Leyton Orient 1-1 Lincoln


The O’s have had a particularly succesful run lately and were sitting just off the top of the table going into the game, with a win giving them every chance of sitting top going out of the weekend.

Orient started well, and dominated the first half. They were rewarded with a goal from Gary Alexander who’s now on for seven scoring games on the trot (after the early season drought). Other highlights included a corker of a shot from Lockwood that grazed the outside of the post. The team were passing well and making the defence work, and were also putting some good moves together. The most impressive thing, when compared to earlier in the season, was that more of the players seemed willing to have a go at the defence; that seems to me to be the only way we can keep winning games consistently and do something about an abysmal goal difference considering how highly Orient are in the table.

Still, at the end of the first half it was only 1-0 with the usual collection of could/should have beens.

The second half was completely different when, from around 10 minutes in, Lincoln dominated play and made a number of chances. The goal was almost inevitable, especially coming after Miller’s goal-line clearance that, to everyone on the pitch except the officials, should really have been the first goal to Lincoln. Leyton appeared more and more disorganised and balls kept flashing across the Orient goal. Lincoln, as with most teams, were on average taller than Leyton’s players (although, to balance it out, Lincoln did have two players that made Shane Tudor look like a giant) which made the home fans nervous every time a corner was won.

In the end a draw seems a fair result. 2-2 would have better reflected the action in the game but a point is better than nothing.

Ling satisfied as Imps hold O’s
BBC SPORT | Football | League Two | Leyton Orient 1-1 Lincoln

Review of Souk Restaurant, London

I went to Souk last night, a north African restaurant near Covent Garden, and what a strange place it was. Lots of low seating, low tables, and general ‘aren’t we in a tent?’-ness. Except, it isn’t in a tent, and most of it’s in a basement. (A very Victorian feeling basement with brick arches and everything.) The atmosphere is good: very gloomy, hanging fabrics, and cushions everywhere. The low seating is definitely better suited to anyone under about 5’8″ though, as are the ceilings for that matter. The 6’2″ waiter (6’6″ with a fez) could probably sue for repetitive strain injury from having to bend over all the time.

The food was good, though. We had a set menu between about 10 people which means they bring a load of food and then everyone fights over it. It didn’t seem fantastic value, to tell the truth; almost as if they skimped a bit on portions when there were more people there. They didn’t complain when we asked for a bit more of a couple of dishes, however, so that could just be the way it is. A couple of people were latecomers too and had their brought individually and it looked like more than enough. You can read the set menu here, which is three course including some baklava type pastries for dessert.

It was certainly tasty, particularly the lamb tangine and merguez for me, but everyone had their favourites. The beer was Casablanca and, like almost all ‘novelty’ beers I try, it tasted a lot like beer. It did actually have a distinctive taste, almost flowery, which was interesting. I couldn’t drink a lot of it but a few bottles was fine.

Pricewise, it wasn’t fantastic value, but wasn’t bad at around £25 a head, but not bad for something a bit different and very centrally located.

Souk’s website

SOUK MEDINA is at 1a Short’s Gardens WC2H 9AT

McAfee customer support

I’ve been having a fight with McAfee. Or rather, I’ve been having a fight and they’ve been waging a war of attrition. Starting with an automatic renewal that I didn’t want containing two e-mail addresses to contact customer services on, both of which bring back an autoresponder telling me to go to the website for help. Go to the website and work through their pseudo-AI FAQ system, to the point where it says “Did this help? If not contact customer services through live chat”. Then trying live chat and waiting for 1 minute to talk to ‘David Trevett’ who starts with “Can you please tell me the versions of the McAfee products you are using, and also give a brief description of your issue?”. That sounds very scripted, and then he doesn’t understand my reply: “My anti-virus subscription has been renewed and I want a refund”. So, I’ve been put on hold for one minute to talk to a chat-bot. Wonderful. Trying again does bring up a “You know you can talk to us on 020 7949 0107” after about 3 minutes of non-responsive chat-bot data-mining spent looking for matches to my “give me my money back” question in its database.

So I call the number, get put through to a person (I think), and actually get my refund, and also make sure they don’t ever renew anything else ‘to enhance my service level’. Then, trying to be helpful, I tell the guy on the phone that the e-mail addresses they’ve put on their receipt don’t work. “But I’ve typed your e-mail address into my screen and it’s brought back your details so it must work.” “No, not my e-mail address. My e-mail address works, yours doesn’t.” “Ours doesn’t work?” “billings@ and subscriptions@ both send back an autoresponder saying the mailboxes are inactive. You should probably take those off of your receipts.” I’m feeling helpful, despite the experience so far, but he’s having none of it: “Okay, I’ll send you an e-mail with our customer support addresses so if you need to get in touch with us you can use those. How will that do?” “Yeah, that’ll do….”

I’m still undecided as to whether I just spoke to a chat-bot with a scottish accent or not.