Bowls update

Just to keep you updated with what I've been up to, I'm happy to report that I've had a very successful and enjoyable summer of bowls. Despite all this manky weather (which I think was more gloom than rain, as the number of cancelled games was actually very low), I've had a great time. It's been the first season since 2001 that I haven't changed my bowls halfway through (usually out of boredom and/or frustration), and the results speak for themselves. I promised myself in April that I'd play a whole season with the same set of bowls, and see what happens - as it turns out, I've won two club competitions at Lindfield, had a Middleton Cup trial and five Home Counties games for Sussex, won Division 2 of the Brighton League, won Lindfield's Australian Pairs tournament, and lost by 1 shot on an extra end in the Tom Francis Cup final. Along the way I've beaten some of the top players in the county, which is particularly satisfying.
My final competitive tally for the season is: played 72, won 50, drew 1, lost 21.
I'm happy with that :)
After a 2-day off season, I'm now bowling indoors, and start the serious stuff this weekend, with a county trial at Newhaven. Phew! I need a holiday.

Smoothie again

For both my regular readers, you'll remember that I raved and waxed lyrical about the joys of the Kenwood Smoothie Junior. That is, until it broke last week. I've used it so much since I bought it, that I've worn it out. I considered sending it back, or claiming under the guarantee, but I've been fundamentally annoyed with it for some time, because it's so darn hard to clean. Separating the jug from the base requires almost super-human strength, and the tap clogs up within days of use.

So, cue a trip to Haywards Heath's finest shops (apologies for the sarcasm). After examining several possible replacements, I found the Kenwood "Smoothie 2 Go" in Sainsbury's. This cheaper solution has one massive advantage over traditional blenders and smoothie makers - it unscrews at the base by default. Meaning, you don't need to rely on soaking and toothbrushes to clean the blades - the blade section screws directly into the shatter-proof travel mug each time you make a smoothie, so the blades will get a clean on a daily basis. I used it for the first time this morning, and was impressed by the build quality, and the quiet operation. The motor is less powerful than the Junior model, but due to the smaller jug size, it doesn't feel like anything's missing. The fact that you get two travel mugs, both with lids, means you can whip up a smoothie and drink it "on the go" - ideal for busy executives (and me).

The Black Seeds

A friend of a friend of a friend recommended a New Zealand reggae band called The Black Seeds. I was a bit dubious at first, but I can honestly say that they're fantastic. They toured the UK a couple of months ago, and sadly their Brighton gig at the Komedia was cancelled at the last minute.

Anyway, check out my favourite song!

De-mystifying SQL Update Triggers

I've been looking at the murky world of SQL Server 2000 Update triggers recently, and none of it's as straightforward as I'd imagined. There seems to be unnecessary confusion around the columns_updated() function, which is all explained brilliantly in this article. I realised where I was going wrong with my user update trigger - because the user table had so many columns, the standard "catch-all" function to see if anything had changed, only referenced the first eight columns of the table. This all runs at single bit level, so 8 pieces of data is all that will be calculated in a single reference to the columns_updated() function. Therefore this is fine for a database table with up to eight columns:

IF (substring(columns_updated(), 1, 1)) > 0
-- Do stuff...

However I needed four of these statements to include all the user columns:

IF (substring(columns_updated(), 1, 1)) > 0 OR (substring(columns_updated(), 2, 1)) > 0 OR (substring(columns_updated(), 3, 1)) > 0 OR (substring(columns_updated(), 4, 1)) > 0
-- Something has changed, therefore update the record...

Rather laborious, but preferable to checking each column's status separately. Do read the article, it's quite excellent, hats off to Andy Warren.

Auto-suggest without ColdFusion 8

I've been Googling on auto-suggest frameworks in ColdFusion, and EVERYONE assumes that you're using CF8. If you're maintaining an old site, and don't have the luxury of CF8, I can recommend this list of auto-suggest frameworks.

I had a good look at "mgBox", which is neat, but the data source aspect is a bit on the annoying side, being rather too verbose to seem elegant. I much prefer "Wick", which is easy to customise, and just uses a plain Javascript file as its data source. It only took a couple of hours to get it working with the .js file being generated from a SQL query via ColdFusion. All rather impressive! If you've seen any other frameworks that you like, then let me know.

Michael Vaughan, My Lord... Michael Vaughan

It it with great sadness that Michael Vaughan today resigned as the England cricket captain. He's had a bad run of form this year, and losing the current series 2 - 0 to South Africa has made up his mind - it's time to go. Personally I think he should have waited until next week's final test match has finished, but he is clearly in a state of mental disarray, and it would be wrong of him to continue playing if he felt unable to perform or to lead the team.

Vaughan carried on the good work where Nasser Hussain left off in 2003 - adding some genuine fighting spirit and pride to an historically erratic and ineffective England team. There have been ups and downs, but his finest moment was recapturing the Ashes in the summer of 2005. That will live on as one of the finest Test series ever played, a truly inspiring performance from a very happy and committed team. Wonderful stuff. For that, I thank Michael Vaughan from the bottom of my heart.

On to the subject of his replacement - who should lead the team? Kevin Pietersen is being tipped as the obvious choice, but personally I wouldn't choose him, purely because he has no captaincy experience at any level. Being a world-conquering batsman is one thing, but grasping the nuances of the game and knowing how to handle individual players is a rare gift, and there's no evidence so far that he possesses it. My greatest fear is that Pietersen will gain the captaincy, and that it will slowly destroy his confidence, and with it his batting ability.

For my money, Chris Read is the man to take over from Vaughan. He is a truly gritty and determined cricketer, and arguably the finest wicket-keeper in the world. Currently in charge of Nottinghamshire, who he had lead to the top of Division 1 in the county championship, he would solve the keeping option, AND the captaincy option, while adding his services as a steady and often attacking batsman.

All will be revealed tomorrow.... watch this space.

Colbourne's First Law of Pavement Dynamics

Right, it's about time I revealed a theory that I've been postulating for the last few months. It may be peculiar to Mid Sussex - I'm not sure, as the pavements in Brighton are so over-crowded. I need to road-test it in other parts of the country.

The theory is this:
"Given a long, empty pavement, which only you and one other person are using, you can bet your bottom dollar that you and said person are competing for exactly the same piece of pavement, to the point where you're almost walking in each others' shoes."

I see this in action almost every day, and considering that there could be 300 metres of empty pavement in either direction, just what are the chances of it happening? Maybe it's time to start buying Lottery tickets.