Or 'Moiduh' as Taggart would've said.
I said I didn't make the 4th day of the Test because of unforeseen circumstances - and that was true, because I spoke to Mrs. RS on Sunday morning and then sold my ticket on.
Y'see I'd not been out with my friend Q in over nine years. Nine fucking years. We spoke on the phone every few months but we'd not met in person for half a decade. Q and I met on my first job after university. He's a couple of years older than me, but seeing as I became technical lead on a product called 'Lotus Notes' within 3 months of joining, he became my bitch. If, by bitch, you define that as a valued co-worker you train up to learn valuable skills whilst retaining utter respect for.
I'm trying to reclaim 'bitch' from the nay-sayers.
I moved back to Bristol within the year to start the heady 'career' I've had and Q stayed on for a year or two before splitting off himself. Brilliantly (and coincidentally) I got hired as a contractor for 18 months at Q's then employer so we resurrected our famous 45 minute smoke breaks.
I don't smoke, but I fail to see why I should be discriminated against.
But since 2003, we'd not seen each other. So seeing as I was in the area for cricket I decided to spend the night in Coventry visiting Q.
To explain Coventry to those who have never been there. Imagine Venice, made of concrete, bombed mercilessly by the Nazis for 4 years, and rebuilt in concrete with all its canals filled with used condoms.
Lovely place. Smells like 3 week old wee, but lovely place.
Q and I laid into the beers, went to his local pub where I met people who actually recognised me and had a great night. We even stopped for an Indian Kebab that was a culinary experience. We then laid into the beers.
I decided to call Mrs RS at midnight to see how she was (so, er, yeah, that's 5am my time. Well toasted I was) and brilliantly she'd been out with her girlie friends as well so was equally drunk (she'd had maybe three whole drinks or something - wasted). We had an enlightening and deeply intellectual conversation about kebabs before she decided she wanted one, so left for food. I passed out at this point.
Mrs RS left her basement apartment (it's a 2 storey building plus basement - 2 apartments on each floor) via the lockable door to the basement and walked through the main hallway before exiting the keypad controlled door and leaving the building.
She went for food.
Half an hour later she returned to a street full of flashing lights and cop cars. After establishing that she wasn't some gawper, they told her that they'd had a body reported and had attended the scene to find a dead woman in the building who was 'half upstairs and half downstairs'.
And that's a direct quote from the police at the scene.
The woman didn't live in the building (she was an 'acquaintance' of the recently divorced guy on the first floor).
So either Mrs RS walked past a good chunk of the woman without noticing.
Or the killer was in the building but upstairs.
Or the victim entered the building with the killer in the twenty minute gap.
Or the killer lives in the building.
Still, the rent is dead cheap for that part of New York....
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
He's given him! The finger goes up. The umpire's Hugh Jarce....
I'll happily credit The 12th Man for my title today.
(If you've never heard him before, here's a link to one of his earliest recordings - high level of swearing warning :) )
If you haven't already guessed, today's post is about cricket.
Specifically it's about Ashes cricket, which - you may have read - England actually won.
As per tradition, I attended the Edgbaston test match (I grew up not a million miles from there and a group of us treat it as an annual re-union). This series it was scheduled as the 3rd test, and I'd been looking forward to it for ages (as I have fond memories of the Ashes test there in 2005 - aka The Greatest Ever Test). Sadly I was to be denied by the weather.
It had rained almost non-stop for 3 weeks prior to the game and the ground was saturated. Despite soaking up all the surface water by working all the previous night, the groundsmen were unable to get the outfield fit enough to play on the first day (the Thursday), despite it being bathed in bright sunshine since lunchtime. All we could do was eat sandwiches, catch up on life and sup the occasional pint of ale. Eventually play started at 5pm and they bowled almost exactly enough overs to deny anyone even a partial refund, then trooped off at 7pm.
We got lucky with the weather on the Friday and play started almost on time. I wasn't there though, because I got held up in traffic and arrived 5 minutes after play started. I'd already missed two Aussie wickets in the first two balls (something rather extraordinary). The day continued in much the same vein, with Jimmy Anderson cleaning up the middle order to dismiss the Aussies for a paltry score. England even then batted well to establish a good lead. It was all starting to come together!
At this point I'll add a couple of photos - the first is of the respective fans. The Barmy Army on the left booked a whole block as best they could and instructed everyone to bring both a red and white top in an attempt to have a St. George's flag effect going on. Seeing as most people were drifting off for an early lunch when I took this, it's not a bad effort. The big yellow blob are some of the Aussies (the deeply original 'FANatics'. Because they're FANS and they're fanatical. Yeah. Subtle Aussie humour rocks....)
The second is of one of the better attempts at winding up the aussies at the ground
There was so much rain on Friday night that I knew they'd never start on time on Saturday, so I meandered up from Bristol by lunchtime to chat to some of the people who were only making that day. Oops. This was the field by the time they abandoned play for the day at 3pm (and yes, those are rather deep puddles forming.)
I hung around for a bit until we'd eaten all the sandwiches and then I was going to spend the night in Coventry seeing a very old friend before returning for the Sunday. I never made it back the next day, but that's for another post :)
My car was parked a couple of miles away and it was *heaving* it down. My umbrella lasted about 200 yards before turning inside out and breaking. I don't think I've ever been as soaked as I was by the time I reached my car - but I couldn't resist stopping for this picture of the West Midlands Police Training Centre.
