...won 160 squids in the sweepstake.

There really ought to be a law against stupid superstitions - or any superstitions, for that matter!

The idea that one man in the stands (not even a player) can have an adverse effect on the players on the pitch has got to be one of the more stupid superstitions doing the rounds.

Almost as bad as the fools that religiously follow their horoscopes... Idiots.

...

BTW: VIVA ESPAÑA!

In Eurobasket 2007, spaniards could blame only themselves. The schedule and organisation was ridiculous. The semifinals and the finals were on back-to back days. And two of the quarterfinals games were scheduled the day before the semis, and the other two the day before that. Surprise, surprise, the teams that made to the finals were the teams who had the rest day before the semis. Another surprise, one of these teams were Spain. And another surprise, the host of the games were Spain. It is only fair that they lost, albeit by very small margin and in the last seconds of the games. If the schedule was a bit more even, the final could have been the rematch of Eurobasket 2003, and probably the winner would have been clear after the half-time, Zapatero or no Zapatero. Spain has both good basketball and football teams, capable of winning. Why do they resort to such stupid measures to ensure the win, one can only guess.

but where's the IT/tech/science angle on this? Was it some sort of crazy digital voodoo?

"Spain dodges extreme-right-anti-government-invented kiss of death. "

ABC is hardly a much read paper here and right up their with La Razon in its anti-government diatribe. They're acting happy today but they'd probably have been happier if they could fill their columns with editorials about how they were right about Zapatero's jinx. How ridiculous. Barcelona beat Arsenal with him present so maybe his jinx only affects players over 6"4 ?

<quote>but where's the IT/tech/science angle on this? Was it some sort of crazy digital voodoo?</quote>

This is in 'Odds and Sods - Bootnotes'.... Like, where you WOULDN'T expect to find news on why Windows 2012 will need 32GB of RAM and 1 Terabyte of hard-disk space as a minimum requirement, etc.. etc....

Paris, wouldn't be bothered about an IT angle either....

With Zapatero there I would have thought........

............that Spain would have been a shoe in.

Bear in mind that this is one of Europe's most religious countries.

Is like Blair supporting our lot of overpaid girlies...

And we always lost when he supported us... Oh wait that is coz we are crap...

Yeah that would be it.

I know, I know...

Spain is the most superstitious country in Europe, even more so than Italy. Bloody woo-woo artists.

See the title

Yes, I'm not superstitious either.

Touch wood and fingers crossed.

Yes Adam, it was a open source digital voodoo ver 3.11. You really should try and keep up

;-)

Mines the one with the rat sculls and tophat.

and no Paris angle?

Paris Hilton, because I have no idea.

Given that it's well known that to get your SCSI chain to work correctly you have to sacrifice a virgin goat at midnight, the connection between IT and superstition should be obvious.

Mine's the white one with blood on it and terminators in the pockets.

But, you see, he has a track record :D

He strongly supported Kerry, Ségolène Royal and Schroeder (up to the point of insulting their rivals and later having to eat his words). He claimed things were absolutely rosy terrorism-wise a day before the deaths at Barajas Airport's T4 Terminal. He's made the political kiss-of-death a true artform (many of his proclaimed allies or representatives have dissapeared from the political arena). He insisted on Spain being the first country to ratify the EU Constitution and…

Etc. (a long one)

And now he's supporting Obama, by the way.

(Spaniards are not that superstitious, come on: it's just that this guy knows how to be really irritating. And that track record… :D)

lolololololololol

I know you're Lithuanian ;) Laba diena.

2003 is Lithuania's 1966.

I did not try to disguise it, eh? :) Actually Lithuania has more to boast than only 2003, though that was truly special. We won Euro in 37 and 39, though nobody cares, and our Olympics record can be considered second only to USA. 4 Olympic games, 16 years, 3 bronze and a fourth place for the country, with population of 3.5 million. For the team sport I think it is unmatched achievement, though I have big bias and could be wrong.