grahambinns.com

From Thaindian News (via Willow and Leather), comes this piece of stupidity:

A small fabric bracelet is England cricketers' latest secret weapon that has boosted their performance levels.

The Trion-Z 'magic' bands are being tried by the team after cricketers James Anderson and Stuart Broad said they were huge fans of the bracelet.

Using incredibly high-powered magnets, the bracelets are medically proven to increase blood flow around the body, improving concentration levels and rates of cell-regeneration.

Now, you and I, dear reader, both know that the chances of these bracelets having actually been tested using real science - controlled double-blind tests, wide-ranging studies, peer review, etc. - are about the same as the chances of the Flying Spaghetti Monster visiting me in the middle of the night and telling me to spread pastafarian peace amongst all the people of Lancaster.

The story, however, goes on:

England bowler James Anderson said: I have found great benefit during recent tests. These bands made me feel energised and I was able to cope better with the long training sessions.

Now, I know that the media is given to quoting people without actually waiting for them to actually say anything, so I'm perfectly willing to believe that he didn't say this.

At the same time, though, it made me wonder: Shouldn't professional sportsmen and sportswomen be banned from promoting this kind of quackery? They are highly-paid, in the public eye and, ostensibly, are supposed to be role models for a whole generation of youngsters. That means that they shouldn't behave like whinging little kids on the field of play, they shouldn't take drugs and they shouldn't promote expensive rubbish that purports to do something that it almost certainly doesn't.

Answers in a comment or by email to blog <AT> grahambinns <DOT> com if you please.

Ah, but there may be an explanation:

The Trion-Z bracelets, which cost around 18 pounds, use medical grade magnets to maximise blood flow and are up to 100 times stronger than other magnetic bands, The Sun reported.

The Sun reported. So perhaps - and there's a good chance of this - this is just patent bollocks cooked up by the Sun. Would anyone be surprised? I wouldn't.

Graham Binns posted a photo:

Three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008, day 145

New Zealand take the field against England under leaden skies after Tea on day 3 of the second test at Old Trafford.

Graham Binns posted a photo:

Three-hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008, day 20

A pastiche of Rebekka's famous photo 'Eve'.

Took me a while to get this shot; after much playing about I realised that I'd have to use the flashgun and a narrow aperture.

It'll do; I just wish I'd bumped the ISO level down. I did tweak the curves and saturation slightly with the Gimp, but didn't do anything else.

And I know that's not a proper cricket ball. It's a practice ball I use when I'm practising leg breaks in the garden.

I had another post but, as Sam Gamgee might say, it got et. So instead, I leave you with this, courtesy of King Cricket:

Sachin square-cuts Nasser  

Am horribly tired, but in a nice way. My body is gently reminding me that it has been sat in plastic seats for two days in a row and that it would like to rest now, thanks ever so much. I shall allow it to do so shortly.

Cricket was fun, as usual. Sarah and I spent Saturday with my Dad and his partner, mostly watching England bat., though the highlight of the day was Darren Sammy's 7-66. Sunday, which Sarah and I attended on a whim and because we really had nothing better to do, we watched England bowl and, to our semi-delight, the West Indians bat pretty damn well. Should be an interesting day tomorrow (well, today actually), though now we're home we can't be bothered going back for a third day. Tickets are only a tenner though, if you're interested. Check it out here.

In other, more webby news, Violet Blue (still NSFW) has received an update from Flickr about her photos. Looks like they're trying to sort out their mess; strikes me as odd, though, that they didn't test things better before rolling out their new features. Still, its easy to criticise when you're not the one deploying the code.

Oh, bugger it. Google reader is understating the number of items I have yet to read as 100+. It's rather more than that, I think. I'm too tired for this; I'll post the other things I was going to post in the morning.