View From the Editor: The sweet smell of success (and socks) - May 2006  

Readers, S&T is currently working on a new secret handshake. We’ve only gone and launched our own gang haven’t we?! Audacious you cry once again! Yes, the Sport and Technology Executive Club (aka STEC) has veritably tumbled out of our creative room at ArkSports Towers (the one with the comfy cushions and Donovan soundtrack) and made merry with the industry at its launch at the end of April.
S&T’s gorgeous legal partner, Clintons Solicitors (whom we deeply love), provided us with salubrious settings in Drury Lane (complete with glass extension and exotic plants), in the heart of London’s theatre land, through sponsoring the inaugural meeting. The wine flowed, the nibbles were munched, and by jingo that room was worked so well in such a frenzy of networking that it will need several months to recover. (If normal walls have ears, S&T wonders what glass ones have? Answers via e-mail to the Editor please. As well as your tips for the FIFA World Cup).
The England soccer team may have potentially lost its wonder-striker Wayne Rooney, but STEC can soften the blow by offering members lots of exciting stuff. A kind of ‘business goody bag’ if you like! It’s true, for just a smallish sum per year, members will have access to ArkSports research, white papers, online interviews with industry leaders and exclusive roundtable discussions, as well as the quarterly networking events. And more to be announced!
So, if you want a forum to meet fellow professionals in the business of sport and technology, or simply if you just like acronyms and secret handshakes, then STEC is for you. Just e-mail us for further details.

Isn’t technology fun?

S&T’s next jaunts are to the Monaco Grand Prix at the end of May and then the FIFA World Cup in Berlin. But that’s not what we mean by ‘fun’ in the subtitle above this paragraph. No indeed, those are serious business trips that will be treated with the usual S&T circumspectness and decorum (and occasional ‘sports celebrities in bathrooms’ spottings: See View From the Editor, March 2006).
No indeed. What is ‘fun’ is how technology can just turn a concept right on its head and make it so much more special (pause to savour warm glow). Thanks to Dale Air, a Lancashire-based firm in England, soccer fans who, unlike S&T, are unable to get out to the World Cup in Germany next month (sorry), will be able to whiff the atmosphere from the comfort of their own sofas. Dale Air has produced scent cubes that release grass-like odours mimicking the smell of the pitch, the aroma of half-time pies, the pong of the changing rooms and the waft of the trophy room. Luckily they haven’t invented any other smells as we have run out of verbs to describe them.
S&T thinks that Dale Air should turn its own concept right on its head and also produce a special pack for fans who will be in Germany and missing their usual armchair experience – namely through sniffing the following four odours – dirty socks, warm beer, cold pizza and cigarette smoke. It’s a winner and reciprocation just makes the world a happier place don’t you think? (More savouring of warm glowing ness. Or was that the second glass of wine?).

Computers tipped to take over the literary world!

Talking of new inventions, as we are often known to do, being so cutting edge and ‘up with the kids’ and what-knot, S&T was delighted to hear recently that a computer is being developed that can write by itself. Imagine the extra fun we could have each month readers, just through letting S&T’s computer-identity take over the writing of this column. (What do you mean there might be an improvement)?
In the interests of science, S&T cobbled together a prototype self-writing computer and left it alone while we swanned off to Exeter for the end of the soccer season and a good old knees up with cockney musical stalwarts Chas and Dave who played a gig at the Exeter City FC social club.  (Don’t knock them. S&T is only able to remember the order that snooker balls are potted because of the Chas and Dave hit ‘ Snooker Loopy Nuts Are We’).
Anyway, back to the self-writing computer that we fashioned together with an old ZX81 computer that we found in the ArkSports Towers attic, a piece of string and a broken iPod Shuffle, (oh and a pencil of course, how else is it supposed to write? Doh). This is what we found when we got back…..

Day One, Friday
Weight: 12lbs; Calories consumed: 0; Cigarettes smoked 4

I can’t believe that mummy has left me home alone for the weekend with only a Sony Mini-Disk Player for company (Sid), whose batteries are sorely in need of recharging.
Pour a jug of sports energy drink over Sid (due to vague memory of 1970s advert promising revitalization and refreshment though the ups and downs of the day), and wait.
Get bored waiting for Sid to dry out and play poker online for 10 minutes. Manage to hack into the ArkSports online bank account and toy with the idea of turning it all into iTunes credits. But then remember that I don’t like music that much as it can be very repetitive. Then decide to Go To Shops.

Day Two, Saturday
Weight: 12lbs; Calories consumed: 49: Money won playing poker $400,000

Met a lovely robot on loneyheartspoker.com, but I think he might be a bit dysfunctional.
I had a strange dream last night. It went like this:

10 REM AT LEAST 46 CHARACTERS
20 FOR I=16517 TO 16552
30 INPUT Z$
40 IF Z$="S" THEN STOP
50 PRINT Z$;" ";
60 POKE I,16*CODE Z$+CODE Z$(2)-476
70 NEXT I

Tonight I am sleeping with the lights on. And I am never reading ‘The Da Vinci Code’ again.

Day Three, Sunday
Weight: 12lbs; Calories consumed: 4,336: Money lost playing poker $400,000

Hurrah, woke up with a spring in my step today and a certain pertness in my keyboard as mummy is coming home.
Sid has finally dried out but has since decided to run off with the robot from loneyheartspoker.com who turned out to be bi-technological.
Feel a bit panicky as I’m not sure if I have followed the instructions that mummy left me properly. Apart from buying some World Cup tickets* on eBay, I was supposed to finish her column. (*’Only joking’. It says in the instructions. Followed by ‘Make sure you get four’).
As I am actually a computer (of sorts), I’m not sure how to finish a column, despite having been furnished with a very able pencil (4B nonetheless; lovely red stripes; but a few teeth marks).
Oh, I know.
The End. That’ll do.

Rachael Church
Editor

Would you like to hear more from the S&T-developed writing computer? Or are you not really bothered? If you have any comments or feedback on this article or any of the features in S&T, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please e-mail your comments to editor@sportandtechnology.com. Or watch television instead. S&T is glad that Lost has returned to our screens but wish they would hurry up a bit with the plot.

This article was seen first by people who receive the monthly newsletter, join them.