@jembenson
Adviser @aqaeducation.bsky.social, MAT and @RSPH.bsky.social trustee, ex-senior civil servant; classical music, #LCFC 🦊, England⚽️🏏, walks, photos, words (no politics); husband, father, generally curious https://substack.com/@jembenson 📍 Leicestershire, UK
Matchday (my 250th #LCFC men’s match). Rowett’s record so far is three creditable away draws and a woeful home defeat. Those away points are useful but we need wins at home to clamber out of the drop zone. A deserved victory tonight against Bristol City and I’ll be able to hope. Anything else, and…😱
The church at Achurch.
2. Achurch, S of Oundle (Asechirce in Domesday). Puritan separatist Robert Browne (c1550-1633) (many Pilgrim Fathers were Brownists) was priest here for 40 years. Boston politician Edmund Quincy (1602-36) lived here before emigrating in 1633; his descendant, John Quincy Adams, was 6th US President.
Late stroll, through bored rain. Car headlights carefully pick out selected raindrops. The rear lights of a braking van are stretched down into the wet road, a garish fairground display that darts away, leaving darkness. A tree branch’s shadows narrate a swaying story.
@imcmillan.bsky.social
Six years ago today (also a Monday) I went to the last Premier League game before the Covid lockdown. Harvey Barnes ran rings round Villa, Vardy came off the bench to score a brace, and we won 4-0. We finished the day third in the Premier League - and wondering nervously what was to come. #LCFC 🦊💙
This is the warning on the blood pressure monitor my dad just got.
Exceptional work. Anybody know what the fuck it’s supposed to mean?
Last line is especially ominous
A four-sided clock hanging from a beam beneath the glass roof at Glasgow Central station. There is a clear blue sky above.
#Glasgow Central station, taken when I went there a few years ago. Really hoping it’s OK. 🔥
I know the feeling! You could have done both…
And last year’s are here…
The real problem though is penalties, because if a penalty is ultimately awarded it invalidates all the subsequent play (even if that includes a goal), and you can end up with absurdities like the Wilson scenario. That’s why I reached the conclusions I did in the post.
If it helps, there’s a thread of my favourite photos here.
I can see that works for football if/when a goal stops the game (most obviously it would work for offside). But what about potential penalties or red cards which the ref either misses or isn’t sure about? Play could continue for several minutes after a possible incident before a stoppage.
Two years ago my son’s (then) band released this. Which I still think is quite fun.
Album cover for the recording of Johann Ludwig Bach’s Leipzig Cantatas on the Ricercar label, performed by the Capella Sollertia conducted by Johanna Soller. The cover picture is part of Der Flügel einer Blauracke, a picture by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), showing the wing of a bird (a European Roller) - mostly green, brown, blue and cream feathers.
Strong recommendation for this album of 18 cantatas by JL Bach (1677-1731), a near-contemporary and distant relative of JS Bach. This music survives because JS made copies for performances at Leipzig in 1726. They are gloriously rich, exquisitely simple and often stunningly beautiful.
As a small contribution to #IWD26, here’s a list I made a while ago of music composed by women that is worth a listen.
A four-storey early-C19th terraced house in Cartwright Gardens in London, with the prominent shadow of a tree climbing up its upper floors, which perhaps looks a bit like a monster.
If I said that was the shadow of a monster on that house, you wouldn’t be able to unsee it would you?
The notice could be read to imply that she had one large hand and one large foot…! The use of a printed cotton gown as an escape device would also seem to present some intriguing narrative opportunities.
Late stroll. That cloud is the underside of a giant brain, which thinks stratospheric thoughts. A greedy green bin has stuffed itself so full of garden that branches hang out of its gaping grin. Flowers in a vase clutch a window and look wistfully at the flowerbed below.
@imcmillan.bsky.social
I don’t follow Rugby so I don’t know how transferable that is to football. One problem football has with tech is that if there was an offence the game should be stopped, but if not it should carry on. So as far as possible the system should avoid stopping the game to check for a possible offence.
‘Happy to share…’
Would suggest sticking to football - far less stressful.
As a small contribution to #IWD26, here’s a list I made a while ago of music composed by women that is worth a listen.
8.3.16 Steve McClaren still not sacked as Newcastle manager and may still be manager when they play us next Monday.
#LCFC #Impossible10YearsOn
No, I disagree. The purpose is clear - to restrict the field of play and avoid goalhanging. The problem is that precisely measuring offside is both impossible and unnecessary to meet those purposes. More thoughts here.
I used to be instinctively pro-VAR and wrote this last year to test and challenge my views. I ended up concluding that it’s far more problematic than I’d thought, and should be used only for the most obvious errors - for example the ones that don’t need lines drawing to see that a player’s offside.
Late stroll. A manhole cover is a screwtop on a parallel world below. Pavement cracks wiggle downhill, memories of ancient stoneworms. A car is dragged forward by a long light line across the road ahead. A bike statue on the path marks the bench where its owner sits.
@imcmillan.bsky.social
Yes!
Ooh you’re in a moooood.
I have no skin in the game but fwiw I think you’re going to get over the line in May. Ten years ago I was feeling the pressure too though - happy days.
How did you resist such an Eze pun…?
Is that the one where he tells the Bob O’Reilly story?