Lotteries in football (again)

Before the introduction of penalty shoot-outs, lotteries were sometimes used to decide football matches. This isn't necessary now for individual matches, but lotteries can still be used to decide group standings. This just happened in the Gulf Cup, after Oman and Iraq were level on all other criteria (points, head-to-head, goal difference, etc).

A plant-based nudge

I recently learned that all Student Union catering outlets on campus, including the Stags and Redbrick kitchen (aka chip van), have gone plant-based by default.

(Edit: I was obviously a bit behind, because this decision was actually covered by the BBC earlier in the year.)

To be clear, this does not mean that they are 100% vegan. They still serve meat and dairy, but you have to request it as a substitution. Otherwise, even pepperoni pizza will be a plant-based version. (At least, this is the theory - I'm curious how long this will last.)

The links above may not last if the menu changes, so here's an example:

This is a nice example of a nudge. People can still have either the plant-based option or the real chicken, but making the former the default is likely to increase consumption. At least, that's the theory.

The move follows a couple of petitions - here and here - calling for a more general move towards plant-based catering. ('Follows' at least in the sense of 'comes after' - this move delivers less than was asked for, but is perhaps the most that's realistic, at least for now.) So, it's also an example of student voice/democracy in action.

Music in the City

Hot on the heels of the Shirley Fringe, this weekend is Music in the City. This year, almost everything was on the Saturday, with only a DJ and some classical music on the Sunday, but there seemed a lot more on the Saturday.

We started with brunch at Thrive, then I went to 94 High Street—the designated ‘rock vault’—to catch Charmtype (Youtube), while my partner went to the medieval merchant’s house for a mix of protest songs, folk, and sea shanties.

After this, I went to the bandstand in Palmerston Park, which had been named the Andrew Cummings Stage. (I have no idea who he was.)

First up there, I caught Exhilaro, who opened with a cover of Metallica’s ‘Creeping Death’, then played a bunch of their own songs, including I think ‘Chains’, before finishing with another cover (Sepultura’s ‘Territory’). I guess we were lucky to get these old school covers, because a Youtube recording began and ended with KoRn and Limp Bizkit instead. Anyway, not really the kind of thing I listen to much these days, but they were pretty good, especially given that they seemed fairly young. (They were also on a ‘teenage bands’ bill at Planet Sounds later in the afternoon.)

Next Hail, who are a symphonic metal band, in the style of Nightwish. Again, maybe not exactly my cup of tea, but I thought they were quite good. After that, I took a quick break to nip to the loo/shops, so I missed most of the Andrew Cummings Tribute (which seemed to be performed by a mix of individuals from various acts), though I did return in time to see a male-female duet of ‘Love You to Death’ featuring the singer from Hail. The last of the acts that I caught at the bandstand were Shiversa (Youtube).

After that, I headed to HMV for Dandelion Chain, a post-punk/goth outfit who probably would have been better suited to one of the underground vaults (or a crypt…) rather than performing in daylight. Youtube clip here, though it doesn’t capture the frontman’s more energetic dancing.

Finally, for me, another set from Beardos and Weirdos. Unfortunately, it was basically a truncated version of the Fringe set that I’d seen twice last Saturday (though we did get the uncensored version of ‘You Oughta Know’). They left a few songs out, presumably for time reasons, though it turned out that they had time to add ‘Gone Away’ and ‘Weak’ at the end (but we still missed ‘Plush’ and ‘Today’).

Fringe benefits (part 3)

We did catch a couple of bands on Friday, though I don’t think one of them was actually part of the Fringe – we were mainly out to watch the football. But we completed our Fringe experience on Saturday.

First, back to Clockwork (again) for a solo session from Waldo Salt’s frontman, which featured a good few covers (my favourites ‘In Between Days’ and ‘Enjoy the Silence’) alongside originals. Then it was down to the Wellington Arms for cover band Beardos and Weirdos. I’d been listening to them a bit on Youtube, so wanted to catch that set.

After that, we took a quick shopping break, before going back to Clockwork. First up was a singer-songwriter Roger Shephard. I’m not sure how old he was, though he told us some of the songs he played were written (by him) in the 1970s. He did open with a cover of ‘All the Small Things’ and close with ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’. He was followed by a second set from Beardos and Weirdos, though it was the same set list as before. At least they had a bigger audience this time around.

