Busy month, for all that it was short. I

Feeling disjointed and out of touch because I haven't been posting, and thus reading and keeping up with other folks' lives.

Coronet has come and gone, and it was a successful event.

It may be the largest event in ID, ever. The royals showed up, the tournament happened (before the skies opened at the end of the day), Robert shepherded peers and populace through a fine and solemn investiture ceremony, nusbacher  cooked enough food for at least 100 more people than we had attending, activities occurred more or less on time.

Very satisfying was the scribal display of backlog scrolls (which has helped trim the backlog collection significantly over the past few weeks), the scriptorium itself - mostly driven by aryanhwy , as I was rabbiting about - and the dancing, of which there was plenty, and lots of cheerful participation too.

We fell down somehat in the post-event planning area (cleanup and shipping collective shire kit home) but that's something we can fix in future.

We also had a very grown-up, honest and useful 'post-mortem', where we discussed what went well and what we need to work on. To me, this is at least as important as running the event; acknowledge and take pride in the good stuff, and also own the bad stuff, and see where we can improve.

I was really very pleased with all the grownups we have in the shire; I've run these in the past with far less effective and educational results.

Fighting, both on and off the ice

Robert was disappointed with his own performance on the field at Coronet, and I have to agree it wasn't his best. However, we've talked the circumstances over a bit, and I think we can see where we both need to work on preparing for tournaments, and freeing both of us up from multiple commitments through an event may be a start.

At Katherine of Great Chesterfield's suggestion I'm actually going to practice to talk to all the fighters about setting performance goals, and planning for tournaments. It's rather nostalgic, actually - tapping into an area of knowledge that used to be at the forefront of my mind, and was only piqued recently somewhat by watching the Olympics over the past few weeks.

Watching the Olympics themselves, and listening to Canadian commentators and athletes, was a bit of a nostalgia trip all on its own. To my own shock, I found myself watching curling and hockey - two games I would rather driven hot needles into my eyes have avoided in the past. But because Canada was playing, I found I wanted to watch.

I was pretty horrified by the level of aggression in the hockey though. I know lots of fans love the punch ups as much as the plays, but to me, it takes away a lot of the value of the game. Plenty of aggressive sports have no trouble separating the game from just plain violence; martial arts, Olympic or sumo wrestling, rugby. Hockey could clean up its act if there was a genuine desire (or a strong mandate) to do so. I wonder what it will take to bring it in.

(For comparison value, take a look at the footage of Gordie Howe games from the 50s and 60s on CBC archives.)
http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/topics/3529/

Watching the games from the 60s is fascinating: no helmets, no faceguards, no heavy shoulder padding.

The players' posture is far more upright on the ice, leading with their sticks on the ice, rather than bent over and leading with their heads and shoulders. The speed is about 3/4 the speed of the Olympic game from the weekend. I saw one elbowing incident, and no crashes, either into each other, or into the boards.

So evidently even the 'scrappy' players like Howe had a lighter touch pre-padding.

The 1979 clip shows Gordie Howe playing with Wayne Gretsky, who is barely old enough to see over the top of his skates. The players are still only half-helmeted, and still only lightly padded; the pace has picked up , but still isn't nearly as nasty as the gold medal game last month.

Busy month, for all that it was short II

We had the splendid Bartholomew and katherine visiting us from Southron Guard, Robert's first SCA group, and one rich in extraordinarily talented folk. They've been key in building their barony and its biggest event Canterbury Faire (we attended in 2008) for many years, and fascinating talking to a capable couple about someone else's politics for awhile.

Having guests here also gave me an excuse for a day out, including an Original London Walk around the Inns of Court (fabulous and informative as always) and an evening lecture at the St. Bride Foundation about early printing practices - one of katherine's passions is early printed books.

One of Gutenburg's contemporaries was a very sloppy printer, and his mistakes are very helpful in identifying clues about how early printing presses actually worked. Fascinating stuff for geeks like us!

Weekend before last included a trip to Coventry area, for the first of the season's reenactor fairs - evidently trying to get a jump on the competition with a very early date in February. I was somewhat disappointed with the shopping, actually; many of the 'regulars' I expected to see weren't there, and there seemed to be lots of small re-sellers, flogging cheap items, that all looked suspiciously like they came from the same original source - Pakistan.

Disappointment didn't stop me spending about £75 on bits and pieces. :-)

At work rumours are flying. On top of a spending cut, we expect a national election, and since one of the parties has promised to 'help fix' the NHS, the agency's own management is attempting what appears to be a pre-emptive strike,  reorganising to leave a huge dangling obvious target out in the open, like a lizard's tail. If it's cut off, it might let the rest of the agency escape unharmed. Not knowing whether or not it will work, possibly for months, makes it a bit of a stressful gamble.