A Court of my Own

Well okay, maybe having my own personal tennis court is a dream too far, but having a place I could call "home" when it comes to coaching would be nice. I've had one or two calls recently about coaching but I continue to face the issue of where to coach. The public courts on the village are okay, but without floodlights and with no booking system, it's all a bit hit and miss. What I'd really like is a couple of  courts to rent for a few hours a week so that I can book regular sessions with folk and not have to worry about getting there in time to secure the court.

What would be even better would be to find someone who is passionate about tennis and would like to build a facility locally that is run on a pay-to-play basis but with a club running there too. A place where I could be guaranteed access to a court, an indoor and outdoor option and built around artificial and real clay. There are so few clay or artificial clay courts around that I'm sure players from around the region would want to come and practice there.

So if you're sitting there with a large amount of spare cash and you were wondering what to do with it, maybe you'd like to invest! No? Well I guess it's back to the tarmac for me!

A Conversation about a Grinder!

Well, I decided to take the plunge and buy myself a wet stone grinder. I've been looking at them wistfully for a few years and could neither afford or justify the top end systems that are out there. But a simple bench grinder, while cheap, is not necessarily a good option. It's really easy to get too much heat into the metal of a tool and therefore render it useless unless you can anneal it again.

So a wet grinding system seemed a good idea and today I ordered the one I like the loo of and the reviews I've read about it. The later being more important than the former for me, but not apparently for some.

How do I know this? I know because of a conversation I had with the supplier this afternoon. Here's the grinder I've ordered.

Looks nice doesn't it. It comes with some jigs for different tools and I think there are other jigs you can buy. But back to the conversation. The 'phone rings and a very polite rep on the other end explains to me that the colour has changed. It is the same machine but now comes in orange. Orange! Oh no, I'll have to change the whole colour scheme of my workshop. Or at least that's what I said to the rep.

"You'd be surprised," he said, "some people cancel their order when the find out.

Really!

Are you actually telling me that the colour of a grinder is the most important thing to consider when buying one. No, I couldn't believe it either. Needless to say I haven't cancelled my order and I'm looking forward to the arrival of my orange grinder. I suspect the colour won't affect the performance unless it turns out to be a banana. (If you've never seen Red Dwarf, you won't get the reference, but don't worry you can probably watch the box set online somewhere!)

May and Baker Tennis

Watching the tennis courts at May & Baker being brought back into use makes me realise that the idea I put forward for a tennis club/coaching programme might just actually become a reality! There used to be a club, so this is more a resuscitation than a brand new venture, but I'm guessing a lot has changed since the old club folded and it really would be a new start.

May and Baker, for those who don't know, was a pharmaceutical company in Dagenham, London. The site is quite extensive and they had a large Sports and Social Club attached to the working site. The company changed names and hands a few time and it's most recent incarnation has finally closed its doors. The Sports and Social Club was gifted to the the community, and there is a thriving rugby club, football, cricket (not called May and Baker) and social club. A local running club is based their too.

The tennis courts haven't been used for some years but the club managed to secure a grant to refurbish two of the three courts. The work was delayed by the poor weather in May but the surface is down and the fence is up. Marking out and painting still needs to be done and then the courts need time to settle before we can begin playing on them. Quite when that will be I don't know.

In a conversation with one of the committee members through my involvement with the rugby club, I offered to set out a few ideas about how the courts could be run for coaching and as a club. It wasn't all guesswork, on the other hand, trying to give a reasonable idea of what might be possible wasn't that easy.

Anyway, I set out my thoughts and handed them over. Whether I will be involved or not I have no idea, but it would be interesting to be in at the start of something like this. There is a mountain of work to do to set up a club and get officers in place and policies written. Especially true when really what you want to do is get out on the courts and get people playing tennis.

I hope that M&B Tennis will take off and we can offer a great tennis service and experience to the club and community. I never imagined that I might be involved in anything quite like this, but then I never imagined I'd be involved in setting up an After School Club in Newark, or on a steering group for a Children's Centre in Bedford or a Care Scheme in the village etc. I have no idea even where to start with tho latest adventure. I'm rather hoping that the local tennis association will be helpful! I'll also pick the brains of a few folk I've got to know over that last few years of being around tennis.

