiz at the Antelope by a country mile on the very same day.

orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.

Bard the Bowman

The Bomber and I went to see The Desolation of Smaug last night. Bard the Bowman and all his kin speak with Welsh accents, and this behaviour is - apparently - by design.

a great artist can come from anywhere

Peter O'Toole who brought me so much joy with his performances over the years has gone to his reward.

It is reported that his house rules for a New Year's Eve party at home were "fornication, madness, murder, drunkenness, shouting, shrieking, leaping polite conversation and the breaking of bones, such jollities constitute acceptable behaviour, but no acting allowed."

I'm going to the Hendries' this December 31st. I wonder what they would make of it? I think they're quite partial to a bit of acting.

(By the way, why can't I get The Ruling Class or The Stuntman on iTunes? They will be gaping holes if I celebrate his life with a movie marathon.)

a bad grumf

The Ruts lost for the first time this season, going down 36- 24 (6 tries against 4) to Effingham & Leatherhead U13s away.

They went into the game without a regular prop, second row and scrum half; all three were away at scout camp. Scout camp!? And then lost Dan the other regular prop to a bad knock on the noggin very early on in the game. After that they were struggling up front all along; under pressure in set pieces and at the break down.

No need to panic yet. They won a bonus point for scoring four tries and are still top of the league. A lot of character was displayed, battling to the very end and with a heavily bandaged Dan agitating to be returned to the fray from the touch line.

As regards the Bomber, the coach's match report says:

Moment(s) of the Match: the three terrific tries scored by the backs – scintillating running from Silas and Ben!

He''s got an internal school tournament today and is playing the in second round of the cup for the school later which seems like odd scheduling. Two important matches and a tournament in two days? I think he could do with a rest until after Christmas after that. (I noticed he was carrying a bit of a shoulder injury towards the end of yesterday's game.)

The student has become the master

The Bomber has been teaching me to use FL Studio and explaining that Avicii used it to make Wake Me Up.

He discovered, downloaded and set it up himself. It seems like the investment in his laptop and drumming lessons is bearing fruit in ways I didn't expect.

Millions like us

The British Monarchy Facebook page passed the million likes landmark some time last night. I deserve that Christmas card.

Assorted Festivals of Rugby

2014 will be our Old Ruts team's last appearance at the Brean Sands Festival as it only goes up to U13s.

Team Tours Direct run a variety of Festivals we could go to instead in 2015.

I'm making a note of http://teamtoursdirect.com/sport/rugby-union/ so I can find it again next year.

(Oh, and Wimbledon College beat the school 38-0 on Monday. Not a lot of fun.)

a big if

Reading list

Just at the moment I am reading The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance by Nessa Carey.

So now you know.

Inches

The school's year 8 are playing Wimbledon College this afternoon and I am going to try to sneak out and wee the game. I imagine that the match will be something of a challenge as Wimbledon have already beaten Dulwich College this season, so I have dusted off my Al Pacino impression just in case it is needed for half time.

COD Wars

In two separate meta-analyses of locus-of-control beliefs—whether we hold that we influence our own fates or that our lives are subject to uncontrollable external forces—the psychologist Jean Twenge and her colleagues found that, between 1960 and 2002, Americans have increasingly turned to external explanations for the shapes of their lives. The shift is not a function of socioeconomic background; the attitude change occurred across demographics. This, in turn, suggests increased alienation and, as a result, more of a need for a means by which to reassert the control that otherwise seems to be missing from our lives. First-person shooters may be a way of reclaiming our sense of efficacy.

This, apparently, is why the Bomber and all his chums play Call of Duty with such devotion. I am unconvinced myself.

Patrick Dalton’s top five local Tooting hotspots

Tooting: edgier than Balham and mercifully less Clapham than Clapham. The Romans built a road through it and it has a crater on Mars named after it – take that Brixton. Tooting may not be on everybody’s list of places to visit before they die but there are more than enough reasons to jump on the Northern line and revise that opinion. Here are just a few of them…

Tooting your own horn? GEDDIT! See how I did that? Tooting is a place and both the gerund and present participle of the verb toot. Hilarity ensues.

