Is Football Still Illegal?

Yesterday a friend messaged me saying that someone he works with is thinking of starting a 5-a-side football team, and asked me if I was interested in playing. It then turned out that neither of us were even sure if it was now legal to even play football 😅 (I'm still not sure, I haven't even bothered checking to be honest, the rules seem to change by the minute).

It highlights the craziness we now find ourselves in though. I guess you have to laugh. What else can you do.

It's made even more surreal by the recent news that the UK government has big plans to get everyone to lose weight. Including doctors prescribing bike rides apparently, amongst other things.

Exercise vs Fun

This in turn got me thinking about the difference between exercise and team sports (or fun activities in general). Something that I've often thought about before.

Firstly, unlike running on a treadmill or a hamster wheel, football and other team sports exercise everything. Not only is it a full body work out, but you're also exercising your mind as well. Reacting to opponents, interacting with teammates. Moving and thinking.

You need to be aware, whereas on a treadmill or exercise bike you can be in your own little world. Literally just repetitively going through the motions.

Then on top of that you have the enjoyment aspect too. When you play football you're in the moment, having fun. Just enjoying the game. When you're on the hamster wheel though you don't have that distraction or euphoria (though granted I'm sure there are a few people who do get tremendous joy from running, etc). Especially if you're doing it simply because you feel you need to get healthy.

You're literally doing the exercise thinking "I hope this stops me from dying". Even more so if you're constantly checking your heart rate and so forth.

This fixation on health and death can't be a healthy mindset to have ( - if that makes sense :p ).

..and finally, this is the difference between stress and joy. You might do a lot of physical activity at work for example, but if you're stressed and worried that might not be great for your health. So is it the same with exercise? If you're running on your hamster wheel worrying about dying then is that good exercise, or is it just more work ..and more stress and misery.

Something you genuinely like though. Like football, dancing, or just spending time in the great outdoors, etc. Especially if you're doing it with friends is surely much better for you.

Making it easier..

Just a very quick post to update something. Back in May I posted about masks, making the argument that in a free society the force of law should always be used only as a last resort. I even made a little list of avenues we should go down before we reach that point. Writing;

Normally in a free society we only force people to do things like this as an absolute last resort, and even then we should ideally only do it for the minimum amount of time and with the maximum amount of oversight. That's definitely not the case at the moment though.

In a free society there are a number of avenues we can exhaust before we even begin to think about going down the compulsion route. If we want another person to do something that they don't want to do we can: 

• ask them - politely ideally :)

• try to persuade them, with appeals to emotion or reason

• give them incentives

• pay them outright

Anyway, I missed something off that list, and that's simply the practice of making something easier for people. For example, giving people free masks would make it easier for them to wear one. So I thought I'd add it to the list in case I come back to this later.

• ask them - politely ideally :)

• try to persuade them, with appeals to emotion or reason

• make it easier for them

• give them incentives

• pay them outright

Word Counts in New Zealand

I haven't posted on here in a while. I'm keeping it low key. I've actually been quite busy. I'm finally knuckling down to finish the work of fiction I planned on writing. I'm being very self-disciplined and doing it during the day! Almost like a 9 til 5. Unlike my normal mode of writing which is usually done with a coffee late at night when people are in bed.

In fact, it's been a bit of an eye-opener. In the past when I've written books it's always been a long, drawn-out affair. So much thought, artistic moodiness, and getting the feel and timing right (or wasting time and putting things off should I say). Consequently, whenever I'd hear stories of these people that knock out three or four books a year I'd always think; how on earth is that possible?!

I didn't understand how people could be so prolific without just producing junk.

However, now I've found that when you make a 'day job' of it, you can be incredibly productive. If you produce just 1,000 words a day you can have a 60,000 word book in just two months. If you can increase that to 2,000 a day then just thirty days may suffice. So I'm rattling along at the moment. Sometimes churning out two chapters a day! Simply unprecedented! (..don't worry I'm not using this many exclamation marks in the book). It does mean that I've put general blogging like this (which I find so much more comfortable) on the back burner though.

Anyhow..

..the reason I'm posting is just to make a quick note. Yesterday I saw this tweet.

..highlighting this article; https://thespinoff.co.nz

Apparently, Arron Banks is getting involved in New Zealand's general election later this year. Helping out the New Zealand First party. Like the Irish election earlier this year this should be interesting to watch. So I'm going to start paying attention more. When my patience runs out with the book I may even start blogging about it. So I thought I better put a little mental marker down now.

As with the Irish election I know very little about New Zealand politics. I did read the '2020 New Zealand general election' Wikipedia page though last night to get to grips with their electoral system. So I've already cast a little bit of light to dispel my ignorance.

Currently the Labour Party are in a 'minority coalition government' with the NZ First party - with 'confidence and supply' from the Greens. I already knew Labour's Jacinda Ardern was the PM, but I had no idea about any of this stuff. So I'm already learning.

The election is in September. No doubt it'll get heavily overshadowed by the US election. It does mean I'll have plenty of entertainment if we get locked down again though 😵