Seriously - 'Tally Ho!'????? Which eeijit thought *that* was a good idea for a motto?
(If you've never heard him before, here's a link to one of his earliest recordings - high level of swearing warning :) )
If you haven't already guessed, today's post is about cricket.
Specifically it's about Ashes cricket, which - you may have read - England actually won.
As per tradition, I attended the Edgbaston test match (I grew up not a million miles from there and a group of us treat it as an annual re-union). This series it was scheduled as the 3rd test, and I'd been looking forward to it for ages (as I have fond memories of the Ashes test there in 2005 - aka The Greatest Ever Test). Sadly I was to be denied by the weather.
It had rained almost non-stop for 3 weeks prior to the game and the ground was saturated. Despite soaking up all the surface water by working all the previous night, the groundsmen were unable to get the outfield fit enough to play on the first day (the Thursday), despite it being bathed in bright sunshine since lunchtime. All we could do was eat sandwiches, catch up on life and sup the occasional pint of ale. Eventually play started at 5pm and they bowled almost exactly enough overs to deny anyone even a partial refund, then trooped off at 7pm.
We got lucky with the weather on the Friday and play started almost on time. I wasn't there though, because I got held up in traffic and arrived 5 minutes after play started. I'd already missed two Aussie wickets in the first two balls (something rather extraordinary). The day continued in much the same vein, with Jimmy Anderson cleaning up the middle order to dismiss the Aussies for a paltry score. England even then batted well to establish a good lead. It was all starting to come together!
At this point I'll add a couple of photos - the first is of the respective fans. The Barmy Army on the left booked a whole block as best they could and instructed everyone to bring both a red and white top in an attempt to have a St. George's flag effect going on. Seeing as most people were drifting off for an early lunch when I took this, it's not a bad effort. The big yellow blob are some of the Aussies (the deeply original 'FANatics'. Because they're FANS and they're fanatical. Yeah. Subtle Aussie humour rocks....)
The second is of one of the better attempts at winding up the aussies at the ground
There was so much rain on Friday night that I knew they'd never start on time on Saturday, so I meandered up from Bristol by lunchtime to chat to some of the people who were only making that day. Oops. This was the field by the time they abandoned play for the day at 3pm (and yes, those are rather deep puddles forming.)
I hung around for a bit until we'd eaten all the sandwiches and then I was going to spend the night in Coventry seeing a very old friend before returning for the Sunday. I never made it back the next day, but that's for another post :)
My car was parked a couple of miles away and it was *heaving* it down. My umbrella lasted about 200 yards before turning inside out and breaking. I don't think I've ever been as soaked as I was by the time I reached my car - but I couldn't resist stopping for this picture of the West Midlands Police Training Centre.
Seriously - 'Tally Ho!'????? Which eeijit thought *that* was a good idea for a motto?
How to feel old pt. 2
On my way to work today I walked past about 500 freshly-scrubbed young students, gathered on their first day at University to register for their courses and I thought of only one single thing:
Christ, another bunch of noise-mongering bastards determined to hold 'fresher' parties every night for a fortnight and deny me any sleep whatsoever during the week.
I'm not even twice their age yet, and I'm already a crotchety old git :(
Christ, another bunch of noise-mongering bastards determined to hold 'fresher' parties every night for a fortnight and deny me any sleep whatsoever during the week.
I'm not even twice their age yet, and I'm already a crotchety old git :(
Thursday, 3 September 2009
Inspiration
Our work provides free tea and coffee, and should you have forgotten/broken your mug then they have a collection of old ones (presumably left by those fired over the years) that anyone can use. Whilst trying to find my mug last week - after it had been moved by someone, I came across this filthy example of an inspirational message.
Now how do you read that?
I read it as 'why bother doing your job? Someone else will do it for you. Just chillax and surf the web for a bit.'
But then I'm a lazy git :)
I was equally amused today by the news that last year's Billionaire's plaything of a football club (Chelsea FC) has been walloped with a transfer ban until 2011 for finally getting caught for poaching other clubs players. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of right-wing thugs!
And on that theme, I want to get this as a t-shirt :)
Now how do you read that?
I read it as 'why bother doing your job? Someone else will do it for you. Just chillax and surf the web for a bit.'
But then I'm a lazy git :)
I was equally amused today by the news that last year's Billionaire's plaything of a football club (Chelsea FC) has been walloped with a transfer ban until 2011 for finally getting caught for poaching other clubs players. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of right-wing thugs!
And on that theme, I want to get this as a t-shirt :)
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
Just this once...
I don't do memes as a rule, but I'm making this one exception for Pearl and then I'm never doing one again.
Apparently I have to list seven quirky personality traits that are evidenced in this blog and then pass it on to seven other bloggers.
I've spent a while narrowing the list down from ninety-two, so here they are...
1) I have a love/hate relationship with punctuation. I can't stand colons, semicolons or bullet-points - whereas I seem to have an increasingly intimate relationship with the hyphen and putting '...' at the end of sentences as if I'm trailing off. I do the latter because that really is how I speak...
2) I read, re-read, and then re-re-read every post to make sure I've not spelt anything either a) wrongly or b) in American. I don't like using the spell checker because it objects to '...' (see point 1)
3) I feel the need to respond to every comment left here, because I don't like upsetting people. For the same reason I no longer keep a blogroll because I'd never remove anyone - even if I hadn't read their blog for years.
4) Very few people in real life actually know me very well because I choose not to disclose very much about who I really am/how I think. This is why there's little actual personal information about me posted here either (except when I'm drunk). I presume I do this because I'm insecure or something.
5) The last word is mine. Mine, I tells ye!
6) I try to find humour in every situation. Doing this provides most of my ideas for posts here, which are in the main supposed to be dryly amusing (um, if you hadn't worked that bit out yet :) ).
7) Pearl thinks I'm a smart arse. I consider that a compliment :-P
Right then, I would tag people here - but point 3 means I can't. So I'll tag everyone instead (see point 7) ;)
So, highlights of the rest of the week are posts about..
1) Cricket
2) Murder
3) Mugs
4) Peppers
5) Sleeping
Not, necessarily, in that order.
Apparently I have to list seven quirky personality traits that are evidenced in this blog and then pass it on to seven other bloggers.
I've spent a while narrowing the list down from ninety-two, so here they are...
1) I have a love/hate relationship with punctuation. I can't stand colons, semicolons or bullet-points - whereas I seem to have an increasingly intimate relationship with the hyphen and putting '...' at the end of sentences as if I'm trailing off. I do the latter because that really is how I speak...
2) I read, re-read, and then re-re-read every post to make sure I've not spelt anything either a) wrongly or b) in American. I don't like using the spell checker because it objects to '...' (see point 1)
3) I feel the need to respond to every comment left here, because I don't like upsetting people. For the same reason I no longer keep a blogroll because I'd never remove anyone - even if I hadn't read their blog for years.
4) Very few people in real life actually know me very well because I choose not to disclose very much about who I really am/how I think. This is why there's little actual personal information about me posted here either (except when I'm drunk). I presume I do this because I'm insecure or something.
5) The last word is mine. Mine, I tells ye!
6) I try to find humour in every situation. Doing this provides most of my ideas for posts here, which are in the main supposed to be dryly amusing (um, if you hadn't worked that bit out yet :) ).
7) Pearl thinks I'm a smart arse. I consider that a compliment :-P
Right then, I would tag people here - but point 3 means I can't. So I'll tag everyone instead (see point 7) ;)
So, highlights of the rest of the week are posts about..
1) Cricket
2) Murder
3) Mugs
4) Peppers
5) Sleeping
Not, necessarily, in that order.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
I do live.
It's been a bank holiday (= for americans yet another free day off work that you don't get. In fact I think we get more free days holiday than you get annual leave. It sucks to be you sometimes) and I've had fun.
Lots of fun.
Woot woot.
Many updates coming soon. With pictures :)
You're all great though. I love you guys. I'd be, like, nothing without you all.
*sob*
It's been a bank holiday (= for americans yet another free day off work that you don't get. In fact I think we get more free days holiday than you get annual leave. It sucks to be you sometimes) and I've had fun.
Lots of fun.
Woot woot.
Many updates coming soon. With pictures :)
You're all great though. I love you guys. I'd be, like, nothing without you all.
*sob*
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Well, yes...
A colleague told me this story today. Apparently his wife - who has zero interest in football - wandered into their front room last night and said:
"I just heard on the radio about that footballer who was stabbed in the legs."
"Yes," said my colleague, wondering where this was going.
She continued. "They said they might have to amputate his legs."
"That's what I heard too," he replied.
She paused, looking pensive. "So......I guess that would almost certainly put an end to his footballing career then?"
There's not a huge amount you can say to that.....
"I just heard on the radio about that footballer who was stabbed in the legs."
"Yes," said my colleague, wondering where this was going.
She continued. "They said they might have to amputate his legs."
"That's what I heard too," he replied.
She paused, looking pensive. "So......I guess that would almost certainly put an end to his footballing career then?"
There's not a huge amount you can say to that.....
Sunday, 23 August 2009
Most annoying advert ever....
This one.
I'm sure it's attempting to be 'ironic' or something, but seriously - who thinks that front fog lights and CUSTOM MATS come under the description of 'goodies'.
Grrrrrrrr....
I'm sure it's attempting to be 'ironic' or something, but seriously - who thinks that front fog lights and CUSTOM MATS come under the description of 'goodies'.
Grrrrrrrr....
Thursday, 20 August 2009
100 not out
I thought I'd use my 100th post on this blog to sit back, relax and say:
We are top of the league, say we are top of the league!
I may never get the chance again, so I'm grabbing it while I can :)
We are top of the league, say we are top of the league!
I may never get the chance again, so I'm grabbing it while I can :)
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
How to feel old, pt. 1
When your 22 year old co-worker informs you that she has never used a fax machine.
I'll say that again:
Never used a fax machine
When faced with our incredulity, she simply stated 'well, why wouldn't you email it?'
Words fail me. I require a time machine to re-educate her. I bet she's never done a tape-mix either, or used a VCR.
Does anyone have a spare time machine?
I'll say that again:
Never used a fax machine
When faced with our incredulity, she simply stated 'well, why wouldn't you email it?'
Words fail me. I require a time machine to re-educate her. I bet she's never done a tape-mix either, or used a VCR.
Does anyone have a spare time machine?