Simples

I'm off to the South Bank this afternoon on the tube. Living, as I do, within walking distance of the office, I don't get to use public transport often. Luckily I have found a transcript of Mayor Boris Johnson explaining how much a Zone 1 single costs if you pay with cash.

"Oh blimey… I've got the figures here. If you get a… if you get a… Yeah yeah yeah wait a minute. If you've got your Oyster card I think it's gone up to £2… £2.10 is it? Uhhh… I use the Oyster card because…. Always use your Oyster card! I'll give you… I can give you – d'you want me to recite… Where's the, where's the someone give me my… herewegoherewegoherewego here's the whole list HERE we go HEEEERE we go, okay. Right. Here we go. If you want a one-way ticket… Oh god… um… cash single. A cash single is… it is currently… in zones 1-7 it is £6.70. Can that be right? Well that's what it says here. That seems unbelievably expensive to me – that's outrageous. That cannot possibly be right. Wait wait wait… folks - who's drawn up this useless chart? *DEEP GROWLING* OH ZONE ONE HERE WE GO £4.50!"

Yes, that's Boris - some people are too stupid to get on in life - Johnson.

One day at a time

The Bomber and I will be back in Wales from the wedding on December 21 until Boxing Day, when we have to charge up the M4 early doors for the traditional Christmas showdown with Wimbledon Warriors.

Virgin Active has closed since last time I was back so it looks like The Gym Cardiff will have to take the strain as I can get £5 a day membership on Monday and Tuesday.

There is one in Swansea as well. I wonder if that would work for John if he could get the two of them 24/7 for a low monthly outlay?

Stamppot Boerenkool

I have only got potatoes and kale left over from this week's veg box, and next week's arrives tomorrow.

If I combine them with smoked sausage in a Dutch fashion I can make Stamppot Boerenkool. The same ingredients in a Portuguese stylee will give me Caldo Verde.

Now that the country is teeming with Poles I can select from a wide variety of charcuterie at the Sri Lankan shop at the bottom of the road. It is practically a Polski sklep these days.

Spuds, sausage and greens may be peasant food, but seasoned with my cosmopolitan, culinary suavity it combines a stroll through European history and culture with a treat for the taste buds.

How to be Topp: A Guide to Sukcess

U13 League 2
Team P W D L F A Diff B Pts Pts Adjust Old Rutlishians U13 3 3 0 0 97 19 78 2 17 0 Sutton & Epsom U13 A 2 1 0 1 44 71 -27 1 7 0 Reeds Weybridge U13s 1 1 0 0 27 19 8 1 6 0 Camberley U13 1 0 0 1 5 15 -10 0 1 0 Haslemere U13 2 0 0 2 33 74 -41 1 1 -2 Effingham & Leatherhead U13s 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Old Reigatian U13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Guildfordians U13 1 0 0 1 19 27 -8 0 0 -1
Last Updated: Dec 3 2013 2:27PM

The table is updated, for us at least, after last weekend's result.

OLD RUTS 37, HASLEMERE 7
Tries: Ben Browne, Silas Bobb, Sid Daniels, Pablo Santiago-Davies, Charlie Julian, Dylan Harwood, Joe Bennett
Conversion: Luke Saitch

 Tired but happy, this is before they knew what the traffic was going to be like on the A3 going home.

Not ready for Amazon Prime Air time?

Can this possibly be on the level? Reading The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, I think it might well be, Dr Strabismesque (whom God preservesque) of Utrechtesque as it seems.

That was the week that was

No one from from my family is going to hospital for a procedure today or on Friday this week, it is just my nephew Tuesday, my sister on Wednesday and my father on Thursday.

Half empty

The Ruts U13A team beat Haslemere 37-7 in the league this morning so, though I don't know the other results, we must still be top of the table as we've played one more game than anyone else.

Seven tries but, and this is the only niggle, only one conversion.

