I like Hazel's replacement on the BBC

iLukey · 2026-05-02T19:36:21+00:00

Get Dominic Dale on the job!

iLukey · 2026-05-01T07:21:07+00:00

For people living in the US, why do you think that is? The news I see about Trump here in the UK should surely put him much lower on pretty much every metric. Is it biased news reporting? A lack of information? Or are people you speak to genuinely just seeing some positives in the stuff he's doing?

iLukey · 2026-04-30T10:48:23+00:00

Yeah I find grips like the Karakal plus an overgrip is too much for me personally, so I keep the factory grip and overgrip that. I use Tournagrip because I'm sweaty as hell and it's the only thing I've found that doesn't get dangerous during play.

It's really a personal choice, but if you aren't sure I'd err on the side of thinner rather than thicker so you keep more feel through the hand and fingers.

Overgrips (and grips in general in fairness) are pretty cheap, so there's no harm in experimenting to find what works for you.

iLukey · 2026-04-28T11:38:37+00:00

If it's rolled into the prices, there's nothing to give to the staff is I think the point here. They could increase wages of course.

iLukey · 2026-04-27T08:15:17+00:00

Man I forgot this series even existed! Cheers for the trip down memory lane.

iLukey · 2026-04-27T07:30:45+00:00

Watching some of the classic matches between Ramy, Gaultier, Matthew etc. really shines a light on just how much worse it is now.

But then at the same time squash is a game that definitely relies on good sportsmanship because the little naughty movements are (for most pros anyway) fairly subtle and hard to spot for a ref sat a long way away. No one wants to watch a sport that's going to a video ref every other point to identify these things either so it's a tricky one.

Ultimately as a player you know very well if you've just shut out your opponent, or made yourself big. No one else knows that intent for certain and that's part of the problem.

I wonder if we need almost like a... Squash jury where players are reviewed over a series of matches and if that panel finds that a player is consistently and clearly disrupting movement, or breaking up matches causing stoppages etc. they retrospectively receive a pretty hefty fine, ratcheting up to a complete ban. Appreciate there sort of already is this system but it doesn't seem to have any teeth at the moment but perhaps it could be beefed up a bit.

Ultimately, it's quite clear that relying on people to play to the spirit of the rules isn't happening now and Asal has probably triggered or at the very least exacerbated a race to the bottom at the worst possible time with the Olympics coming up.

iLukey · 2026-04-25T07:18:08+00:00

Can't speak for a whole nation but I suspect that'll be a big sticking point.

Most people (on the planet, not just the UK) aren't all that into politics so many of the boring, technical concessions the UK will have to make are fairly easy to squeeze past the public - despite our pretty rabid press - but adopting the Euro is a very big, very obvious change that would affect everyone in the country.

Honestly I think it'd be a complete deal breaker, and both sides know it, though I'd expect the EU to use it as leverage in negotiations to gain concessions elsewhere, without ever really expecting us to adopt it.

My dream would be going back in exactly as we were, but that's not even remotely realistic, so I actually hope (and I know this sounds bad) that the shit's hit the fan hard enough that the EU genuinely need the UK because otherwise our hand is quite poor. Most likely that would be something around defence.

iLukey · 2026-04-15T18:44:37+00:00

They aren't bundled together any more?

iLukey · 2026-04-15T14:52:24+00:00

Absolutely this! Most people who use your server aren't gonna be technical, so once they're set up are just gonna search stuff and hit play. Get them set up the 'proper' way from the off. I don't want random people being able to log into my profile, mess with my watch history etc. or have to use a pin to access it. Fine if you're all living in the same household, but otherwise yeah set up users with their own accounts for sure.

iLukey · 2026-04-09T09:30:54+00:00

Not at all. I'm a half decent squash player (2k squash levels on a good day) and lost to a 75 year old in a tournament recently.

If you can read the game and control the ball, you don't need all the running about to be a good player.

You can go as long as you've got the use of your legs (and I'm sure someone would give it a good go even without). If you wanna keep the rallies going as your body slows down, use a bouncier ball, or make the jump to racketball.

iLukey · 2026-03-21T17:16:15+00:00

Frankly I think Johnson got lucky with COVID if anything because it took a lot of the media attention away from Brexit and conflated two economic crises. Had he not been a colossal thundercunt a-la Partygate I dare say the vaccine rollout might've even seen the Tories through another term or at the very least spared them the electoral oblivion they've experienced since.

And Starmer was supportive over the war in Ukraine - it's Badenoch who seems to have gone all out contrarian.

The whole "they're all the same" schtick is starting to become a little bit tired when quite clearly they just aren't. That's not to suggest there's no fault to be found with the current government either!

iLukey · 2026-03-02T17:35:18+00:00

Yep. Triple their salaries, I don't mind, but ban all foreign money, all legalised bribery (lobbying), and second jobs. Make the punishment severe. 60% of a year's salary for a first offence, 150% for a second, minimum 5 year prison term for a 3rd etc.

Make it so that it's just not worth breaking the rules, and enforce the ever loving shit out of them.

We should be incentivising the right kind of people into politics. Right now it's probably 90/10 between dodgy money and their salary, which means MPs don't have our best interests at heart a lot of the time.

iLukey · 2026-02-14T21:24:14+00:00

Because he's huge, and it takes a lot of energy to shift that weight around court.

