OBlog Archives

When I was growing up, the M in the MTV stood for music, these days it must stand for mush or mindless or messed-up.

I've just got back from a short trip to Vegas, and as you do when you are in a hotel room, you flick through the channels on the off chance that you get a 15 second preview of the special interest film (no luck this trip), and you end up landing on one of the unfamiliar stations. Don't get me wrong, I don't watch MTV here in the UK, but I always thought it was a music channel, but no, it seems that it has become the home of "reality" TV. I put the word reality in quotes as I am dubious as to how real the program I was watching actually was.

I stumbled across a show called "Parental Control". The basic premise is that the parents of a poor child don't like their offspring's current choice of boyfriend/girlfriend so they interview a set of 10 prospective alternatives, pick one each and then force the current incumbent to watch their kid to go on "dates" with the new choices. Then the kid has to choose between the two new choices and their current partner. Ok, so not the greatest format of show, but what made it car crash TV was the fact that it all appeared staged, in fact I am sure I recognised one of the parents and the prospectives partners from other shows. What made it worse was that I sat through 4 of these shows back to back.

In case you were wondering why I was in my room for that long in Vegas, I was just recharging the batteries from the two mile walk back from the MGM Grand garden arena to my room at the furthest end of the block in the Excalibur hotel. Plus was tyring to straighten out after being scrunched up in the seats at the MGM Grand whilst watching the Mosconi cup of 9-ball pool. (Don't get me started on the subject of Americans and sportsmanship).

I do get the impression that the standard MTV channel is now a non music channel and is aimed at teens, but now, nearly 25 years on, I disagree with Dire Straits' Money for Nothing, I don't want my MTV.

(no don't worry, not a reference to Barry Manilow or Take That)

Where I work there's a shared break area with a kettle and two fridges where people keep milk and their lunches etc. Like any other communal food areas certain items get "borrowed" from time to time. Well yesterday someone last straw had been placed on their camel's back and pinned the following note to the fridge door:

"I see that someone has reoffended with the stealing situation, this time milk.
I had a full pint that seems to have vanished funny that seeing as magic isn't real"

Under which some smart alec had scrawled:

"Magic IS real"

Looks like we have David Copperfield working in our call centre these days

I know some of you will think "well that's a first" but there's more to it than that.

Insomnia is like a bike without a saddle and no brakes, it's a vicious cycle. Once I get into that can't sleep mode, I get to thinking and analysing and over analysing. It's like I'm always on.

Jamie, our host here, once told me that I couldn't relax, I didn't know how and that I should go on holiday and chill and be myself but by that stage it was too late, I had no idea who I was any more. I have been portraying this caricature of myself for so long, the real me is lost. See I told you I don't half over analyse when I can't sleep.

Most would say that the reason why you spend all night thinking about all kinds of stuff is that your brain is not taxed enough during the day, and I guess that is the case both and out of work. But then when I think about what I can do about I start to over analyse again, back to that painful bike again.

I guess I'm just being self indulgent in blogging the fact that I think too much, but how else do I get it out of my system.

The good thing is that both of you who will read this, already know what I am like and will understand what I am on about.

I guess no good comes out of blogging at 1 am, and even now I'm still not tired so it was a waste of time.

I'll leave you with this thought, I got stung by a bee the other day, he charged me £20 for a jar of honey.

Before I start I must warn you it's a long one (as the Bishop said to the actress), in fact it's taken longer to write than it did to do! [I also apologise for the time taken to post the blog and the lack of pictures but as you'll read, the weather wasn't conducive to photography. Hopefully you can wade through it all and get a sense of the epic it was.]

Where to start? Back in April I guess when Jon, one of my best friends told me he was due to take part in the 3 peaks challenge in the summer. For those unaware of what the 3 peaks challenge is, it is a challenge to climb the 3 highest peaks in each of the three countries that make up the UK mainland all within 24 hours. (Those 3 peaks being, Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis). Now obviously those who know me well, know that the climbing part didn't appeal, but the driving to and between the mountains certainly did, and having driven across the US earlier in the year it would be a drop in the ocean. Anyway, I volunteered to drive, but was told it was OK as they were all sorted, so I just did my bit, sponsored Jon and wished him well.

Two weeks ago this all changed. The original plan was to have 3 drivers per mini-bus to share the driving, come the point with two weeks to go, they were down to 5 drivers for 3 buses so the call was put out and I stepped up to the plate. Copies of driving licences and waivers signed and instructions received I was all set to go. One other thing to note was that the challenge was being organised by BGL on behalf of the NSPCC. I only know a handful of people at BGL and the hope was that I'd be driving the bus with Jon and Dave in with Sam my driving buddy, well I got Sam as the buddy but we were given bus 3 which was seen as the “slower” bus, Jon and Dave being in bus 1 the “faster” bus for those with more walking/climbing experience.