From memory the try scorers were the Bomber (in the first minute), Silas, Sid, Pablo Dylan, Joe B and someone else who I have forgotten in the excitement. Luke got the conversion.

Next up Effingham & Leatherhead U13s in a fortnight and I have heard rumours that a few of our regulars won't be available.

It wouldn't do not to have anything to worry about now would it?

Over by year

Our financial year runs from the beginning of December to the end of November. Now it is the weekend we won't be issuing any invoices before Monday.

A quick analysis reveals that 2012-13's turnover represents a 40% increase over last year.

I may have a drink tonight.

Wigging Out

Telegraph:

Sony has filed a patent for a "SmartWig" that would include ultrasound sensors, a camera and a laser pointer. The device is not necessarily intended to replace absent hair, as with traditional wigs, but to be worn as a sort of mobile computer.

The patent describes a "plurality of natural and/or artificial hair pieces" which will hide within them a range of sensors and communication devices. That artificial hair could be wool or horse hair, or just synthetic fibres, suggests Sony.

They are not stopping at the PS4 then. Dr Strabismus (whom God preserve) of Utrecht has reminded me that I will need to take off my SmartWig whenever I schedule an iGrow laser session.

Culture Blast

How reassuring to see that my Council Tax has gone towards paying an exhibitionist to ponce about in pancake make-up and a silly hat rather than being frittered away.

How many people work at Pornhub?

How many people work at Pornhub?

We have over 150 employees across the world, with about half of them being engineers. Keep in mind, we are an IT company.

The ACA website totally fumbled upon launch, leaving just a select few (including yours truly) able to access the site—but millions more unable to even get pages to load. How complicated is it to create a website that millions will use a day?

Hosting a website that over 35 million people a day flock to is no easy task. To create a website that can handle this type of traffic has to be done in steps, first building a scalable model, and continue adding capacity as the traffic volume grows. Everything must be done step by step. You can’t take any shortcuts.

What could you offer the Obamacare / ACA site?

Overall, I’d offer to lend them our engineers. We work very hard to train everyone to be able to handle any challenge. It’s no small task to accommodate the traffic volume they intended to. Since we specialize in high traffic websites, we are one of few companies who would have been able to get the site back on track. That’s why we made the offer -- we have the utmost confidence in our teams to accomplish anything.

For all that I am chuckling, there is a strange sort of logic to this.

Schools Rugby

I saw Ben playing for the school for the first time on Saturday. They got beaten 29-10 by Whitgift but it was a good performance as they only had fourteen men. Saadiq got a try in the first half and Ben struck in the second.

I may be a Corinthian of the old school, but I would have thought considering that Whitgift had a full team and plenty of replacements that they should have lent Rutlish a player. It was only a friendly after all. There were some heavy legs out there towards the end. Poor old Kieran was playing full back but switching to flanker whenever they had an attacking scrum. He was forever having to run practically the length of the pitch to join the pack and then scramble back again when play broke down.

Whitgift's a good rugby school. They've won the Daily Mail Cup a few times and Danny Capriani got a scholarship to play there, so to go down by five tries to two when you are man short and they are not only playing with fifteen but running rolling substitutions is no disgrace.

Knowledge is not for knowing

The bar keep in the 'Nonce has read Sean's book The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida.

I don't think I have ever been as surprised at anything in my life.

It's a slow Saturday night when you can have a sufficiently discursive conversation with the guy behind the jump for subject of Michel Foucault - French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, philologist and literary critic - to be broached if I'm honest.

Garlic Roasted Salmon & Brussels Sprouts

Roasting salmon on top of Brussels sprouts and garlic, flavored with wine and fresh oregano, is a meal that is simple enough for a weeknight meal yet sophisticated enough to serve to company.

That's lunch sorted then. It really is remarkable where my determination to eat everything in my weekly veg box leads me. I had mashed swede and carrots yesterday. I loathe swede. I will try and hide the rest in some spuds Monday or Tuesday.