My next step is to complete my next level of coaching certification, which I'm doing in August/September. Hopefully that will give me some more ideas about coaching models and more technical information to help correct stroke errors and teach good habits. I don't see myself as going much beyond helping people get started and improving to become good recreational players. That's my goal-to get people playing and enjoying tennis. If they want to push further then I know enough coaches to refer them on to who have more experience and more skills than I have.

Workshop project (4)

So, I'm still building the workstation, which is nearly finished and certainly useable. I actually used the sliding mitre saw to cut the front, back and sides of the drawers I've made.

These are really simple to make. The front and back have rebates for the sides and all four pieces have a rebate for the base. The drawer is assembled with glue and 30mm brads. One of the drawers now has a couple of slots in it so that the two circular saws I have can sit in the tray. The slots are for the blades and guards that protrude from the bottom of the saw. When I mount the drawer runners I'll need to make allowance for both the bits that stick through the bottom of the tray and the height of the tools above the height of the drawer.

I've already fitted one drawer to the cabinet on simple wooden runners, but I trying to work out a better system that allows the drawer to open further to make access easier. I've seen some full extension drawer runners but I need to get some and see how they fit. I may have to rebate the base of the drawer to make room between the cabinet sides and the drawers. It all depends on how wide the runners are.

The sliding top that the mitre saw is fixed to works really well. I installed a simple stop so that it comes forward far enough for the slide to operate fully but it can't slide all the way and drop onto your feet! I also decided to rip down the worktop that was left and use that to bring the outer sections forward. Because I hadn't thought of this sooner I'd already notched the piece that fits around the gas pipe. I'll just have to live with that.

There's still plenty of storage options to exploit, and I might change a few things around. I'm making most of it up as I go!

Just a series of stills of a serve in motion

The title says it all! We were at Wimbledon yesterday and I was standing by court 11 watching the mixed doubles when I took a quick burst of pictures on my phone of Robert Lindstedt serving.

It's really interesting, to someone who plays tennis like me, to see how the racket head drops and then snaps through the contact point out in front, and how his body weight is moving forward. Some people think the jump is intentional, but hopefully you can see from the pictures that he doesn't jump, it's his upward drive and the action of his racket arm that literally throws him into the air as he goes up and into the ball.

The other thing that was noticeable yesterday was that the players who didn't bend their knees on their ground strokes really do come unstuck on the grass. It was really obvious in the Kygrios/Gasquet match we watched. Kygrios missed a number of shots mainly because he tried to hit a low bouncing ball without bending his knees.

So, the tennis was great, the day was great and I had a great time watching and thinking. I also met up with Ali, a friend of mine with whom I did my coaching qualification. Very encouraging because he's done his level 2 and it didn't sound that hard!

Workshop Project (3)

Just been sorting out the bench top for the workstation and had to post a quick picture of the mitre saw in place!

It's not secured yet of course, but you get the idea. The mitre saw slides forward to what will become a preset position. I've added runners on either side that stop the top tipping as it slides forward, but the weight distribution looks okay.

I was thinking of using a couple of cabinet door bolts to locate the slide in the correct position. The saw is so heavy it's not going to accidentally slide itself forward.

I need to decide if I'm going to rip down the last piece of worktop into 10cm widths to bring the bench top sides forward to give a larger area of support for wood in the mitre saw. I might just pack the back with off cuts of the panel material. The beech top is tough stuff to cut, so a bit of ply or wardrobe panel might be a lot easier to fit!

Once I've made that decision and secured the tops, I can set about squaring up the saw and levelling it to the bench top. After that it's making trays and drawers. Oh, and there's the little matter of tidying up too!

Workshop Project (2)

I've done a little more to the workstation I'm building in the garage. Today I went to B&Q to pick up a solid beech worktop. Putting a section in place gives a whole new perspective on what the finished station will look like!

The 3m long solid wood top was £87, which I thought was a bargain! I got it cut in-store into three 1m sections that I can then cut to their finished size, although the one in the picture looks ok as it is.

Just at the right edge of the picture you can see the lower section for the mitre saw. I'm still toying with the idea of allowing this to slide in and out to allow for the slide to work and yet be stored away without it sticking out too far. The white pipe you can see it for dust extraction. I have a nice Karcher vacuum cleaner that will attach to the end of the pipe underneath and then I'll find a flexible hose to go from the top of the pipe to the saw.

