A Mind @ Play

random thoughts to oil the mind

France Crowned Again on Six Nations Super Saturday—Probably!

Ireland denied once again on points difference from their first Six Nations championship, and on St Patrick’s Day to boot, as France took the challenge set by Ireland in their 8 try victory over the Azzurri. With the unlikely Italian victory out of the picture, the French set to work against Scotland in Paris, with a target of 24 points. Although England playing in Cardiff would have a mathematical chance to clinch the title, a championship victory for them would be an incredible feat. The title was France’s to lose, and Scotland’s to deny.

A dramatic start to the day in the Stadio Flaminio as Ireland looked to stretch a big point victory over Italy to put France in a difficult position later in the day. Italy started well, kicking penalties and a drop goal, and despite conceding two tries looked to be in a decent position at 12-13 until a controversial try to Ireland in the dying minutes of the half put them 12-20 ahead. The second half, however, was a one horse race, as Ireland put try after try past the Italian defence. The game opened up considerably as the scoreboard racked up a considerable points difference for Ireland, but a last minute decision to continue after the clock went red left Italy in a position to score a generously awarded second try to claw back 7 points before the final whistle. The final score of 24-51 left France needing a victory margin of 24 points to claim the trophy.

Knowing what they had to do in Paris, the Scots ignited the game with an early try to put France on the back foot. From there France fully attacked the game, looking to be half way to their tally by half time, when Sean Lamont took a quick penalty to sprint for the line and spoil French hopes. Leading 20-14 going into the second half, France got the bit between their teeth and forced a 25 point lead with over 15 minutes to go. First half hero Lamont was bizarrely sin binned for an infraction by his younger brother Rory, and all looked to be going France’s way using all the strength, speed and skill they could muster. Yet a late try from the unlikely arms of Euan Murray put the championship just beyond France’s reach. As the BBC commentator put it:

“He’s got a five yard run in, and like every good tight-head prop, he’s now got cramp!”

Patterson’s failed conversion left France needing a try to win. The clock went red, the French pushed for the line, pushing on, penalty after penalty. With the ball over the line, the referee went to the television referee asking for any reason not to award the try—and who other than an Irishman to be occupying that position! The try awarded. France triumphant. Ireland beaten on points difference for the second year running.

Although Wales will play host to England shortly, the required margin for England (victory by 57 points) to claim the championship essentially confirms France’s championship.

Moving Your WordPress Blog

As I found recently, if you’re planning on moving your WordPress blog around on your server or domain there are a few things to be aware of. Most importantly, do not move the blog before setting up the WordPress for the new location!

  1. Go to the admin section of your blog, select and find the Options > General panel.
  2. Change the WordPress address and Blog address entries to reflect the new location of your blog.
  3. Update your blog, and do not worry if there appear to be problems, simply log out.
  4. Delete the wp-content/cache folder from your WordPress installation (if it exists).
  5. Move the WordPress files to their new location, including all subdirectories.
  6. If you use Permalinks, update them via the Options > Permalinks panel.
  7. Update the settings for any plugins which require addresses which have changed.
  8. Navigate to your new blog address and check everything is working.

Whilst this should update most of your settings to reflect the blog’s new location, some problems might arise with links and images, particularly relative links if you have changed the blog’s location within a single domain. If this is the case it would be easiest to edit the links en mass via the SQL database, however if this affects only a small number of posts it could prove simpler to edit these manually.

Note: WPG2 users might find the WPG2 Plugin page on their WordPress page reports everything successful, yet their embedded gallery page attempts to find images under the old structure. In this case, Show/Hide Manual Configuration Form will display the entries which need manually updating to reflect the blog’s new location.

Latest from the West Indies

Herschelle Gibbs

In typical fashion, England underwhelmed in their first game of the tournament losing to a solid New Zealand performance. A major hiccough during their innings in which England lost 4 wickets for 5 runs left the Kiwis with an mediocre target of 210 to reach. Despite the new ball putting New Zealand in a precarious position on 19 for 3, an excellent partnership by Scott Styris and Jacob Oram saw them through to what was ultimately a tidy victory. The result puts New Zealand in a strong position to progress through the group, and leaves England needing results against both Canada and Kenya in their last two games.

In the second Group A game, the Netherlands were soundly crushed by a mighty South African performance, epitomised by Herschelle Gibbs’ record setting six 6s in an over, a feat never before achieved in international cricket. Despite rain forcing the match to be reduced to 40 overs apiece, South Africa posted an impressive 353 for 3, including the fastest half century, on top of Gibbs’ unique achievement. South Africa have to face Scotland before their big game in Group A against Australia, though by then both teams may have already qualified.

And in the second game from Group D, Ireland managed to ease past Zimbabwe, leaving them in a stronger position to take on group favourites Pakistan tomorrow, who will be looking for a victory following their first defeat at the hands of hosts, the West Indies.

The Global Warming Debate Heats Up

Global warming has become something of a fashion. To gainsay it is a political cyanide pill akin to older variants of the likes of ‘abolitionism’ or ‘free trade’. The climate is changing, and it’s all our fault. One need only look at the success of a film like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to see how this basic principle has become an accepted fact. Recent films like The Day After Tomorrow illustrate how mainstream such ideas are. It’s a big issue, it’s an important issue, and it’s politically and financially loaded. Which is why it is all the more important it isn’t swallowed wholesale. A recent Channel 4 production hoped to show just how deceptive the issue can be.

globalwarming_1.jpgUnfortunately, it is very easy in this ‘information age’ for facts to become distorted and blown out of proportion, particularly by the mainstream media. On a daily basis, news programmes bring us the latest breakthroughs from the cutting edge of science. In Britain this is concomitant with a constant tugging on our heart strings to force the NHS to accept the latest miracle cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s or any other myriad diseases. Of course, the problem is that breakthroughs at the cutting edge of science have a tendency to go wrong, the results of surveys tend to be disproved by later surveys, and false conclusions tentatively fed to the public with phrases like ‘scientists believe’ and ‘recent surveys have shown’ in fact get swallowed as gospel fact.

Just a late addition to the recent list of book-related websites, for those who enjoy audiobooks the LibriVox website offers readings of books in the public domain, read by volunteers. A few problems with the online catalog system when I checked it meant that it was difficult to simply browse for titles, but there appears to be plenty of variety in what’s available, and probably most of what’s available on Project Gutenberg will end up there.

Page 59 of 66

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén