Recent Reading and Rants

Big news guys: I've been cheating on my blog! With an old hobby - reading! At least two or three times in the past two weeks of silence I have stayed up late finishing a particularly delicious novel. Ah...

These are some of the things I've been reading. I may have missed a few in this list. As you can see, my bedside reading pile is getting a bit out of control

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins): dystopia fantasy. Thrilling, unexpected, sensitive. I will definitely be reading the sequels as soon as I can get my hands on them.

Sabriel (Garth Nix): classic fantasy. In a word - brilliant. Scary, but brilliant. If you're going to read one fantasy novel for teenagers, this is it.

Postcards from the Edge (Carrie Fisher): the story of an ex-druggie Hollywood actress, told in fragments. Funny, tragic, absurd and random. I reserved judgment until the last chapter, but the ending pulled the whole thing together beautifully.

News from Thrush Green (Miss Read): old, kitsch, adorable. Restful reading.

The Avenging Saint (Leslie Charteris): old, predictable thriller/teccie. Also restful if you like that kind of thing, which I do. Involves car chases, fights on yachts, rescuing millionaires' daughters from certain death etc..

The Physics of the Impossible, Introducing Stephen Hawking, Newton's Notebooks: I know these last three seem a bit highbrow for my taste, but don't worry. I've only been dipping into them because they're living on my husband's bedside table. So no review of these ones I'm afraid. You'll have to wait till I get a new brain.

You will also observe that there is very little official "literature" on my list. This is because (let's face it) most literature is difficult and/or unpleasant to read. So I don't, unless I have to. [disclaimer: there are many exceptions to this rule. wonderful ones. but they still aren't exactly leisure reading. and who the heck decides what is literature and what isn't anyway.]


Rant Over.


I hope to contribute a little more to the stream of internet *stuff* this week, thus in my own small way contributing to the creation of a species entirely dependent on machines (this is my way of saying "I'll try to post more")


Goodnight to you all.

Contingency in Hockey

It seems that a lot of sports are actually exercises in contingency. Today, for example, I had a long conversation on the topic of contingency with the poor harried coach of the U14 hockey team that I manage (those of you who are paying attention will observe that I seem to manage only U14s. this is in fact the case. I think its the penalty of being new.)

Back to the point. The coach has desperately been trying to teach the girls the art of "two vee one" (and I quote). The idea behind "two vee one" is simple: try to take the ball to a part of the field where your players temporarily outnumber the other team's players.

Though it makes perfect sense in theory, in practice "two vee one" requires some very advanced contingency thinking under pressure. For example

IF she gets the ball AND I am behind her AND there are three opposition players coming from the left AND there is one opposition player coming from the right AND our strongest striker is running towards us from the centre THEN...

All of this in the split second it takes to run down the line on the right hand side of the field before the aforementioned three players reach you.

I am filled with admiration for those who manage to achieve this even once in a lifetime.