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Btw
Regarding yesterday's post - on the off-chance you may have thought I was making those things up:
Coffee from cat poo
All the rubber plantations in Asia come from one man
Oh, and I'll add to my list:
e) it is possible to have a first name containing no vowels (or the letter y)
Coffee from cat poo
All the rubber plantations in Asia come from one man
Oh, and I'll add to my list:
e) it is possible to have a first name containing no vowels (or the letter y)
Monday, 17 August 2009
Truth
Things I've learnt in the last 7 days that are actually true. (No really. Seriously.)
a) Never do your football predictions when drunk (thanks Aussie Boy)
b) The greatest coffee in the world is made from filtered cat poo.
c) Rubber trees are not native to Asia. In fact every rubber plantation owes its existence to one man.
d) The most mis-understood word in the English language is 'agnostic'*
Anyway, in light of a) I'm revising number 17 in my list of predictions to be:
17) Spain will win the World Cup. They will meet Argentina in the final (after they beat England) and will win 2-1 with a goal from a winger in the 74th minute.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is a Prediction :)
*The most mis-understood word in Canadian is 'irony'**
**Hahahahaha
a) Never do your football predictions when drunk (thanks Aussie Boy)
b) The greatest coffee in the world is made from filtered cat poo.
c) Rubber trees are not native to Asia. In fact every rubber plantation owes its existence to one man.
d) The most mis-understood word in the English language is 'agnostic'*
Anyway, in light of a) I'm revising number 17 in my list of predictions to be:
17) Spain will win the World Cup. They will meet Argentina in the final (after they beat England) and will win 2-1 with a goal from a winger in the 74th minute.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is a Prediction :)
*The most mis-understood word in Canadian is 'irony'**
**Hahahahaha
Friday, 14 August 2009
Oh, titty fucking bollocks...
It's the start of the season tomorrow (that's the football (the proper one where you use your feet) season obviously) and I've not done my annual predictions yet.
I know this is a favourite time for some of you as you get to marvel is the rare occurrence of me being wrong occasionally, and I'm sure I won't be disappointing anyone this evening....
So, let's get it on:
1) The winners of the Premiership this season will be.....Chelsea. A brave shout, but I think that their squad is old and experienced and so is their coach. Ancelotti will bring the best tactically out of what is still a pretty strong group.
2) Second in the league will be.......Manure. Yes they lost Ronaldo and haven't replaced him with anything approaching the same ability, but removing the diving tosser from their side gives them a better formation to suit the other players.
3) Third will be.......Liverpool. Losing Alonso is a bad blow, and any injury to Torres of Gerrard will be curtains for any title bid.
4) Fourth will be.......Arsenal. Sorry Man City, I just can't see your best side emerge until too late in the season to challenge the gooners. Having said that, if the scummer's injury list get any worse then even holding on to fourth could be problematic.
5) I can't see beyond Man City, though they'll be closer to 6th than 4th.
6) I'm fancying Everton for 6th. Unless Lescott moves, then they might swap with Villa.
7) Villa for 7th. I'd hoped we'd poach Young but that looks a non-starter, and though they've lost Laursen and Barry I don't see them dropping off that much.
8) Time for realism. I just don't get the feeling that Spurs will push on this season. It's a stabilising year for us. Yes we'll beat the big teams but we'll crumble at times and lose stupid games when the big teams would close it out.
9) The three relegated teams will be Portsmouth, Wigan and Birmingham
10) Top scorer in the league will be Jermaine Defoe (oh come on, allow me some Spurs bias!)
11) Michael Owen will not score more than 15 league goals
12) But Darren Bent will
13) First Manager to be sacked will be Martinez of Wigan
14) Spurs will be in the top four at Christmas
15) A Premiership player will test positive for drugs (or will be penalised for not taking a test)
16) England will qualify for the World Cup with the best record of any European country
17) North Korea will make it to the World Cup finals
18) The squad that Capello picks for England at the World Cup finals will include Rooney, Heskey, Defoe and Owen, although Owen won't play a game.
19) Sunderland will finish in the top ten
20) Newcastle will not get promoted back to the Premiership this year.
A bit hurried are some of those, so I doubt I'm going to beat last year's score :(
At least Diet Coke pisses all over Diet Pepsi though *nods*
I know this is a favourite time for some of you as you get to marvel is the rare occurrence of me being wrong occasionally, and I'm sure I won't be disappointing anyone this evening....
So, let's get it on:
1) The winners of the Premiership this season will be.....Chelsea. A brave shout, but I think that their squad is old and experienced and so is their coach. Ancelotti will bring the best tactically out of what is still a pretty strong group.
2) Second in the league will be.......Manure. Yes they lost Ronaldo and haven't replaced him with anything approaching the same ability, but removing the diving tosser from their side gives them a better formation to suit the other players.
3) Third will be.......Liverpool. Losing Alonso is a bad blow, and any injury to Torres of Gerrard will be curtains for any title bid.
4) Fourth will be.......Arsenal. Sorry Man City, I just can't see your best side emerge until too late in the season to challenge the gooners. Having said that, if the scummer's injury list get any worse then even holding on to fourth could be problematic.
5) I can't see beyond Man City, though they'll be closer to 6th than 4th.
6) I'm fancying Everton for 6th. Unless Lescott moves, then they might swap with Villa.
