There is no more curling and I am sad. I watched about six games at the weekend and we lost most of them which was depressing. Especially as we didn’t get to the semis, despite the men being the top team in the world and two of them being full time curlers. Rubbish. There’ll be no more curling for four years now – I can’t imagine the BBC will show the wheelchair curling at the Paralympics. If there’s some International curling in Scotland at some point in the future I make go on holiday and watch some curling while I’m there, though.

On the plus side, I now have time to do things other than watch curling and ice skating. I just have two weeks worth of TV to watch instead. Which actually won’t take me a week – there’s not really much on at the moment.

Saturday night I helped run the bar at the annual Welsh evening (it being St David’s Day today). It consisted of quite a bit of singing in Welsh… We had a whole load of beer left over that we couldn’t take back to Tescos, so I took it into work because I know people there would go mad for free beer. And, I brought it all home again. The reason: they’d have to get it out of my boot. Despite my car being parked a whole two minutes walk away, it was a sunny day and I was parked in the same place everyone else parks. I knew people at work were apathetic, but not being able to get off your arse for free beer is something else. So I’ll be throwing that away now.

I am so behind on the Olympics – I have a PVR full of curling. I did discover that team GB will play 18 matches between then and that’s if they don’t get to the semis… I think it’s safe to say I’m not going to be watching all those in a week. So after spending Tuesday and Wednesday night (around pancakes in the case of Tuesday) watching the first men and women’s matches, I swapped back to skating. So now I’ve seen the pairs and the men’s short program and I’m all skated out. So this morning’s skating will just have to wait until tomorrow.

The rest of the curling will wait until after the Olympics – I’ll just wait and see if we get into the semis and watch that.

Because of this I haven’t watched any TV all week and I have a whole load of RSS feeds marked as unread that I just haven’t read/commented on. And a whole load of other things to do. And other sports I’d quite like to see some of. I really could do without having to work…

I don’t know how I’m going to watch all the Olympics. I saw bits yesterday morning in their extended highlights, which was just the right amount of all the sports that look crazy enough to watch but get samey pretty quickly.

Tonight I managed to get the pair short program into about an hour but cutting out anything that wasn’t the actual skating. But tonight’s the free program which has more skating, then tomorrow there’s a GB curling match and I’m going out for pancakes in the evening.

And there’s only so much Olympics you can watch in an evening. Fortunately I have nothing planned for the weekend, so it might involve watching a lot of ice skating and curling and a bit of other sports…

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that various people have been posting their TV series for the meme at isurrendered and there’s some really interesting stuff there. I think I have the smallest cast…

Copper won the prize for guessing the connection between the actors in mine: they’ve all played policemen/women:

• Peter Davison was DC ‘Dangerous’ Davies in The Last Detective
• Ben Peyton was PC Ben Haywood in The Bill
• Philip Glenister was DCI Gene Hunt in Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes and also DCI William Bell in State of Play
• Jaye Griffiths was DI Sally Johnson in The Bill

Georgia Moffett only played a policewoman’s daughter: she was Abi Nixon, DS/DI Sam Nixon’s daughter in The Bill.

It’s that time of year again… Well, it’s a new time of year. This is the first year the ATP tour final (formerly known as the Masters series final) has been held in London. So, we went yesterday afternoon. As a result I feel terrible today while not lying down, but I have the week off, and anyway, it was worth it.

We saw Nestor and Zimonjic play a Polish pair I’ve never heard of, can’t spell and certainly can’t pronounce. They’re ranked 8, so they’re the lowest ranked pair in there. It was a bit odd because they played a variation, so when it got to deuce whoever won the next point won. And if they won a set each they’d play a tie-break, but to 10 points. It made it very quick, but it felt like it all turned on those deuce points because the Polish pair broke once per set on those points. But it was a good match and now I’m reduced to seeing the rest of the doubles matches online.

We had half an hour’s break after that and then there were a lot fewer empty seats for Murray’s match. This was back to usual point scoring and because they spend a lot more time than the doubles per point, made it seem really slow. The doubles match was an hour long, this one was two and a half. But it was a battle and Del Potro played well, apart from in the middle of the first set and towards the end of the third. That was a good match too, but we really wanted it to end because the seats just go so uncomfortable after sitting in them for the best part of five hours, I was really dizzy and it was really hot in there, which didn’t help.

But we had a good view, even though we were near the back. People at work were trying to tell me we wouldn’t be able to see a thing, but it was no different from being at the back of Centre Court.