Buddhist Extremist Cell Vows To Unleash Tranquility On West

WASHINGTON—In a 45-minute video posted on Tibetan websites Thursday, Tsuglag Rinpoche, leader of the Buddhist extremist group Kammaṭṭhāna, threatened to soon inflict a wave of peace and tranquility on the West.
Speaking in front of a nondescript altar surrounded by candles, burning sticks of incense, and a small golden statue of the Buddha, Rinpoche did not specify when or where an assault of profound inner stillness would occur, but stated in no uncertain terms that the fundamentalist Buddhist cell plans to target all Western suffering.
“In the name of the Great Teacher, we will stop at nothing to unleash a firestorm of empathy, compassion, and true selflessness upon the West,” said Rinpoche, adding that all enemies of a freely flowing, unfettered state of mind will be “besieged with pure, everlasting happiness.” “No city will be spared from spiritual harmony. We will bring about the end to all Western pain and anxiety, to all destructive cravings, to all greed, delusion, and misplaced desire. Indeed, we will bring the entire United States to its knees in deep meditation.”
“Wisdom and virtue to America!” continued Rinpoche. “Wisdom and virtue to all living things on earth!”
According to reports, Rinpoche stressed throughout his address that Kammaṭṭhāna soldiers would continue waging a tireless holy war on Western feelings of emptiness and negativity for as long as necessary, noting that “a jug fills drop by drop” and that “it is better to travel well than to arrive.”

It's been too long since I nicked a post from The Onion.

Christmas comes early

Hello,

We’re going to deliver your order, containing the item(s) listed below, today.

"Xbox One Console: Day One Edition (with FIFA 14 download code)"

If there’s nobody in when we arrive we’ll post through your letter box if possible, leave with an available neighbour or in your preferred safe-place, if you’ve previously provided us with those details.

If there’s anything we can help you with, please contact Customer Service, quoting your tracking ID : http://www.amazon.co.uk/contact-us , or visit our Help pages: http://www.amazon.co.uk/help.

Warmest regards,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk

We're in Wales at my Mum and Dad's on Christmas Day. It is cozy enough but there's no broadband, and - thus - the Bomber's getting his Christmas present early. Today in fact.

Blood Orange

I know that this is essentially just noodling around but I think it is great stuff. Wasn't there a time this sort of thing was Prince's job?

Steady as she goes

U13 League 2
Team P W D L F A Diff B Pts Pts Adjust Old Rutlishians U13 2 2 0 0 60 12 48 1 11 0 Reeds Weybridge U13s 1 1 0 0 27 19 8 1 6 0 Camberley U13 1 0 0 1 5 15 -10 0 1 0 Sutton & Epsom U13 A 1 0 0 1 7 45 -38 0 1 0 Effingham & Leatherhead U13s 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Haslemere U13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Old Reigatian U13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Guildfordians U13 1 0 0 1 19 27 -8 0 0 -1
Last Updated: Nov 19 2013 11:19AM

The boys are still top of the league after the weekend. It turns out you need to score four tries to get a bonus point. Thank God I didn't know that when Ben put Silas away in the last minute of the game but the ref called him back for a forward pass. I just shrugged my shoulders thinking we were comfortable as we were ten points up with the clock run down.

Ben with Silas in support

The Story so far...

U13

I looked at Camberley's website this morning.

The U13A home page is http://www.camberleyrugbyclub.co.uk/j/team-latest-101320.html.

They had won all their games this season before they came up against the Ruts yesterday.

They beat Henley 43-0 on the 22 September, Cobham 21-8 on 29 September, Esher 36-14 a fortnight ago, and Dorking 57-12 last week.

It adds glister to Sunday's win I think.

A good weekend

Wales 40 Argentina 6
Old Ruts U13A 15 Haslemere Camberley 5

joining the dots

I have finished reading Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature and started Undisputed Truth: My Autobiography by Mike Tyson.

I can't see any pattern either. (The oldest piece of print was found in a cave. It’s a speech by the Buddha, and it asks the reader to imagine all the grains of sand in the River Ganges, and then to imagine a world in which there were as many Ganges as grains of sand.)

