redfiona99 | Recent Entries

The major update, in terms of this project, was Hadjar coming back after his wrist injury.

The actual race scrutineering chart is very straightforward with all the drivers being very near the expected value of 38 tests.

( Bar chart under the cut )

This can be seen by how far away those values are from the dotted lines that indicate significance.

It makes sense that Norris, Alonso, Stroll, Colapinto and Bottas were tested fewer times than expected because they were amongst the drivers whose cars didn't finish the race (race report here).

Interesting things are happening in the season-long charts.

For the season to date, the χ² has gone up to 4.9509, still not significant but increasing.

( Diagram under the cut )

Russell is still the most over-scrutinized, followed by Hamilton and Verstappen. Antonelli is the 5th most scrutinized (although I know that's just luck of the draw).

The bottom section is all the unreliable cars (Aston Martin and Cadillac) but Hadjar is remarkably low, coming just above those four. And that's not a mistake in the coding, I've checked. The code has considered the three races where Hadjar was replaced by Tsunoda.

I'll see if this pattern continues in the next few races.

Sorry for the delay on posting the equivalent diagram for the Women's Rugby League World Cup 2026.

( Two network diagrams under the cut )

The interesting thing is how much less symmetrical the women's semi-final diagram is. There's a definite New Zealand, Samoa and Australia triangle with Fiji sticking out. This does not bode well for the Fijian women's team, but on this blog, hope springs eternal.

New Zealand are the national team closest to the centre, with Brisbane Broncos being the club team closest.

There are 6 clusters in the community view, the 4 national teams, then one cluster that includes Cronulla Sutherland Sharks and West Tigers which seems to exist because they link multiple national teams, then the St George Illawarra cluster, because St George Illawarra players link Samoa and Fiji, but only Samoa and Fiji.

( Under the cut )

I will bemoan and bewail England at some later date, look at how geometrically symmetrical and therefore suggestive of some seriously stonking semifinals this network diagram looks.

Unlabelled network diagram of the players and countries in the semifinal of the mens rugby league world cup. The large black circles are the countries, the smaller red circles are the teams and players. It is round and symmetrical.

( Labelled version of the same under the cut )

Penrith Panthers or West Tigers are the club team closest to the centre.

The four national teams are equidistant, which suggests a fairly even spread of players and club connections between them, and that they may be of reasonably similar strength.

Which also suggests that Australia's narrow win over New Zealand might not have been a one off, and only raises my hopes that someone might beat Australia.

I may be looking forward to New Zealand vs Tonga a frankly unhealthy amount but both semifinals have the potential to be so good.

We'll ignore that I've somehow forgotten to write up my US Grand Prix notes when I swore I had, and that I'm that far behind in this series that I accidentally did the maths for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix before doing this one.

I will catch up, eventually.

The Madrid Grand Prix itself:
Like the race itself, nothing spectacular in the scrutineering data.

The χ² for the race is 1.32, so none of the differences are statistically significant.

( Bar chart under the cut )

The bottom 3 cars (Perez, Stroll and Sainz) are 3 out of the 4 cars that retired, which makes sense.

This is the first time that Antonelli (car 12) has been that high up.

The season up until the Madrid Grand Prix:

The continuing increase in the χ² for the season-long scrutineering can best be seen in the figure with the dotted lines for significance.

χ² is now 4.58 (compared to a threshold for significance of 33.92).

Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number up to the end of the Madrid Grand Prix. The values are displayed as a standardised residual. Car 44 (Hamilton) is the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.60, followed by cars 1 (Norris) and 63 (Russell) on 0.56, then 3 (Verstappen) on 0.46. Car 18 (Stroll) was the most under-scrutinized compared to expected with a value of -0.98, followed by car 77 (Bottas) on -0.79 and car 11 (Perez) on -0.70. 5 cars were tested exactly as much as expected. Only car 81 (Piastri) has been tested as many time as expected.

It really is the cars at the bottom of the pile that are pulling the numbers up, because their absolute values are so much larger than the over-scrutinized.

Title: An Analysis of Notes
Author: Red Fiona
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, the BBC and evil Moffat do. No money is being made from this.
Characters: Sherlock Holmes/Irene Adler
Rating: 12
Summary: Irene sends him notes, full of pretend clues that are all lies about where she is.

( Nowadays, Sherlock always tries to be first to the post. )

Dreamwidth notes: Again, can we accept a smile and wave at one bit of the science?