Value for money in education. A few thoughts from an eternal student!

I was reading the article on the BBC website about tuition fees and student responses to the question of value for money. It got me thinking, at least for a short time, about how you might actually measure value for money for a degree and whether students are actually best placed to make a judgement on the issue. That might sound a bit patronising, it isn't intended to be.

Years ago I read Jim Collin's book Good to Great, and the monograph that followed that focussed on non-profit organisations. I heard him speak a couple of times and was struck by by a number of things he said. From what I recall I think he would remind us that if we're going to measure value for money with respect to something that is non-profit then we will need to think very carefully about the measures we use. You can't equate a degree course with a new car or a holiday. Value for money in education is much more complex that a simple matter of money in and money out. Education is not a business, don't let anyone suggest otherwise.

That doesn't mean that good practice has no place in education, but I worry that some degree courses could disappear simply because there's little chance that they will lead to high paid job at the end. Anyway, back to the measures.

Interestingly students who studies humanities rated their courses lower in general that those who did engineering and science. I wonder why. Could it be that fresh from school or college, where they would have experienced very similar contact time with tutors across all subjects, they now face very different levels of contact depending on the type of subject they are studying. I have done a science degree, a humanities degree and a masters degree. I've also squeezed in a professional BTech programme and a few diplomas along the way.

My first degree was in science and a long time ago! We had practicals, maybe as much as 18 hours a week, and around 11 hours of lectures and 2 hours of tutorials. That comes to around 30/32 hours contact time. I can't remember the schedule for my second degree in theology, but the contact time was less, maybe around 12/15 hours. By the time I did my masters it was down to three seminars a week, each one about 1.25 hours long, and these were mostly student lead. Of course there were opportunities to talk with tutors and discuss essays and dissertations, but I'm just thinking about scheduled contact time.

My point is simple, contact time varies from subject to subject and with level of qualification too. If you only use contact hours as a measure then a degree in English might seem less good value that a degree in Chemistry but that is almost certainly not the case. That would sit neatly with the general distribution of the analysis in the article (44% good value for humanities compared to 66% for science and engineering).

Then there's the issue of student expectations. How well prepared for individual study are they when they reach university or college? Perhaps, as part of the survey, they should be asked how much time they spent in the library on average a week and how much personal study time did they set aside? When I went to university in the 70's I read a short book about studying. I don't recall either the title or the author but I do remember one principle. The book suggested that you worked on a simple 40 hour week. Subtracting the number of direct contact hours, lectures, seminars, practical etc, that gave you the average amount of personal study time you would need to complete the course to a reasonable level. It quickly becomes obvious that a practical heavy subject therefore requires less personal study time than a subject that has only lectures and seminars. If you need to read books and articles, that by its nature is not a contact activity. When I did my MA I was reading the equivalent of a 250 page book a day, 5 days a week for almost a year. I wrote in excess of 50,000 words. It simply doesn't compare with the science I studied first time around.

So, perhaps there is a much better way to measure value for money by asking better questions to get to the heart of how well a course met or changed a student's expectations of the experience in higher education. Where is the measure of value added to a student's life? What have they learnt that has changed their view of the world and the contribution they could make? Or is all to be reduced to some economic assessment of future earnings? When you're looking for value in education, remember that education has an innate value that is hard to measure and isn't about earning potential.

Workshop project

Having posted something about my legendary panel cutting jig. Well it's a legend in my house! Anyway, the reason for making the jig was to cut some panels for a workstation and I've been assembling the said station. Having cut the panels to size I then notched the four corners of each panel to take the rails that would hold the thing together. The rails were ripped from more scrap wardrobe panels. It would have ben nice to have been able to make them the full length of the unit, but I didn't have anything that long, so I just cut a series of rails that I could join together as necessary.

These are the units in place ready to be fixed to the wall.

I've levelled them up, the floor is quite uneven so a few wedges and yet more bits of scrap wood. That meant I could screw the bottom rails into the scrap which has added a bit more stability to it all.

The right and left units are for some plastic storage bins. I can  fit two in each end and a shallow tray above them. I might have to make that unless my favourite Scandinavian furniture store has something appropriately sized. Actually I might make some drawers anyway.