The plan was to set off from the start point in Peterborough at 5 am pm on Friday, however the mini-buses were being dropped off the day before and the drivers needed to be there to check them over and be given instructions on the controls. Well we were all there at the allotted time, unfortunately the buses were not. We waited for over an hour and still no sign, so we all went back to work in the hope that they'd turn up eventually. We got a note a couple of hours later to say they had arrived and we'd just have to pick up as we went along, which really wasn't an issue.

Leg 1

The alarm goes off at 4am, which seeing as I'd not got to sleep until midnight did come as a bit of a shock to the system, however the thought of a free bacon sandwich laid on by BGL was enough inspiration to drag me out of bed and I was ready by 4:40 when Jon came to pick me up. Half way through the bacon sarnie, Clair, the even organiser said we had to get going so we all quickly scoffed down the breakfast and headed out to the buses.

We all had 17 seat min-buses and 9 climbers in each, which sounds like plenty of room, but once you add in all of the walking kit, changes of clothes and food, it was a bit of a squeeze in the back. As we were in bus 3 we decided to go in convoy after the other two, and waited for them to start off. We had the written instructions, a detailed road atlas and sat nav so had no fear of getting lost. As the convoy headed off down the A1, I turned to Sam and said “get yer foot down, we can go faster than this”. To which she responded “I've got my foot flat to the floor, it cannae go any faster”, and we realised that the bus was limited to 60 mph/96 kph which when you had hundreds of miles ahead of you was not a pleasant realisation. What was worse was the fact that the other two buses seemed to be set at different limits and we were slowly but surely dropping behind. By the time we reached the first junction, bus 1 had disappeared completely and bus 2 was just visible. We just kept plodding along happy that our team of climbers were behaving themselves and were wanting to just get there.

As we worked our way off the motorway onto the A roads into Wales we noticed the weather starting to get increasingly worse, which seeing as we'd been having a heat-wave recently was not was hoped for. We arrived at the car park at Pen-y-pass, 207 miles later at around 9:30 surprised to find two things, firstly that we were the first bus there and secondly that it was blowing a gales and it was raining torrentially horizontally. We all braved the dash across the car park to make use of the toilets and then the climbers got changed into their wet weather gear whilst we waited. Bus 2 turned up next, they'd had a toilet stop en-route which is how we had got past them and watched as they then made the same dash to the toilet. About 20 minutes later bus 1 turned up. We later found out that they had taken a wrong turn at the first junction and had had a stop, so despite being in the fastest bus, they arrived last. The plan was for all the climbers to start off together and for the buses to meet them in the town of Llanberis about 4-5 hours later after they had come back down the other side of Snowdon. Also in the original plan was a team photo of all of the climbers and drivers at the start point, but we declined the invitation and went into the cafe for a cuppa.

The whole event was actually being over seen be Chris from Event Aid, he had organised walking guides for each of the teams, come up with the routes and booked the hotel in Scotland, so we met up with him to discuss plans. As we had a minimum of 4 hours to kill, we all jumped into our bus and headed down into Llanberis to have a look around and get some lunch, but as it was drizzling when we got there we decided to head straight for the cafe. We all decided on various versions of the all day breakfast and large teas, when they poured them out we realised that the mugs were a pint in size. So there we were in a nice warm cafe with a large mug of steaming tea and a fry-up on order whilst our intrepid walkers were halfway up a mountain, however at that stage as we'd not really got to know our teams that well, so no real feeling of guilt.

Chris was in contact with his guides and had found that the conditions at the top of Snowdon were pretty tricky, with 70 mph winds (yes faster than the bus) and still rain and hail so there was a slight change of plans. Teams 1 & 2 were to now come back down the way they had come up, a slightly trickier descent but quicker, seeing as the weather had already put us behind target on completing the 24 hour challenge. Our team, as it contained the less experienced climbers, were to stick to the original plan. So after we'd finished brunch, Sam and I drove the other drivers back up to their buses at Pen-y-pass and went back down to Llanberis to meet up with Chris again. He showed us where our team were due to arrive from the mountain and we parked up outside a row of houses. At this point all teams had been on the go for about 3 and a half hours and as this first one should take about 4 hours to complete, Sam and I didn't think we had long to wait.