B&W setlist (from memory):

You Oughta Know (Alanis Morisette)

Man in the Box (Alice in Chains)

Weak (Skunk Anansie)

Gone Away (Offspring)

High and Dry (Radiohead)

Drive (REM)

Plush (Stone Temple Pilots)

Today (Smashing Pumpkins)

This is Love (P J Harvey)

Glory Box (Portishead)

Fringe benefits (part 2)

Day two of the Fringe. Today, we had dinner at Bites of India, before heading back to Clockwork for three more musical acts, interspersed with poetry readings.

First up, Scarlet Grig. Not really my thing. I found her vocals a bit screechy on the high notes. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the poetry, but enjoy Andy White’s slot, especially his care instructions for a small rocky planet. The second musical act was Wonderlux, though it turned out to be just the singer performing solo. She told us she was performing mostly new material, but it was all new to us anyway.

 

Then there was another poetry slot, read by Anita Foxall, which I didn’t think as good as the first. Finally, Teenage Waitress, which it turned out was also a solo act. Our favourite of the three musical acts, though I can’t remember what many of the songs were about, besides for one about a headless chicken…

Fringe benefits (part 1)

Today was the start of Shirley Fringe. We had dinner at What a Pizza, then headed over to Clockwork bar for music. There had been a late tweak to the line-up, so we’d just missed the start of Simon Maggs and People Like Us, but we were just able to get a seat. They weren’t really my thing, though not bad either. A cover of Glory Box was a surprise.

The main thing we’d gone for was to see the Guillotine Union Boys again. 

We’ve seen them a couple of times before at Urban Wild festivals, so we knew what to expect and weren’t disappointed. Perhaps the most notable point of the set was Bound to Lose dedicated (in a fashion) to Nathan Coftas, for his part in the Jason Arday case.

For those about to rock(grass)

I'm heading back to Southampton today, after a couple of weeks in Essex/Norfolk, but last night we finished our holiday by seeing Hayseed Dixie at Sheringham Little Theatre (a complete surprise to us - we didn't know they were playing until we arrived in Sheringham).

I think it was my first experience of an all-seater gig and, unfortunately, we were near the back (there weren't many tickets left when we bought them). Consequently, we didn't have the best view or photos (heavily reliant on zoom).

I think they only played three AC/DC songs: Dirty Deeds; You Shook Me All Night Long; and Highway to Hell. (Links are to Youtube videos of live performances, but not from this show.) There was a smattering of other rocking songs from the likes of Guns n Roses, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and Motorhead.

We did manage to get closer after the show though - I bought a CD (also available on Amazon) and managed to get all four members to sign it.

This is the end of this leg of the tour, but they have more shows in the autumn, including one in Southampton. I don't know whether we'll bother seeing them again so soon, but it was good to catch them once.

Farage beats Bin(face)

As widely expected, Nigel Farage won the Clacton by-election, securing over twice as many votes as his nearest rival.

The contest was interesting though, not only for marking Count Binface's best performance, but also for featuring a modern record 34 candidates. (This BBC page says 35, in the caption below the picture at the top, as well as 34, but I believe it's 34 that's right.) 

While this is a lot for the UK, it is far from a world record. The 2023 Toronto mayoral by-election featured over 100 candidates (see here and here). It's a good job that voters weren't required to rank all of the candidates! But I digress...

Since the 'main' parties decided not to stand in Clacton, most of the 34 are independents or fringe parties. Some are serial candidates and/or arguably part of a tradition of joke candidates. Interestingly, they include three candidates from the Monster Raving Loony Party - which makes sense only because voters vote for a candidate, rather than a party. (This kind of thing doesn't happen in Australia, for reasons discussed here.)

Most of these were largely irrelevant. Besides Farage and Binface, none received the 5% of the vote needed to return their deposit. Indeed, none of the others received even 500 votes, with 3rd place on just 492 votes. I make it that 21 of them received fewer than 100 votes and three of them received fewer than ten votes (which is the number of signatures one needs in order to stand, as documented here).

Almost total eclipse (of the eclipse)...