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

I'll be focused on rugby this weekend. Wales play Argentina on Saturday, and then on Sunday Old Rutlishians U13 A clash with Haslemere U13A in the Surrey League.

Here are the two starting line ups:

Wales
1 Gethin Jenkins
2 Richard Hibbard
3 Rhodri Jones
4 Bradley Davies
5 Alun Wyn Jones
6 Sam Warburton
7 Justin Tipuric
8 Toby Faletau
9 Mike Phillips
10 Dan Biggar
11 Liam Williams
12  Scott Williams
13 Cory Allen
14 George North
15 Leigh Halfpenny

Old Ruts
1 Tom Dolan
2 Zac Rabanal
3 Daniel Binks
4 Saadiq Theophilus
5 Pablo Santiago-Davies
6 Joseph Muldoon
7 Bill Eustace
8 Joe Bennett
9 Charlie Julian
10 Luke Saitch
11 Daniel Young-McHugh
12 Sid Daniels
13 Jonnie Hendrie
14 Silas Bobb
15 Ben Browne

One thing and another

I am gradually concluding that I have strained my left elbow and wrist by doing horizontal cable internal and external rotations in an attempt to nurture my rotator cuff.

No good deed goes unpunished. I will try replacing them with shrugs.

Move B

In an unsettling development I find that, while I can live without the video, I rather like the new Little Mix single Move.

Move is also a song that we wrote with our fabulous vocal coach Meg. We all sat in the studio together and vibed and made little noises…

So now we know.

After ours

We won the quiz last night after a brief fallow period, but I won't be able to guzzle the £50 bar tab prize next week as I have promised to go to Mark's Cocktail Hour bash.

@BritishMonarchy

TIME has crunched the numbers to see how much any account is worth to Twitter now it has been floated.

In its IPO paperwork filed to regulators last month, Twitter stated its 230 million active users are producing 500 million tweets per day, noting, “We deliver more than 200 billion Tweets per day to our users.”

Twitter appears to define a “delivered tweet” as any tweet seen by a follower of another user. If the 200 billion figure is to be believed, then each of the 500 million daily tweets is delivered to an average of 400 people.

A $24.9 billion value divided by 200 billion tweet deliveries a day comes out to 12.45 cents per daily eyeball on the site.

We know how many times per day a person tweets on average. We also know how large each user’s audience is. That audience may not be the world’s most engaged. At least one study suggests that around three-quarters of tweets are ignored. To estimate a user’s current number of daily readers, we reduce the potential audience by 75%.

The size of this daily audience times 12.45 cents gives you your share of the Twitter largesse.

This suggests that Twitter owes $190,792 to @BritishMonarchy.

(16,594 tweets over 1,658 days on Twitter averages 10 tweets per day, so 612,987 followers generate 6,129,870 potential eyeballs per day. Even if only 25% of those are paying attention, that is stil 1,532,468 estimated eyeballs per day at 12.45¢ each.)

Berendal

The teaser trailer for Gareth Evans latest movie is online. The Welsh/Indonesian action genre (see Icons passim) appears to remain in good hands,

Here we go again

A look back at the last time we played South Africa, (amd Argentina, and Tonga and Australia) ahead of today's game.

meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no"/

format-detection

Enables or disables automatic detection of possible phone numbers in a webpage in Safari on iOS.

Discussion

By default, Safari on iOS detects any string formatted like a phone number and makes it a link that calls the number. Specifying telephone=no disables this feature.

Availability

Available in iOS 1.0 and later.

Support Level

Apple extension.

So now you know. Fascinating isn't it. IOS 7 on iPAD and OSX Mavericks tries to detect telephone numbers in web pages. Utterly pointless and ruins a lot of our code.

