Cav's Place

Really don’t have the time to write the usual kind of post tonight, was even considering just throwing my classification here and nothing else, but I’m squeezing in the few other comments as well and leaving the comments about the top songs, both in the actual classification and in mine, for a later time. May be Monday, but I’m not making promises at the moment, so let’s just say I’ll post it when I’ll post it.

Overall, it was a decent edition, and that assessment applies to the majority of the entries. There were a few particularly good voices that weren’t, in my view, helped enough by the songs, and this also applies to the winner. Past this, in a couple of cases a great voice was paired with a fairly good song but sadly lacked show value, while on the other hand one act was in a league of its own in terms of said show value. Very few acts were actually poor, and that’s also counting those that didn’t make it into the final, as from those that did I was only actually bothered by one.
Once again, though I didn’t start following as early as in some other years in the past, I knew all songs before the competition, though one or two that were modified quite late did surprise me with the new versions that were actually performed. Also knew pretty much nothing about the performances, as I didn’t even glance at anything about rehearsals or any of the updates posted in the days right before the competition, and that’s because I didn’t follow the other developments that closely after Romania was thrown out. Won’t comment any more about that at the moment though, since I already did so at the time of the announcement, but I do want to post a link to “Moment of Silence” here as well, as it deserved to and should have been performed along with the rest.

My ranking system is still the same, giving one mark for song and another for show value, plus a positive, neutral or negative modifier, and ranking first according to the overall mark that is the result of averaging the song and show ones, then according to the song mark and then, if both marks are equal, according to the modifier. In case all three are equal, the ranking is the result of me trying to quickly compare the performances in question at the end.
Once again, still largely for my own use, I’ll list all the information here, with the first number being the position in my classification, the one between parentheses that follows it being the actual position, the first number that follows the country name being the overall mark, the second being the song mark and the modifier, if not neutral, being listed at the end. All links are from the official channel, so they shouldn’t vanish.

1. (3.) Russia (7.5, 6.5)
2. (8.) Poland (7, 8)
3. (2.) Australia (7, 7)
4. (16.) Italy (7, 7)
5. (25.) Czech Republic (6.75, 8)
6. (21.) Cyprus (6.75, 6.5, plus)
7. (17.) Azerbaijan (6.75, 6.5, plus)
8. (14.) Israel (6.75, 6.5)
9. (26.) Germany (6.75, 6.5)
10. (7.) Armenia (6.75, 6.5)
11. (13.) Austria (6.5, 7, plus)
12. (18.) Serbia (6.5, 6.5, plus)
13. (4.) Bulgaria (6.5, 6.5, plus)
14. (23.) Croatia (6.5, 6.5, plus)
15. (11.) Netherlands (6.5, 6.5)
16. (12.) Malta (6.5, 6.5)
17. (19.) Hungary (6.5, 6.5)
18. (22.) Spain (6.5, 6.5)
19. (9.) Lithuania (6.5, 6.5, minus)
20. (10.) Belgium (6.25, 6.5, plus)
21. (24.) United Kingdom (6.25, 6.5)
22. (15.) Latvia (6, 6.5)
23. (6.) France (6, 6.5)
24. (1.) Ukraine (6, 6, plus)
25. (5.) Sweden (5.75, 6, plus)
26. (20.) Georgia (5.75, 5.5)

My ranking didn’t match the actual results for any entry, but was only one place off for Australia, two places off for Austria, Hungary and Russia, and three places off for Armenia and the United Kingdom. On the other hand, I was at least ten places off for Azerbaijan, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy and Lithuania, and even 20 or more places off for the Czech Republic, Sweden and, obviously, Ukraine.

