Author: 6000

Coffee

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I like drinking coffee. Despite the fact that I am Yorkshire born and bred, I’m not a huge fan of tea. Coffee is my hot beverage of choice. However, while I know what I like (and what I don’t like), I wouldn’t describe myself as a coffee snob.

Nor am I a coffee addict. I can stop whenever I want, and I always do stop if I get a bit trembly, which is way before things go downhill towards tummy ache time.

That said, when I do stop if I get a bit trembly, I always start again at some point. And I’m still here.

This one is from Nathan W Pyle – you may remember him from posts such  as Strange Planet. I’m still enjoying those cartoons on his Instagram.

One nil to the… hang on a minute

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Another brilliant performance by my beloved Sheffield United last night, full of commitment and hard work, set on a solid foundation of tactical genius, and backed up by 30,000 passionate South Yorkshire voices.

Some say that they could see it coming:

Arsenal have played more Premier League games at Bramall Lane without victory than they have any other ground in the competition (4 – D2 L2).

It was a great night to be a Blade and – for the moment at least – I’m rather enjoying this little Premiership adventure trip we’re on. I don’t know if people who support “big teams” really understand what it is like to have been playing Southend United (no offence, Southend fans) and Tranmere Rovers (offence, Tranmere fans) a couple of years ago and then find yourself playing the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal each week.

I’m in dreamland.

Sheffield United’s Dean Henderson has kept 25 clean sheets in the league since the start of last season; more than any other goalkeeper in England’s top four tiers.

That’s not to say that it’s always enjoyable watching the games. Sure, I’m loving seeing us pitted against the best that England (and often, Europe) has to offer week in, week out, but it still feels like every game is a cup final. That means that the pressure is constantly on and it seems that I am fully engaged, as my watch’s stress monitor showed me:

I love the way you can actually pinpoint kickoff at 9pm.

I feel like I aged 10 years in 90 minutes but I don’t mind, although I will be older than Medusa by the time the season’s over. Last night, only a celebratory brandy was enough to bring me back down from a near heart attack and I didn’t get to sleep until 3am.

Don’t even care…

Deturked

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Over the weekend, (almost) all my new found Turkish twitter followers clucked off.

I know, Turkeys don’t cluck. Can’e bothered to change it.

I’d love to explain what might have happened, but no-one really knows, so I’ll leave the summing to @Arfness (thanks again) with this thread here.

And while that thread makes interesting reading, here’s the tl;dr:

 So, what is going on? Why follow somebody en masse and then unfollow them 48 hours later?
I suspect that these are spam accounts that are looking for follow-back. By building a following of credible and “real accounts”, spam accounts can gain a veneer of credibility.
It may be something to do with Twitter’s automatic spam detection, or simply a method to look more legitimate to potential ad targets.

I love that I (perhaps inadvertently) got classed as “credible” and a “real account”. It’s two of the nicest things anyone’s ever said about me.

Join me again next week, as – for no apparent reason – my Instagram account is infiltrated by Russian hackers, posing as Iranians.

Bet that’s irritating

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Yes, it is.

I don’t know a lot about rugby (see yesterday’s post), and it seems that I don’t know a lot about betting on rugby either.

Earlier in the week, in an effort to learn more about rugby, I have a look at what the bookies thought might happen in the RWC quarter finals. The bookies are nearly always right in these matters, and that’s why they are still all in business. I popped a 4-way accumulator on the four matches (which I won, but not much) and then I looked at the SA v Japan fixture. I felt that this one was going to be close. SA underperform fairly regularly at RWC tournaments (often due to the ref – and I checked that there was going to be a ref in this match), and Japan have been the surprise package of the World Cup so far. I was therefore amazed to see that I could get ridiculous odds for the points difference being 0-27. Fourteen to one. Fourteen!

“I’m having some of that,” I thought, as I had some of that.

It was only later in the week that I finally understood what I had actually bet on. Not the points difference between the teams (i.e. the winning margin), but the total number of points scored in the match.

Oops.

“Never mind, can’t do much about it now,” I thought, neither minding nor doing anything about it now.

It’s not like you can change your mind on these things (well, you can, but you don’t get your money back). I considered it a sign and tried to forget about it. Until, that is, that I wandered in from the garden at half time today and noted that the score was only 5-3.

Sadly, Japan capitulated a little in the second half, and it seems that my bet went out of the window with about 10 minutes to go.

The final score was 26-3, meaning that I lost my bet (and an awful lot of winnings) by just 2 points. Injurious, sure.
However, insult was very much added to that injury when I realised that my initial prediction  (that the points margin would be less than 27) proved to have absolutely correct and also absolutely without value, since I hadn’t actually placed a bet on that happening any more. I’d placed the bet on something that didn’t happen instead.

I think I’ll stick to football in future. Already, I have decided that both the winning margin and the total number of goals in today’s ManU v Liverpool game will be less than 27.

Safety first.

 

Borrowed tweet sums me up

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England beat Australia in the Rugby World Cup quarter final:

I mean… it’s great. Well done, boys and all that, but… that’s about all.

I will be happy with two more wins in the competition, but my Alan Partridge shrug will remain.