I’ve had a fairly good run of success with the daily Wordle puzzles, so much so that I felt the need to fill the void between their appearance by completing the NYT Mini and the Guardian Quick crosswords. There’s an element of daily competition and mild bragging inherent in sharing the shortest number of tries at work; it’d be even better if I ‘won’ more. Heck, I even append the animal I think my block pattern most resembles to a shared tweet, with a so-far unique #WordleAnimal hashtag.

But Wordle is not why I started writing today. I’m here because, in common with every time I’ve thought of writing a blog post for the past couple of years, I’ve nothing to write about.

Well, ok, that’s obviously untrue; there’s far too much going on for me to pick a topic and do it justice. Far too much.

Not only has Brexit come and gone since I last blogged regularly, a victory of sorts accompanied by the rampant nationalism, casual and overt racism of those somehow certain they’re on the right side of history. Not only has a Conservative government been re-elected by people who believed the lies but who still don’t seem willing to realise the erosion of their rights started 10 years ago is accelerating.

Oh, and a worldwide pandemic. One during which some governments looked after their people by making sensible choices based on sound judgment, an appreciation of historic events, and a desire to be led by the science instead of pretending to be. But instead the UK government decided to prioritise keeping businesses open, keeping borders open, spending billions on projects designed ultimately to enrich their associates. Prior to Covid they’d assured us common folks that Austerity was a thing of the past.

Yes, I know it’s not over, neither Austerity nor the pandemic.

I got my first computer in 1981, forty-something years ago, and I got online in 1997, a quarter of a century ago. It didn’t take me long, heading towards a new millennium to realise, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we were entering an unparalleled golden age of access to facts. An age in which it’d be trivial to debunk lies that no-one would try to fabricate or twist truth.

And here we are, twenty-something years into this millennium. Society – I’m not sure what other words to use here because ‘civilisation’ seems a bit strong – is on what seems to me to be an inevitable decline. And yet…

My girls’ school invited us to donate to an appeal set up to help the children of Ukraine. Easy, and they freely gave their own money. And yet…

Where have the appeals been for Chechnya, for Syria, for Afghanistan, Yemen, all the other countries war has touched? I’m not saying Ukrainians don’t deserve the help, but it got me thinking. I mean, I don’t have unlimited funds to divert to charities, but yes, I’m feeling guilt I haven’t done more, whatever more is.

And the previous night, watching a documentary highlighting the heroism of the ordinary people of Chornobyl/Chernobyl, the ones who volunteered to make safe the nuclear plant. And to hear of the Russians shelling a Ukrainian nuclear plant prior to taking it over… chilling, desperate stuff. And a wife, invited to Moscow to meet the Russian premier who showed the state’s appreciation for her husband’s bravery by stating they’d be given funerals of heroes – ur her husband wasn’t yet dead. I’m just hoping now that the Russian state isn’t too big to fail, that the uncaring nature of such governments breaks apart with such shockwaves it alters the minds of those who see it as a viable method to govern.

But such a thing is reliant on reception by open-minded institutions run by people unafraid of their electorate learning that an collective absence of ability should have precluded them from ever reaching any level of public office. (I’m not about to say level of public service, there’s no evidence selflessness in the UK Conservative party.)

I saw a tweet earlier today, a photo or a still frame of an obviously northern English town. It was captioned something like “Sheffield, 5th of March.” The detail is unimportant. What is important though, I eventually figured the link to an early nineteen eighties film about a nuclear war. One in which an unimaginably large number of nuclear weapons killed an unimaginably larger number of people. ‘Threads’ it’s called. The clips I’ve seen show the terror of ordinary people dying in the streets, the shops, their workplaces – and in their homes, thinking that piling furniture up to form the rudimentary refuges government propaganda said would protect them singularly failed against the fury of…

I can’t help thinking that whilst all this is going on, the UK government is trying to pass or actually passing legislation that parallels the chilling effects of the Russian Kremlin. You know, like the one that says if you’re convicted of alarming someone whilst protesting you could go to prison for 15 years. I wish I was making this up, and I wish it wasn’t just one of the most recent attempts to cling on to power.

I see striking parallels with Russia of old, before Communism and the Berlin Wall ostensibly fell. Striking parallels with Trump’s Russian-led, propaganda-driven populist sleep-waking into totalitarianism. And here we are in the UK with evidence emerging that a sizeable proportion of Conservative MPs and the party itself accepted Russian money and apparently didn’t care to ask the obvious question ‘why me?’

Um…

Yeah, it’s another unfocused rant isn’t it. Perhaps this is why I’ve not written anything recently. Damned if I’m going to proofread this, I thought it’d be a bit cathartic but all I’ve got now is a desire to get hold of some potassium iodide.

Addendum:

Maybe I’ll add a few extra things which have gained deserved resurgence in popularity in recent times. Such as the resistance to the seeming inevitability of climate change.