As for the semifinals, I must say they were similar to last year, in the sense that they were rather different from each other.
If not quite so clearly separated as last time, the first was again pretty clear, though my system had the Czech entry outside the top ten and I really wanted it through, so I kept considering adding an additional half a point after the fact and eventually did so when it was announced that it did get through, knocking Iceland outside the top ten. Admittedly, that’s a bit of cheating, but I’ll go with it and say that, this way, the only difference was that Hungary made it instead of Bosnia, but I guess that rapping part justifies that, as I pretty much pretended it wasn’t there when rating the rest of the performance.
In the second, on the other hand, while I was able to select a top ten, the last two, Ireland and Denmark, were in it just to get to ten and another one, Belarus, purely due to the show value. Would have liked Norway to make it, but it was outside the top ten in my classification and couldn’t in all honesty give it the needed boost. Either way, out of those that did end up in my top ten, only five qualified, the differences being that Belgium, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine made it instead of those I already mentioned and Macedonia and Slovenia, these two being performances I’d have liked to see through. Or at the very least Macedonia instead of whatever that thing from Georgia was, since Ukraine and Latvia were probably objectively pretty good but simply not my thing and Belgium and Lithuania pretty average and in a sense quite interchangeable with some of those I ranked higher up.

A journalistic investigation first revealed on April 25 that neither the authorities nor the hospitals ever check the disinfectants used, merely trusting the information provided by the manufacturers. Then, as more details were released over the following days, it was also revealed that disinfectants manufactured by Hexi Pharma are very diluted, having as little as a tenth of the listed concentration, yet the prices are increased several or even more than ten times compared to the purchase price of the substances used, through off-shore operations. In addition, many of Hexi Pharma’s contracts were attributed directly and not as a result of a call for bids, and there were also discussions about ties between this firm and the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI).
Several other groups joined the investigation over the coming period, both journalists and activists striving to dig up and release as much information as possible. The groups of activists also included The Romania Initiative (IR), which can be said to have taken a break from focusing on the upcoming local elections for this reason, even though that was their obvious goal for this year. Other activists, however, tended to mostly just follow the story and before May 5 mostly alternated between posting about this and issues related to the upcoming elections, calls for action being rather uncertain and definitely disorganized, the only clearly visible actions being those meant to support the now-former Minister of Culture. Some did say that the issue with the Minister of Culture was probably just an attempt made by the authorities to take attention away from this far more serious problem, though.
It was only after the Minister of Culture was revoked on May 3 that, while obviously unhappy with the result even though he was replaced with the person he supported for the position when initially announcing his resignation, many seemed ready to leave that issue behind and take visible action regarding this other matter. At the same time, considering both the weather and the continued stream of information, this delay was likely for the best and some were even saying that a little more time would have been needed to better prepare a proper protest.

As far as the authorities are concerned, the initial reaction was to request a hasty and basic internal investigation into the efficiency of the substances, continuing to ignore the concentrations and prices, and it was reported that less than 5% of samples revealed ineffective disinfectants and that applied to those not produced by Hexi Pharma as well. Since the Minister of Health announced this as if it should have settled the matter and there were also some obvious lies regarding which hospitals used Hexi Pharma disinfectants and, as it was also admitted even by some officials, the real number of hospital-acquired infections is dozens of times higher than what is reported, adamant calls for a resignation immediately followed. A few did manage to remain rational, however, pointing out that the resignation of a Minister who only quite recently took office will do nothing to solve a problem that has existed for many years and affects many parts of the system, but may in fact be used as a way to defuse the situation without actually doing anything about the real issue.

It can probably be said that the first clear action taken by a significant number of activists and protesters was the result of an article published by VICE Romania on May 5, asking people to submit freedom of information requests to demand the release of the list of hospitals using the disinfectants shown as being inefficient. The article included a guide and a sample message and, while initially the requests were denied with the claim that the information was part of an ongoing investigation, the Government is not in the position to make that assessment and the High Court stated clearly that there was no reason to withhold that information. As a result, the list was released on May 6 and it included nearly a fifth of the hospitals in Romania, though many, even in the mainstream media, expressed the opinion that even that number may only include those willing to admit and take measures to solve the problem while the rest continue to attempt to hide it.

