NUMBER PLACEMENT

Most Tuesday evenings, the organiser of the Boxwood Criterium attempts to keep track of the riders by peering at their (mostly) poorly-placed and attached numbers. Then he drives home, squinting in the setting sun and rubbing his sore eyes.  He half-blindly reaches in the bathroom cupboard for the Visine, staggers to the pantry where he keeps his twelve year old single malt scotch,and flops down in front of the computer to work out the race results. First he looks at the hastily-scrawled notes from the final sprint; not a complete list there. Then he switches on his digital tape recorder:"twelve, three, twenty-tw ...er seven; no, one ...damn, is that John in fourth. Then, let's see, three more riders and... that's Mike and Mark. Damn!, missed the rest.

Next he plugs in the small video cam that recorded the primes and the finish. Most of the numbers are partially or wholly obscured but he is able to recognise most of the riders and is able to publish a reasonable approximation of the result on the  web site.

Actually, it;s not quite that bad but the obscured numbers do mean a lot more work than should be necessary. For some good advice on numbers and their placement, go here.