7) Villa for 7th. I'd hoped we'd poach Young but that looks a non-starter, and though they've lost Laursen and Barry I don't see them dropping off that much.
8) Time for realism. I just don't get the feeling that Spurs will push on this season. It's a stabilising year for us. Yes we'll beat the big teams but we'll crumble at times and lose stupid games when the big teams would close it out.
9) The three relegated teams will be Portsmouth, Wigan and Birmingham
10) Top scorer in the league will be Jermaine Defoe (oh come on, allow me some Spurs bias!)
11) Michael Owen will not score more than 15 league goals
12) But Darren Bent will
13) First Manager to be sacked will be Martinez of Wigan
14) Spurs will be in the top four at Christmas
15) A Premiership player will test positive for drugs (or will be penalised for not taking a test)
16) England will qualify for the World Cup with the best record of any European country
17) North Korea will make it to the World Cup finals
18) The squad that Capello picks for England at the World Cup finals will include Rooney, Heskey, Defoe and Owen, although Owen won't play a game.
19) Sunderland will finish in the top ten
20) Newcastle will not get promoted back to the Premiership this year.
A bit hurried are some of those, so I doubt I'm going to beat last year's score :(
At least Diet Coke pisses all over Diet Pepsi though *nods*
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Beauty
I observed women's buttocks the other day - and I saw beauty.
Not at the same time, I'd like to add.
No, I was purchasing a sandwich at a posh(ish) sandwich bar near work (by posh I mean - not fried bacon and without ketchup) and seeing as it provides excellent (if expensive) freshly made salads to order, it is normally half full of women.
(Would it be rude to point out to a lady that 'chicken, prawns, coleslaw, pickled onions, beef and pork' is possibly why your 'salad-only' diet is not quite working for you?)
Anyway, this one day while we were waiting in the sandwich queue, a young woman walked in with her buttocks in the wrong place. Seriously. Most people's buttocks are sort of halfway between the neck and the feet, it's just....well.....normal. This girl, however, had buttocks sprouting from where her hamstrings should be - but was still tall. Her proportions were just bizarre. Stumpy legs and the world's longest back.
Sadly for her, she was standing in the queue next to her inverse twin - Ms. Legs As Far As They Can Go.
They were both the same height as well, and they ended up looking like this (excuse my skills in Paint):
It was strangely hypnotic.
As for beauty, well I can thank Alfa Male for pointing this out to me on the way home from work one day. I've never seen a plane intersect a Cirrus cloud quite like this before, but I thought it was pretty damn beautiful.
Not at the same time, I'd like to add.
No, I was purchasing a sandwich at a posh(ish) sandwich bar near work (by posh I mean - not fried bacon and without ketchup) and seeing as it provides excellent (if expensive) freshly made salads to order, it is normally half full of women.
(Would it be rude to point out to a lady that 'chicken, prawns, coleslaw, pickled onions, beef and pork' is possibly why your 'salad-only' diet is not quite working for you?)
Anyway, this one day while we were waiting in the sandwich queue, a young woman walked in with her buttocks in the wrong place. Seriously. Most people's buttocks are sort of halfway between the neck and the feet, it's just....well.....normal. This girl, however, had buttocks sprouting from where her hamstrings should be - but was still tall. Her proportions were just bizarre. Stumpy legs and the world's longest back.
Sadly for her, she was standing in the queue next to her inverse twin - Ms. Legs As Far As They Can Go.
They were both the same height as well, and they ended up looking like this (excuse my skills in Paint):
It was strangely hypnotic.
As for beauty, well I can thank Alfa Male for pointing this out to me on the way home from work one day. I've never seen a plane intersect a Cirrus cloud quite like this before, but I thought it was pretty damn beautiful.
Friday, 7 August 2009
Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee!
The other week I attended the pre-season tournament known as the inaugural Wembley Cup.
(Though frankly, how they can call it a 'tournament' escapes me. 4 teams in the tournament, that each play two other teams - not all three. Therefore you have one team playing Africa's club champions on the Friday, followed by England's 10th best team on the Sunday - whilst another team plays Scotland's second best team on the Friday and Europe's club champions on the Sunday. Guess which team won? Yeah, the ones who didn't play Barcelona. Quelle surprise....)
As with all pre-season friendlies I hadn't been expecting a feast of great football, as most players take it as an opportunity to stroll about the park hitting over-ambitious balls into space and out for a throw-in.
But, and it's a big but, the Mighty Spurs were playing Barcelona. At Wembley. I'd not been before, so for a minor *ahem* amount of money and a half day off work, it seemed a bargain.
A friend from work (a fellow Spurs fan) and I trained it across to London and met up with my Dad at Baker Street. After several beers we opted to head up to Wembley to see some of the Celtic v Al Ahly game, stopping only for food on Wembley Way (£7 for a Pastie and Chips! Christ...). The stadium itself is pretty impressive and ultra-modern compared to the last one (escalators to the top tier? Why not), although it does feel rather sterile and lacking in atmosphere.
Worst of all, they *still* haven't worked out how to serve drinks/snacks at anything other than a snail's pace. At Cardiff's Millennium Stadium you barely have to stop moving throughout the queue whenever you want a beverage.
We finally got to our seats to watch the rest of the Celtic game. Sadly there was no scoreboard so we had no idea how long there was to go, or what the score was until Celtic scored their 5th and the announcer told us which minute it was scored in :)
It then started raining heavily, so I took a quick picture of the rainbow above the ground. Amazingly the stadium had over 50,000 people in it by this point!