Reddit’s u/OptimisticRealist__ posted something about ‘Coach Prime’ and it reminded me what I wanted to talk about (that particular day was an odd, odd day.) This post is an edited version of that Reddit comment.

Like most of us English I’ve never been exposed to US College football so I was surprised by what happened after I spent time trying (and failing!) to absorb some of the talk in the r/Browns subreddit about our possible choices in the 2022 NFL College player Draft.

I’d decided a few days ago to pick a team. It’s… (don’t laugh) the Bowling Green State University (BGSU) Falcons. They play in the Mid-Atlantic Conference (MAC) East division. I say don’t laugh because I could have easily picked national powerhouse Ohio State and get more news and more chance to see a BGSU player play in the NFL, couldn’t I!

There are a lot of parallels in today’s BGSU with the main reasons I became a Browns fan. A rebuilding team, a young team, and they hosted the only college game I ever saw live (during the 2004 trip I keep mentioning in r/Browns.)

The biggest issues I have though will be obvious to most of you:

• There’s not much film out there, and I can’t see a way of guaranteeing I get to see games live on TV.

• From what I’ve read there aren’t too many chances to see BGSU players in the draft or even bowl games.

Issues partially addressed:

• I found the Unofficial BGSU Sports Archive (a YouTube video channel) - but I’d love to know if there are other recent video archives. (Not bootleg as such, but I’m open to suggestions.)

• I’ve seen ESPN+ might have games but I’ve absolutely no idea if BGSU is on the UK channel’s radar. Not expecting help here, I might need to contact the channel directly (and hope I get a helpful customer service rep.)

• I’ve subscribed to Reddit's r/BGSUFB (and introduced myself) and r/MidAmerican in the hope I’ll gain a few insights before the season kickoff.

So that’s it. Apart from not remembering the team’s uniform colours 17 years after my visit (but being pleasantly surprised they’re orange, brown and white) tsk!

In March 1981 the Sinclair ZX81 computer launched. I bought one at the end of the year.

Also at the end of 1981, the BBC Micro computer launched. I bought one of those a year or two later (after using a Commodore VIC-20.)

I used the Beeb all my spare time, programming in BBC Basic, Forth, Pascal, 6502 Assembler, and created a number of electronic devices briefly referred to elsewhere in this blog… It was an awesome time, before computing devices were commonplace, ubiquitous, and thus taken for granted.

It’s now March 2021, 40 years after my first computer arrived. Yesterday, after playing with the simulator on my iPhone I ordered a BBC micro:bit computer (and a third-party STEM electronics sensors/development board) for delivery this very afternoon.

Sure having only a 5×5 LED matrix and beeper means it’s limited without external devices, sure it’s not an Arduino microcontroller or Raspberry Pi general purpose computer. But I can write and test micro:bit programs on my phone – no external keyboard or mouse or screen are needed, no Internet connection is required, no cassette tapes or diskettes or memory cards are necessary.

It’s already getting me back to the feeling I had when I started computing, but it’s all just… easier.

And here it is: Browns 2020 season recap at ‘bazbt3’s podcast’.

It’s not as short as you might imagine.

(Originally composed – if that’s what one can call this – in June 2019.)

Everything below the line is presented without comment; it’s entirely unnecessary:

Someone [I believe on Quora] asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”

Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:

“A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

* You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

‘My God… what… have… I… created?

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

In case no-one already said this, there will be no histrionics or mean-spiritedness during the trump family’s last day in the White House; donnie’s departure will be televisually stage-managed to perfection to make it look as if he’s been both in control and statesmanlike throughout the last 5 years. The crowd outside, this time, this time, really will be the biggest ever (all-masked, but that’s not important right now) gathering to fill the public spaces around Washington DC.

Heck, he will say a few rational and coherent words as he shakes Joe’s and Jill’s hands with a firm (but not too firm) grip whilst the trumps copy the Obamas’ departing grace, poise, sense of decorum, call it what you will.

Melanie won’t swat his hand away on the easy walk down the steps before crossing to the waiting helicopter as the band plays; donnie will salute the Marine before turning and effortlessly climbing the steps and, as he casually lets down the umbrella, he’ll lift his heel to show his shoe’s complete absence of toilet paper.

And this is what people will remember, it really will be this good.

Fark knows they’ll have the time to rehearse, to get it right; even a complete idiot could copy a century-old playbook, am I right?

A followup to my Mos Eisley post.

Just had to block some local t*ts in the local Facebook group. I asked a simple question and he and his mates decided to take the piss out of a typo I made. And then, when I happened to mention someone possibly had a personal tragedy this afternoon, one decided to start calling me names. Really, a grown man with a family. Classy.

For some, Facebook is a personal playground. How lacking must their lives be when they feel the need to insult complete strangers? I’m sure they don’t THINK they’re trolling, but…

Oh yeah, not one of them answered my question, they didn’t know.

Anyway, it’s not a normal day here when 3 fire engines, 2 police vans and an ambulance pass by, all with lights and sirens. An hour later the ambulance left without lights, and I’m hoping for the best.