Game 2 itself:

The game highlights one of the problems England face. They can beat the French, and beat them handily (Match report here), but against the stronger teams, they just don't seem to gel. Like in 2023, yes, they beat a touring Tonga team (who were without several of their players), but it wasn't anything like convincing, and yes, that was under a different coach but I don't blame Wane for it.

There needs to be more regular international rugby league to allow England to get any better (also Lebanon, France, Ireland, Scotland etc).

McDermott appears to have come around on the topic of Jez Litten, but not quite sure why you'd suddenly swap Ashton for Eckersley after you'd trusted Eckersley against Tonga.

Data visualisation:

For the data visualisation, I've only done the cumulative charts. This is partly because half the game 2 charts would have been blank because France didn't score, and because the thrust of the project is the developments game to game.

When do England score?

( Under the Cut )

Even against France, it took England 22 minutes to score. Obviously, they won the game handily, and you have to wear all oppositions down but it does suggest a certain lack of oomph.

Who scores for England?

Bar chart showing who scores for England. Savala, the kicker, is way in the lead with 15 point-scoring moments. He is followed by Dom Young on 4, then Farnworth on 3.

Savala being the player who has the most point-scoring moments makes sense, because he's the kicker. Dom Young being in second place shows that giving him the ball is a good idea. Let Dom Young do the thing he's best at.

The France game really skews the "which players are on the pitch when England score?" line chart over time, but you can see which players England use as impact subs.

( Line chart under the cut )

Which players are on the pitch the most when England score?

( Under the cut )

Pearce-Paul, Savala, Smith, Young and Brimson are obviously McDermott's chosen core, with Ashton having taken over from Eckersley on the wing. Not sure why he didn't play Havard against France, but England do have sufficient forwards that it's not that weird.

The who plays together when England score matrix graph also shows this.

Matrix chart of which players are on the pitch together when England score. The central purple section is smaller than it was after the Tongan game, and now only includes Pearce-Paul, Savala, Smith, Young and Brimson. The next darkest section has Ashton, Litten and Walters. The rest is a bit of a muddle, described below, until you hit the palest section, those who played together least often, which is Eckersley, ONeill and Havard.

Because there were a number of changes in the squad between the two games, and because there were far more point-scoring moments in the game against France, the matrix has developed an interesting shape.

Eckersley, O'Neill and Havard are consigned to the pale, not-often-on-the-pitch-together-when-England-score section.

There's a shade of darker yellows to mid orange, these are the players that played more of a role in one game or the other (skewed, as I said, by more point-scoring moments in the France game) - they are Welsby, Lewis, Radley, Williams, Thompson, King. Radley, although he's in the middle of this group is the darkest orange line, possibly because he played quite a bit in both games, while Welsby and Lewis didn't play in the Tonga game.

Then we have the next darkest section, a tomato ketchup red, with Ashton, Litten and Walters. Ashton only played in the France game, Litten played in both but only 20 minutes of the Tonga game, but Walters played in both.

The darkest section, a deep red wine sort of colour, is those players who played large parts in both matches. They are Pearce-Paul, Savala, Smith, Young and Brimson, who seem to be McDermott's core group, plus whichever other winger he picks and a hooker.

That's also reflected in the network graph, which there are now enough data points for:

( Under the cut )

I didn't expect Williams to be that far out, given he's captain and played in both matches.

England's hopes rest on the Tonga vs Samoa game which was always one of my picks for most interesting match of the group stage.

Miscellaneous:

HMRC employs farmyard ducks to 'niggle' taxpayers - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42493459

Year in pictures 2017 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-42083213

Animals:

The country that brought its elephants back from the brink - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42367560

Economics:

How a razor revolutionised the way we pay for stuff - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39132802

Food:

Smarties: How the stocking staple got its name - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42244389

History:

The mystery of South Africa's golden harp - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42310331

Miscellaneous:

Wales' festive swims: Chills and thrills of Christmas dips - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-42020547

The guidebook that led me to a lost corner of England - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42425157

Why things may be not be as bad as we think - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42329014

Strictly's Bruno Tonioli in tears on Desert Island Discs - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42467471

George Michael's Goring neighbours share memories one year on - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-42238343

Can you recycle wrapping paper? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42426888

Benazir Bhutto assassination: How Pakistan covered up killing - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42409374

Science:

Hydrothermal Vents Weren't Home? - https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/hydrothermal-vents-weren-t-home

