View From the Editor: The sun has got its (technology) hat on - June 2005  

Readers, S&T was ecstatic to witness an English soccer side triumph over a vision of Italian excellence last month. Yes, Exeter City took on and beat a team of Italian Masters (including the legendary Pierluigi Casiraghi), 1,0 at the Real St James Park in Devon. Oh yes, and we heard that Liverpool FC did well against AC Milan in the UEFA Champions' League Final in Istanbul as well. Good stuff.
Almost as important (and perhaps as surprising) is the fact that the sun is finally shining in the London sky as S&T inks this month's missive. A sign of course that the UK soccer season is truly over. Strawberries and cream have taken up permanent residence in the fridge at ArkSports Towers and our white pumps have found their way out of the attic, meaning that our thoughts are already turning to that quintessentially British sport of sports….
Yes readers, it is a back-to-back darts-fest over the next couple of months, starting with the UK Open at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton, followed almost immediately by the Las Vegas Desert Classic and then - S&T's favourite - the World Matchplay in Blackpool ('Vegas of the North'). S&T will be in Bolton and Blackpool, but sadly could not wing Vegas on the grounds that we can only have arrows-related jollies to towns beginning with the letter 'B'. (Actually that's a lie - it was too near time-wise to the IOC 2012 announcement in Singapore and S&T was forced to choose between them. The Raffles versus The MGM Grand. It was a toughie!!)

What a racquet!

Strawberries and cream are usually thought of in relation to that other quintessentially English sport of sports, namely tennis. Readers, it is of course Eastbourne, Stella Artois and Wimbledon time again, which means the weather will degenerate into howling gales any day now. In this month's S&T we hear news of the BBC trialing high-definition services at the ladies' tournament in Eastbourne and also learn how IT giant IBM has serviced (pun intended) the hallowed courts on SW19 for a mammoth 16 years! Call us cynical, but that's longer than most marriages. Even ones of convenience.
Throw in a case study of the technology that will be used to run the 2012 Olympic Games if London wins the bid (we covered Paris last month, so we're not completely biased. In fact, the other bidding cities didn't get back to us, so they obviously won't win); and a profile of the fabulous PTV-operated World Rally Championship website, and you will find that this issue of S&T is positively bursting with value.
And that's before you even read the Q&A with S&T's dotcom sports hero Chris Akers of Sports Internet Group fame. (Sighs dreamily and drifts off back to 1999 when Shania Twain and the Backstreet Boys regularly graced the music charts, sports websites were coming out of our ears and broadband was a high-tech proposition fantasised about by, well, telecoms companies mostly). As Akers so rightly says: "As soon as a new technology is ever mooted, there's always an expectation that it will come to the market more quickly than it ever does." That is so true. We are still waiting for our instant 'Steve Nash Clone Sex-Slave Machine' to hit the high streets. (Although even that won't make up for the fact that his team - and S&T's boys - the Phoenix Suns didn't make the NBA Finals this year - sob. Actually, yes it would).

Fishy Chinese business

On a completely separate note, S&T is always delighted to hear from you, our lovely readers. Especially those of you we don't know. So imagine our delight to recently receive the following e-mail from a reader in China: "I am a seafood trader in China," he started. Interesting. We have nothing against seafood traders in China per se, despite S&T having been vegetarian for over 20 years. "I have the biz contact with many seafood producers and importers," he continued. Which is good to know, S&T is very bullish about networking and is always loving the 'biz' contacts. Surely he will mention sport or technology in a minute, we cried. Or at least Beijing 2008? But, alas, no: "We import seafood from abroad. Also we export the seafood products to many countries by now. Now we need to import Plaice, can you supply frozen plaice now?" And that readers, was our e-mail from China. All we can say is that's the last time we use a fish-related pun in the title of View from the Editor. (Last month's being 'Your 2012 Plaice or mine?'). At least Google is alive and well, hey. By the way, if any of you do run a Plaice-farm and fancy exporting a few of them to China, then get in touch with us and we'll fix you up. Discretion guaranteed.
One town where you are unlikely to find a fishmongers, whether it hails from China or Devon, is S&T's beloved Exeter, which has just been awarded the accolade of 'worst clone town' in the UK by the New Economics Foundation. That's apparently because there is only one independent (i.e. non-chain) store in Exeter's high street. Perfect, we cry. Who needs all that choice anyway? There are only so many minutes in the day….Stepford heaven!!
On that retail-related note, S&T is signing off for another month and looks forward to seeing some of you in Singapore for the 2012 tears and tantrums! (S&T's that is after a few too many Singapore Slings and the realisation that there's no darts on TV for at least a week. Yikes).

Rachael Church - Editor

Do you prefer English soccer or Italian soccer? Or do you prefer to watch soccer from other countries such as Brazil or Lithuania? If you have any comments or feedback on this article or any of the features in S&T, or if you are a purveyor of high quality Plaice and would like to export it to China, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please e-mail your comments or fish-related orders to editor@sportandtechnology.com.

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