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I turn 33 in 3-2 days time.

Here are 3 things I've learnt in the last 33 years (give or take) about little pleasures

1. No drink beats and ice ice cold coke from the back of the fridge in a 300ml glass bottle on a hot day. No not even beer.
2. There's nothing quite like a really good book. Something that when you get to the last page you stare at it a bit forlornly in loss.
3. The feeling of cracking something and doing a good job at it, or improving against your last effort. A good meal you cook yourself, a task at work, a hobby or losing a sport but improving off your last performance all count. That feeling of self worth you get is hard to take away.

I turn 33 in 3-1 days time.

Here are 3 things I've learnt in the last 33 years (give or take) about love^†.

1. Never say, "I love you" if you don't mean it ("I love your norks" is however accpetable).
2. Stay in a relationship longer than you think you should. You know that first point where you just know it won't work and it needs to end. You're wrong. Don't argue, you know you are wrong too. Don't bail too soon.
3. Get out of a relationship before it's too late. Don't just say in for the sake of anything, especially the children, the rent, the sex, or the fact they own a really great widescreen tv. It just makes it worse and harder when it finally is over. When it's over, end it.

^† I'm no more qualified to talk about love than neo-romantic architecture of the late neo-romantic period. I don't even know what neo-romantic architecture would be. This value of my advice may go up or down.

I turn 33 in 3 days time.

Here are 3 things I've learnt in the last 33 years (give or take) about life.

1. Always back yourself. If you don't no one else will. Even if you're wrong back yourself, you'll learn. Don't be afraid to back yourself because you might be wrong.
2. Some things in life are like being constipated. It seems like you are going to die at the time and you don't know how you are going to get through. But you grit your teeth and you do and when you're through, and it's over, after a few days you can't quite remember what the trouble was.
3. Be yourself. Don't have different personas for friends, work and family. It's hard enough being one person let alone several. Just be the best one person you can. If people don't like that it's their problem, not yours.

So at this training the other, three sequences of number where put up on screen and we were asked to work out the sequence. As I did in my previous blog post.

And the sequence was quite simple. Just three whole numbers with each number being greater than the last. However the misleading bit was that all three given sequences followed the pattern (x) &mdash (2x) &mdash (2x+1). The whole point of this was to show how we don't challenge our preconceptions. How we pick test cases to prove what we expect. So instead of picking test cases that challenge the sequence, we pick test cases that confirm it.

In the training it took us about 10 minutes to twig on. I expected to be found out by you guys much faster than that. I was quite surprised that I wasn't. Not only did you guys not really test anything that would reveal anything more about the sequence, but you jumped straight to the formulae and started trying to figure out why I kept saying the formulae was wrong, and really took the long way of doing things. It would have been much quicker just test a variety of sequences and narrow it down from that. As Stuart showed when he started throwing some numbers in it really wasn't that hard at all.

I was deliberately vague about the rules for this. The rules where quite simply, and giving too much detail would have made the answer obvious which was also quite simple. It was also curious to note how everyone started looking at me as if I was the problem, instead of tackling the number sequence. by far the easiest way to find the definition of the sequence was to just throw numbers at me and refine from that. But until you can overcome the idea in your head that says the formula is (x) &mdash (2x) &mdash (2x+1), you get a bit stuck.

I guess it's a good lesson for life, about getting over notions you have set in your mind, and solving problems by looking at the problem itself, and not what we perceive the hurdles to be. I found this to be quite enlightening both from being on the guessing side (and I did miserably, it was other people who started challenging the pattern not me) and to be on the side answering the guesses.

Sport (and games) are a lot like life. I think that is a lot of the reason why we like them. Also their is the fact the underdog can win, that the weaker team always has a chance, and that no matter what, being the best doesn't mean you'll walk away the victor. It's about more than just being better.

We can learn a lot about life from sports.

It normally takes a combination of things to win sports

• Teamwork


• Tactics


• Individual brillance


• Good decision making

Good tactics and team work can beat individual brilliance. Individual brilliance can break down best tactics and strongest team. Good decision making gives you a chance to win the game. Poor decision making can let any team lose a game, no matter how good they are.