Extraction and Salting-Out - https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/extraction-and-salting-out

Sport:

Why sport on Christmas Day is actually not all bad - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/42183157

Cricket:

Ashes: The tales from England's travelling fans in Australia - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/42471806

Rugby:

Stephen Colbert Learns To Play Rugby With New Zealand's All Blacks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9hStjBT-U8

Technology:

The iPhone at 10: How the smartphone became so smart - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38320198

How the humble S-bend made modern toilets possible - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41188465

Why did we use leaded petrol for so long? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40593353

TV dinners: The hidden cost of the processed food revolution - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39490182

I try and post these in a timely fashion (editorial comment: too late) but it's really hard to do that when there's so much else going on with the Rugby League World Cup, especially when the race I need to write up is a particularly boring Singapore Grand Prix.

Possibly the most interesting thing about it was the ridiculous lengths Bottas went to just to get there - cycling from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore

We also had a rehash of Ferrari's strategic nonsense. By lap 12, Ferrari were up to plan C. Truly, I love my team. I also find it amusing that people kick Ferrari when they use team orders and when they don't. They can't win (in the philosophical as well as sporting sense).

If McLaren could do pitstops, they'd be dangerous.

The radio issues meaning GP had to resort to "knock once for yes, twice for no" to communicate with Max Verstappen. That might be one way to spice up the racing, make them do it without radio.

He is a sarcastic Toto! Although seriously, I don't even want to imagine how many times this season Antonelli has had track limit warnings.

I am hopeful that the US Grand Prix will be more interesting.

England Match 1:

Because of poor decisions by International Rugby League I couldn't watch the match anywhere so was listening to it on the radio. Truly, Robbie Hunter-Paul is an international treasure.

Not entirely sure why the English press were saying it was a shock, other than them never giving Tonga the credit they are due.

If they'd said the first Tongan try was a shock, that would be true, it was against the run of play but after that it was a lot more even.

I'm a Saints fan, spiritually, I prefer what McDermott was trying to get this England team to do rather than the kind of rugby Shaun Wane had them playing. On the other hand, Wane looked at the players he had and played them in a system that worked to their strengths. If you're going for quick and clever, why are you not playing Mikey Lewis (never mind Jake Connor who didn't even get picked)? George Williams and Harry Smith have their uses, but quick and clever isn't it.

I don't blame him for some of the errors because the England players appeared to develop poor decision making skills every time they got into the Tongan 20 meters, but there was some oomph lacking.

I don't know if McDermott's made that choice because he doesn't think this front row can bring the biff, and they're big units but they don't scare me the way say Burgesses plural, or Elliott Whitehead or James Graham did. (Challenge, go a whole thing without mentioning Jamie Graham, glorious failure).

So fine, you aren't doing wham bam rugby, you're running the ball instead, but then you have to involve the wingers, especially if one of them is Dom Young. And that seemed to be missing.

So England now have to rely on beating France and Lebanon and hoping the other results go their way. I'm going to be really upset about either England or PNG not making it, I fear.

Data visualisation project:

Much like the last World Cup, I'm doing a small data visualisation project to see if I can spot patterns in player selections and how the team performs.

Now one game doesn't give much data, so here is what I have so far.

England's point-scorers by name and time

( Under the cut )

Because there were only two tries for England, the chart of which players are on the pitch when England score is uninformative. The one for "who is on the pitch when England concede" looks like this.

Line chart showing which England players were on the pitch when they conceded. The lines do not overlap for the players substituted on and off which is why there are some gaps.

You can see Thompson and Havard coming on and off, and Jez Litten being given the last 20 minutes.

The two equivalent bar charts for which players were present for point-scoring and point-conceding moments are below.

( Two barcharts under the cut )

The two matrix charts of who was together when England scored and conceded are below. There's not yet enough data for the equivalent network graphs.

( Under the cut )

Harvard and Walters were the players present for relatively fewer point-conceding moments, being in the darkest purple section for scoring but not for conceding (yes, I know I'm being nice about Wigan players. Yes, it feels wrong).

It'll be interesting to see what patterns develop over time.

Here are the network diagrams for the group stages for the Women's Rugby League World Cup 2026.

First, let's look at the non-labelled version of the diagram.

( Under the cut )

Which teams are which?

