A few random thoughts ...

... Mainly sparked off by what I've been watching lately !

First up - a mini-rant :-) Citroen have an advert on at the moment that's probably looking to take advantage of the snowy period we had here a few weeks ago. It's about a traction control feature called Snow-motion. Interesting idea ... But a bit wasted on us over here as a "Snow"-motion feature would only be useful for a week or two every year. And even in those periods, non-essential trips should be a minimum anyway. So a selling feature that's utterly irrelevant to most of its audience. Nice try Citroen ! More research required.

Adverts again - I don't pay too much attention to adverts but the latest Daily Telegraph one on fashion made me laugh earlier. It has girl trying on clothes against a mirror and the two of them singing a version of "I can do anything better than you" to each other. Made me laugh :-) It's not going to make me buy the paper but it'll make me remember it :-)

Internet vs Telly - There's 2 sporting events on today, both of which I'd normally be glued to. However, they clash. So what's the solution ? Well - we have cricket from West Indies on the telly via Sky Sports. And then there's 6 Nations Rugby on the laptop via BBC's iPlayer. How does it work ? The 17" laptop screen on my lap actually gives about the same view size as my 28" telly from across the room. But whereas the telly picture is as sharp as normal definition can be, the iPlayer live picture suffers from lots of compression artifacts. It's trying hard but an average of 1Mbit/s isn't quite enough to get live pictures across as sharp as telly.

But :-) It's better than watching the cricket via Cricinfo :-) And iPlayer and Skyplayer give pin-sharp images on programmes that aren't live.

It's a "Man's" Game - or maybe not. Sky are currently putting the trailers in for the Women's Twenty20 World Cup cricket. Could be an interesting tournament this one. Women aren't usually equipped with the kind of physique an Andrew Flintoff enjoys or the 6 foot 4 height of a Steven Harmison. So as they can't go for the bully-boy tactics that the men can employ, which means playing the game a little differently. Instead of power and extreme pace, the women go for guile, subtlety and skill.

You can always learn something from watching from how other people go about their business, especially if your own physique shares more with smaller, slimmer women than the huge & burly blokes. While I could bowl fairly quick, I never possessed a bouncer that would scare anyone. My batting was solid enough but I never had the strength to be a destructive hitter. So by watching the girls play the game, maybe there's some good tips to come out of the matches that would help my own game.

Rugby memories - An apt bridge from the last thought this one. Rugby teams are made up of Forwards and Backs. The Forwards are the concrete core of a team and are the bigger, stronger players. They attempt to make holes in the line of opposing players to create gaps for other players to run through. The Backs are the lighter, faster, slippery players who aim to go through those gaps, with the Wingers being the fastest players in the team.

I have played in a few games of rugby, while I was at school. I'd be put on the wing because I wasn't exactly the most solid person on the field. But I was Fast. It was good fun while it lasted, although it wasn't really my game. Too much slimy mud :-) It did give a great feeling being able to pin back the ears and breeze past people, although that ended up in my first long-term injury. I have weak ligaments in my knees, caused by almost getting away from someone. They caught my right foot, twisted and that's made a few long lasting problems. The knees still bug me occasionally but that injury encouraged me to find more efficient ways of running and walking, which made me Go Fasta :-)

Nature of Pain - While away doing testing, I watched a documentary about 4 sportsmen who went in for a challenge which would culminate in them competing in the British Bobsleigh championships. It was a great show to watch, lots of determination on show here. Unfortunately though, for one of the boys it turned into an exercise in dealing with pain. While most people will keep a natural shape, the muscles inside that shape need a lot of preparation before they're really ready. With me, the bowling and running muscles will remember what they have to do but aren't ready for action until they've set themselves up properly again. What that means is that after the first practice session of the year, I'd have about 3 days of pain before I'd get my muscles back ! After a few sessions, I'd be able to play day after day.

As the muscles rearrange themselves for the job intended, they'd feel like someone had replaced the blood with liquid fire at the same time as giving them a concrete overcoat. For one of the boys in the Bobsleigh, his cycling muscles had to adjust to a very different action, that of running. At the start, he had the pain from his muscles I've described above but later on, he had the psychological pain from being frustrated. While the muscles are in concrete mode, you can force them into running or jumping but that extends the time before they relax again. What makes it worse for the cyclist is that as part of a two man team, he'd not have wanted to let his mate down. Physical pain from the legs, psychological pain from not being able to support his mate.

I felt for the guy all the way through the programme, he'd gone from being a top cyclist to doing heavy sprinting and his legs couldn't support the change in action. There's a lesson there too, if I have any pretension to being a cricketer this season, I really needed to start preparing weeks ago. The shoulder injury means I won't be able to build fitness by bowling like I used to, however I don't need the shoulder to build fitness by running around.

Right - anthems are on at the moment in the Ireland vs England rugby, so it's time to hit "publish post" and watch Rugby and Cricket simultaneously :-)