The centre right section is where the mitre saw will sit. I'm thinking of making a slide-out unit for it so that it can be moved forward for use in sliding saw mode and pushed back when not in use.

The top is going to made from some solid wood worktop that I've seen in Ikea.

The power socket needs to be moved up the wall I think, but I will see if that's necessary once the top in in place and the saw in position.

Panel cutting jig

I haven't blogged about anything woodworky for ages, mainly because I haven't done any for ages! I recently completed a cupboard built to cover some pipes in the extension. It is made from recycled wardrobe parts from Ikea. We had a double wardrobe and a single wardrobe left over when we moved into the house. With no room for them in the bedrooms and the need to cover up the soil pipe and a drainpipe in the corner of the extension (don't ask why there's a drainpipe inside, it's an old extension!), recycling the unused furniture is better than throwing it away and buying new timber.

Anyway, with the cupboard built there was still a fair amount of wardrobe left so I've begun building a work station for my workshop out of what's left. I had originally thought of building it out of ply, but the wardrobe panels needed a home. The idea is to make something that will take the sliding mitre saw I've inherited and create space for storage. I've got an idea for making  a sliding top for the mitre saw so that it doesn't have to stick out too far when it's not in use and maybe some sliding trays/drawers for power tools and other bits and pieces.

The place to start was by cutting the upright panels that will divide the workstation into sections. To make the panels all the same length I've got my saw guide that I made ages ago. It's a simple jig that give an exact cut with my circular saw. But measuring and repositioning the saw guide six times to make the panels seemed liked a time consuming process so I decided a quick jig was in order.

Using some spare panel off-cuts and couple of pieces of chipboard that were the rear supports at the base of the old wardrobes I made a stop with a return down one edge of the jig. Another piece of scrap wood was used to support the guide on the other edge and the guide was clapped down with 2mm spaces to support the guide just above the surface of the panel to be cut. It was then just a matter of sliding the panel into the jig, making sure it was tight against the the stops and running the saw across to get a repeatable cut.

I should have put the edge stop on the far side of the cut rather than the near side, but I did have an edge on the far side and a couple of shims allowed me to secure the panel so that it didn't move. In the end it didn't move so it wasn't a problem.

Okay, so the jig takes a little time to make, but it's worth doing because all the panels come out exactly the same size. I've used the same principle before, but it's given me an idea for making a saw bench designed around a circular saw rather than buying a saw table. I've seen some videos of circular sews turned into table saws by bolting them to a piece of wood with the blade sticking up through the sheet and with no guard and sometimes no riving knife. Cables ties holding the power switch on and an extension cord used as a switch. All very scary. At least, if you're going to do that, buy a no-volt switch!

I might post some pictures of the workstation as it progresses, but I'm not sure when I'll get round to finishing it.

"Step Ladder" falls!

So, Sepp Blatter has decided to step down as Fifa president. It's not been an unwelcome decision in many circles, but it was certainly a surprise. He had previously stated his opinion that he was the man to restore confidence in the organisation, but given that the fall out we are seeing reflects badly on his tenure, it was difficult for anyone except Mr B to see how he could possibly sustain that argument.

It would be wrong at this point to assume that Fifa is the only world governing body is sport that has elements of corruption in it. Doping scandals in cycling, match fixing in cricket, allegedly tampered water at the Rugby World Cup back in 1995. Not forgetting athletics as a whole and all it has faced over the years. Even as I edit this post the breakfast news is running a story about the Panorama programme about drug taking over decades in athletics. Corruption is not just about officials taking payments to vote in favour of one candidate or another.

Having said that, the list of charges being brought against Fifa officials is startling, but maybe not that surprising. Are we actually surprised that where there is a large amount of money sloshing around, there is widespread bribery and corruption. The whole debacle over the staging of the World Cup in Qatar probably raised more suspicions than any other international sporting decision. 

My favourite quote so far in this whole sorry mess that brought a smile to my face came from one of the UK's football leaders. Commenting on Sepp Blatter's term as president, they said:

"He's been a fantastic leader, but arguably one that probably stayed on a little too long. 

"Let's place credit where credit is due. He's been at the helm and taken world football to be what it is today."

And what would that be? In the eyes of many it is the most corrupt and broken organisation in the world. Not the best CV for it's leader. It's almost like suggesting that the leaders of the world's financial institutions did a great job taking us into the worst economic recession of the modern era since the Great Depression. Let's hope they meant something rather more positive than that when they said it!