Back to May 5, a small group of activists known for such actions painted the area in front of the Ministry of Health red, claiming that the paint used was diluted ten times with water and showing how easily it can be washed off, being as ineffective as those disinfectants. The stated intent was both to raise the alarm about the situation, depicting in a very visible manner the fact that the Ministry is responsible for so many deaths by not solving this problem and continuing to protect those directly responsible, and to promote the bigger protest which had by then been announced for May 6, from 7 PM, at the University Square fountain.
This bigger protest wasn’t created by one of the known groups or activists, but it was quickly picked up and promoted by pretty much everyone and the time seemed to be picked well as well, not only because it was Friday evening but also because the weather finally seemed to allow it. The demands were less clear at first and there didn’t seem to be any plan other than gathering around the fountain, but proposals were made and polls were posted, the one attracting the most attention and the highest number of responses being the one posted by the United We Save Community. As a result, while some obviously still disagreed or had other ideas, some things more or less fell into place.

Still annoying that the interest on-line seemed far greater than that suggested by the perhaps about 1000 people who actually showed up, but it could have been worse. In fact, it would have been worse if the activists who usually lead such protests wouldn’t have stopped waiting for those who kept lashing out against them and demanding that they stay away to show some leadership instead and make the people gathered there actually protest, because pretty much nothing happened until they took charge at 8:15 PM, people simply splitting off in small groups and chatting, and some were starting to leave. Not that this spared them from continued attacks, of course, Claudiu once again being the main target and on the receiving end of the usual litany of accusations and insults both during and after the protest, despite the fact that it was in large part thanks to him that there was an actual protest that evening at all.
Personally, I missed those first minutes after they decided to get things going because I “managed” to hit my head quite hard on a metal bar I was trying to pass under in order to reach them and take a few more pictures, so I went to the bathroom in the underground passage to see how it looked and wash the area a little, since the skin was scraped and I already had quite a lump. Then, after finally making my way back when Claudiu had the loudspeaker and people were gathering in a circle to actually protest, I spent much of the time keeping my hands cold and pressing them against the area to reduce the swelling, but I was otherwise there until the last stop in front of the Government and tried not to miss much else.
It was about 9 PM when there was a call to march to the nearby Ministry of Health, though people took a while to get moving and some even stayed behind. The gendarmes, on the other hand, didn’t try to stop us in any way, the only incident I’m aware of being that one asked the activists who started using loudspeakers to get the protest going to keep quiet, but then walked away when asked if he’d still feel the same if he’d get injured, which is likely in his line of work, and end up with a hospital-acquired infection due to diluted disinfectants. In fact they were even clearing the way to the Government for us while we were still at the Ministry of Health and, though some definitely were asking for it, there was no real plan to go there yet.
Then again, it was only this march to the Government, which took perhaps 45 minutes or so if you count from the moment we returned to University Square and took to the street, that can be said to have caused any inconvenience, because the area we marched through until then was mostly closed to traffic anyway due to the Spotlight Festival, which attracted far more people than our protest. For that reason, there were moments when it was difficult to figure out who was there for one thing and who for the other and there obviously were attempts to persuade some of those watching the light shows to join us, but while it’s possible that a few of them did, for the most part they were just enjoying the show and either ignoring the protest completely or looking on sort of as one would at a bunch of circus freaks passing through. Because, you know, some pretty lights are so much more important than what will happen if they or their friends or loved ones will ever end up in hospital and those who try to do something, little as it may be, for a cause are just crazies getting in the way of all the rest who’re just trying to live their lives without giving a fuck.
But to return to the march to the Government, some may have joined us on the way but even more left, as it was pretty clear will happen under the circumstances, so I heard estimates of the number of people who gathered in Victory Square at the end ranging between 300 and 500, which seems fair enough to me, though I didn’t try to make one myself at that time, as the head of the column was there around 10:30 PM and, after taking a few final pictures out of which I only kept one, by 10:40 PM I was already at the metro station, leaving. There were probably more gendarmes than protesters there anyway, such a strong presence, especially since it was rather surprising after what had happened until then, prompting a few reactions from protesters, but I’m not aware of any incidents and by 11 PM people had cleared away.