And there are photos, some of which are a bit blurry because they’re all taken with the flash off and the lighting was terrible (really bright on the court and we couldn’t see a thing, which made eating lunch interesting).

I keep meaning to update more often but I’m just so unmotivated by everything at the moment. I think all that time reading and watching videos and not doing a lot else and I’ve got used to it. But there isn’t nothing on tonight (I’m most upset that The Bill’s off for Celebrity nonsense), so I am determined to do something constructive with my evening.

In Yuletide news I am currently reviewing the source material in the hopes that I might manage a plot at the end of it. I’m quite excited about what I’m writing and it helps that my recipient likes a lot of the same things that I do. I’m hoping that writing that will help remind me about the whole doing something constructive thing.

It’s Children in Need tomorrow, so it’s guaranteed to rain, since it’s not that cold. Normally I’d be running around in the road with a bucket before work, but I’m not well enough to do that, so I am counting money after work instead. I don’t think I can quite cope with the idea of not doing something for Children in Need any more.

I’m having a week off work next week, which I will mostly be spending listening to the tennis, since the BBC aren’t showing much. I was very excited by a twitter post of Andy Murray’s today because he revealed that he’s playing Sunday afternoon and that’s when I’m going. We’re further back than we were for the gymnastics, so expect pictures of ant-sized people.

I am most distressed my today’s paper when they announced they are discontinuing the Technology section in the Guardian. I liked it best when it was the Online section with the Science section inside, but it’s still been worth buying the paper once a week for it. Without it there’ll be no reason to buy the paper any more – and I don’t like reading the paper online, it’s not the same. These days I tend to get my news from Radio 5 on the way home from work.

On Friday I went to the World Gymnastics Championships in London. And took lots of photos, which mostly consist of blurry gymnasts upside down. I really must check if my camera has a sport setting. My sister’s are better, not least because she can zoom in further, but hers are set to friends and family only.

It made me really dizzy, but was good fun. We went to the women’s all round because the men are boring and we got to see every piece of apparatus. We were sat high up and behind a metal bar, which hid the vault completely. So you’d keep checking to see that there was a girl still stood there, and the next thing you knew everyone was clapping because she’d vaulted and you’d missed it.

There were two Brits competing and you could tell when they were up next because the crowd would go mad. So I made sure to watch them, but apart from that I watched a bit of everything. What you can’t tell from watching it on the telly is how much of nothing goes on. While they’re busy showing you slow motion replays and discussing the routine there’s just waiting around for the score. Which adds up to quite a lot of waiting sometimes.

It was nice not to have to get annoyed with camera angles. Which I did at the weekend when they kept moving the camera around unnecessarily and made it impossible to watch some of it.

It’s been a weekend of thrills, excitement, hope, nervousness, patriotism, doubt and ultimately relegation. Yes, it’s been a weekend filled with British tennis. It’s really depressing when you think that we put our best men in there and couldn’t beat Poland, yet the Spanish B team still won their semi-final match. I think maybe we deserve to be down in Group II for being shit at tennis. Apart from Andy Murray and one man does not make a team.

In other news, there is no other news. I just really can’t be bothered this weekend and I’ve had a weekend of mostly just sleeping and watching the tennis.

I should totally be working on my remix fics on this tennis-less (but not Glastonbury-less) day, but I heard them talking about this on Radio 5 and have only just seen the list on Andy Murray’s twitter now.

He has a tennis player snack name game going on, where you alter tennis players names slightly to match up with names of snacks. Where snack is a loose definition. His list includes:

Lleyton chewit, james flake, boris doubledecker, dorito starace. #

Juan martin del popcorn, vania kingsize mars bar, gilles muller fruit corner. Novak Yorkie-ovic #

John MacEnrolo, Cod woodbridge, mardy fishcakes, prawn borg, martina haggis, mince spadea, egg rusedski, spotted dick norman. #

Nicholas Tiramassu, ernests gulbiscuit. Jesse levino? Juan carlos ferrero rocher. #

Ryvita gerulaitis. #

They were coming up with these on Radio 5 on Thursday for the tennis players on the commentary team, but the only one I can remember is Michael Stichy Toffee Pudding.

Wimbledon starts on Monday! I have my fantasy team assembled, which includes Federer and Murray and an assortment of women who’s names I liked, since I know nothing about the women and don’t care about them either. I must remember to find my radio from wherever I put it when I moved in six months ago.