*One is a Covid denier, mask refuser, fancies himself a wit… I should have seen it coming.

A post intended for my village’s Facebook group, not yet a wretched hive of scum and villainy:

There’s a style of discussion that relies on ‘ad hominem’ arguments*; yes I am indeed attempting to use Latin in my own village discussion group. In a nutshell it’s employed as a blunt force attack on a person rather than picking apart their position using logic, careful thought, and crucially, respect.

And here’s the thing, I’m seeing a lot of actual intolerance here. Rather than understanding others, there’s a lot of piling on when faced with differences of perspective.

For instance, anyone who complains about the noise of fireworks or speeding cars acquires a label and with it comments along the lines of ‘it doesn’t affect me on the other side of the village, so why should I care?’ and ‘what are you, the thought/fun police’ and…

It fails to take into account shift worker sleep patterns, those unwell, sensitive pets, children, those who live alone and dare not complain about antisocial behaviour…

I’ve seen entire posts (yes I’m guessing) removed by their originators thus ending the discussion, posts locked to prevent further debate, and comments selectively deleted – all because the level of narrow-mindedness displayed exceeds the capacity of the group member to deal with it.

Sure some are because the outcome isn’t entirely what the poster expected, but in the main it’s mean-spirited reaction comments that are the killers here.

So what do I want?

Simply this: instead of finding every single view contrary to your own so utterly objectionable that stabbing at the keyboard is your only release, remember where you live.

Then remember where the object of your scorn lives.

I can’t be arsed making up a hashtag of local solidarity, so over to you.

---

*From Wikipedia: Ad hominem, short for argumentum ad hominem, is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious.

It’s done. On Friday I became a first-time participant in a 16 team Fantasy NFL (American Football) league; Friday was ‘Draft’ day.

I’d asked our Topeka, KS, USA colleagues about some level of participation last year, and a couple of us Brits got an invite. It’s also way outside my comfort zone.

I mentioned there are 16 teams in my league because it’s unusual to have more than 10 or 12. Each player has as many rounds to choose what they consider the best squad of 16 players from the available pool. For 10 teams, from a pool of a couple of thousand players, that’s 10 rounds x 16 players = 160. For 16 teams it’s 16 rounds x 16 players = 256!

Because of the way this league draft format works, in the first round I drafted 5th. When the 16th player has picked they pick again and the order reversed so the 15th, 14th, etc. pick until the previous number 1 is reached. It’s supposed to bring fairness, ensure the last to pick isn’t disadvantaged in each round.

I found that past the late mid rounds though I’d heard of so few players I had to leave my script and pick by anticipated 2020 points. The talent drops off very quickly after the early rounds, so a lot of the squad is likely to be there in case of injury, suspension, or for covid-related reasons.

Now Yahoo’s post-draft analysis placed me 5th overall with a B- grade. Even though I’m it won’t translate into an easy season (2nd highest strength of opposition) I’m pretty pleased to be honest; even the League Commissioner, an experienced (Platinum!) fantasy league player remarked on how few players they knew in the later rounds.

Here are my tips for success:

• Concentrate on which players remain rather than who’s been stolen from you.
• Chat with other participants if you must, but keep an eye on the approaching snake so you don’t have to rush.
• Don’t be too chatty and give anything away that could be used against you tactically as the season progresses. (Like this entire blog post?)
• Keep an eye on ‘bye’ weeks. The real league has 16 teams in a 17- week season so teams have a week not playing in real life. So there’s a reason their bye week number is quite prominent one every player’s listing – they won’t score points.)

If you’ve got this far you’ve probably already worked out that yes, after about an hour into the process I ignored the basic stuff, all of it. And it’s such a short list!

Week 8: 4 players on a bye. It’s ok, not time to panic.

Week 7 though, now that is an absolute triumph of noob ineptitude. 3/4 through the draft overall and with 4 out that week already I took *time* to pick. I also made the mistake of telling one of the other participants.

And then… yup, 2 consecutive rounds of panic, picking half-decent players but both with byes in week 7. Six out in one week!! How the fark does that happen?

Beers? I had beers. It’s all I can think of to explain where it all went a bit wrong.

It has to be said that I also forgot my mock draft strategy and missed out on a second TE. And, er… did I mention it was on Friday night, just before Ryquell Armstead’s covid-positive news dropped? But he’s on my bench, so no point in over-reacting right now.

This is my squad: (link to imgur screenshot)

One thing that some people say at a time like this: “I took longer choosing my team name than preparing to choose players.” In fantasy NFL that statement is, as I found out a week or two ago, a load of old bollocks!

So, my team name? Baz’s Kardiac Mids. (Cleveland Browns fans of a certain age will get this reference, but for anyone else there’s this.)

If it sounds as though I know what I’m talking about I’ll add one final thing, should I have added an asterisk to ‘pretty pleased’ above?

I now need to check the Waiver Wire.

Yes, another learning experience!