Month: November 2016

A horrible, horrible fixture

Yep, pretty much as expected, Sunday lunchtime was not particularly relaxing. I love my lazy Sunday’s but this day won’t linger long in the memory. The NLD was similar to the last one and the one before that. Ultimately, I was content with the point and I expect many fans from both sides felt the same. Maybe we can just settle for a point apiece for each fixture and avoid all of this angst and worry.

Tottenham did start very well. It took us a good 20 mins to get our passing game going and even during our good periods, we never look completely at ease and settled. The likes of Dembele and Wanyama squeezed the life out of the midfield, Rose and Walker pushed back Walcott and Iwobi and even our dominant central defensive partnership looked fallible. It was a frustrating game to watch. We never played with any fluency or composure. Always rushed, always under pressure on the ball. Even ahead at half-time, I was never confident. The equalizer was deserved and the poor tackle made my Koscielny which led to the penalty, was an clear demonstration of his poor judgement during the game.

But I’m probably not the person to give a measured, informed match report. I switched off the TV with 25 mins to go. I sensed it would end in tears for me and I couldn’t stomach witnessing their winner. I got on my MacBook and caught up with some work emails. I nervously glanced at a the BBC website, expecting to hear of a Kane winner but thankfully the scoring was over for the match. I’d make an awful competitor on the pitch. Bailing out at the first threat of a looming defeat. I’ve missed many a goal over the years as I retreated to the concourse at Highbury and latterly at the Emirates due to a fear of seeing us concede a late winner. A clear lack of bottle and stomach for the fight.

The one big fear is that in April, the return fixture is set to have huge ramifications for the title race. They’ll only be three games left after that game. Our last game at White Hart Lane. Where we have won more titles than Spurs. The atmosphere will be hostile (unlike the Emirates which was again hosting a sedate affair) and it’s going to be one hell of a match. A shame then that I’ll probably be going for a stroll in my local park, many miles way from a TV.

A website updated

They say a week is a long time in the world of politics, but the pace of change in the field of web development is incomparable. The speed of change in the world of front end web development is often bewildering and difficult to keep up with. I put the finishing touches to my first site about eight months ago. It really does seem like a lifetime ago. It’s difficult to comprehend the difference in the way that site was built and how my new site was structured.

It’s gratifying to see a real demonstration of how much I’ve learnt in the past year. Thinking back to how I built my first site, I’m amazed by just how I made things difficult for myself. There were a large array of css files, each individually linked to the head of the HTML file. In fact there were no less than 18 CSS files. The main CSS file stretched to over 1,200 lines with the media queries placed at the bottom. The site was responsive……to a degree. Looking back it’s a wonder that working on the site didn’t lead me to the brink of insanity. I had made a token attempt to use SASS to try and bring a little order structure of the file system, but it was a half-hearted attempt at best.

It was a similar story with respect to my JavaScript files. Bloated files were linked to the master html file and plugins were used to perform simple actions which I could have coded myself. Images were not properly compressed and how the site would download successfully without a long delay, will always remain a mystery to me. The html file was made up of a vast collection of classes and ID’s which would have perplexed the most experienced web developer. It was frankly a mess.

For my new site, I used Gulp as my choice of build system. I minified my CSS and JavaScript files and all were concatenated into single CSS and JS files which are linked to my index html file. SASS has been used in a much more measured and structured way, which has helped to simplify my workflow greatly. Using media queries in each individual SCSS file has been a joy. Images have been compressed and I’m sure my site will download a lot quicker. CDN’s have been utilised where possible and using an autoprefixer has saved me a time and a fair degree of pain. The plumber plugin has helped deal with the inevitable errors and setting up a live server has further improved the speed of my workflow. And finally, with experience, my HTML file is now a lot leaner and semantic.

I have no doubt that in eight months from now, when I work on another refresh of my site, I’ll laugh at the primitive work environment I’ve set up. But for now, I’m enjoying coding a whole lot more than was the case during the start of the year. I hope you enjoying viewing my new site.

Who’s looking forward to the NLD?

Probably the neutral fan. It rarely fails to excite, usually goals, often produces drama and a red card is likely (especially if Xhaka plays). But I can’t say I ever enjoy the games, as I wrote last year.

At least we’re playing well on this occasion. All of our top players are playing well and we definitely have the momentum behind us. I enjoyed Tottenham’s performance at Wembley a great deal. It could hardly have gone better. Low morale, ongoing injury problems to key players, a manager who’s losing his mojo and a fanbase who are frankly panicking at the prospect of coming over the Emirates. Forget all that nonsense about ‘form going out of the window’ when it comes to local derbies. This is really set up for us to put down a marker for the coming months. We’re fully prepared mentally and physically for a sustained, competitive title challenge. Spurs are likely to accept a battle for a Europa Cup place is a more realistic goal. What joy to see them return to playing football on Thursday evenings.

I didn’t attempt to get hold of a ticket for the match. I detest Sunday lunchtime KO’s with a passion. Atmosphere diluted and a post-match session is tempered by having to work the following day. I’ll probably watch the game at home. Going to the pub will inevitably mean sharing the match with Spurs’ fans and I can’t handle that. I’ll only make an idiot of myself and at my age, I can’t be doing with people looking on my behaviour with a mixture of bemusement and embarrassment.

I’ll get a few beers in and pace around my flat as I endure the game. I’d love to build up an unassailable lead so I can relax and savour our win but I can’t see it happen. We will have to grind out a win. They’ll come and defend in depth and it won’t be pretty. I can see us winning 1-0 and it will leave us in a really positive mindset going into the international break. Let’s just get the game over with, escape with a unspectacular draw and let’s all agree on who really is the top team in North London.