Today was a busy day. We went to Felbrigg Hall in the morning and Cromer in the afternoon. We went out again in the evening, because there was a near-total (90% or so) solar eclipse, but we didn't see much of it - we were outside, but the sun dipped behind some buildings. We didn't have special viewing equipment anyway. We did see an impressive sunset over the beach though.

Felbrigg Hall

This morning, we visited Felbrigg Hall (near Holt). We didn't go in the hall itself, though we did go in the walled gardens.

The dove cote was empty, but there were some chickens roaming the grounds.

We also took a walk through the grounds to an old church. Only on the walk were we told about a recent death due to cattle-trampling, but (perhaps in consequence) we didn't see any cows...

Recommendation: Walnut Tree, Thwaite

Driving from Colchester to Sheringham today, we stopped for lunch at an all-vegetarian pub in Thwaite called the Walnut Tree. I've only been the once but, if you're in the area, I'd highly recommend it. The enchiladas were one of the best meals I've had in quite a while.

Full review over on TripAdvisor.

A visit to Clacton

The upcoming Clacton by-election contest, pitting Nigel Farage against Count Binface, has generated a lot of social media attention - including in both music and wargaming circles. With less than a week until polling day, I took advantage of a family holiday in Essex to visit on the ground.

To be honest, we didn't see a lot of the town, except from the car. We only had two hours in the car park and spent most of that walking along the beach looking for somewhere to eat (we ended up at Martello Lounge, reviewed here). Even just driving through though, I saw many posters supporting Farage.

Gary Neville on dictatorship

The World Cup delivers again, this time pundit Gary Neville describing the refusal to release VAR footage as like a dictatorship. I suspect dictators have done worse.

Infantino on democracy

I didn't expect a pre-World Cup press conference to contain reflections on the meaning of democracy, but that's what happened.

The whole press conference can be found in various places on Youtube, such as here, here, and here.

The crucial bit comes at 55:23 here or 55:37 here or 54:36 here.

I'm not sure which countries' medieval practices he refers to. I may have to look that up.

Lordsdale Butterfly

Today, we joined a ranger-guided walk from Shirley Pond along Lordsdale Greenway. I took quite a few wildlife photos, particularly of various insects.

I believe this is a Painted Lady. There were quite a few of them around.

Urban Wild 2026

It's a scorching bank holiday weekend, which also marks the start of half-term I gather. There is a series of 'urban wild' events taking place across Southampton, including a festival today on the Common.

We saw several acts, including...

The Red Star Socialist Choir, who did several numbers, including a song about diversity to the tune of YMCA.

A folk group, Angling for Farthings, who played several songs with a local connection, including one about cabin boy Robert Parker (who was victim of cannibalism).

Shanti Green who did sea shanties. Perhaps they should have done the Robert Parker song, though they did do a version of the Wellerman (not this version though).

And, finally (before we left), The Guillotine Union Boys - another political act, singing about (inter alia) fascism and Elon Musk (two different songs) and a version of Which Side Are You On?

Voted

This morning, I voted in our local elections. That is, I either exercised my democratic right or discharged my democratic duty, depending on your view.

It's the first time I've voted in-person since the introduction of photo ID requirements. (I have postal voted in the meantime.)

I was curious how long the process would take, so I timed myself. I left the house at 8:22 (so this doesn't include getting ready to go out, since I was doing that anyway). I had voted by 8:29. At that point, I was on my way to work, so didn't go straight back home - but I had gone out of my way to get to the polling station.

So, it was about 8:35 by the time I was back on my normal route to work. So, one could say about 15 minutes total or perhaps 10 (because it would have taken me some time to get that far anyway).

I'm always slightly resentful of the fact that our polling station is in the opposite direction from work, so I was interested to learn that experiments are underway that might allow voters more choice over where (and when) they vote. That's something I'd welcome.

Slightly ironically, I then spent much of the day writing against the idea of compulsory voting, in response to this recent proposal. I may have more to say about that later.

Picket

I'm not on strike, but many staff at Southampton Solent are, so today I popped along to spend a couple of hours on their picket line.

We were joined by (UCU General Secretary) Jo Grady - which was expected - but also by one of my undergraduate students, which was more of a surprise.