Where we'd parked was also opposite a bus stop, and after we'd seen the 4th bus go past we knew the guys were behind schedule. We kept getting false hopes as we saw various set of legs coming around the corner, but none belonged to our team. About 4 and a half hours after all teams had started we got word that team 2 were first down the mountain and about to leave for Scafell. We had another hour to wait before the first of our team started to appear looking drenched and thoroughly pissed off. They had two problems, their waterproofs had proven to be far from that and they were soaked to the skin and they all desperately needed the toilet. Let's just say that some of the locals in Llanberis got an impromptu show as various pieces of clothing and underwear were being discarded in favour of dry clothes. One of the girls so desperate for a wee and not caring any more just went back up the hill a little way found some bushes and then had to meekly wave as a group of random walkers went by. Once everyone was settled in, we parked up in the centre of town and allowed the rest of the team to use the public toilets. It was on the two steps into the public toilets that I tweaked my calf muscle, but given the ordeal the team had gone through, I decided to keep quiet. We eventually set off at 15:45 nearly 2 hours behind schedule, knowing that in a speed limited bus we wouldn't reach Scafell by the allotted time of 18:30.

Leg 2

For leg 2 we had swapped drivers and I was in charge of the bus for the first time. Our team were brilliant, despite being tired and emotional from such a tough climb, there were no complaints on the journey whatsoever. We did wonder what had happened to team 1, our supposed elite team. A couple of text conversations later we discovered that they were just behind us on the A55 out of Wales. That didn't make any sense as they should have been down long before our lot. We later found that they had taken another wrong turn and had somehow made it onto Anglesey before realising their mistake.

The big issue with leaving that late was that we hit the M6 at Manchester in time for the Friday evening rush hour which slowed us down a little. We stopped our bus at Lancaster services and we made good time as the team dashed to the toilets whilst we were filling up with fuel and we were back on the road again in 15 minutes. We were making good time on the motorway, well as good as you can stuck at 60, until we turned off at junction 36 of the motorway and were at the mercy of the Cumbrian road network. We knew were behind schedule so wanted to make up time, but on roads that were twisty and turny and up and down it was difficult, not helped by the limiter on the flat straight bits and also not helped by the bouncy suspension, it was a tricky balancing act that I failed to get right. About 10 miles from our destination, I got those dreaded words on any car/bus journey “can we stop please”. Fortunately I found a lay-by in seconds but it wasn't quite soon enough and one of the ladies in the back had been sick. She had caught most of it in a plastic bag, but had got in in her shoes and down her top. So whilst she got out of the bus to get it out of her system and freshen up, the others got out to stretch their legs and get fresh air whilst one of the guys sluiced out the back of the bus with water and made sure all was cleared up, for which Sam and I were thankful as we had to sleep in the bus whilst the team were up Scafell. The last bit from the “main” road to Wasdale Head was even worse, some road bits only just wide enough for the mini-bus and other sections with a sheer rock face one side and a lake the other, not fun when you've got ill/nervous passengers in the back.

We arrived after travelling the 215 miles at around 20:30, about two hours behind schedule. Team 1 were about to set off on their walk and team 2 had started off about half an hour earlier. The problem we had was that our team's guide has disappeared as he'd got fed up of waiting, so it was gone 9 and dark before our team started off. Only 6 out of 9 of our team went, one had done their knees in on the way down Snowdon, the lady who'd been sick and another who just didn't think it was safe to go up in the dark stayed behind.

By this stage we'd been on the go 15 hours and had driven over 400 miles so our plan was a quick drink in the pub and use of their toilets before trying to get some sleep in the bus. With 5 of us in there, we didn't have that much room. Sam had the drivers seat all the way back knowing that she had the next driving stint. I had the double passenger seat but that didn't recline and the three climbers not doing the climb were in the back somewhere. We tried to settle down around half 10, but the wind had picked up and the bus was swaying quite a bit, plus it was not exactly the most comfortable of places to sleep. I think Sam managed to get about 3-4 hours whereas I got about an hour as I kept seeing torches on the horizon thinking it was one of our teams coming back.

At around 2 am the weather conditions improved and the clouds started to part. The wind was still there but you could see stars in the sky so I undertook some astronomy seeing as I couldn't sleep and tried some constellation spotting. It was whilst looking at stars that I saw another train of lights heading down the mountain. It was quite a walk from the bottom of the climb to where we'd parked so it was around 2:30 before people arrived at the buses. What surprised us the most was that it was the first folks from team 1 which had started their climb second. I wandered over to their bus to see how they were getting on to be greeted with the site of sweaty hairy bare legs and the now familiar stench of deep heat, quite unnerving really. Have spoken to their guide it appeared that team 2 had taken a different route down and had encountered another team from a different group lost apparently without a guide. They got on the road and we waited. Another half hour passed and team 2 started to arrive, they'd been up there nearly 7 hours. It turned out that the had indeed encountered a lost team and their guide had to navigate both teams back. At one point their guide had shouted “Stop” and told them all to sit down, they were literally yards from a sheer drop, so they turned around headed back to the top and came back they way they came.