As each day reveals more allegations and even confessions, it begs the question of where does world football go from here. I wonder too whether criminal prosecutions will precipitate a root and branch clean up or just drive the truth deeper underground. Perhaps there needs to be some degree of amnesty that would allow the truth to be disclosed and a new start made to overhaul the organisation. How you balance such an amnesty against prosecuting crime is something prosecutors and governing bodies will need to work out.

Oh, and by the way, it was Hugh Dennis who once suggested Sepp Blatter sounded like "Step Ladder". Just in case you were wondering about the title!!

Network down. Is life ending as we know it?

So one of our mobile communications networks suffered a few problems over the weekend and the network wasn't available to everyone for some part of a day. Calls for compensation and shouts of annoyance at the outrageous suggestion that turning one's mobile device off and on again might solve the problem were amongst the angst ridden cries of the mobile masses. Well at least some of them.

So how did we actually manage before we bought into the mobile culture? How did we get from one place to another, find an address, arrange to meet someone or communicate with out friends in the dark days before wireless communication became the norm? Well, we bought maps, asked for directions, prearranged times and made the effort to turn up on time.

Of course mobile 'phones are great. They enable us to stay in touch and check in with each other easily and helpfully. I went to visit a family recently about a funeral and when I arrived in the correct street discovered I didn't have the house number. My synchronised diaries across 'phone, Mac and iPad hadn't actually synchronised (turning my MacBook off and on fixes this problem every time!), and it was great to be able to call the Funeral directors and ask for the house number. So I'm not arguing against the mobile world.

On the other hand, life isn't going to fall into some sort of dark, scary abyss just because O2 or EE or Three isn't working for a while. Living without your 'phone isn't going to make all your friends and family forget who you are just because your Facebook status hasn't been updated in the last two hours.

We need some perspective. We need a more rational response. We need to turn our devices off and on again or just off, at least for a little while. If that doesn't fix things, then the problem might be a bit more serious. Perhaps the world has ended, perhaps the sky has fallen in. If that has happened, a lack of mobile reception might be the least of your worries!

Ooh, I've just heard my 'phone ping. A text message, must dash and check who's trying to get my attention!!

IFTTT

No, it's not a typing error it's a new application I've recently come across on the internet. IFTTT is a simple way to make connections, perform actions, post notes, control lights, sense messages and a whole host of other things you never knew you wanted to be able to do!

You create recipes of logical IF's to perform a task (If This Then That). For example, I've created a Twitter account for South Ockendon Sports (@socksports) and I've created a recipe that posts a daily weather update at 7:00am to Twitter. I've also created a recipe that puts a status update on my LinkedIn account when I create a new blog post about therapy related stuff on my other blog In2Motion.

Each If starts with a trigger form a channel. You can choose from a wide range of channels but not everything you might want to do is available. Once you've got a trigger you simply work through the steps as you are prompted and build your recipe. I'd really like to be able to include more than one blog in the recipe, but I can't see a way to do that at the moment, and I'd like to be able to link my Polar Loop daily activity data to Twitter or Facebook. You can do some editing of the logic, but I can't see a way of doing either of these things yet.

What looks good about IFTTT is the way it reduces the number of websites you need to visit in order to update something. It might just be a toy for some, but for others it could be a really useful tool to streamline social media. Of course, if you have some of the more interesting tech around the home you can even control the heating and the lights. For example, you could use location data from your 'phone to turn on the heating when you're within 30 minutes of home, or to turn on the lights at dusk.

EAB, ZO, Tan & Sock!

Ok, so did you instantly recognise these as types of tape used in sport? Over the course of a season you get through a lot of tape. At our level, where money is tight, every metre of tape matters in the budget. I've been very lucky that the team for whom I've been working for this last year have supported the cost of buying the tape we've used.

We've been quite frugal in our use of tape, but we've not skimped either. I was wondering the other day how much tape we'd actually used and I did a bit of maths. Overall we used around 1.8Km of tape. That would go the length of the pitch 18 times and it would cover an area of around 110 sqm.

I suspect that a Premiership club uses 4 or 5 times that amount of tape!

