Teg-j's alternative to shouting at the television

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Improving the Olympics #1 – Long-jump
2007-02-23 02:11:00
Why do the athletics authorities persist with rules which half-ruin their own sports? My suggestion is to get rid of the moronic over-stepping rule for long-jump (and triple jump). Currently, any competitor who steps over the line, thereby making an indentation in the plasticine, is red-flagged, and the jump is void. But why??? All they need to do is subtract the size of the indent from the measured length of the jump. Under current rules, there is the very real possibility that the event is NOT won by the person who has actually performed the longest jump. It could be an outstanding jump, a world-record beating jump – but if it is over the line by just 1mm it is excluded. Do it three times, and the competitor is disqualified altogether. This wrecks the event in more ways than one.1. The event may be won by someone who has not jumped the furthest. As a spectator, this is completely demotivating. I simply don’t bother watching any more. 2. The event becomes primari...
More About: Olympics , Olympic , Long , Jump , Ving

Listening to landscapes; from Mid-Wales to the Midwest
2007-02-05 02:39:00
I’ve previously declared myself a committed atheist, so you may easily deduce my view on creationism. No prizes…. it's ballyhoo, it’s bunk, it’s bollocks. So big surprise a couple of nights ago, when I found myself almost sympathizing with some of them. Not your UK religious idiot types – no excuses there! But the US agricultural bible belt hicks; hardly top of my usual sympathy list. And the reason for this unexpected outbreak of empathy? I was watching Bill Oddie on telly, looking at birdlife and nature in the mid-west. The landscape shots were fantastic. He was in (I think) Nebraska, and the horizon was simply huge, beyond a featureless expanse of sandy dusty low hills – almost like inland sand dunes. Brought up exclusively in the UK, I had no idea how to read that landscape. From what he said, I don’t think Bill Oddie did either. It just didn’t seem to have a history. In the UK we’re spoilt for clues about our past. Right near my home here in ...
More About: Landscapes , Wales , Landscape , Apes , West

The big supermarket vegetable lie
2007-01-01 02:26:00
Like most people, my family does most of our family shopping in one or other of the big-four UK supermarkets. And to be honest, there’s much to like. Of course there is; that’s why we, along with 99% of the rest of the population, suspend our worries about disproportionate market influence, underpaid agricultural workers and third world sweatshops, and shop there nearly every week. I do wish we didn’t. I regret the small businesses squeezed out. I hate those anodyne soulless buildings. I dislike the command they have over the very shape of our towns. Yet we shop there anyway. Clearly they’ve tapped so deeply into our shopping psyche, with their intimate knowledge of what we want and how we like it presented, that it overcomes any reservations. And I hate that too. At one level this is quite unreasonable of me. After all, all they’ve done is make it their business to find out the things that motivate my shopping decisions, so that they can provide for my nee...
More About: Market , Super , Vegetable , Tabl , Table

Tears in the enchanted forest
2006-12-19 11:59:00
As I write, I have just been crying. I knew I was about to – and sure enough, I did. I knew, because there are certain passages I cannot read (or listen to) without being affected. The thing is, there’re the daftest pieces, and I really don’t know why they get me like this. So here I am, copying an old story-tape I bought on Ebay to CD so we can play it for the kids in the car on our journey north tomorrow. Classic stuff – Winnie the Pooh / The House at Pooh Corner. I have no idea how other cultures cope with this stuff, but if you are of a certain age and particular social group (white, aspiring middle class, parents who read to you) then this is the lode-stone; memories of riding on your dad's shoulders, nights in front of the fire, comforting sticky puddings, and cuddling your very own Ted, all rolled into one. Gentle yet exuberant, teasing yet sharing. Innocence and childhood played out in the most parochial of English settings. Bliss indeed.And then I get to the last c...
More About: Tear , Rest , Forest , Enchanted , Ears

A bribe is a bribe (unless it isn't).
2006-12-15 00:43:00
Am I unduly cynical? Well, yes, quite often; it's a bad habit and I really must make an effort to be a more positive sort of individual. However, I really fail to understand the public/media furore over the "cash for peerages" allegations. Cynicism??Now don't get me wrong. It troubles me not at all if a handful of very rich individuals have their so-called altruism called into question, nor if a slew of politicians get hauled over. It's just that I find it hard to be surprised. So you can buy a title? Well, that's how I always assumed it worked. Nothing new: even back in the time following the Norman conquests and people were rewarded for their loyalty to the crown - and you can be sure that "loyalty" meant more than putting up a flag and singing the national anthem. At no point have I thought that peerages were dealt out on any other basis. But does it matter? Whilst we have an upper house which is populated largely by individuals who have advanced themselves in this w...
More About: Less

Your deepest held beliefs are bunk - no offence: a P.C. atheist ponders.
2006-12-04 02:35:00
I am an atheist. I could go into a great deal of detail about exactly what sub-species of atheist – in fact I’m sure I will another time. The core idea however, is the rejection of a faith-based model of creation, morality, redemption or eternal life. There’s more to it than that, but that will suffice as a quick round-up. Given the above, it should come as no surprise that I find most religions (insofar as I am exposed to them either personally or through the media) to be very dispiriting. I see faith in dogma blinding people to truths that appear obvious to me; I see religious leaders whose morals are at best ambiguous and often downright corrupt; I see intolerance and conflict; I see vulnerable individuals exploited. To cap it all, I see faith founded on texts which seem so obviously dodgy that I find it very hard to understand how any reasoning individual can accept them at face value. So much that is tawdry and false; so many lies. However, I do understa...
More About: Beliefs , Atheist , Your , Pond , Deep

Rural postal services under threat - or why I hate couriers
2006-11-29 22:40:00
There has been a lot of publicity recently about the threat to rural post offices. However, there is very little attention paid to the rather greater danger just over the horizon - the loss of rural postal deliveries. It hasn't happened yet, but anyone who thinks that there is not a crisis looming is hiding from the truth. The Royal Mail is haemorrhaging money due to its statutory commitment to a daily delivery to every UK address, while the piecemeal privatisation of parcel delivery services has allowed private courier services to cherry-pick the most profitable business. So no problem, eh? Your parcel will just be delivered by a bloke in a white van (or green/yellow/pink/brown) instead of a red one? Except it doesn't work like that. The couriers aren't interested in expensive and inconvenient rural deliveries, so they only do half the job. Here is what happens. I buy an item online or by mail order. The vendor, believing a “courier service" to be the most effic...
More About: Services , Post , Service , Postal , Hate

Another eco balls-up, or why I hate my modem.
2006-11-29 21:58:00
Hardly news at-all; I've gone wireless. I didn't really mean to. With only one PC in the house it hardly seemed necessary. Maybe when the kids are older and there's a PC in every corner, but not now. But then a bit of DIY went wrong and I accidentally cut through the telephone extension cable which ran to the "study" (ha).The choice was to either pay heaps of cash to a telephone engineer, rip up floorboards, etc, to repair the cable - or go wireless. A no-brainer.I can't say I enjoyed the installation which was far from straightforward, but it works. So why do I hate it? Because it is one more electrical gizmo that will end up being on half the time wasting electricity. I am now using energy to do a job which used to be done without using energy. I know this should have been obvious from the outset, but it didn't really show up on my radar. Even now, I probably wouldn't mind if it was just a teeny drain, but no. The power supply pulls a full 1 amp - most of which se...
More About: Other , Hate , Hat , Modem , Balls