As for the game itself, well Barcelona fielded their 'C' team (with the exception of Yaya Toure in central midfield, and I can only assume he was being punished for something by being there) while we played a 4-5-1 formation with a midget on his own up front. We were rubbish and deserved to be losing 1-0 at half time. In the second half they made 11 changes and brought on their 'D' team - quick as a flash our manager responded and brought on 4 graduates of our youth team. Our 'D' team was better than their 'D' team and we equalised with 5 minutes to go!
All that was left was to wait for over an hour for a tube, and to finally get home at 2:30am - completely knackered. Though at least I can say I've seen Barcelona play now... :)
(Though frankly, how they can call it a 'tournament' escapes me. 4 teams in the tournament, that each play two other teams - not all three. Therefore you have one team playing Africa's club champions on the Friday, followed by England's 10th best team on the Sunday - whilst another team plays Scotland's second best team on the Friday and Europe's club champions on the Sunday. Guess which team won? Yeah, the ones who didn't play Barcelona. Quelle surprise....)
As with all pre-season friendlies I hadn't been expecting a feast of great football, as most players take it as an opportunity to stroll about the park hitting over-ambitious balls into space and out for a throw-in.
But, and it's a big but, the Mighty Spurs were playing Barcelona. At Wembley. I'd not been before, so for a minor *ahem* amount of money and a half day off work, it seemed a bargain.
A friend from work (a fellow Spurs fan) and I trained it across to London and met up with my Dad at Baker Street. After several beers we opted to head up to Wembley to see some of the Celtic v Al Ahly game, stopping only for food on Wembley Way (£7 for a Pastie and Chips! Christ...). The stadium itself is pretty impressive and ultra-modern compared to the last one (escalators to the top tier? Why not), although it does feel rather sterile and lacking in atmosphere.
Worst of all, they *still* haven't worked out how to serve drinks/snacks at anything other than a snail's pace. At Cardiff's Millennium Stadium you barely have to stop moving throughout the queue whenever you want a beverage.
We finally got to our seats to watch the rest of the Celtic game. Sadly there was no scoreboard so we had no idea how long there was to go, or what the score was until Celtic scored their 5th and the announcer told us which minute it was scored in :)
It then started raining heavily, so I took a quick picture of the rainbow above the ground. Amazingly the stadium had over 50,000 people in it by this point!
As for the game itself, well Barcelona fielded their 'C' team (with the exception of Yaya Toure in central midfield, and I can only assume he was being punished for something by being there) while we played a 4-5-1 formation with a midget on his own up front. We were rubbish and deserved to be losing 1-0 at half time. In the second half they made 11 changes and brought on their 'D' team - quick as a flash our manager responded and brought on 4 graduates of our youth team. Our 'D' team was better than their 'D' team and we equalised with 5 minutes to go!
All that was left was to wait for over an hour for a tube, and to finally get home at 2:30am - completely knackered. Though at least I can say I've seen Barcelona play now... :)
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Right then...
Okay, I've been a bit shit at updating this recently. In my defence there's been work, cricket, pre-season friendlies, big drunken catch-up sessions and murder getting in the way.
But enough of the rest of August's posts, let's talk babies.
Yeah. You heard me. The evil scrot-like things that refuse to stop bothering the planet like an intergalactic herpes infection.
Now I'm not averse to the concept of having children*, but there's no way I want them anytime soon - and rather brilliantly neither does Mrs. RS (a most beneficial side-effect of being the older person in a relationship). Maybe one day, you never know, but not in our near future.
If we do decide to have kids however and I ever turn into the type of parent I'm about to outline, you all officially have my permission to kill me in a variety of hideous ways.
For there is a type of parent (usually the father) whom lurches from disinterested 'yeah, gonna have a kid. That's my golf handicap out of the window' before the birth to 'my life is so amazing, I have a child. A baby. Awwww. A baby, Did I say I had a baby? Isn't she the most beautiful baby ever? Look, my baby. Awww. The building is on fire? Oh, well we'll only get through the first 10,000 baby photos before they evacuate us' afterwards.
The sort of person who's every sentence, every email, every text, twitter, blogpost, phone call or letter is about their bloody child. As if somehow they're the only people who have ever had children. As if doing something only 10 billion other humanoid creatures have ever done is somehow worthy of worship.
This is a genuine example from an acquaintance of mine with only the name changed - and is the sort of thing I get in a thrice-daily facebook update:
Piglet did her 1st crawl today!! Oh noes.....mobile baby!! Woo hoo!
I feel sick.
Yeah, you had a kid. Congrats. You achieved something hundreds of thousands of other people have done IN THIS COUNTRY THIS YEAR. Big ups to the nappy massive.
If someone who did something else that's rather tough, gets done once a year and is done by hundreds of thousands of people (say, run a marathon maybe) and talked about NOTHING ELSE everytime you saw them - you'd rightly tag them as a boring fucknut.
Of course, the vast majority of parents are not like this at all. The world is divided into two types - those that get on with raising their children, and those that get a sign in the back window of their car saying 'Baby on Board' - and we all know some boring fucknut like that....
This rant was brought to you by the emotion 'moody', the physical sensation 'tired' and the logical conclusion that too many parents are 'selfish wankers'.
