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redfiona99[Error: unknown template qotd]
Timothy Dalton. I brook no argument on the subject.
(Okay, not entirely true, I give some leeway for Sean Connery as an answer.)
~~~~
Fencing
I went to the MOFT (or the Merseyside Open, but I prefer to call it the MOFT) at the weekend. My fencing was not great, I finished one outside the top 16 again, but I enjoyed myself and I did some things reasonably well. My distance is still off, but more of that later.
The two things I love most about the MOFT are that it always runs on time, and they pay the referees so there are always enough referees and they are good referees. It's one of the few competitions I can go to where I know my success and failure will be entirely due to my fencing, not due to external conditions like the state of the hall or the ability of the referee.
Actually, this ought to be where I put in my usual plug for the MOFT. If you can only go to 1 competition in the year, go to the MOFT. It has a good mix of fencers, because some of the Scots come down and the Midlands and Londoners come up, and, because it's on their selection list, some Irish fencers come across. Add to that that the local uni have a large chunk of international students, it means you get a nice mix of fencers, including some you're not likely to fence anywhere else.
It also has 2 rounds of pools and no cut so you're guaranteed an elimination match.
They also have jelly babies, and have expanded to include chocolate eclairs.
All this for the princely sum of £15.
Anyway, back to the fencing. My first pool had a good Scot, a sneaky left-hander (even by the sneaky standards of those wrong handed types ;) ) and two sabreurs giving it a go. One of them, E, had got 3rd place in the sabre the day before and then fallen out of a taxi, and the other had been conned into doing the foil by her captain. Her captain is a mean, horrible person, because she's only a beginner sabbie, and we all beat her. Anyway, I beat E and the other sabreur and lost my other two matches 4-5. Not bad.
My second pool had E and the good Scot again, with a different left-hander, this one being violent rather than sneaky, and V, a Louth beginner. I beat E, and V, and lose my other matches 2-5. Not as good, but hey-ho, and I beat a Louthie (see many, many previous fencing posts for the back-story there).
At the end of the two pools, I'm ranked 15th. I get E, again, in my knockout. Sneaky, US-trained, has been fencing since 1991, sabreur with decent footwork that she is, she finally beats me, and soundly. E gives me some advice on my distance, which I plan on putting into us, which is sadly the same advice that one of the coaches at Birmingham has been giving me. In my defence, I've gone from being a whole foot's length to close to being half a foot's length too close. Hopefully I will be able to ameliorate it further in time for the Nottingham in 2 weeks time, where E is also fencing. The Notts also has 2 rounds of pools and a guaranteed DE, and is also on my list of favourite competitions.
Other, non-me related stuff:
The Israeli national stripes are lovely, it's a Star of David with one point lengthened so it looks like a sword.
A Canadian epeeist was desperately doing a one-man job to explode the myth that all Canadians are nice. Every single point against him was being argued. AT EPEE! Actually, the male epeeists in general were misbehaving in a manner unbecoming even sabreurs. It's epee, guys, if there's a light, there's a point. The problem with epee is that it attracts rules lawyers, so rather than the foil and sabre arguments of 'ref, could you phrase that please' with it's deliberate undercurrent of 'if you think about it, you'll see you're wrong', it's all 'as you can tell by rule 34 subsection 1, he didn't salute the judges and therefore should lose'.*
More seriously, they did all seem to be complaining about phantom lights and bad refereeing so either they really got the short end of the stick or male epeeists are whiners. I know what I am going with, especially as the female epeeists reported no such problems.
On the fun side, I accidentally clouted the referee for my first pool with my sword, but thankfully he forgave me. Fencing left-handers is a dangerous business. The ref for the second batch of pools was a French young Jude Law look-a-like, apparently, not only are the French better fencers, their refs are eye candy.
But yes, lots of fun was had by all.
*That's not rule 34 section 1, by the way, r34 s1 is the one about progression counting as priority in foil. I have had many arguments about the application of that damn rule.