This year we introduced lifting blocks for the line-out jumpers. These are small foam blocks taped to the thigh just above the knee. They are single use normally because the tape sticks to the foam and you can't separate them without tearing lumps out of the blocks. They're only £1 a pair, but that would cost £25 per player each year on average. With at least three jumpers, £75 is a lot to spend on bits of foam! I discovered that if I covered the blocks in ZO (zinc oxide) tape before taping them to the players, then they've lasted the season saving us £65! At first I wrapped them in cling film, which worked well but needed doing every week. I tried sock tape (electrical tape) but I think that made the blocks too stiff, so ZO tape did the job.

I've really enjoyed my season and I'm looking forward to next season. Part of me wishes I could go back and study either sports therapy or physiotherapy in more detail. But time travel isn't an option and I'm not sure I have the energy to embark on yet another degree now! So I'll keep reading, going to CPD courses and do my best. I just hope there's a special offer on tape before the season seats and we can stock up!

A Great Final Day to the Premiership Season

So, the Aviva Premiership's final round of matches have been completed and now we know who will contest the play-offs. Exeter were this year's unlucky losers, missing out on points difference to Saracens in a dramatic final day's action.

Some will naturally question Northampton's selection of a "weakened" team as some have described it, and who can argue with that given the line up of players that were rested on Saturday. Some might even want to question the whole play-off system in light of it. It's very possible that a full strength Northampton would have pushed Leicester harder, even winning the game and so allowing Exeter into the play-offs at Leicester's expense.

In the end, when you take into account the international's and the impact they have on some of the sides, then not only do Northampton have the right to rest players as they did, but I don't think you'll hear too much complaining about the way things have turned out.

One of the great joys was that no side already knew what they needed to do except perhaps Leicester. They needed to win to get into the play-offs, nothing else would do. And you could argue that Bath and Northampton knew that win or lose they had already qualified. But who wants to lose?

There's no absolutely fair way to work these things out. Take the IPL's approach where they have some sort of tiered approach to the decide who is on the final. There's an eliminator where the 3rd and 4th place teams play and two qualifiers. In the first qualifier the top two teams play each other. The winner goes straight to the final, the loser plays the winner of the eliminator! Simply put, finishing first or second gives you two chances to reach the final.

In rugby terms, this year that would mean Northampton would play Bath for the right to go straight to the final, while the loser of that game would play the winner of the Leicester/Saracens game to decide the other finalist. Simple really! If such a system were adopted I'm sure there would be cries of unfairness for the team that had to play twice to reach the final. You can't really win with any of the formats.

Anyway, we'll be there at Twickenham enjoying our day whoever plays.

What do you air in public?

The recent UKIP airing of opinions about Nigel Farage and the decision to allow the publication of private letters from Prince Charles both make me wonder about our tendency to say in public what might be better said in private and the odd interest we have in private communication. Unguarded comments in the backs of cars have lost politicians the public vote and maybe it's reduced public debate to some sanitised exchange of broadly similar views that have all been checked by spin doctors and focus groups. Now I'm not suggesting some sort of free for all in the name of freedom of speech or something, but I'm just wondering what impact publication of such things has and what value there is in so doing.

Then there are the articles written in newspapers by the likes of Patrick O'Flynn. Open letters are one thing, but why would you put that in a newspaper? Why wouldn't you sit down in a room and talk it through, sharing your concerns in a constructive way rather than making a public issue of it? Surely there are better ways of airing these things than through column inches. Same goes for Kevin Pietersen and other autobiographers who seem to want to "put their side of the story" before anything else. There's a time to let it go.

Yesterday I was in the queue in my local convenience shop and I overheard the person in front saying some amazingly horrible things about another person. Their shooping partner did nothing to suggest that it was time to turn down  the volume and take a breath. Not overhearing was not an option given the volume at which things were being said. Not shouted, but loud enough to make sure anyone nearby got a clear picture of what she thought of her step-mother! The thing is, I didn't need to know these things. That she didn't like her is okay, telling the world is, in my opinion, not.

It's a difficult balance, but stopping, engaging brain, asking yourself if this really needs to become public knowledge, might stop a few bridges going up in flames.

Nearly time for the Aviva Premiership Final!