The Decameron

In one story, the merchant Giannotto di Civignì tries to get his Jewish friend Abraham to convert to Christianity. Abraham says that he must first go to Rome, to observe the clergy and see if they lead holy lives. This worries Giannotto. He fears that Abraham will discover how debauched the priests are. And that is exactly what happens. Abraham, returning home, reports that the Roman clergy are all sots, satyrs, and sodomites. Then he invites Giannotto to go with him to church, where he intends to be baptized. If the Roman church survives, he says, despite the debauchery of its representatives, then it must be endorsed by the Holy Spirit, and he wants to join the winning team.

What can  tell you? It made me laugh.

The Ticktockman

The Bomber played at number eight for the school on Monday and bagged a try. The referee scouted him for the Harlequins after the game, he tells me. I don't know exactly what that means, an email will be sent to the relevant master at the school. It will be something to do with the Academy I imagine. All very exciting.

Training at the club is cancelled tonight as the pitch is sodden and needs to be rested so that it is fit for the weekend games. This is no bad thing as he is playing in a schools tournament on Thursday. This all seems a touch intense compared to when I was a kid, though it may just have passed me by as I was no good.

Transformer

When Lou Reed left the Velvet Underground in 1970, it seemed rock and roll's loss was accountancy's gain - he found employment with his dad's accountancy firm. What's more the minute sales of his debut solo album were hardly likely to trouble balance sheets at his record company.

It no doubt came as a relief to Lou when David Bowie, then at the peak of his Ziggy success, offered to produce a new album. Transformer was aptly named - it would change Lou Reed from shadowy cult figure to (albeit unusual) pop star, and also become possibly the best album ever inspired by New York, even though it wasn't recorded there.

In July 1972, Reed moved to London and rented a house in Wimbledon, an area not renowned for its abundance of low life cross dressers and drug users. Recording commenced at Trident Studios, overseen by Bowie and his trusty guitar sidekick Mick Ronson, who also lent his trademark crunch to several of the tracks. Also involved where Beatles associate Klaus Voorman and ace session man Herbie Flowers, whose double tracked bass line on Walk on the Wild Side practically made the song, even if credit was never fully given for his contribution beyond the standard session fee.

RIP Lou Reed, late of this parish. I wonder where exactly where he stayed in SW19.

Back to school

The Bomber is back in school today. They are playing Ernest Bevin College at rugby this afternoon.

He stayed with me over half term. I was pleased with that.

Valley Girl

Since leaving Facebook, the older Zuckerberg has launched a media company, written two books—Dot. and Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives, both out November 5—and created a TV show. George Wayne checks in with the digital darling to talk start-ups, online etiquette, and Sheryl Sandberg.

Randi Zuckerberg is interviewed - sort of - in Vanity Fair. She was the inspiration for our "anyone will come to your meeting if it is in Buckingham Palace's Yellow Drawing Room" rule, doncha know.

SA

Tension rises ahead of tomorrow's Cardiff/Swansea derby.

This gets my goat.

Here's a simple fact: Beard stubble can and will scrape the soft face of that nice girl you've been hanging out with. And even if she doesn't mind the scratchiness, we doubt she'll appreciate that a make-out session comes with a side of blotchy skin. Which is what that short, coarse hair growth that covers the lower portion of your face just a few hours after shaving can do to a woman after some time spent getting up close and personal.

Traditional beard oils and conditioning agents are made to soften the longer hairs of your beard, but don't necessarily work on stubble. That's a job no cream or lotion can handle. You need a real kick-ass weapon, so turn your attention to sandpaper.

Yup. Sandpaper. By rubbing abrasive paper over the stubble, the prickly edges get rounded down — not unlike what happens when two pieces of sandpaper are rubbed together. It's a concept pioneered by a company called The Soft Goat, which has just launched the first ever stubble-softening pad that works in just this manner. In an nutshell, it's high-end sandpaper. But in more detail, it's an hypoallergenic foam pad that the makers have layered with abrasive paper that they've spent a few years honing to find just the right texture that will soften stubble but won't rip your face open.

I know its Movember 'n all, but I seem to detect the hand of Dr Strabismus (whom God preserve) of Utrecht in Esquire here.

The Soft Goat; ho ho very satyrical. Geddit? See how I put a y in there instead of an i. Hilarious eh?