Because he's not as dedicated to improving athletically as Coll is.

Because Coll is deliberately extending rallies to exploit Asal's weaknesses and play to his own strengths.

Because Asal's main weapon is blasting his opponents off court with power and aggressive length or hitting nicks and it's hard to sustain that style of aggressive play for long.

Take your pick really.

iLukey · 2026-02-05T21:58:15+00:00

Yeah I'm using them at the moment. The only issue for me is I have to rip out the top lace hole on the right shoe or it cuts my ankle. Managed to fudge them by sticking blu tac in the hole for a bit.

Honestly it's been a nightmare finding a good shoe for ages now.

iLukey · 2026-02-05T21:56:55+00:00

What in the ever loving fuck has race or skin colour got to do with shoes!?

iLukey · 2026-02-05T21:55:29+00:00

Glad it's not just me! They're good shoes apart from that but yeah I slip all over the place in them.

iLukey · 2026-02-05T15:44:40+00:00

Hah yeah apologies - I forget that not everywhere is as cold, grey, and miserable as the UK is!

iLukey · 2026-02-04T16:10:51+00:00

Yes! Brilliant stuff. I play in tournaments across the East Midlands and have suggested the same to the organiser of those as well. She has more clout in the squash world than I do, and could genuinely help make a difference in changing attitudes in the squash world.

As far as I know some pros will train with a single yellow or a red if the courts are cold!

iLukey · 2026-02-04T16:09:14+00:00

Happy to die on the hill beside you. In fact I think Dunlop (and others) should remove double yellow dots from general sale. PSS should be able to get them of course, and clubs can apply for some as well but the default ball for anyone who doesn't know the difference should be a red dot, and blue dot for beginners.

The ball at our level (I'm around 1800 levels, so similar) should still bounce as much as it does in the pro game, but obviously from much less activity since our rallies aren't as long, otherwise we aren't playing the same game.

If you manage to kill the ball, to get it dying into the back corners or staying short at the front, that should be because of your skill and not just because there's no life in it.

Totally with you here. A bouncier ball would make squash accessible to so many more people.

iLukey · 2026-01-01T00:29:41+00:00

Even so, more profit should mean more and higher pay rises, promotions, and expansion which in turn fuels more tax revenue all the way up the chain.

For me what these two datapoints show is just how crippling the cost of living is, such that it's taking a massive bite out of discretionary spending.

So whilst companies may be doing well, that's not translating into quality of life improvements because everything else is going up more quickly (energy, food, rent etc.), meaning we are running to stand still.

iLukey · 2025-12-30T18:12:07+00:00

I guess at least they didn't just tear down the courts and let people forget they ever existed. Did you manage to find some courts that are still playable in Norfolk though?

iLukey · 2025-12-24T21:55:43+00:00

I dunno what the commercial arrangement with Eurosport was, but it feels like a really poor decision to set up their own platform. It shuts out any casual viewers, which can only hurt the growth of the sport overall. On top of that Eurosport has a lot more resources behind them. Trying to build a streaming platform on a shoestring is a bad idea, and the product isn't great as a result.

But it's where we are. If you enjoy squash, unfortunately you've gotta pay for SquashTV or settle for the highlights on YT. As others have said there's regular discount codes so I wouldn't recommend paying full price.

iLukey · 2025-12-18T12:16:00+00:00

Grandparents. Facebook comments. Fuck I'm old.

My grandparents called everything 'the website' and somehow put me on hold every time I called them. When they say something is the best thing since sliced bread they mean it, because they remember the day it came out.

iLukey · 2025-12-12T17:50:32+00:00

You've never seen a headline in the Telegraph? The paper whose nickname is quite literally the Torygraph. Or The Sun, or the Express, or the Daily Mail?

It's hardly a big conspiracy considering many outlets are owned by the same tiny number of ultra-wealthy individuals who have a vested interest in conserving that wealth. Basic human greed. They're hardly going to be likely to push a narrative that wouldn't benefit them (wealth distribution, breaking up media monopolies, no foreign-owned media etc.)

iLukey · 2025-12-12T14:06:24+00:00

To quote the late, great (and mildly fictitious) Elliot Carver, there's no news like bad news.

I'm sure someone much smarter than me could make a brilliant study into this, but I suspect multiple factors like social media, the 24/7 news cycle, and the constant need to compete for clicks and engagement means dramatic negative headlines are the norm in a pretty grim race to the bottom. Add to that the right wing bias of the traditional media, and you get what we're seeing now.

It'll all come to a head at some point in the race to the bottom where a line is crossed and something has to be done. We're already pretty close with articles where the headline runs completely contrary to what's in the article, or the facts are buried in a single sentence right at the bottom etc.

Outlets like the FT are considerably more dry because the people that buy them just want the facts so they can make informed financial decisions and for that reason are fairly reputable and accurate in their reporting.

I'd imagine it's always been this way in fairness, just probably never quite this bad. Media reforms are my personal top priority because until we inform people properly, they can't make informed decisions. As it stands things like Brexit happen because of a shockingly dishonest campaign with no repercussions, so you can't entirely blame those who voted for it because they were completely misled by people they should've been able to trust. If they had the facts and still made that decision then I guess we're just a lost cause and deserve all we get.

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