After deleting my Facebook account it started sending me notifications. So I had to undelete it to find out what was going on and found that not only had it ticked every notification box but it had also allowed my profile to be seen by everyone! So I reset it, but now I don’t trust them to actually delete it, even though it looks as thought they do now, so I haven’t. But after fixing all that I see no reason to ever visit the site again.

I had an epiphany about Twitter too and what I actually wanted to use it for. There’s loads of people I follow who I’m just not reading and who aren’t following me so we can’t have a conversation over it and when they post interesting stuff I want to ask about, I can’t ask on Twitter. So I have temporarily shunted everyone I don’t think I want to read into a column and I’ll see if I miss them, or if they’ve said anything I do want to read in a few days time. But I did discover there’s a Wimbledon feed, which is vaguely interesting. There are also feeds for various courts and Henman Hill! Tim Henman has an account he rarely posts to but interesting, Andy Roddick has one that he uses and posts interesting things to as far as I can see. Unlike Andy Murray…

I am looking forward to melliyna coming to visit on Wednesday because I want to see her, but also because it’ll be someone to talk to. Blogs and Twitter aren’t really the best replacements for a social life. But, I am up to 13 fast on the first exercise. Or I was on Friday – I spent yesterday too tired and dizzy to do anything and today too dizzy to do anything except for the things I really need to get done this weekend.

With useful headers and everything. Read more…

Dear BBC

Why is it that the closest I’ve come to seeing either of Andy Murray’s doubles matches at Queens is seeing him walk out on court this evening before you stopped broadcasting for no good reason and despite saying you’d broadcast till 8pm?

Oh, hang on, I know the answer. It’s because you’re a load of useless tossers who don’t deserve the licence fee I have to pay every year.

You’d better have a bloody good answer to my complaint.

No love,
Me.

This weekend I’ve watched lots of tennis. Which was good, but I wish they’d just stick to showing us the court in such a way that they don’t have to move the camera, and not show us a picture from behind one of the players where you can’t see anything and the camera moves too much. I also could do with them not showing us an aerial view of the court and then spiralling round and in. But at least we get six days of French Open viewing (at the weekends) whereas for Wimbledon we only get three.

I saw Sports Island 2 for the Wii and I want it – it looks good. Not that I can play on the Wii at the moment, mind you. Or cross stitch, which is really quite frustrating.

All of a sudden remix is happening, so I’m going to be writing two at the same time.

I need to do a reading my weight in books update – it might be in a while when there’s no tennis.

My hayfever’s gone from practically nothing to me spending the afternoon blowing my nose, last night with itchy eyes and sudden asthma when it got dark Friday and today. At least it’s quite late, so hopefully it’ll only be a month and half – which I calculated should only cost me about £30 in drugs.

I had a good weekend – well, half a good weekend. I went to High Wycombe to drop off some knickers and other stuff for Knickers 4 Africa and go to selenay936’s ex-local bookshop. Where I saw her parents and spent £17 on books – that was being restrained. I’m still working through the books I got from my mum and grandmother for my birthday yet.

It was a good day and we somehow managed to avoid the worst of the weather. I was really tired when I got home, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was how dizzy I felt Sunday. All I ended up doing on Sunday is lying on the sofa reading and watching tennis because I wasn’t capable of doing anything else. Fortunately, there was tennis on – exhibition matches under the new Centre Court roof at Wimbledon and I enjoyed them, although I could have done without the camera moving so much. I didn’t even feel like I’d done that much either. I’m less dizzy now but back to going to bed at 10pm.

But on Friday I’m going to see if I feel well enough after work to go and see In the Loop, which wasn’t at the cinema walking distance from where I live now. But it is at the cinema walking distance from work on Friday and Saturday. Then it is at least a three day weekend, although I plan to do things with it – not least find a place for all these books to live…

Also, in the unlikely event that there’s anyone left who doesn’t have a Dreamwidth account that wants one, I have four invites. And, it turns out, Trillian Astra invites, since it’s now in beta. And probably has been for a while, I’ve just failed to notice, just gave them money…

My trouble when I’m ill is I tend not to want to talk to people, mostly because I have to be polite and I don’t have the energy for that extra thinking. So it’s usually better just to shut up and ignore everyone. Which has extended to me not wanting to post in here either, although I do have things I want to blog about.

