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December 25th, 2002
01:35 am - So here it is Merry Christmas.
Lots of pleasant Christmas greetings going around, which is nice, including many from old co-workers and team members at MSO Worldwide (who, with one exception - amuzulo - don't know this exist). At our height, we had lofty ambitions; here's a strictly theoretical thought-exercise I once set myself.
Suppose we had five (or fifty or five hundred) million pounds to spend on bringing Mind Sports Olympiad events to the whole of the United Kingdom one year and it is felt best to do this by a nationwide tour of fifty towns and cities around the country. Ideally we want everyone to know about the single event closest to them; hopefully we can encourage the most enthusiastic to play in more than one event and so crown regional champions based on the results from several different close events. Which fifty towns and cities would you choose?
SCOTLAND (7) Inverness Aberdeen Glasgow Dundee Edinburgh Dumfries / Ayr Kyle of Localsh / Fort William
NORTHERN IRELAND AND ISLE OF MAN (2) Belfast Douglas
WALES (4) Cardiff Swansea Aberystwyth Bangor
NORTH EAST (5) Newcastle / Gateshead Middlesbrough / Stockton Scarborough Leeds / Bradford Hull
NORTH WEST (4) Carlisle Lancaster Manchester Liverpool
MIDLANDS (6) Stoke Sheffield Nottingham / Derby Wolverhampton / Birmingham Coventry Leicester
EAST CENTRAL (6) Northampton Lincoln Cambridge / Peterborough Norwich Ipswich Luton
WEST CENTRAL (6) Cheltenham Hereford Bristol Reading Oxford Swindon
SOUTH EAST (5) Chelmsford / Southend London Croydon Brighton / Eastbourne Ashford / Canterbury
SOUTH WEST (5) Penzance Plymouth Exeter / Taunton Poole / Bournemouth Southampton / Portsmouth
At some point I will illustrate these on a map for the non-British. I am not trying to reflect equal population per location, otherwise London would get several dots of its own at the expense of Scotland; the goal is more to try to give 98% of the population an easy journey to at least one event. Can you think of a better distribution of fifty major towns, split into ten or twelve (not the annoying Governmental eleven) regions, around the UK-and-Isle-of-Man map? Current Mood: less merry than mayhap I ought Current Music: "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" theme tune club mix
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From: | songmonk |
Date: | December 25th, 2002 05:10 am (UTC) |
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| | Merry Christmas | (Link) |
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Merry Christmas! :-)
From: | ericklendl |
Date: | December 26th, 2002 12:47 pm (UTC) |
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| | It's a long way to Tipperary... | (Link) |
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I'll grant you that being a long way to Tipperary doesn't strictly matter, as I believe it's in the South. All the same, I think one town in the Isle of Man and one in Northern Ireland is somehow wrong. I'm inclined to suggest Omagh as a second NI regional as a minimum, and you could make a case for a third in somewhere like Coleraine.
Question is, what can we then lose elsewhere in the country to create a vacancy for Omagh? Instinct suggests that Croydon might be near enough to London not to merit its own heat, but then the Reigate area would be a little bit stranded. How about a single heat in Crawley replacing the two intended for Croydon and Brighton, with Omagh then moving into the gap? How might that work? ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/24846822/588494) | | | Re: It's a long way to Tipperary... | (Link) |
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Old news, but...
Afraid I'm not convinced about chopping one from the South, which I think that may be slightly underrepresented if anything, which is not something I would have expected to say. I know that I set out not to do this on population grounds, but there is some justification in the case of the south. I suspect that Scotland might be able to lose one (Aberdeen or Inverness, say?) - possibly the Midlands. Merry Christmas hun! If I had your addy, I would've sent you a card. Alas, here's an online hug from me to you: *glomp*
Hope you had a WONDERFUL and eventful xmas.
Love- Eram |
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