I know that not everyone is a rugby fan, or even a sports fan, and I know many a football fan probably wonders what the point is of a team finishing top of the Aviva Premiership if they can go on to lose the title in a play-off. Just ask Gloucester who finished top a number of times but failed to win the championship title. Even rugby enthusiasts wondered about the plan when the system was first introduced.

But when you realise that Rugby Union has an international tournament every year (The 6 Nations), and a series of high-profile international fixtures in the Autumn, you will understand why it turns out to be a good way of settling the outcome of the season's endeavours. Top teams can lose a lot of players to the international fixtures. The play-off system gives smaller clubs the opportunity to make headway in the league competition and we don't get the club or country debate that other sports seem to suffer from. It opens the whole thing up.

This year we're off to the final at Twickenham again at the end of May. It is a great day out and last year's final was certainly an exciting affair with the winning points scored with the final move of the match. It wasn't even that clear whether the decisive try had actually been scored and it took the TMO (third match official) a little while to sort it out.

Northampton won the title and are in with a good chance of retaining it this year having finished at the top for the first time as far as I recall. What makes it all exciting is that there are three team looking to get into the last two play-off places and all the games are important. Leicester, Exeter and Saracens are all in the mix.

Sarries are almost certain to beat London Welsh with a bonus point win. The promoted exiles haven't won a game and have only one losing bonus point all season. That would put Saracens in front of Exeter for fourth place even if they beat Sale unless they too get a bonus point win. But possibly the biggest game of all will be Leicester against Northampton. A Leicester win is a must if they want to be in the play-offs. If they lose then everything depends on the Exeter-Sale result. It is actually possible that Leicester, Saracens and Exeter could all finish with the same number of points!

The final round of matches take place this weekend and they all kick-off at the same time. A good old-fashioned final day of the season! No team will have the advantage of knowing the result of another match.

I wonder if the football premiership would look any different if it tried a new system. With 38 matches to play in a season compared to Rugby's 22 it's hard to imagine that there would be much appetite for such a play-off style deciding end to the season. Reducing the number of teams would cause an outcry no doubt and the very idea of introducing bonus points for scoring 3 or more goals or a losing bonus point for losing by only a one goal margin might seem ridiculous. But what if it meant a more meaningful international fixture list with more competitive international football to develop the national team without that club or country debate? Would fans buy into that? Probably not.

I could start rambling on about the use of technology and the the TMO and speculate how that could be used in football too. No one seems to worry about referrals slowing down a rugby game. The clock stops, the decision is reviewed, everyone gets on with the game. Imagine if the referee could ask a TMO to check for off-side or for a dive, review a possible handball or tackle before deciding on a yellow card. We can only wonder!

Post Election

Well the election is over and between the gnashing of teeth on one side and the smiling faces on the other we find ourselves facing a return to one party government after all the speculation about who might work with whom on the roundabout of coalition politics. It always struck me as an odd thing that no one was suggesting that one of the lessons learnt over the last five years was that it is possible for  coalition to work, and that coalition politics are not as scary as some would have us believe. I wonder whether David Cameron is actually quite pleased about the whole coalition thing because his party seems to have got off scott-free whilst the Lib Dems have taken the blame! Only time and history will show us what affect the Lib Dems had in shaping the polices and practices of the last five years. I hope history is kinder to Nick Clegg et al than the electorate appears to have been.

I then wonder about the rash of resignations. I worry that this feeds the mentality that General Elections are primarily about electing a Prime Minister. All those questions in the media about who looked and sounded "prime-ministerial" always made me feel uncomfortable at some level. We do not yet have a president. We do not directly elect a Prime Minister. 

And then there were the polls. Apparently the pollsters were humiliated as one newspaper headline put it and now there is even a call for an inquiry about why they got their predictions so wrong. Let's hope that isn't publicly funded. I can think of very few greater wastes of money. Polls are polls. People change their minds. They've got it wrong before, they will get it wrong again. It's a glorified guessing game, let's not worry too much about it. Remember, an election is a secret ballot, there is no rule that says you have to tell anyone how you will vote or have voted.

It will be interesting to see whether this government goes a full five years or whether they revert to calling an election when it best suits them. There's also the question of redrawing constituency boundaries, something that happens all the time, but the worrying headline over the last two days was that from the Telegraph that suggested the primary goal of the process will be to keep Labour out of power for decades, New Commons boundaries top Conservative government agenda. The map is scary to say the least, but the numbers and percentages seem to imply that even with the changes there would be little difference in the majority. The worry is the intention, if it's true, to use boundary changes to secure winning an election. What does that say about democracy?