I am getting better, if slowly (and don’t have concussion, which is good after I hit my head on the kitchen side on Thursday night) and this has been marked as unread in my emails for a while:

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your blog and elaborate on the subjects given.

tanaquilotr gave me Doctor Who, Elrond, food allergies, Davis Cup, fencing: Read more…

I now have a clean and tidy flat for the first time since I moved in. I made loads of space by throwing out stuff, which includes a bag of books to take to Redemption, three boxes of floppy disks (mostly blank) and backups of my last but one computer on eight CDs. But not only can I now get to things but I also have space for more things! Which is great. Well, it will be till I fill the space up again.

My lengthy to-do list did all get put on hold this morning for the Australian Open final, which was great, although did mean I had a late lunch. I can’t believe what sort of times they play till over there. But I really, really enjoyed the match. No matter what happens I can’t stop thinking of Federer as the No 1 and champion and Nadal as his adversary. Despite the fact that it’s pretty much been the other way round recently.

Next big thing is the Davis Cup, which we ought to win…

I’ve been trying to be good recently and go swimming once a week. It fell down a bit when I had a cold and it won’t happen while I’m in Canada (but all the walking I’ll be doing’ll make up for it). Along with that I’ve been trying to do more lengths each time and more lengths in a row and more lengths in a row of a particular stroke.

Today I got really excited because I suddenly managed to be able to do breaststroke putting my head under the water! Up till now I’ve managed to do three strokes before it all went wrong, but for some reason it just started working. After a length and a half I get tired and it starts to go wrong. And I don’t get up as high as the Olympic swimmers, but I’m still very excited that I managed to do it at all.

P9200851

Originally uploaded by paranoidangel

It almost feels like there’s been constant tennis this summer, what with the French Open, Stella Artois, Wimbledon, Olympics and now the Davis Cup.

I had some overtime to take last week, so I went home to watch Friday’s matches. Saturday I went to Wimbledon, today I just lay on the sofa and despaired. Well, towards the end.

The trouble with Davis Cup is that as much as you can admire the tennis the same as at other times, it’s just not the same when our guys don’t win. And they didn’t, which was all depressing. That it went down to the last match helped a bit at least. But in the programme Jamie Murray said that it often hinges on Saturday’s doubles match – the team that wins that one goes onto win the tie and he was right in this case.

I’ve still enjoyed watching the tennis and had a good time at Wimbledon yesterday. It’s just that… we lost. And now we’re back in Euro-Africa Zone 1 where we can’t fail to lose, and then go on to play another World Group qualifying match next year. Then if we get into the World Group we then lose our first match. And so the cycle continues… Until our two doubles specialists improve and the British number 2 has a lot higher ranking (inside the top 100 would be a start).

I got up this morning, put the telly on and there was Paralympics. I enjoyed the swimming and now I’m even watching wheelchair basketball, which is far more interesting than normal basketball.

And Andy Murray & Rafa Nadal have to finish their semi-final this evening, hurricane permitting.

So that’s me not getting anything done for another week and a half.

I knew today that Andy Murray was through to the semis and Jamie Murray was into the Mixed Doubles final. And he said that maybe he’s better at mixed, which is really unhelpful given the number of opportunities he has to play mixed doubles vs doubles. Anyway, his match was due to start at 5.30pm BST. Which is really good timing as that’s when I finished work.

So I got home and went to 301 & 302 and there was… no tennis. But there was sports news, so while my computers started up I thought I’d see if there was any news of the score. Andy Murray was mentioned, Jamie Murray might well as not have existed.

As I was hungry I went and put dinner on and turned the radio on. The radio in the kitchen is permanently tuned to Radio 5, purely for Wimbledon but I found their news at 6 is handy to listen to while I cook dinner and try not to die of boredom while I do it. Jamie Murray got mentioned in the headlines.

Turned out it was on 5 Live Sports Extra, so I’ve been listening to that all evening. It’s really strange how different the US Open is to Wimbledon. When the players sit down they have the big screen picking out random people to win a George Foreman grill. They played a final on a Thursday during the day US time, which seems mad. And the commentators end up having to stay up till 3am to commentate on matches! I mean, I do like all day tennis, but there’s a limit.

And the strangest thing of all was sudden death at deuce in the doubles matches. Which made that one point so, so important. And utterly pointless, since it was only done for the TV schedules. Keeping the number of deuces in a game is going to make the match shorter, but not by much. And it isn’t going to make it any more unpredictable either. Crazy.

So that’s the Olympics done for another four years (except for the Paralympics in a couple of weeks).

What am I going to do with myself now?