My Gold membership of Virgin's Flying Club expires at the end of June. A year of no business travel, and using BA on our Californian holiday, meant that my qualifying flights were limited to a couple of Vegas trips.
I thought it was worth a try ... I asked that they waive the qualification based on a long history of loyalty to the airline and a vague promise of future travel. And, somewhat to my surprise, they agreed !
I suspect it has more to do with tough conditions in the airline industry, but it's good news in any case.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Balls Up
I played a practice round of golf recently in preparation for our Spain trip. I hadn't hit a single ball in 6 months, so a quick hack around the academy course at the Bedfordshire was just the thing.
The academy course is a 9 hole "par 3" course. There is one short par 4 at the end, but essentially it is a glorified pitch-and-putt.
Naturally, it is described as "challenging" by the club. Such a description is de riguer for any golf course and should not be taken too seriously. Having said that, it is a useful place to work on the short game.
OK. On the 1st tee. 7 iron. Straight up the middle, on the green! Of course I three-putted, but basically I was very happy. My brand-new-just-purchased-in-the-pro-shop golf balls were working well.
The 2nd hole wasn't so good, but I did rescue a 4 there as well.
Then, quite incredibly, I managed to lose three balls in three holes. The course has no meaningful hazards, and is - basically - short and flat ! This is a pretty depressing outcome.
Now, I did find four balls, so that was some consolation. And, to be strictly accurate, 2 of the 3 balls were not entirely lost. One was in plain view on the other side of a stream that I might have jumped if I had been younger. A second was reachable in another watery landing spot if I only had longer arms or more tenacious intentions.
The four that I found were of course even less hard to reach.
It got me to wondering about the found/lost ratio. Mine was a 1.33 today. What determines the statistic for a particular player?
Skill: a poor player will lose a lot of balls. An excellent player may lose almost none. However, the bad player has a lot more opportunity to come across new ones, whilst the good player does not want to waste time looking (and has no need to). So, low ratios are associated with very poor or very good players, with a peak at the "average".
Of course, a good player going round with a bad player may lose none, whilst picking up some extras as he helps his partner looking.
Age: The younger player is more willing and able to get involved with a tricky recovery, so fewer errant balls will stay lost. Meanwhile more new balls will be turned up during the search. The older player has probably found and lost so many balls that the novelty has faded.
Attitude: Some players simply will not give up on a ball. This may be due to miserliness, but equally it can reflect a tenacity that is an asset in the game itself. Others, of course, easily resign themselves to a loss.
The function certainly has some interesting characteristics. Perhaps if I was spending less time thinking about this then I would have been able to focus more on not losing balls in the first place !
The academy course is a 9 hole "par 3" course. There is one short par 4 at the end, but essentially it is a glorified pitch-and-putt.
Naturally, it is described as "challenging" by the club. Such a description is de riguer for any golf course and should not be taken too seriously. Having said that, it is a useful place to work on the short game.
OK. On the 1st tee. 7 iron. Straight up the middle, on the green! Of course I three-putted, but basically I was very happy. My brand-new-just-purchased-in-the-pro-shop golf balls were working well.
The 2nd hole wasn't so good, but I did rescue a 4 there as well.
Then, quite incredibly, I managed to lose three balls in three holes. The course has no meaningful hazards, and is - basically - short and flat ! This is a pretty depressing outcome.
Now, I did find four balls, so that was some consolation. And, to be strictly accurate, 2 of the 3 balls were not entirely lost. One was in plain view on the other side of a stream that I might have jumped if I had been younger. A second was reachable in another watery landing spot if I only had longer arms or more tenacious intentions.
The four that I found were of course even less hard to reach.
It got me to wondering about the found/lost ratio. Mine was a 1.33 today. What determines the statistic for a particular player?
Skill: a poor player will lose a lot of balls. An excellent player may lose almost none. However, the bad player has a lot more opportunity to come across new ones, whilst the good player does not want to waste time looking (and has no need to). So, low ratios are associated with very poor or very good players, with a peak at the "average".
Of course, a good player going round with a bad player may lose none, whilst picking up some extras as he helps his partner looking.
Age: The younger player is more willing and able to get involved with a tricky recovery, so fewer errant balls will stay lost. Meanwhile more new balls will be turned up during the search. The older player has probably found and lost so many balls that the novelty has faded.
Attitude: Some players simply will not give up on a ball. This may be due to miserliness, but equally it can reflect a tenacity that is an asset in the game itself. Others, of course, easily resign themselves to a loss.
The function certainly has some interesting characteristics. Perhaps if I was spending less time thinking about this then I would have been able to focus more on not losing balls in the first place !
Photos on Facebook
Karen has posted more photos from the Regatta up on her facebook account.
Also, I understand, hard copies to follow for family albums !
