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Robdurbar

Listed below are comments made by Robdurbar between Wednesday, 4th June 2008 and Wednesday, 25th November 2009.

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Making new headlines 8:48pm on 25 Nov 2009 I've got agree with Drummond Murdoch - the reason I clicked on the live feed for the Henry handball story was because of the reaction 'oh, the BBC are doing live feeds on sports news stories now?' and I felt it was a bit OTT. I can see it working if you have press conferences to cover though.

One question that all the RoI/Henry coverage got me thinking about was why the BBC cover Irish sport quite so much? By this I mean the Republic, rather than Northern Ireland or all-Ireland sport - after all, it is a different country?
Never ending story 2:08pm on 30 Jun 2009 How have we got into this ridiculous Murray debate again? Plenty of English tennis fans like Murray (myself included), some don't. I just wish people would discuss his tennis and not his nationality or personality!

And yes, let's get football back on as soon as possible!
Gender, pay and 'misleading' stats 09:34am on 16 Jun 2009 A female doing a cleaning/maintenance job will be called a 'cleaner' and get minimum wage or thereabouts.

A male doing a cleaning/maintenance job will be called a 'maintenance engineer' and get paid considerably more.

So yes, Harman screws about with the figures (don't get me wrong, I can't stand her) and her maths here is dodgy at best.

But don't be under any allusion that some structural discrimination - less than previously, and precious little conscious/deliberate discrimination - does not exist in British employment today.
Secrets of the fixture computer 10:53am on 15 Jun 2009 Responding to a few points above:

TV companies get their hands on the schedule after its announced, then request their live matches from this. So the decision of who gets the 12:30 match on a Saturday, or the Monday evening game, for example, is taken by them. This is done in two batches i.e. the TV games for the first half of the season are decided in July, then for the second half in December I think.

I don't know if the 'Super Sunday' events are generated by Sky after the fixture list is created but if you think about how many football matches there are and the relatively low number of potential variations, a random generator will throw up a few weekends of big matches every season.

@#30 - the computer does not allow for the 'strength' of various teams, so if one club has a tough start or finish it is simply a result of the random generation. Utd's start this season was a bit skewed as well due to the fact they missed out on a match due to the European Super Cup.

@#40 - local derbies aren't played on the final day, or first day of the season, as clubs know that those matches are guaranteed high attendance and revenue, so to have a derby on that day would be to 'waste' the high-attendance levels of the derby.
China for gold, Britain for bronze? 7:52pm on 21 Aug 2008 How we have done so far is amazing. I doubt we'll never beat the Russians - I don't think anyone was ever suggesting that we would - but the fact there is now a hope is amazing. Given as you noted that our target for 2012 was fourth, to be competing for third now is something special.

If we do want to continue taking this 'medal table competition' seriously, then we really need to look towards challenging the Russians, which means investment into sports such as weightlifting, gymnastics, shooting and wrestling where there are a number of medals available but few if any British challengers.
Gold confirms Cooke's cycling talent 6:41pm on 10 Aug 2008 fspiers: It was the women's road race 'mass start'. There are two road race events for women, the 'mass start' which is of no particular distance, but was this year 70-odd miles long, gaining its name as all the riders start together, as in marathon or triathlon. The winner is the first one over the line (In this case, Nicole!)

The other road event is the 'time trial'. This takes place over a shorter course (again, there is no set distance though I'd be surprised if it were more than 15-20 miles). The riders start individually and the time it takes each one to do the course is noted: the one with the fastest time wins (think downhill skiing or slalom canoe)!
Trip, stumble, fall 09:46am on 04 Aug 2008 I'm slighlty surprised at the negativity in this: even if you don't agree with the politics behind the project, it is still an 'interesting news feature': nothing more, nothing less.

The beer tent issue brings up a question - is plastic or glass more biodegrabable? At a guess I'd say glass but I'm not aware of an answer to this? Glass also, if washed, I guess is likely to be more reusable than easly-deformed plastic?
You Are The Ref answers 12:35pm on 17 Jun 2008 A player has been fouled and is lying beside the field receiving treatment from his team's physio. A free kick is taken from the position of the foul and the ball worked across the field by the attacking team, looking to break down the defence. The defence is tight so the attacking winger desides to cross the ball but woefully overhits it.

The ball swings over the penalty area only to hit the attacking team's physio who's behind, unknowingly, had been over the byline as he was bent over to attend to the injured player. The attacking team collect the rebounded ball and quickly score against a confused defence.

Does the goal count or not? Either way, what, if any, action can be taken against the phyiso or the injured player?
You Are The Ref #4 4:11pm on 11 Jun 2008 Throw in to the Czechs
You Are The Ref #2 8:42pm on 04 Jun 2008 Note that in the above I'm presuming that 'free kick' includes IFK and DFKs

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