Team 2 had suffered, one or two of them were doing the John Wayne walk due to chaffing and they were physically and mentally exhausted but they got themselves on their way some time after 3. We were still waiting for our team when Chris came over and said they were on their way. At around 3:30 the first of our team arrived and the hugs and the emergency cigarettes were shared in equal measure. Our team had just had a long walk, incident free but exhausting. We let them catch their breaths, get sorted so it was close on 4 am before we got on the road, which seeing as we should have been at Ben Nevis by 5, we knew we wouldn't reach our 24 hour target.

Leg 3

Sam was back in control, and we'd carefully studied the map and got the sat nav warmed up so we had a pretty straight forward run up into Scotland. As we got closer to Sellafield the road network improved somewhat and the guys in the back were able to get some rest. I'd lent one of the girls a fleece blanket and one of the guys a sweatshirt so as they could get warm and comfortable enough to snooze. I think I also nodded off for a bit on the drive up to Carlisle knowing Sam was clear on the directions.

We hit Scotland and got some daylight and sunlight and were making good progress but decided that we need a stop, if nothing else to stretch legs and get a cup of tea. The rag tag team that hobbled off the bus was quite a sight. The guy who'd borrowed my sweatshirt had fallen asleep and drooled on it, but didn't care what he looked like, neither did the girl who walked into the services with a blanket wrapped around her, we must have looked a strange bunch. What was amazing was that although we knew we had failed on the time, there was no dawdling or hanging around, after a toilet stop everyone got their tea/coffee to go and we were back on the road in 15 minutes. I later found out that team 2 had stopped at the same services and some of them had had showers and were drying clothes out on the hand dryers in the toilets. You can't blame them for that but out team were “happy” as they were and we got back on the road.

We made it through Glasgow without incident and headed up into the Highlands past Loch Lomond. Very picturesque but also pretty windy and even I started to feel car sick, due to tiredness and the fact I could see where we were going, I think the guys in the back were too tired to care. At one stage we had to get close to the side of the road as a delivery truck came thundering around one blind corner.

We arrived the 262 miles later at the start point at the Ben Nevis Inn at just before 10 am, the original completion time. As we got there we noticed that team 2 were still getting ready for their walk so both teams decided to head up together. One of their team had to call off the final walk due to a damaged ankle and two of our team also couldn't make it, the girl who'd done her knees on Snowdon and another who'd been finished off by Scafell.

So as the intrepid 15 set off on their final journey we met up with the other drivers. Seeing as it was nearly 24 hours since our last fry-up we planned to head into Fort William for some food. One of our girls decided to stay in our bus so we jumped onto the other two, and for some reason I was entrusted with the keys to bus 1. We would have taken one bus as there were 8 in total heading into town but there was so much debris all over the buses we took two. As the rain started to fall once again we had a big decision to make, where to have brunch, one of the drivers was craving McDonalds but the majority of the group didn't fancy it so we went up market to the local supermarket cafe, that said we dumped both buses in Maccy D's car park making sure no-one else could park there as the group split into two. Another full English later we decided it was best to move the buses up the road to a proper parking space whilst some of the girls went to look round the shops. We parked up and the heavens opened so the rest of us sat on the bus waiting for the shoppers to return. We didn't have long to wait as the bedraggled girls came back, fortunately we did tell them where we'd moved the buses to, and we headed back to the pub car park to wait.

It's at this point that I have to make clear quite how bad the turning circle on one of these mini-buses actually is, it's akin to an oil-tanker, so bear that in mind for the next bit. So there we were driving up the windy lane up to the pub when one of the girls from the other bus was complimenting me on my driving compared to their driver when we pulled into the car park. The car park was split into two sections, the first being a section where the cars were parked at a slight angle to the road pointed back down the hill so you had to swing round to get into the space. Well I saw this space between two cars and took a wide swing out before coming back in, of course the front of the bus took a wide swing whereas the back decided not to move, so as I got further into the space I heard a noise I wasn't expecting or hoping for, that kind of plastic meets plastic kind of noise. Having thought I'd imagined it, I pulled the bus up to a stop and got out to inspect my handy work. To the layman you wouldn't have known anything was wrong, who needs mudguard/wheel arch type affairs on a minibus anyway, and who was to say those scratches weren't on the rear bumper of the car before, it was quite a crappy old Toyota. Having given the flappy-dangly bit that was the mudguard a swift kick to finish off the job I went to speak to Chris to explain what had happened. His response was a tad surprising, he told me to move the bus to the other part of the car park and prop up the now detachable mudguard on the blindside of the bus and no-one would be any the wiser, so being a good boy, I did as I was told and headed into the pub throwing the keys back to the designated driver of bus 1 telling him that he may find it a tad quicker now I'd improved the aerodynamics and left it at that.

