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An octave of notes 24 June 2014 20:59 1) A colleague remarked today how, when watching a 1990 world cup game, he noticed that over half the English players had names ending in "ER". That made him wonder whether this would cause foreign viewers to assume that most English names ended in "ER". This needed more research. In a (possibly non-representative) sample of surnames, I found that the most common ending (10%) was "ON" and the second (8.3%) was "ER". "ES" was third but represented only 5% of the sample. There are probably lots more statistical conclusions to be drawn from the data, but there my statistical skills ended. 2) I received a begging letter from my former school, asking for money to build a new sports pavilion. As much as I admire the irony, being pretty much uninterested in sport, of having my name emblazoned on such a building, I think I will decline. Curiously (to me) the pavilion is to be named after a school contemporary of mine (he was the year above me) who was killed in a car accident shortly before taking his A-levels. Why wait thirty years to raise a memorial? Why name something after a pupil who died thirty years ago and whom even most of the staff will not have known. Yes, he was a good sportsman and his death was sad and tragic. However, his premature death is really the only thing that makes him stand out from other sportsmen the school has produced. Have there been no other pupils (before or since) who have gone on to make further sporting achievements and are worth remembering? 3) My latest annoyance of farcebook is its timehop tool, where people can repost what they posted on this day in a previous year. Or, as I call it "I've got nothing banal to say today, so here's something banal I posted three years ago". 4) Saturday I did some first aid cover at a football tournament. No, not the World Cup - a youth tournament in Andover. Some team won, I don't really know which. No major injuries and we got free burgers, coffee and fruit. 5) After that I had to take a van to a testing station for its MOT on Monday. I'm the only person in Andover who can drive it - not because I am necessarily a better driver than anyone else is, but because I am the only person who has bothered to do anything to get requalified under the new driving regulations. The MOT testing station was in an industrial estate on the outskirts of Andover, and someone did offer to follow me to give me a lift back. However, as I wasn't sure which day I would be going, or what time, I worked out I could walk back just as easily, so that's what I did. Took about 45 minutes and was quite pleasant - as pleasant as walking round the Andover ring-road can be. 6) Saturday evening I watched a bit of a football match but didn't find it very exciting (which shows how much I know about football as apparently it was one of the more exciting matches of the tournament) so we watched a film about rugby which I found far more interesting. 7) Sunday we went to a pick-your-own farm to pick some soft fruit. This farm doesn't do PYO strawberries any more, so we picked raspberries and loganberries.
8) The farm doesn't do PYO strawberries because parents were unable to control their children and allowed them to trample the plants and fruit, and because people (possibly the same people) seemed to think that they could eat as much fruit as they liked - even taking cream and sugar with them into the strawberry beds - which is pretty much taking the mickey. I didn't eat any fruit while we were picking; I have such good self-control.
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