*That may actually come as a genuine shock to some of you
But enough of the rest of August's posts, let's talk babies.
Yeah. You heard me. The evil scrot-like things that refuse to stop bothering the planet like an intergalactic herpes infection.
Now I'm not averse to the concept of having children*, but there's no way I want them anytime soon - and rather brilliantly neither does Mrs. RS (a most beneficial side-effect of being the older person in a relationship). Maybe one day, you never know, but not in our near future.
If we do decide to have kids however and I ever turn into the type of parent I'm about to outline, you all officially have my permission to kill me in a variety of hideous ways.
For there is a type of parent (usually the father) whom lurches from disinterested 'yeah, gonna have a kid. That's my golf handicap out of the window' before the birth to 'my life is so amazing, I have a child. A baby. Awwww. A baby, Did I say I had a baby? Isn't she the most beautiful baby ever? Look, my baby. Awww. The building is on fire? Oh, well we'll only get through the first 10,000 baby photos before they evacuate us' afterwards.
The sort of person who's every sentence, every email, every text, twitter, blogpost, phone call or letter is about their bloody child. As if somehow they're the only people who have ever had children. As if doing something only 10 billion other humanoid creatures have ever done is somehow worthy of worship.
This is a genuine example from an acquaintance of mine with only the name changed - and is the sort of thing I get in a thrice-daily facebook update:
Piglet did her 1st crawl today!! Oh noes.....mobile baby!! Woo hoo!
I feel sick.
Yeah, you had a kid. Congrats. You achieved something hundreds of thousands of other people have done IN THIS COUNTRY THIS YEAR. Big ups to the nappy massive.
If someone who did something else that's rather tough, gets done once a year and is done by hundreds of thousands of people (say, run a marathon maybe) and talked about NOTHING ELSE everytime you saw them - you'd rightly tag them as a boring fucknut.
Of course, the vast majority of parents are not like this at all. The world is divided into two types - those that get on with raising their children, and those that get a sign in the back window of their car saying 'Baby on Board' - and we all know some boring fucknut like that....
This rant was brought to you by the emotion 'moody', the physical sensation 'tired' and the logical conclusion that too many parents are 'selfish wankers'.
*That may actually come as a genuine shock to some of you
Friday, 31 July 2009
Howzat!
I'm at the cricket for a few days, so will update more next week.
(Suffice to say we skittled a few Aussie wickets today :) )
You'll be glad to hear that I've finally stopped singing the Trio advert. Sadly I've replaced it with this 80's classic...
Re-record, not fade away......Re-record, not fade away......
(Suffice to say we skittled a few Aussie wickets today :) )
You'll be glad to hear that I've finally stopped singing the Trio advert. Sadly I've replaced it with this 80's classic...
Re-record, not fade away......Re-record, not fade away......
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Can't get you out of my head...
I've been singing this for two days now (interspersed with different words - and it's quite hard to get a single syllable word like 'beer' to stretch to four syllables). It's driving me mad!
If you're not both English and of a certain vintage then you won't understand this post at all! :)
If you're not both English and of a certain vintage then you won't understand this post at all! :)
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
The Potted History of the World
Welcome, welcome - a thousand welcomes - to the first of an infrequent series of posts about major historical events, major historical people, and major historical history stuff.
These won't be in chronological order because frankly, up until someone invented beer, history was boring as fuck. Instead I'll be choosing a random topic each time, as and when the mood takes me.
Chapter One - The New York Metro
Despite not being American, my grasp of that country's history is pretty impressive (even if I say so myself). So having visited the city several times recently to see Mrs RS, I decided to read up on the Metro - mainly to find out which century it was built in, as judging from most of the stations I went through I'd have estimated the 16th - and I was amazed by what I found.
The following is as true as I can make it.
*ahem*
Many years ago, like decades and stuff, America was divided between North and South. The South believed that everyone should drive pickups, whilst the North believed that everyone should drive pickups - except the poor, who should be provided with trains.
A vast and bloody war was fought, and for a long time it looked as though the South would win. Facing defeat (and the frequent bombings of its railroads), the North constructed a secret train system on the island of Manhattan. To avoid it being bombed, they placed it in a series of tunnels under the streets and this soon became known as the 'underground railroad' of the civil war.
To outwit its enemies and confuse would-be saboteurs, the operators of the underground railroad settled on an ingenious and fiendishly clever system. This is why some lines are named after numbers and some lines are named after letters. This is also why some lines are the same colour as other lines. See a yellow train? Ah, yes, - that's a N. Or a R. Or a Q. Or even a W. And a R doesn't run on a Sunday after 4pm, what are you buddy? Stoooooooopid?
It's not at all confusing.
Anyway, in the post-war years America was skint but was determined to expand the underground railroad. Digging tunnels was expensive, so the moment they dug under the East River and reached Long Island, they simply stopped putting roofs on the tunnels and left them as open culverts throughout the rest of the city. This cost-saving measure enabled the Metro owners to vastly expand the system in almost no time.
Sadly, as always, pedantry won out and the owners conceded that since the new tracks were not underground anymore, they couldn't call it the 'underground railroad.' In what was the first of its kind in the world, the Metro accepted corporate sponsorship from a sandwich company and changed its name to 'The New York Subway'.
