Keep fit?

For the first time in years, I played 5-a-side football with some of the guys from work. Though it only lasted an hour, we were all exhausted at the end, with a satisfying score of 7 goals each.

Afterwards, in a fit of extreme madness, I decided that since my muscles were all warmed up, and I could do with regaining my fitness, I would go cross-country running over White Coppice afterwards.

Using the valley to control my breathing, I then made my way up though the woods (walking on the slippiest, steepest parts), I reached the metalled track from the road at the top and ran across the moorland at the top. The wind up there was bitter, particularly since I was in shorts. It was even colder as I began my descent to the right of the gorge, running slowly because the ground was wet (it's wet up there in summer, let alone mid-November).

I was grateful for the shelter further down and picked up the pace back to car park and spent ten minutes to pull on some warm clothes and do some warm-downs.

Even so, for the remainder of the day, I continued to feel sore and stiff, and if I sat still in one position too long, the cramp in my legs would be particularly painful.

Still, I've been planning to return to training for some time, and I just hope I can keep it up. I'll have to brush up my football skills too, since everyone else seemed to be much better than me.

Chess Rating

This link shows how my rating has changed according to games lost or won at Chessworld.

As you can see, I seem to be holding steady at around 1100, therefore I have decided it is time to start reading up on how to improve my tactics. The first book I have purchased is, "Rapid Chess Improvement" by Michael de la Maza, which discusses tactical thinking and 'Chess Vision' as the foundation upon which positional knowledge should be built, rather than the other way around.

Works on house

When we first went in and turned on the water, there were several leaks and we could hear the elctrics fizzing as the water poured down the switches and light fittings. We fixed those temporarily, and began work.

So far, we've stripped out the remaining furniture, removed most of the wallpaper, knocked off the plaster to a meter high, and had the damp course done and wall ties fitted. The old boiler, gas fire and mantelpiece have also been despatched to the tip.

We have designed a compact kitchen and are considering the best solutions for the bathroom and central heating.

Books and Films

Over the last few weeks, I have steadily been working my way through the Morse series. I don't know if it is a particularly healthy thing, but I seem to identify with him; from the crosswords to the ale to the disillusionment and loneliness.

In addition, I've watched all 4 Crow films. I had watched the first with Brandon Lee years ago and loved the whole Gothic atmosphere and soundtrack. The 4th is the weakest by far of the set, where the bad guy, nicknamed "Death", is obsessed with making himself the Devil incarnate, and it is up to The Crow to stop him.

The 2nd reintroduces Sarah as a seer and show her befriending a street girl, that seemed to be setting the scene for the next story in the sequence, though it didn't work out that way.

I've read the novels "No Mercy" and "Sleepyhead", which are both forensic crime thrillers. The plot devices in "No Mercy" were a bit predictable, and were transparently links to the next action sequence. "Sleepyhead" was different in that the killings were accidental - he sought to force his victims to exist in a permanent paralysis unable to function without the assistance of the outside world.

Bank Holiday

As often is the case, the Bank Holiday was one with mixed weather. So, I took a ride on the Ribble Valley Railway shown in the pictures below, and then went to the Odeon to watch Xmen: The Last Stand. The reviews I read for this film described it as reasonable but not up to the same standard as the 2nd, which (according to that particular reviewer) was the best of the three.

Personally, I think that they wanted to wrap the franchise up before it became boring and stale, and that was why they made this. It was visually engaging and the dialogue was fairly believable, but there seemed to be dynamics only between the characters central to the plot, with a lot of extras thrown in to fill the screen up a bit. In other words, too much room was made for the action at the expense of telling the story well.