That protest didn’t initially seem to be followed by another on May 7, but the Alliance of Medics announced one and, despite the short notice, the event was shared and promoted by some known activists that day. However, even though the time and place were the same as the day before and, following a brief storm around 5 PM, the rain stopped and the wind calmed down, even some of those activists failed to show up and there was no protest to speak of. Admittedly, I left at 8:30 PM, but it doesn’t seem I missed anything that happened later, so I can say that there were around 100 people, including the medics, split in groups around the fountain area, without shouting or chanting anything and having brought a grand total of two signs. There was also a larger banner, but that was not related to the topic of the protest, having been brought by a group that tends to always show up to promote their own agenda while accusing others of manipulation and stealing protests.

Then, following a relatively quiet Sunday, today, May 9, brought a number of significant new developments, including the resignation of the Minister of Health, which was desired by many but is in my view at best meaningless and possibly even dangerous. More information was also released, revealing that Hexi Pharma isn’t even in the top ten companies that benefit from directly attributed contracts in the medical system, but also that SRI was aware of these issues for a long time. While the current Prime Minister claimed he never received anything of the sort since taking office, the Service reacted by releasing a statement claiming that they informed the authorities many times over the years about the problems plaguing the health system, including the matter of inefficient disinfectants and the resulting hospital-acquired infections. At the same time, however, their own hospital purchased such products directly from Hexi Pharma, regardless of the result of the call for bids.

Following a scandal at the Bucharest Opera, which did admittedly seem to have been poorly managed, our Prime Minister asked the Minister of Culture to resign, the latter announcing on April 27 that he will do so. However, this Minister was in the particularly unusual position of enjoying significant support from activists due to a number of decisions and statements made ever since taking office, the most relevant of them from this point of view being finally listing Rosia Montana as an UNESCO World Heritage candidate. Showing up on a construction site in an attempt to stop work that caused significant damage to a historical monument helped as well, though it had significantly less actual impact and efficiency than several other things he did.

As a result, activists were obviously unhappy with this decision and many voices suggested the Opera scandal was merely an excuse, the Rosia Montana matter being the real reason, especially since there had been worrying developments not long before this happened. In addition, in a letter that was made public on April 30, the Minister of Culture himself backed these statements, claiming he had been under intense pressure due to that and other decisions that threatened the interests of others, although he didn’t name those who pressured and threatened him and, after first sharing the article that included the letter, quickly deleted that post and published a statement claiming the letter was only intended to inform an organization he’s a member of, albeit suspended for the duration of his term in office, and never meant to be public.
Either way, to return to April 27, a petition was launched and protest was announced for that evening, in front of the Government, as a quick reaction to the announcement of his resignation. More exactly, three different protests were announced, but they all listed the same time and place, so in fact it was a single event, starting at 7 PM. I didn’t attend myself, so I only know what I gathered from the posts I saw, but while the first news pieces that appeared in the media claimed only dozens attended, those present and a few articles published after the fact estimated a couple hundred participants. What’s clear is that the Prime Minister did come out to speak to the protesters, or according to many to simply restate his position on the matter, and then the gendarmes didn’t care to allow the protest to continue, stepping in to ask people to leave or at least move to the other side of Victory Square, in front of the Antipa Museum, where some did go. Those who remained in front of the Government were carded and likely fined.
Protests asking for the Minister of Culture to stay in office, and obviously also for the Prime Minister and the President, who had criticized the handling of the Opera situation unusually harshly in a statement mentioning that “few imaginable mistakes were not made” there, to allow this to happen and apologize, were announced for April 28 and 29 as well. However, in part also due to the weather, not many people showed up on April 28, with the predictable result of the gendarmes being even more determined to get them to leave, while the plans for April 29 were canceled. Still, on that day the protesters felt there may be some hope, the Minister of Culture announcing that he hadn’t actually formally resigned yet and had agreed with the Prime Minister to not do so before Easter.
After the Easter break and in spite of the Prime Minister’s quite angry reaction to the letter that was published on April 30, the Minister of Culture actually seemed quite emboldened by the continued support and appeared to wish to keep his position, no longer resigning. However, the Prime Minister had none of it and revoked him on May 3, although he did name the successor the now-former Minister of Culture had supported when initially announcing his resignation in his place and claimed he’ll ensure the projects and reforms started will not be negatively affected by this change. He even specifically mentioned the Rosia Montana matter that time, though the topic was strangely absent from the first statement made, after the announced resignation, when he first attempted to offer similar assurances.
There was a protest announced for May 3 as well, but the demands weren’t quite so clear anymore, as some maintained the original ones while others seemed to accept that the Minister of Culture will change even before he was officially revoked and seemed mainly interested in ensuring that he will be replaced with the person he supported for this position and that his reforms and projects will actually be continued. Not that it mattered much, however, since due to a mix of this confusion and, perhaps more importantly, the bad weather, only a handful of people showed up in Victory Square that evening, once again being carded by the gendarmes.