And finally, electoral reform. Could it be that the only sensible thing heard from a UKIP candidate was the raising of the question of electoral reform? It's doubtful that such a thing will ever happen, but at least it made me smile. What would be interesting would be to find a way of allowing people to express their party preference as well as their local choice. There is always talk about tactical voting, so we never get a true picture of public opinion. Perhaps that is what the polls actually tell us. They tell us what people generally think more than how they will vote once they enter the polling booth. Ooh look, I might just have saved someone a lot of money. No need for an inquiry anymore. Any know where I should send the invoice?

Soap and shaving!

When I was about 19 years old I decided to grow a beard. The reasoning was very simple. It was around the summer at the end of my first year at University. It wasn't just a student thing, but a response to seeing a photograph that made it look like I hadn't shaved for a day when I'd shaved a few hours earlier!

It seemed pointless going to all that effort to scrape the hair from my face if it didn't really show, so I let it grow instead. Over the years it got neater as I moved from scissors and a comb to a proper beard trimmer! Occasionally the beard disappeared, but never for long. Shaving was just too much effort.

Then, about 6 years ago I decided to try a variation and drop the full beard in favour of a goatee style. A new era of shaving began. Now, given that it had been over 30 years since I'd dragged a sharp blade across my skin, it was almost an all-new experience trying to figure out what to buy and where to get it. The opportunity of the internet presented me with a flurry of new possibilities for reducing my sensitive epidermis to a raw but smooth finish. I even bought a book!

I opted for a wet shave solution because I find the process somewhat therapeutic and relaxing, as long as it's not a last minute thing. So I set about buying a nice soap, a nice brush and most importantly a nice razor. This is where the advertising starts and stops! Meet The Shaving Shack.

It's the internet equivalent of some old-fashioned high street shop where you can browse, albeit electronically, through some amazing shaving tackle and accessories. Who knew you could buy a drip-stand for your brush in a variety of styles and colours, or that there were so many soaps and creams, lotions and potions to try.

Dragging a sharp blade across tender skin in a half-asleep state everyday is a necessity rather than a joy, so why not try and add a little refinement with something called Colonel Conk in a variety of flavours from lime to almond, whipped into a rich lather in a hand-turned beech shaving bowl! My preference is a will fat soap that produces a rich lather when the water is nice and hot.

Or you could try a nice cut-throat razor, but remember to stock up on styptic to stem the blood loss!

If you're only approach to shaving products is to grab the 5-bladed, head-swivelling, celebrity endorsed products on offer in your local supermarket then why not take a moment to check out the website and treat yourself. Or drop less than subtle hints given that Father's Day is looming in a couple of months time. You might find you begin to enjoy the experience of shaving rather than simply enduring it.

As for me, well I'm fortunate that I don't have to shave everyday to do what I do. Perhaps if I did I might have gone back to a full beard by now!!

A Grand Night Out

I must admit, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one, that when I saw the email that alerted me to the arrival of Paul Simon and Sting on stage together at the O2 I was rather surprised. Somewhat bewildered if the truth be known and a little bit intrigued. How come I'd missed the announcement last Autumn and not pondered then how interesting it might be to see these two musicians together on stage.

A short conversation with Anne and a check of the ticket standings last week and we were booked in for what turned out to be an amazing three hour non-stop concert. A mix of solo sets and duets saw the time fly by once things got started. From Roxanne to Every Breath; Homeward Bound to You can call me Al, it was a great evening's expression of the collected songbook of these two performers.

Paul Simon was everything we expected him to be and more. A few years ago we saw him on the Graceland 25th anniversary tour and as then it was great to hear him 'play' with his own songs, allowing the music to take different, yet easily recognisable, shapes. Sting was outstanding. I still think Ten Summoners Tales is one of the best albums I've ever bought, and we were not disappointed with versions of Fields of Gold and Shape of my heart.

What is it they often say in sport? Form is temporary, class is permanent. Well these two were both class acts and on great form. The odd couple they might have appeared to be, but together they entertained in wonderful style for three seemingly very short hours indeed!