Day 10 - Athletics begin...c'mon Jessica!

The athletics are probably my favourite sport in the Olympics, so today is a big day, with my viewing loyalties a bit split between Jessica Ennis and Rebecca Adlington tonight. It's another sub-200 hour full day though, with 24 channels, 24 sports, 55 slots and 193 hours and 43 minutes of recording time. Yes, you read that right - with up to 4 athletics events happening simultaneously today, the BBC doesn't allocate more than 2 channels (in fact, only 1 for most of the time).

digiguide.tv doesn't list an evening basketball session tonight (there is one according to the BBC Website - update: Now/Next slot claims a 00:30 finish), but basketball and volleyball (23:40) are the only events to finish after 23:00 tonight. Another digiguide.tv omission is the 12:00 tennis slot on channel 24 (I've complained on their forums that virtually nothing is on channel 24 in their listings through to 10th August, but fresh Now/Next slots keep turning up on it!).

Is it just me or is all the best terrestrial Olympics coverage on BBC HD? We get HD, a reasonably unobtrusive logo (unlike BBC Three's equivalent SD purple logo), not much inane studio chat and - IMHO of course - a better selection of sports than the main BBC One HD channel, which to me adds up to a superior experience. They just covered the mammoth Federer vs. Del Potro tennis match, although the commentator made the classic maths error of saying "Federer is serving for the Xth time to stay in the match" when it was actually the X+1st time...whoops!

The first time Federer was serving to stay in the match was at 4-5 in the third set, so you don't just subtract 4 from Federer's current third set score before he serves, but actually 3. So at, say, 15-16 with Federer to serve, that would be the 12th time he would be serving to stay in the match. The commentator kept saying it incorrectly just virtually every single time (about a dozen in all) which  drove me mad!

Another annoying thing about the tennis is that they allow babies/very young kids into the crowd who inevitably start bawling at the worst possible times in a close match that needs quiet just before serving and during the rallies too. This has happened several times in the Federer match and in most matches I've watched so far - the Wimbledon tournament doesn't allow babies or very young kids in, so why should the same tennis venue allow them for the Olympics? A mistake from the organisers, I reckon - there should be a minimum age limit of 5 and even then, if a kid persistently cries, they should be warned initially and then thrown out if it recurs (with no refunds!).

And, yes, I waited until the match finished to split the Federer recording and it looks like I'll have to add another tennis slot to cover a late night session (it overran until about 20:45) with Murray, who impressively won his semi tonight and is guaranteed a silver medal.

Just put in a big grocery order to Tesco online for delivery on Monday morning (yes, in 2-hour slot that only has one or two new recordings to deal with). It's mainly junk food to keep me going for the final week or so. Normally, I'd go to my local Tesco, but I'm not leaving the house during the Olympics, so I'd always planned for an online grocery shop. Delivery is £3.50 in case you're curious, which I think is reasonable for such a large purchase.

Just an off-topic lottery note here - next Tuesday's Euro Millions will capped at 190m Euros (about £150m) and if Tuesday's jackpot isn't won, next Friday's draw will be similarly capped. If no-one wins next Friday's draw either, all the jackpot prize money (which will be 190m Euros plus whatever was capped in the 2 draws) will be added to the Friday draw's 5+1 prize pool (i.e. it would be a "roll-down" draw). Yes, the rules are completely confusing and there shouldn't be any cap anyway. Oh, don't forget that lottery money was used to fund Olympic athletes in a major way, so there is a tenuous connection after all :-)

 Day 10 recording size: 1133GB - grand total so far: 8450GB (8.3TB)