Maximus Decimus

Hasn't he just been extradited?

On a separate note, I have more respect for KJT after the last couple of days. So many athletes who have been world champions wouldn't dream of turning up to a lesser tournament where they knew they couldn't compete. Fair play to her though, she seemed to enjoy it for what it was.

That's the strange reality of athletics. Today might just be that day when the Italian peaked to never repeat it again. I remember a Welsh sprinter running 10.04 as a world junior and being excited about what he'd become. I think that was ended up basically being his PB and he had a full career. I can't remember the name of people I've known for years and I remember that. Go figure.

I enjoyed the first kilometre of the 10k, they went at a pace that I reckon I could have kept with at my peak! Then they rather annoyingly upped the pace in a ridiculous way. Winner lapped nearly everyone and broke the Championship record.

18.15m with 12cm on the board! GBs last big World Record could be about to go.

Blimming 'eck an Italian has just done a triple jump that looked like it was a world record. Ended up being 3cm over the board 🫪. Was not expecting a competition like that tonight!

Great 800m last night. Felt a bit for Keely, but just shows how fragile success in athletics can be. She won Olympic Gold at the Olympics and it looked like she'd dominate for years. Looks like she's probably going to be a contender but the woman who won last night looks a great shout for challenging the world record.

Things seem to be improving as the week goes on. Decent night last night. Bit disappointed to see that out of 25 decathletes there wasn't a single Brit. Traditionally, we've done well in this but it has been a while since I can think of someone. Maybe I'm getting mixed up with heptathlon.

I can remember the disappointment of '99. Of course I get back tomorrow so will miss the whole bloody thing.

18k usually, but 23k for this. Can be upgraded as and when needed.

Tbh when you first posted I figured it was going to be about the Instagram types. But your right, so many people are more interested in saying they've been somewhere than they are of the actual thing itself. Me and the missus were in Amsterdam not long ago, outside of the Reijksmuseum I think. There was a young girl with presumably her fella. She was trying to get the perfect shot, where she looked carefree etc. They were utterly miserable and were clearly arguing. The whole thing was insanely ridiculous IMO. Either enjoy being there or don't.

From an athletics POV of what I saw, Hunt did well to get gold, but to truly compete her start will have to improve massively. Every race I've seen she's in like 5th at the half way point.

Apparently they had a very well attended commonwealth games there a couple of years ago and thats rubbish! One huge disconnect was the fact that the BBC are dedicating two hours of primetime viewing on BBC1 as if it is a big event like the Worlds or Olympics. The level of empty seats makes this appear totally unjustifiable.

I'm currently in Turkey and have a degree in Ancient History; there is some of the best archaeology in the world here and I did visit over 20 years ago as part of a Uni tour. I can certainly understand the desire as a parent to try and enthuse your children especially in the modern world where children are far more likely to have zero interest in anything other than gaming/online. After a few days, I consciously made the decision not to go to an ancient site with them. I couldn't deal with the inevitable moaning etc especially about it being too hot. Tbh my experience as a parent has been one long attempt to get my children interested in things I like and largely failing.

Turned on the Euro Athletics in Birmingham last night and was shocked to see the attendance. Large swathes of the arena were empty. The UK is one of the best places in the world for attending 'events' so something didn't seem right. If you looked at the stands, the back 8 rows or so were pretty full with the next 10/12 rows being basically empty. I thought to myself I'd seen this before: at the last RLWC. Looked it up and not surprisingly ticket prices were high. Apparently, there were 13,000 there last night and 170,000 have been sold for the rest of the week with Thursday evening onwards being basically sold out. I suppose we'll see, didn't look remotely like 13,000 last night.

Quick question: do you think there is a single period in the 130 odd years of RL where the fans have gone 'you know what refereeing has been great and fair this year'.

I think this is the sort of thing that sounds great in principle, but would probably cause just as many problems. A bit like video referees really. When they were brought in in 1995 nobody could have imagined that there would be many issues with them. There'd be contentious decisions, the referees would stick to their interpretation, and everybody would cry stitch up.

Did you ever consider that your reflections might just be the same as many other fans who thought referees were against them? Without hard and unquestionable data, this is impossible to prove. The data sample is too small and nearly every fan feels his club is hard done by. Then there is the age old problem of self-selection bias once you think you've noticed a problem.

Under 12,000 at Titans vs Cowboys. I'm sure prior to the season, somebody was trying to convince me that they were now a success with average crowds of 20k. Any inkling I've seen this year has been the same: a pretty poor team playing in a largely deserted stadium.

Somebody hit the nail on the head when they said young people don't know the difference between wi-fi and the internet. When it wasn't wireless and you use a phone wire, understanding when you do and don't have internet isn't hard!

Analogue time is fast going the way of something like Roman Numerals. Because of fancy watches and large time-pieces like Big Ben (I know it's the name of the bell before anyone jumps in!) it won't go extinct. People like me who can read Roman Numerals without having to have a recap will be in the minority. Kids have a very good concept of time when they say it as it is written on a digital device. So it is eleven thirty-three as I write. Time outside of this gets harder to teach every year. By age 9, in most years not a single child will know analogue and traditional digital time fully. 2/3rds basically don't have a clue.

You know you're old when you actually know what the internet is. To the youth of today, the internet is like water to a fish, impossible to understand. Hence why they literally can't comprehend why the internet doesn't work on their phone when they land in a country outside of Europe.

So I went shopping today for holiday clothes and certainly felt old. Not necessarily because of the style but they've changed the fit of everything. I'd pick up a medium and they were all enormous. Trust me it's not down to secret weight loss. I'm guessing this is how people like it now?

You're doing well. My kids hate my type of music. They're still quite young but still. I like a lot of music from the 60s to now, but the highest concentration is definitely say 94-05. It's becoming increasingly clear that I'm like my parents when they listened to their music.

Tbh the best thing that being a singer and then a pop singer gave me was that I've been like this since my late teens; if I like something I do it and don't care what people think. To a lot of my peers, what I was doing was embarrassing but I enjoyed it. I then stopped caring if I thought for instance a Destiny's Child song was good or not. Ironically, at the time I had a real dislike for what I called indie heads for who music was all about credibility etc I'm not like this in all respects, I've always been very conservative about what clothes I wear and scared to try anything too out there. Which brings me back to the thread, I suspect I might be starting to appear old as well based on my unchanging style of clothes...