New paintings and regular art updates.
I took this photo after playing table tennis today. I’d popped this ping pong ball into my pocket and took it home by mistake. I haven’t been to the group for a few months after I was ill. I’m not sure if I’m fully recovered but decided to give it a go. I managed to play a bit but had to take breaks. Since I got home I’ve been really tired and I think I’m coming down with something. Ugh.
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
I’ve recently found a hexagonal game where you have to match up three or more hexagons to join them together and create a higher value hexagon. You get points when you join them, but you also have to avoid fully blocking the grid you play on or you lose. Most of the time you get dual hexagons with two seperate numbers, but sometimes you get a duplicated number, or a single hexagon. Merging hexagons clear spaces and if you make a big enough number the lowest hexagons are removed from the grid. You can rotate the hexagons to put them in better positions to link them up. My highest score was over 56000.
You can tell from this description that I’ve been playing it a lot lately. It’s mind numbing and distracting me from the outside world. I think its called mega hexa? Avoid if you don’t want to get addicted to it!
I woke up from a nightmare where I’d lost my house keys and couldn’t get back in the house. I decided to have a quiet day. I haven’t been online much today. I decided to stay off the computer and basically played a game on my phone all day. It was diverting and took my mind off things. But I think I will delete the game. It’s a mindless matching hexagons game. It’s frustrating and fun at the same time. But half the time is t taken up by adverts. I tried to get past them as quickly as I could but they are intensely irritating and there’s no way I’m paying to avoid them. So I’m back to reality again….
Oh the tension! The game is on. I’m watching but not watching. In other words I’ve got the TV on but I’ve got my eyes closed, or I’m looking away. Bitten nails, nervous gulps. It’s only tennis!
Andy Murray is currently on centre court against Stephanos Tsitipas. They are one set all. Murray might get a break point in a minute. He did it! But can he keep it up? He’s old, but mature, but he’s up against an excellent player.
I only tend to watch Wimbledon, and that’s because it’s on free to air TV, I can’t be bothered or afford cable or satellite TV. And then I only watch certain matches. If I start watching and the match goes the wrong way, I will turn the TV over. I don’t want to jinx the play!
This game is probably going to go onto 11pm and then be finished tomorrow, so that’s another hour of knuckle biting!
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was ‘random’. Random cat drawing, they are so able to almost tie themselves in knots! I just realised the dots could be like that game ‘twister’! Felt pen and black ink fine line pen.
⚽
No point in pretending
That I love the game
I understand the offside rule
I can explain it
But why should I?
I admired England’s Women
Playing in the European Cup
That was refreshing.
But Premier league?
Expensive, over hyped, boring,
Is my opinion.
And the World Cup venue?
Inequality and slave labour?
A Man’s paradise
Where women are second class
Rainbows are rebuked
Sports washing is preventing
Real freedoms.
Enough said.
I was struggling to sleep again last night so I got up at 5am to have a warm drink. Sometimes I can sleep in the armchair.
I decided to turn the radio on for something to sooth my nerves. There was a programme called Test Match Special on. It was a cricket match between England and Australia. Australia were ahead three games in a five game series. This was the fourth test match.
The match was likely to go Australia’s way because they were well ahead on runs (in cricket you run between two sets of wickets with bales on top called stumps) . The bowler throws a ball at the stumps and tries to knock the bales off. The batsman has to defend the stumps. They try and hit the ball with a cricket bat. If they hit it they try and get runs. There are two batsmen (or women) at a time. They run between the stumps. You get four runs if you get the ball to run over the boundary line and six if you hit it over the boundary in the air.
Anyway, Australia was well in the lead. England had lost six men out of eleven and were batting. The commentators said that the last four of England’s batsmen had either suffered injuries or not done well in previous test matches. It looked very bleak!
I listened and was enthralled. There were missed catches and the Australians were trying hard, bouncing the ball high and hurting the batsmen (cricket balls are very hard). Lots of calls for leg before wicket (the batsman has his leg in the way and stops the bales being knocked off). Slowly the score crept up, three batsmen were caught or given LBW. (leg before wicket). I couldn’t sleep, this was too exciting! There were two batsmen left. Each round of bowling is called an over (where six balls are bowled) the last two overs came up. The first batsman tried to hit some runs so he could get to the other end and take the strike for the last over, if he did the last batsman would not have to play. But the Australians managed to stop him and the final over started with England’s last batsman waiting to be bowled at or bowled out! They couldn’t win but if he didn’t get knocked out they would have a draw.
Six balls. One after the other. It was radio so I couldn’t see what was going on, I could only listen to the commentary. Five balls to go, the daylight was going, the floodlights were on. Four balls, my heart was thumping. The batsman (Anderson) calmly prodded the ball away. Three balls. If the batsman tried to hit the ball the fielders (the rest of the Australian team) might catch the ball and get England out. Two more chances, the batsmen again stopped the ball. This was the last ball coming up. Australia had to dismiss the batsman to win. The bowler ran up, pitched the ball at the batsman and…. The batsman carefully pushed the ball away (I didn’t actually listen to what he did, I was too busy jumping up and down!) He ended the match safely not out. England drew the fourth test! Not a win, but a hell of a lot better than the previous three tests. The next text match is starting in Hobart, Australia on Friday. I’m expecting at least another sleepless night.
Football ⚽
Used to like it, the beautiful game. The skills, the athleticism, the ability. But I got fed up with it. The prices players are bought and sold for. The money they earn. I hate the way some teams can receive millions of pounds in TV rights, while the bottom clubs languish and are often running out of money.
The other thing I dislike is the way the fans act. They can be so antagonistic, fighting and getting drunk. The rivalry can turn into violence. I don’t think there is any need for it. There is too much racism too.
I hope that things will go OK tonight. That’s when England play against Denmark. May the best team win.
Ball flying through air
Back of the net!
No, handball.
Or offside
Screams and chants
For the champs
But giant beaters
Beat giants.
It’s the magic of football
Soccer matches
FA Cup…
But I don’t watch it!
Digital drawing of a marble. Something from a few years ago. I drew it at a site called Sketchfu that has closed down. I keep finding old pictures from there so I hope you don’t mind me sharing.
I was trying to get the effect of a sphere and getting the reflections was quite difficult. I like the colours. I was trying to make it look like the swirls in an old fashioned glass marble ( sometimes called ‘murps’.) Big marbles were called ‘Allys’. Kids would make a bowl or indentation in the ground, and you fired a marble at a group of marbles in the bowl shape by flicking it with your thumb. You won the marbles that you managed to knock out of the bowl/ indentation in the ground… Mostly played by boys, I used to play on the carpet at home….
Mallaband-Brown