*Fast forward a few years*
Everything was going swimmingly until the infamous New York Sanitation Workers strike of '73. With rubbish piling up in the streets, the forever resourceful inhabitants decided to combine two successful ideas into one - the landfill and the Subway - and simply threw their rubbish into the big hole in the ground that the trains ran through. In no time at all the tracks became nearly impassable.
This practice continues to this day, although New Yorkers prefer to refer to this act as 'recycling'. Here's a picture I took last time I was there:
The Subway operators needed a solution to get their trains through and a certain railway worker called Dwight T Gefluffenheim, inspired by the idea of 'recycling', came up with the remedy. This is why all New York Subway trains are fitted with Cow-catchers to this day. Here's another photo I took while I was there:
As New York got larger, so did the 'garbage' problem. The level was getting so high that the trains were carving their own tunnels through the rubbish. In 1989 one of the larger tunnels of this kind - the Brooklyn Used Nappy Central - collapsed, injuring several passengers. Eventually the Subway operators bowed to the inevitable and built all new lines on stilts, eg:
This is primarily because it's really hard to throw your rubbish up onto the track from street level.
And that's the true story of the New York Metro system - always innovative, always thinking and always going for that 'medieval dungeon' look.
These won't be in chronological order because frankly, up until someone invented beer, history was boring as fuck. Instead I'll be choosing a random topic each time, as and when the mood takes me.
Chapter One - The New York Metro
Despite not being American, my grasp of that country's history is pretty impressive (even if I say so myself). So having visited the city several times recently to see Mrs RS, I decided to read up on the Metro - mainly to find out which century it was built in, as judging from most of the stations I went through I'd have estimated the 16th - and I was amazed by what I found.
The following is as true as I can make it.
*ahem*
Many years ago, like decades and stuff, America was divided between North and South. The South believed that everyone should drive pickups, whilst the North believed that everyone should drive pickups - except the poor, who should be provided with trains.
A vast and bloody war was fought, and for a long time it looked as though the South would win. Facing defeat (and the frequent bombings of its railroads), the North constructed a secret train system on the island of Manhattan. To avoid it being bombed, they placed it in a series of tunnels under the streets and this soon became known as the 'underground railroad' of the civil war.
To outwit its enemies and confuse would-be saboteurs, the operators of the underground railroad settled on an ingenious and fiendishly clever system. This is why some lines are named after numbers and some lines are named after letters. This is also why some lines are the same colour as other lines. See a yellow train? Ah, yes, - that's a N. Or a R. Or a Q. Or even a W. And a R doesn't run on a Sunday after 4pm, what are you buddy? Stoooooooopid?
It's not at all confusing.
Anyway, in the post-war years America was skint but was determined to expand the underground railroad. Digging tunnels was expensive, so the moment they dug under the East River and reached Long Island, they simply stopped putting roofs on the tunnels and left them as open culverts throughout the rest of the city. This cost-saving measure enabled the Metro owners to vastly expand the system in almost no time.
Sadly, as always, pedantry won out and the owners conceded that since the new tracks were not underground anymore, they couldn't call it the 'underground railroad.' In what was the first of its kind in the world, the Metro accepted corporate sponsorship from a sandwich company and changed its name to 'The New York Subway'.
*Fast forward a few years*
Everything was going swimmingly until the infamous New York Sanitation Workers strike of '73. With rubbish piling up in the streets, the forever resourceful inhabitants decided to combine two successful ideas into one - the landfill and the Subway - and simply threw their rubbish into the big hole in the ground that the trains ran through. In no time at all the tracks became nearly impassable.
This practice continues to this day, although New Yorkers prefer to refer to this act as 'recycling'. Here's a picture I took last time I was there:
The Subway operators needed a solution to get their trains through and a certain railway worker called Dwight T Gefluffenheim, inspired by the idea of 'recycling', came up with the remedy. This is why all New York Subway trains are fitted with Cow-catchers to this day. Here's another photo I took while I was there:
As New York got larger, so did the 'garbage' problem. The level was getting so high that the trains were carving their own tunnels through the rubbish. In 1989 one of the larger tunnels of this kind - the Brooklyn Used Nappy Central - collapsed, injuring several passengers. Eventually the Subway operators bowed to the inevitable and built all new lines on stilts, eg:
This is primarily because it's really hard to throw your rubbish up onto the track from street level.
And that's the true story of the New York Metro system - always innovative, always thinking and always going for that 'medieval dungeon' look.
Monday, 20 July 2009
Lessons in life pt. 27
They're coming thick and fast at the moment. Today's was:
When you are surreptitiously listening at work to an incredibly close cricket match between England and Australia (one headphone in your right ear that no-one walking past can see), and Freddie Flintoff gets Brad Haddin with the 10th ball of the day - do not do a pathetic Tim Henman-esque fist pump whilst shouting out 'YEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!' because you might be regarded as a bit of a weirdo by your colleagues whom, funnily enough, can't hear the commentary in your headphones.
When you are surreptitiously listening at work to an incredibly close cricket match between England and Australia (one headphone in your right ear that no-one walking past can see), and Freddie Flintoff gets Brad Haddin with the 10th ball of the day - do not do a pathetic Tim Henman-esque fist pump whilst shouting out 'YEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!' because you might be regarded as a bit of a weirdo by your colleagues whom, funnily enough, can't hear the commentary in your headphones.
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