Network graph of the links between the teams at the 2026 World Cup. The larger redder circles are the ones with the most links. The national teams are in red. Of the eight teams, one is completely isolated on the right, France, and has no links to the other 7 teams. Of the remaining teams, two are in the bottom of the graph (Wales and England), and the remaining 5 are clustered together at the top.

France are completely on their own which doesn't bode well for them.

The other two teams sticking out at the bottom are England and Wales, which also doesn't bode brilliantly.

Of that top cluster of 5 teams, Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea, Papua New Guinea are the team sticking out slightly to the right.

The other thing I've noticed is that while, in the equivalent men's diagram there is a mixture of club teams that the players are from, in the women's most of the national teams have one club team that most players are from (Papua New Guinea are the only team where that's not really the case).

The community view also does something fun.

( Under the cut )

Normally, there's the same number of communities in this view as national teams, or maybe fewer when the teams are deeply enmeshed due to links through club teams. This time, the North Queensland Cowboys are an extra community, I think because they link 5 of the national teams.

Because of France being separate, it's really hard to identify the central team, particularly the central national team because of the way they are clustered. Club team is probably Sydney Roosters.

The Roosters are also the club team with the most representatives, alongside RC Lescure-Arthes XIII, with 12. They are followed by Gold Coast Titans, Wigan Warriors and Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs on 11, and Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks on 10.

If you would like a nice, in-depth and reasonable preview of the World Cup, may I recommend this from the Maroon Observer.

Here I am all about pretty pictures and bemoaning there only being 2 Saints players at the World Cup and one of those spent most of the season injured.

What do the network diagrams look like?

Network graph of the links between the teams at the 2026 World Cup. The larger darker circles are the ones with the most links. The national teams are in dark grey. Two of them stick out. They will be identified in the next image. The remaining eight are pretty much in a square in the top left hand corner.

The labelled diagram. The two teams that stick out are Papua New Guinea top right and France at the bottom centre.

The two teams that are sticking out are Papua New Guinea and France. Teams stick out if their players play for clubs who don't have a lot of other participants playing for other national teams. If the previous pattern that sticking out = weaker remains true, this means Tonga have been stuffed over by the draw and have a harder route to qualify for the semifinals. They would need to beat one of Samoa or England to qualify, while England and Samoa only have to beat Papua New Guinea and France. No diss on Papua New Guinea intended, because I really want them to do well.

I think Papua New Guinea are pulled out because so many of their players play for London Broncos who don't have any other representatives while the Cook Islands players are spread over more club teams so the weight of any individual team doesn't pull them out in the same way.

The club team with the most representatives are the New Zealand Warriors and the Sydney Roosters who both have 13. They are followed by the mysteriously un-city-ied Dolphins and Penrith Panthers on 12, and Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, Melbourne Storm and Toulouse Olympique on 11.

Because 8 of the teams are clustered together, Fiji are the team in the geometric centre of the graph, while Tonga and Australia are probably the "gravitational" centre. Hull Kingston Rovers and South Sydney Rabbitohs are the club teams closest to the physical centre.

The other thing that strikes me is a suspicion that the NRL must be relatively evenly matched because the Australian squad aren't dominated by one club team, unlike the way say France are by Toulouse Olympique. (Until the first match, I promise not to comment on the excessive number of Wigan players in the England squad. Brian McDermott, you'd better have a good reason for not starting Jez Litten.)

The one upside to there only being ten teams is that it's relatively quick to make the diagrams so I hope to have the women's and, data permitting, the wheelchair teams graphs ready shortly.

Because F1 2026 makes very little sense. (Although I love that we're back at Sepang. It may be the only track I like because of how pretty the grandstands are.)

Due to the delay between the formation lap nonsense and the actual start, the BBC only have from the second start onwards on BBC Sounds so I have had to resort to watching the Channel 4 highlight show. (I prefer the radio coverage, whole post on why coming soon.)

You know it's going to be one of *those* races when people go off on the formation lap. I frequently make jokes about having seen x, y or z before but I have never seen half the field prevented from functioning by computer failure before. "Starting procedure suspended," indeed.

And then people off in formation lap 2.

I did enjoy the BBC commentators chortling over the work the FIA had to do to ignore its own rules.

Bloody heck at Piastri nearly hitting Albon in the pitlane. It seemed to be Albon's day for it because I am really not sure Stroll should have been released from his pitstop like that.

George Russell only has bad luck.