There has been quite a lot of rain here lately, plus a fair amount of wind and even some hail, but I managed to squeeze two more runs on Saturday and Monday, despite the continued lack of a working stopwatch. Initially meant to run once more Wednesday or today at the latest, but that’d have meant doing it under pouring rain or even in a storm, so I’m still waiting for a decent moment and right now I’m thinking of having a look tomorrow morning, to see whether I may be able to use that free hour, between 7 AM and 8 AM, for another ten kilometers on the track on no or next to no sleep. Will need some sort of stopwatch for that though, even if not that one.

Back to those two runs, they were on a seven-kilometer route through the park, created by adding what Google Maps says are 650 meters after two laps around the lake, so 6.4 kilometers. That final portion also included a climb, on a quite steep path listed as being about 90 meters long instead of the stairs, which added a bit to the difficulty, and I also once again finished at the park exit and went first to one side of that wide path and then the other to add just a little more to the distance. Plus, with Orthodox Easter being last Sunday, there were plenty of people in the park on Saturday and even more on Monday, so I once again had to find my way around them and at times slow or even briefly stop.
I also tried to get some rough times by taking my phone with me, even if it doesn’t have an actual timer and only shows hours and minutes, plus that it definitely made me slower while I was looking at it. For that purpose, I started right after the minute changed to one divisible by 10, which actually in both cases was 40, and then looked again as I was finishing each lap and also at the end, trying to count the seconds from the last or to the next change of minutes, depending on whether that change was after I started looking but before crossing the line or after. This obviously means there’s quite an error margin and when I wrote down the times I approximated the seconds to the nearest number divisible by five.
Either way, the total time on Saturday, when I actually made a point of taking it slowly, was about 39 minutes, with a first lap covered in about 18:10 and a second one in about 17:25, making for about 35:35 for two laps and about 3:25 for that final section. As for Monday, the total time was about 37:15, with a first lap covered in about 17:15 and a second one in about 16:55, making for about 34:10 for two laps and about 3:05 for that final section. I obviously have no other sector times, as I didn’t even try to check at other points.