Timothy Dalton. I brook no argument on the subject.
(Okay, not entirely true, I give some leeway for Sean Connery as an answer.)
~~~~
Fencing
I went to the MOFT (or the Merseyside Open, but I prefer to call it the MOFT) at the weekend. My fencing was not great, I finished one outside the top 16 again, but I enjoyed myself and I did some things reasonably well. My distance is still off, but more of that later.
The two things I love most about the MOFT are that it always runs on time, and they pay the referees so there are always enough referees and they are good referees. It's one of the few competitions I can go to where I know my success and failure will be entirely due to my fencing, not due to external conditions like the state of the hall or the ability of the referee.
Actually, this ought to be where I put in my usual plug for the MOFT. If you can only go to 1 competition in the year, go to the MOFT. It has a good mix of fencers, because some of the Scots come down and the Midlands and Londoners come up, and, because it's on their selection list, some Irish fencers come across. Add to that that the local uni have a large chunk of international students, it means you get a nice mix of fencers, including some you're not likely to fence anywhere else.
It also has 2 rounds of pools and no cut so you're guaranteed an elimination match.
They also have jelly babies, and have expanded to include chocolate eclairs.
All this for the princely sum of £15.
Anyway, back to the fencing. My first pool had a good Scot, a sneaky left-hander (even by the sneaky standards of those wrong handed types ;) ) and two sabreurs giving it a go. One of them, E, had got 3rd place in the sabre the day before and then fallen out of a taxi, and the other had been conned into doing the foil by her captain. Her captain is a mean, horrible person, because she's only a beginner sabbie, and we all beat her. Anyway, I beat E and the other sabreur and lost my other two matches 4-5. Not bad.
My second pool had E and the good Scot again, with a different left-hander, this one being violent rather than sneaky, and V, a Louth beginner. I beat E, and V, and lose my other matches 2-5. Not as good, but hey-ho, and I beat a Louthie (see many, many previous fencing posts for the back-story there).
At the end of the two pools, I'm ranked 15th. I get E, again, in my knockout. Sneaky, US-trained, has been fencing since 1991, sabreur with decent footwork that she is, she finally beats me, and soundly. E gives me some advice on my distance, which I plan on putting into us, which is sadly the same advice that one of the coaches at Birmingham has been giving me. In my defence, I've gone from being a whole foot's length to close to being half a foot's length too close. Hopefully I will be able to ameliorate it further in time for the Nottingham in 2 weeks time, where E is also fencing. The Notts also has 2 rounds of pools and a guaranteed DE, and is also on my list of favourite competitions.
Other, non-me related stuff:
The Israeli national stripes are lovely, it's a Star of David with one point lengthened so it looks like a sword.
A Canadian epeeist was desperately doing a one-man job to explode the myth that all Canadians are nice. Every single point against him was being argued. AT EPEE! Actually, the male epeeists in general were misbehaving in a manner unbecoming even sabreurs. It's epee, guys, if there's a light, there's a point. The problem with epee is that it attracts rules lawyers, so rather than the foil and sabre arguments of 'ref, could you phrase that please' with it's deliberate undercurrent of 'if you think about it, you'll see you're wrong', it's all 'as you can tell by rule 34 subsection 1, he didn't salute the judges and therefore should lose'.*
More seriously, they did all seem to be complaining about phantom lights and bad refereeing so either they really got the short end of the stick or male epeeists are whiners. I know what I am going with, especially as the female epeeists reported no such problems.
On the fun side, I accidentally clouted the referee for my first pool with my sword, but thankfully he forgave me. Fencing left-handers is a dangerous business. The ref for the second batch of pools was a French young Jude Law look-a-like, apparently, not only are the French better fencers, their refs are eye candy.
But yes, lots of fun was had by all.
*That's not rule 34 section 1, by the way, r34 s1 is the one about progression counting as priority in foil. I have had many arguments about the application of that damn rule.