The gaps between cars, even after the track became dry, were very small, and, because it's a race track, built for racing, there were overtakes. It's almost like they should race in places designed for it, not around regular roads.

It turns out me not watching races doesn't always equal a Ferrari win (busy looking at the Bayeux tapestry, report eventually).

Baku historically has either had an interesting qualifying or an interesting race. Qualifying was exciting, so I wasn't expecting much from the race. I was right not to. I was fascinated that the press all went with "Baku Chaos Bonanza", which is a very blogger take, but this race wasn't, except the Red Bull psychodrama. (And no, BBC, Max did not sound calm.)

BBC suggesting that driver to driver comms would be interesting. Probably, but also more beep than word. It would also end in thumping - see also, Norris and Colapinto in this race. I would also like to bless Mark Priestley for saying "Albon = alright" was the most important thing after his accident.

The other odd thing was the soft tyres lasting longer than the medium. Even on a track with little wear, that is odd. Were the sudden rash of incidents around lap 30 - the Norris spin and the Albon crash - due to tyres wearing out because people were waiting for a safety car and just stayed on their first set of tyres too long?

I was preparing for the usual data visualisation (for the 2021/2 example please see here).

Then I looked at the format for the men's tournament.

Please assume I am here from here on in:

via GIPHY

Dear RFL, I had been nice about you for so long, and you provide me with this nonsense.
(Full details here)

Okay, due to everything, they've had to drop down to 10 teams. I can deal. I will ignore that going begging bowl in hand to the NRL ought to have solved that but okay.

10 teams, you do two groups of 5, top 2 go through, all's fair in love, war and rugby league.

But no, they give us a mutant set up with 3 groups, 4 teams in group A, 3 teams each in groups B and C.

And then, group B only play the teams in group C while C only play B.

The top two teams in Group A go through. For Groups B and C, though, the two groups are put together in one mega-group, with the top two teams from the combined results going through. And yes, it is possible for both the qualifiers from the group B/C table to come from one group.

My, very simple, vision gives all teams 4 games. This gives teams 3 games. One of Tonga, Samoa and England will be going home after 3 games.

In group A, Fiji are the team most duffed up by the draw. I mean, I will be crossing all that is crossable for them to beat either New Zealand or Australia but ... they've been given the shark pool.

In group B/C, Papua New Guinea have been done over, while, as I said, at least one of Tonga, England and Samoa isn't getting a knock out match. I am more annoyed on Papua New Guinea and Tonga's behalf than England's.

We're also skipping that, of the co-hosts, Papua New Guinea host 2 games, New Zealand host 1, and Australia get 15 games. Truly well distributed. (I do like that they're making France vs Lebanon and Tonga vs Samoa a double header. It may be the only thing I do like about the way this has been organised.)

Trying to be positive, Papua New Guinea vs Samoa in Port Moresby ought to be a cracker in terms of atmosphere, ditto Samoa vs Tonga as the game that probably decides who qualifies out of group B/C. That's an excited rating of 2/15 for the group stages (England games, by definition, are not exciting, they're a torment).

It's going to be an unholy mess, they've almost stacked it so one of the co-hosts can't make it through to the knock out stages and, barring a miracle, Australia can play the reserves in their last group stage game without it affecting anything.

The scrutineering data for the Italian Grand Prix is straightforward.

( Bar chart under the cut )

Somehow, despite being the first car out, Leclerc isn't the least tested.

The χ² for the race is 1.38, so any differences aren't statistically significant.

For the season to date, it looks like this:

Bar chart showing how often cars were scrutinized compared to the expected number up to the Italian Grand Prix. The values are displayed as a standardised residual. Cars 44 (Hamilton) and 63 (Russell) were the most over-scrutinized compared to expected, with a value of 0.63, followed by car 1 (Norris) with a value of 0.58. Car 18 (Stroll) was the most under-scrutinized compared to expected with a value of -0.87, followed by car 77 (Bottas) with a value of -0.73, then car 14 (Alonso) and car 11 (Perez) on -0.58. Only car 81 (Piastri) has been tested exactly as much as expected.

The "tested less than expected" cars are definitely further from expected than the "over-tested" cars. I think that's because the Aston Martin and Cadillac teams have remained what we will politely call "not good", while the rest of the teams have come closer together in terms of results.

The χ² for the season up to the end of the Italian Grand Prix is 4.32 so any differences aren't statistically significant, but the number is still increasing.