Otherwise, I actually advanced just a little more in Hordes of the Underdark, though I keep thinking I chose a less useful weapon upgrade as the last one now, plus that I keep wondering about buying some awesome items. Or one awesome item in particular, as I pretty much decided against the other remaining one and bought the rest, but that one costs over one million and would leave me without quite enough for all options somewhere else, according to what I gathered after carefully glancing at a guide, trying to just catch these things I should really know about while still avoiding most spoilers.
That’s the sort of thing that makes me stop playing games, though it’s usually a matter of character development or choices made in quests or dialogues with consequences that only become obvious much later. But this is also a choice with consequences that are only obvious much later and leave you with pretty much no way to change the outcome when that happens, so it’s the same idea and it really doesn’t play well with my perfectionism. But I really mean to actually finish this game, so I’ll try to push through one way or another and maybe this time it’ll actually work.

Around this time in 2007, I wrote a post to mention that Telford United, after being born from the ashes of the bankrupt old club in 2004 and placed initially in the eighth division, had promoted to the sixth, after having promoted to the seventh at the end of the 2004-2005 season.
This was somewhat significant to me at the time since, after picking it randomly out of those in the lowest available division, which at the time was the fifth one in England, Telford United was the club I had managed whenever I played Championship Manager games but was unable to continue doing so when I switched to Football Manager, since that was right after the old club went bankrupt and the new one was in too low a division to be an option, the game going all the way down to the sixth in England. As a result, I gave up on Football Manager 2005 quite quickly and said I’ll try one of those games again after I’ll be able to get back to the team I was used to managing, which should have meant the 2007-2008 season. However, I never tried any of those games again after that and at this point I’m starting to doubt I ever will again, but I nevertheless continued to at least occasionally check on what Telford United was doing all these years and this time they were in real danger of returning to the seventh division for the first time since the 2006-2007 season.
To quickly go through the club’s promotion and relegation history after 2007, in 2008 and 2009 they reached the promotion playoff but failed to actually promote back to the fifth division, where the old club was before going bankrupt, then finally made it in 2011. Once there they struggled but managed to finish the 2011-2012 season just above the relegation line, only to relegate back to the sixth division in 2013. However, they then promoted directly in 2014, this marking the first time when the club won the division it was in since it was founded in its current form in 2004, all other promotions having been after winning playoffs. Sadly, they then relegated right back in 2015.
This season they found themselves struggling to even remain in the sixth division, only managing to secure a spot above the line one round before the end, thanks to their win over Worcester City on April 23. Since I see they lost to Chorley yesterday and Brackley Town won while Lowestoft Town drew, this means they may have ended up in the last spot above the line but in the end were two spots, though still just a single point, above it, having 47 points while Brackley Town and Lowestoft Town finished with 46 each, the latter relegating.
As such, to get back to why I became interested in the club in the first place, I guess they’ll remain an option next season as well, just in case I’ll care to try one of those games again. The chances of that are pretty much zero not only for this year but for several more to come, but I guess it’s not entirely impossible that I eventually will, someday.

While I’m at it, looking at the top of the English football, Leicester sure is close to an amazing win. The draw with Manchester United wasn’t enough to make them clinch it today, but they may still do so in this round 36, two from the end of the season, if Tottenham won’t defeat Chelsea tomorrow. Not that Tottenham being second is something one’d normally expect either, and the same can be said for Chelsea being well outside the positions granting access to any European cup, or of Aston Villa being last, so many points below the next team above it and having been mathematically relegated many rounds before the end of the season.

And to finish with a glance at the far less interesting Romanian championship, Astra just managed to clinch the title about an hour ago after Steaua only managed a draw with Pandurii, leaving five points between the two with one match to go for Steaua. Astra still has two matches left, as they play Dinamo tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter anymore at this point and I wonder if they won’t even want to lose in order to give Dinamo a small chance to grab second spot from Steaua. That’d require Steaua losing to ASA Targu Mures in the last round, which seems pretty much impossible, and it won’t make any difference in terms of European cups, since Dinamo is in the same position as ASA and CFR Cluj, not being allowed to compete at the European level due to financial problems, but I’m sure they’d still want to finish above their traditional rivals regardless of anything else and any team that bitterly fought against Steaua may well be inclined to help them do so.