It's a boy

While the pigeon may be gone, I have another photo update from my garden. The small holly bush has flowers.

I had hoped that flowers might mean berries later but, after some quick online research, these look like male flowers to me. That's a bit of a shame, because it means no berries.

Sad pigeon update

Disambiguation: it's not the pigeon that's sad...

Unfortunately, our pigeon nest appears to have been abandoned. 

I don't know what happened. I can't see any sign of eggs, though I assume there were some at some point.

 

Weston Shore

We had a few days of nice weather over Easter, so decided to have a day out in (at?) Weston Shore yesterday. We took the bus into the city centre, stopping off at Cafe Thrive to pick up a takeaway lunch, then back on the #17 out to Swift Road, from where we walked along part of Shoreburs Greenway past Jurd's Lake. (This is apparently a butterfly trail, but we didn't see any particularly interesting wildlife.)

When we reached the shore, we stopped to eat our lunch on a bench looking out over the water, then we walked along the shore back towards Woolston. We passed a few cyclists and dog-walkers, but I was surprised how quiet it was given that it's still Easter holidays. Maybe we picked a good day to come in that respect; the day before was warmer and sunnier (probably too warm to be walking around in the midday sun) and the next day (today) there was apparently a kids' litter pick

We had a quick stop in Mettricks (which would have been convenient for lunch, if we hadn't already eaten, but was busy), then got the bus out again to further along the shore and walked back to the Greenway and did that bit again but in reverse. From there, it was back on the bus into the city centre and home again. All in all, a pleasant little jaunt.

Pigeon nesting

 We were away for Easter but, before we left, I'd noticed a pigeon or two taking an interest in the bush in our garden. I thought they might be building a nest and, indeed, it looks like that was the case:

I don't know whether I'll be able to post regular updates, because I don't want to disturb her/them* - but I'll try to if I get a chance.

*Edit: later research suggests it may actually be the male who sits on the eggs most of the day.

Penalties and lotteries (again)

I've talked about this at various points before, but the BBC has a new piece on the history of penalty shoot outs here. While shoot outs are often referred to by pundits as a lottery, they aren't random - rather, they are a test of skill and nerve.

Ironically, shoot outs were introduced to replace lotteries, such as coin flips. The article linked above credits the idea to Michael Almog (later Israeli FA chief), quoting him as describing the drawing of lots as  "an immoral and even cruel system for the losing team and not honourable for the winner".

Cheesy peas

I knew my partner was cooking chilli for dinner tonight, so I'd been told not to have beans for lunch. Therefore, jacket potato with cheese and peas:

It may seem an odd combination, but if you like peas and you like cheese, then why not...

Right and wrong ways to play the game?

In 'Essentially Contested Concepts,' W. B. Gallie imagines a championship contest where "each team specializes in a distinctive method, strategy and style of play" (p. 170) and there is no agreed scoring system, with each team competing to be acknowledged the best players of the game.

Of course, football isn't quite like this. There is an agreed method for determining who wins each match (who scores most goals) and the league championship (most points from all the games). But still, I'm sometimes reminded of Gallie when people debate how the game should be played.

Today, I see a bit of a discussion about importance of set pieces. This seems to be a current talking point on the BBC at least. Pundit Chris Sutton describes Arsenal as potentially "the ugliest Premier League-winning team in history". And Arne Slot says he doesn't like the emphasis on set pieces. It seems some don't like Arsenal winning the way they do, even if they are top of the table.

However, I was particularly struck by contrasting comments from Chelsea manager, Liam Rosenior, who is quoted as saying: 

"I think that is the beauty of football, you can do it in so many different ways. There's no right or wrong way to play football for me. I'm sure when we scored from a corner yesterday, our fans didn't care what the goal looked like. I'm sure Arsenal's fans didn't care what their goals looked like either. The game is about winning."

It looks like the debate will continue...

Ban on advertising junk food

We have a few more weeks of semester 1 (mostly assessment), before we start our second semester of teaching, but - when we get there - I'll be running my ethics of public policy module again. As usual, I'll start with a section on public health and paternalism, which includes tackling obesity. So, the advertising ban that comes into force tomorrow (5th Jan 2026) is particularly well-timed. This follows last year's earlier ban on multi-buy offers.