Eleven Against Ten, and Still

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoA new week, and it arrived the way most of them do — without ceremony, and without waiting to see whether anyone was ready for it. Slow start, and unapologetically so. There are Mondays that demand to be met head-on and Mondays that are best approached at a gentle walking pace, and this one had clearly decided which sort it wanted to be before I'd even got up.

It didn't help that the night before had ended badly. The derby. City down to ten men, an hour or so to play, and United still contrived to lose it. There's losing, and then there's losing with a numerical advantage, which is a rather more specialised discipline and one we seem to have been quietly training for. I've long since stopped expecting these things to go our way, but there's a difference between low expectations and having them confirmed with that much thoroughness. It lingers into the next morning in a way a normal defeat somehow doesn't.

Still, the day had proper business to attend to. The car purchase is finally reaching its conclusion — the paperwork stage, which is where enthusiasm goes to sit quietly in a chair and wait. The loan officer came to SJMC rather than the other way round, which was a small mercy and saved an afternoon that would otherwise have been spent in traffic and a waiting room somewhere. Signatures, clarifications, the usual ritual of initialling things in three places for reasons no one fully explains. All very civil, all mercifully brief.

After that, rounds — quick ones — and then more paperwork of a different flavour, which is the sort of symmetry the day seemed determined to provide. Clinic afterwards was slow, unusually so. There's an odd quality to a quiet clinic. You spend most weeks wishing for one, and then when it arrives there's a faint suspicion that something's been overlooked, or that everyone's simply decided to be well at the same time out of sheer coordination.

Home by five, which is early enough to feel like a small windfall. Dinner was quick and unfussy — nobody was making a case for anything elaborate — and then the evening turned to the one thing genuinely worth looking forward to. Week One of the NFL, finally back after an off-season that always feels longer than it has any right to be.

There's something restorative about a new season. Everything is still theoretically possible. Nobody's been ruled out, nothing's been decided, and every team is briefly allowed to believe its own preseason press. After the previous night's business in Manchester, a sport where hope hasn't yet been tested felt like exactly the right choice.

So: a slow start, a bit of admin, a quiet clinic, and a football season opening while another one continues to test the patience. Not a day that will be remembered in any detail, but not one that asked much either. The week has started. That, for a Monday, is achievement enough.

Danger Will Robinson

I had been watching the trailer for quite some time and when it finally came out today, I watched ethos first couple of episodes straight up.

"Lost in Space" received a Netflix reboot and the story was quite compelling. The Family Robinson was there of course - to keep the old nostalgic storyline going - although the premise was different.

Another bit that got me was one of the daughters was clearly not theirs. Hollywood wanted to keep the diversity thing going on I guess. I found that rather distracting.

Clearly Netflix spent a ton of money on this. The acting was solid, the special effect wouldn't be out of place in a mobile blockbuster. Now, the story arch must meet expectation. And expectations were pretty high ...

I watched 3 episodes so far. Another 7 to go for the season ...

The Olympic Fever

At the rate we were going, the Rio 2016 Olympics was bound to be Malaysia's most successful yet. We had a silver and a couple of bronze in the bag. And we were still in contention for a couple more goals at least.

But the sad thing was the bickering back home about the support our athletes got on the way to Rio, or the lack of it. Some of the athlete had been vocal about the matter while in others, the lack of support was apparent.

To add to that, was the complaint the public had about the monetary packages awaiting the medal winners when they returned. Some had even been politicised. I guess when the economy was in dire straits, everybody were complaining. While sports was supposed to unite.

It should be fun to see when the dust settled. The politicians would claim that they had a stake in each of the winners effort. Why can't we just let our athletes compete and we support them before they win, rather than bask in their glory after? In that sense, at the back of our most successful Olympic effort, we were not moving forward at all...

Spoilt for Choice

The Olympics was coming into full swing. And things would get even more hectic once the Athletics event start next week. It had been swimming and gymnastics making the headlines. And Malaysian everywhere had been rejoicing on the Silver the Pandalela and partner picked up a couple of nights ago.

I just finished my post-call morning rounds and Diana marrow biopsy this morning. I should get some time off until lunch.

Anita called that one of our friend would be dropping for lunch and she would be cooking. Great!

The boys were in their holidays and they were both still in the pyjamas. I might be able to catch a nap before heading to the afternoon rounds.

Return to Downton

It must have been more than six months since our last Downton Abbey fix. We finished the fourth season today - as it was public holiday, and it looked like the next season would be full of scandals!

Not sure when the next season going to come out proper, but hopefully it would be less of the doom and gloom of the second season with all the deaths and war. We could only handle so much of those ...