Also, I understand, hard copies to follow for family albums !
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Gold Plated
146th Annual Bedford Amateur Regatta today.
The largest 1-day river regatta in the country, in fact. 295 crews competing in over two dozen different events.
Watching from the bank there is a lot of information to process; the river is filled with a quite bewildering array of age & standard classifications, boat types, class designations and so on.
After a few hours of watching (waiting for one's favoured crew to appear around the bend) one starts to know what to look for: how many oars per side? What colour are the blades? Girls or boys? Age & size ?
Mind you, it is surprisingly hard to tell girls from boys, 4 oars from 8, or indeed anything at 500m distance. Sometimes the best clue comes from the shouts of the other supporters who (perhaps) are better informed. The fallback is to cheer for any boat, just in case.
The regatta ran to a schedule of apparently military precision: nearly 300 races at 2 minute intervals from 8am - 8pm. Despite this, and despite the fact the event did not really run late overall, the boats appeared in somewhat random order at times: one event was announced 45 minutes late, another was ahead of time by a similar amount. Some races were not announced at all.
All of this made for lots of waiting, watching and wondering.
However, by the time the boats reached the finish line, it all came into focus.
Matt and his friends were rowing in the "J14S.8X" class. which is to say the B-boat in the Under-14s age group, in an 8-person boat with 2 oars per rower (whic is called an Octuple rather than an Eight which has one oar per person).
Matt was rowing at Stroke for the B crew.
The A boat, meanwhile, had strong hopes of securing the trophy in the top flight and they "easily" (that is a technical term, seriously) won their first 3 heats to reach the final against a strong St.Paul's boat who had beaten the fancied crew from Radley.
Matt's boat, meanwhile, had a tough draw in the first heat and lost by 2/3 length to a very strong team from Abingdon.
However, the first-round losers compete in another event that leads to the UEFA-cup of rowing - the "plate".
BMS B reached the final of the plate and faced local rivals Bedford school. In a close race, BMS took an early lead which they held against a strong counter from their opponents, winning by one and a half lengths. The joy of victory was obvious.
The A boat rowed their final shortly afterwards. St Paul's provided a much stiffer test, but BMS still prevailed by an exciting 3/4 length margin.
So: honours and silverware for both the J14 boats, and success in many of the other classes as well. A very strong performance all round for BMS at their home event.
The largest 1-day river regatta in the country, in fact. 295 crews competing in over two dozen different events.
Watching from the bank there is a lot of information to process; the river is filled with a quite bewildering array of age & standard classifications, boat types, class designations and so on.
After a few hours of watching (waiting for one's favoured crew to appear around the bend) one starts to know what to look for: how many oars per side? What colour are the blades? Girls or boys? Age & size ?
Mind you, it is surprisingly hard to tell girls from boys, 4 oars from 8, or indeed anything at 500m distance. Sometimes the best clue comes from the shouts of the other supporters who (perhaps) are better informed. The fallback is to cheer for any boat, just in case.
The regatta ran to a schedule of apparently military precision: nearly 300 races at 2 minute intervals from 8am - 8pm. Despite this, and despite the fact the event did not really run late overall, the boats appeared in somewhat random order at times: one event was announced 45 minutes late, another was ahead of time by a similar amount. Some races were not announced at all.
All of this made for lots of waiting, watching and wondering.
However, by the time the boats reached the finish line, it all came into focus.
Matt and his friends were rowing in the "J14S.8X" class. which is to say the B-boat in the Under-14s age group, in an 8-person boat with 2 oars per rower (whic is called an Octuple rather than an Eight which has one oar per person).
Matt was rowing at Stroke for the B crew.
The A boat, meanwhile, had strong hopes of securing the trophy in the top flight and they "easily" (that is a technical term, seriously) won their first 3 heats to reach the final against a strong St.Paul's boat who had beaten the fancied crew from Radley.
Matt's boat, meanwhile, had a tough draw in the first heat and lost by 2/3 length to a very strong team from Abingdon.
However, the first-round losers compete in another event that leads to the UEFA-cup of rowing - the "plate".
BMS B reached the final of the plate and faced local rivals Bedford school. In a close race, BMS took an early lead which they held against a strong counter from their opponents, winning by one and a half lengths. The joy of victory was obvious.
The A boat rowed their final shortly afterwards. St Paul's provided a much stiffer test, but BMS still prevailed by an exciting 3/4 length margin.
So: honours and silverware for both the J14 boats, and success in many of the other classes as well. A very strong performance all round for BMS at their home event.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
What's That Racquet ?
Spring weather has seen the table tennis table un-covered and Matt wasted no time in re-asserting his supremacy. My best chance was in the first game, when we were both rusty. 21-15 defeat was a respectable effort on my part. 21-13, 21-9 and 21-5 were the subsequent results, and I think I can be resigned to certain defeat for the remainder of the year.
