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1. Today started with a little bit of a stealth hangover - just a reminder to my head that my body can't deal with several pints a day like it was able to when I was twenty. No matter that I drank about five pints yesterday over the course of a ten to twelve hour period and hence never got remotely drunk, I'm going to have a bit of a sluggish headache for a few hours in the morning.
2. So this meant I didn't get out of bed till after ten, and this (and the lack of a clear intent on where I wanted to go) meant I wasn't up and out and doing the sketching that I planned to do. At no point did Martin Dahlin stamp on my trifle.
3. With a certain degree of forcedness, I headed out at one-ish for a walk round the river - it was colder and my shoes were less comfortable than ideal, but I knew I should do some drawing so found something do-able and did that. The former Congregational Church across the way is an interesting building, but it was slightly obscured by cars and trees so I made some of the architecture up. This, and not being very comfortable where I sat, meant overall I am only medium happy with my attempt (though admittedly I am pretty pleased I made the effort to get back in the saddle).
4. Amílcar Henríquez, Panamanian footballer, has been killed in a drive-by shooting aged 33. The Central American team has never qualified for the World Cup finals, though they came close last time . They're in with a shout for the next tournament, third in the qualification stage of six, should they finish there they'd play in Russia 2018.
5. The final of Robot Wars this evening saw Carbide with a simple design (well armoured little box that operated both ways up) and a big horizontal spinner, and it won against two or three less reliable similar ones and a couple of decent flippers. Something something BOOB ROCK.
6. I finished that book about air disasters - it was a bit disappointing overall. Too little information putting each disaster in context, too much jargon mixed in with chit-chat, hence the overall effect come over like the author had included all the transcripts he could get his hands on without the editing and selectivity that would've made for a better read. Concentrating on half as many disasters in twice the detail would have made for a more informative and illustrative book.
7. On the train the other evening I was watching a lady doing some crochet. Interesting to watch, impressive how quickly she was able to build it up - it seemed to be some kind of circular item she was creating. It's the FA Cup semi-finals next weekend, so a few games rearranged because of that. Anyhow, the lady was able to rattle off a run of eight or ten stitches in a row, do a bit of pulling and rearranging, then run off a load more stitches. Looked better than knitting, from my uneducated eye.
8. Alvaro Recoba scored a few goals direct from corners, didn't he? Beckham's got a couple too, but to some extent that's perhaps indicative of the nature/level of MLS. The most memorable of that type of goal? Shakiri for Macedonia in their 2-2 draw with England, IMHO.
9. Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) is a highly branched, herbaceous, thistle-like annual plant. It is commercially cultivated for vegetable oil extracted from the seeds. Plants are 30 to 150 cm (12 to 59 in) tall with globular flower heads having yellow, orange, or red flowers. Each branch will usually have from one to five flower heads containing 15 to 20 seeds per head. Safflower is native to arid environments having seasonal rain. It grows a deep taproot which enables it to thrive in such environments.
10. Work tomorrow, in a similar fashion to Friday I am hoping to get a lot of tasks requiring a bit of concentration done, with the relatively quiet e-mail/phone necessary. There is nothing magical about the choice of symbols for the values of Boolean algebra. We could rename 0 and 1 to say α and β, and as long as we did so consistently throughout it would still be Boolean algebra, albeit with some obvious cosmetic differences. Trains likely to be similar, buses less so.
West Bromwich Albion 0-1 Liverpool
This was always going to be quite a test for Liverpool, a real question set with respect to their credentials in a Champions League qualification sense. Windy and a bit breezy in West Brom (OK, so it was probably similar in Liverpool, and you can't really make accusations about wet Wednesday nights in Stoke with these two teams involved) and some parity early on, chances for both sides, but the lads in red were the better - they all put a decent shift in, even with a few missing through injury and rotation, and they could've gone ahead before they did - Firminho it was who was in the right place to head home from Lucas Leiva's little nod-on just as Pulis was planning his half time team talk. West Brom are on a bit of a poor run, they've perchance overachieved in the first three quarters of the season and don't see realistically that they can break into the top six so might be easing off. Shop window though, lads! In the last ten or so minutes WBA pressed for an equaliser, but the likes of Mignolet, Matip and Milner made mumble mumble.. it finished nil-one.
Manchester United 2-0 Chelsea
A few surprising team changes, due to injuries and the impending Europa League second leg for United. Begovic and Zouma in for the crocked Courtois and Alonso (As'cueta moving to the flank), Ibrahimovic on the bench. Mourinho's team are unbeaten in the league since his former team beat them 4-0 in the reverse fixture, and of course Chelsea won 1-0 when the teams met in the FA Cup a month ago. We had an early goal to put the lynx amongst the doves - a handball in the buildup not spotted/awarded and Rashford played in to put the ball past Begovic seven gone. Costa was getting involved, the referee was under question for some aspects of his decisions, United players throwing themselves to the floor. Scrappy, but Spurs encouraged. Early in the second, a decisive goal - Herrera shot when an opening presented itself, and it took a slice off Zouma whilst beating Begovic. A change in formation, the weather wetter, Chelsea were really off the pace, effectively neutralised. Fabregas frustrated went in high and might've been redded. Title race back on, United back to fifth and back in the UCL hunt (Europa League winner route notwithstanding).