The Madrid Circuit: Of course, if Barcelona has one, Madrid has to have one. Grand Prix in Spain are getting almost as plentiful as they are in the MotoGP.

But the race it reminded me of was Valencia (thanks to L, different L to usual, for helping me twig that it was Valencia I couldn't remember). And the reason it reminded me of Valencia was because Madrid was yet another street circuit where nothing happens.

(So little happened at Valencia that someone literally had to remind me those Grand Prix existed)

I think we just have to be honest about street circuits. If a circuit doesn't have a fair few spots where two and a half cars can get through there will be no overtaking. Circuits that are designed around normal roads will not have that. So if it's a street circuit, there will be no overtaking.

So stop adding more street circuits to the calendar!!!!

Ahem!

I was also amused and slightly charmed by how confused Ted Kravitz was by the existence of mega-sized conference centres like the one in Madrid. Possibly because some of my colleagues have actually been to the one in Madrid and I spend probably too much time in them with work.

The race itself:

The start was exciting, with me going "eep!", "oop!" and similar noises. Then it settled down. The track being that tight meant that any time anyone went for anything, that was the noise I made. But it also meant that almost no one went for anything because disaster was too close.

For once I can't really complain about Ferrari's strategy because they made the most of an opportunity. That curses and pins and voodoo dolls didn't cause another red flag or safety car wasn't their fault. Neither could McLaren be faulted for the unfortunate timing of the virtual safety car with regard to Norris. Mercedes's strategy for Russell was their own fault.

Sainz jnr was heavily hit by the home-town race curse.

It was a bit of a nothing race overall, but what else is expected from a street circuit?

I would like to pretend I had something more reasonable to say but ... I hate being a Ferrari fan. Why are they always like this?

I don't, in any way, blame either driver for the first corner - that's racing. I blame the team for not coming up with a working strategy for the one remaining car.

The racing was fun while it lasted, but I trust this has finally ended any belief George Russell has that there is driver equality at Mercedes.

No, I haven't been kidnapped and replaced by a robot, I am recommending you watch some epee. These videos are the semi-finals and finals from the men's epee at the World Championship.

That being said, even in the final, passivity (also know as "would one of you do something!") cards were handed out.

If you don't have long, I recommend this video (you will just have to put up with the commentary):

Watch on YouTube

This is why epee is so frustrating. It could be this interesting, but it's frequently not.

If you have a bit longer, there is most of the final here:

Watch on YouTube

The really nonsense fencing hijinks are all in the last period of 3 minutes, which of course lasts from 5.30 - 12.58, because we always say fencing time is not the same and this is good proof.

It has the good (some of the fencing), the bad (oh there is "but ref he stepped off the piste" nonsense, twice. In the Swiss fencer's defence, his opponent did and he didn't) and the ugly (oh that crashing corps a corps at the end).

Redoing this meme. What's interesting is how much some of my answers have changed (and how much some of the others haven't).

What do you find _______ about writing?

Hardest?

When I write, there's normally an overall structure to the thing before I ever put finger to keyboard, and I just have to write down that shape. But endings, oh endings how I struggle with thee. The number of fics waiting on the list, done but for their ending ...

Easiest?

Actually having the ideas in the first place. I tend to work next to canon, that's the feeling I aim for. So ideas is easy. Writing them, not so much.

Most fun?

When it just all clicks and you sit down to write and when you stop you've written all / most of the story (or at least the section you were working on).

Most Tedious?

When you can see the scene that's supposed to come next, touch it almost, but the words to make it happen on the page just don't come to your fingers. So you sit there, glaring at the screen ...

Coolest?

That feeling of "oh, this works". Like this sentence, that I have written, and you know what, it works to convey whatever it was that I was trying to convey.

Least cool? Sometimes I have these fantastic ideas. And I can't write them. The words, they will not come. The scenes, they do not congeal. The story, it does not happen. X-Men fic ideas are the most consistently frustrating in this way.

Best? Looking over things I've written, after a suitable cooling off period and being able to say, yes, I am satisfied with that. - that answer hasn't change. It's just so nice to sometimes be able to go, 'yup, that worked, that was what I was trying to do.'

Worst? This also hasn't changed and is almost the opposite, those fics, where it just doesn't come off, and you've tried your best, you really have. And possibly worse, you don't know why it didn't work, so it's not like there's something you can work on improving. Also, some of the WIPs, where you can taste how good it could be if you could just find a way of putting the feeling into words and you can't!