Meanwhile, Harry was able to beat me 7-6, 7-5 at tennis without the application of any of the special rules that were in use last year.
Harry also has found an interest in badminton. We've played 4 times. The match score is now 2 - 2, Harry having won the last two encounters by an increasing margin.
Harry won 24-22, 21-13 today. That battle seems to have been lost as well !
I can just about beat Matt's split time on the ergo - as a result of sheer weight advantage, really.
This will not last long as he is definitely benefitting from relentless training for J14 rowing. When we watched the boat race on Sunday, he did so with an expert eye. He said he favoured the approach of the current Oxford coach who is of the "crush the opposition" school of thought.
Matt's training also put him in good stead for the final school steeplechase. There was some hope of a podium but - possibly because he ran into a wooden post and cut his leg before the start - he had to settle for 5th (82 started). Still very impressive. The most amazing thing about the race is the huge distance that develops between the front runners and the also-rans.
As far as home sports contests go, I have now become officially "also ran".
Meanwhile, Harry was able to beat me 7-6, 7-5 at tennis without the application of any of the special rules that were in use last year.
Harry also has found an interest in badminton. We've played 4 times. The match score is now 2 - 2, Harry having won the last two encounters by an increasing margin.
Harry won 24-22, 21-13 today. That battle seems to have been lost as well !
I can just about beat Matt's split time on the ergo - as a result of sheer weight advantage, really.
This will not last long as he is definitely benefitting from relentless training for J14 rowing. When we watched the boat race on Sunday, he did so with an expert eye. He said he favoured the approach of the current Oxford coach who is of the "crush the opposition" school of thought.
Matt's training also put him in good stead for the final school steeplechase. There was some hope of a podium but - possibly because he ran into a wooden post and cut his leg before the start - he had to settle for 5th (82 started). Still very impressive. The most amazing thing about the race is the huge distance that develops between the front runners and the also-rans.
As far as home sports contests go, I have now become officially "also ran".
Monday, 23 March 2009
Year'll Be Alright
I had a feeling that it must be about the one year mark since I left Bear Stearns although I didn't remember the exact date.
I knew it was certainly more than a year since I gave in my notice (that was at the end of January 2008). And, of course, it was a little longer than that since I actually made my decision to resign (although not too much longer - I acted pretty quickly once I had made up my mind).
I remembered that my official leaving date was supposed to be sometime in April. Originally, I was working my entire 3-month notice period but the sudden collapse and dramatic "rescue" of the firm around Easter 2008 made that moot, and I left within a couple of days of the event.
So, it was still less than a year since my employment strictly ended.
I had a look for the email I sent out letting people know about my last day. It turned out that it was exactly one year ago on Friday (20th March), which is when I checked.
There are still a couple of anniversaries to come. The one year anniversary of the date on my P45 is 29th April. In the meantime, 17th April would have been my last day without the intervention of the US Government and JP Morgan.
17th April was also the date of "BSPT8" - this was the eighth and last of the Bear Stearns poker tournaments. I had been planning it before I left, and it went ahead after I left in a dual role as my leaving drinks.
I'm going to celebrate that anniversary, I think, with a re-union tournament. It can't be on 17th April itself due to the Easter holidays, but it appears that it can be scheduled for 27th April which would also be exactly three years since "BSPT1".
A year seems to have passed by very quickly, although at the same time it all feels like a long time ago.
I knew it was certainly more than a year since I gave in my notice (that was at the end of January 2008). And, of course, it was a little longer than that since I actually made my decision to resign (although not too much longer - I acted pretty quickly once I had made up my mind).
I remembered that my official leaving date was supposed to be sometime in April. Originally, I was working my entire 3-month notice period but the sudden collapse and dramatic "rescue" of the firm around Easter 2008 made that moot, and I left within a couple of days of the event.
So, it was still less than a year since my employment strictly ended.
I had a look for the email I sent out letting people know about my last day. It turned out that it was exactly one year ago on Friday (20th March), which is when I checked.
There are still a couple of anniversaries to come. The one year anniversary of the date on my P45 is 29th April. In the meantime, 17th April would have been my last day without the intervention of the US Government and JP Morgan.
17th April was also the date of "BSPT8" - this was the eighth and last of the Bear Stearns poker tournaments. I had been planning it before I left, and it went ahead after I left in a dual role as my leaving drinks.
I'm going to celebrate that anniversary, I think, with a re-union tournament. It can't be on 17th April itself due to the Easter holidays, but it appears that it can be scheduled for 27th April which would also be exactly three years since "BSPT1".
A year seems to have passed by very quickly, although at the same time it all feels like a long time ago.
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