It was now around 2 pm and as the non walkers and the non drivers slowly got trolleyed in the pub we watched out of the window and waited and waited. I went back to the bus to try and catch a few z's as we continued to wait. It was around 3:30-4 as the first guys and girls from group 1 started to trudge their way down the last bit of the mountain to be greeted by a hero's welcome. As each one arrived they were met by a cheer, a round of applause, a hug, a cigarette and a beer, not necessarily in that order. As each one got down they were telling their individual tales and were desperate to get out of their climbing clothes into something a little more comfortable before heading to the bar for a much deserved second/third/fourth drink whilst we all waited for the last of the teams to make it down.

We'd booked into a hotel for the Saturday night and dinner was laid on for 7:30 which at the time seemed plenty of time as we had originally planned on finishing at 10 am, but as it was getting closer and closer to 6:30 and we were waiting for the last few to make it down some were getting anxious, and some were just getting pissed in the bar. We didn't have much longer to wait and as the last one made it down the champagne was cracked open. We ushered the stragglers on to the buses and headed off in convoy to our final destination in Newtonmore 50 miles further North. We got there just after half 7 and were given instructions to freshen up as quickly as possible and head for the dining room. I also had another near miss with the wing mirror and mudguard on our minibus when parking up at the hotel but I don't think too many noticed.

When we got into our rooms we were not exactly overwhelmed by the facilities but they had a bed, a toilet and a shower which was enough. I dumped my bags, jumped in the shower trying not to pull the shampoo dispenser off the wall and jumped out again. I couldn't decide whether I was more tired or hungry but went for the hungry and headed for the dining room. When I got there I realised I was the second to get there only beaten by Jon, and knowing how he likes his his food, no surprise there. It was hard to describe the dining room, I guess I'd go for trying too hard. All the waiters and waitresses were dressed in their finest Scottish garb, but the menu didn't match, it was more akin to your bog standard B&B (very much like the rooms). Anyway Jon and I helped ourselves to the bread rolls whilst we waited for the rest to arrive, and they did in their ones and twos, some walking better than others. We decided to rearrange the furniture in the section we were in and stuck two tables together. Every time a waiter came near we tried to give him our drinks ordered but he was too interested in taking our food orders and it took half a dozen attempts before he begrudgingly took our order.

The food itself was fine, nothing fancy but not awful, the shame was that we were all so tired that we couldn't manage it, not even me with my famed appetite. We did have a bit of fun with the poor Portuguese waitress and the desert trolley, one of the deserts was called “lumpy bumpy” which of course we were calling “rumpy pumpy” to much hilarity but I guess you had to be there. Even now I'm not sure what it was. So we all finished off desert and headed for the bar only to find it wasn't big enough for our entire group so we went back into the dining room where the rep from the charity was there to give a speech to thank everyone for their efforts and to explain where the £15,000 we'd raised was going (to train and man extra childline advisors in the Peterborough area).

At that point I was exhausted so made my excuses and headed back to the room to plan the route back in the morning and to get some sleep knowing we had an 8 hour drive ahead of us. However some of the guys were up for a bit of a session and didn't finish in the bar until half midnight. I found that nugget of information out as I was chatting to a few of them in the car park at 12:55 am after the fire alarm had gone off. It was one of those surreal moments, you are fast asleep and all of a sudden you wake up with a start in a strange bed with a high pitched whining sound coming from somewhere nearby (I guess if you go out on the pull in Peterborough you may get used to that). Anyway I grabbed my jeans, put them on and stuck my head out of the door into the corridor to see other just as perplexed people trying to work out what was going on. I ducked back into the room, put my trainers on, studied the fire exit map and headed out into the car park. Fortunately it had stopped raining but it wasn't very warm. We were out there for about 10 minutes before being allowed back in. The alarm did go off again briefly not long after we'd got back but no-one reacted to that one being too tired to care if they burnt or not. We did hear in the morning that it may have been one of our group trying to have a crafty fag in bed that set it off but it wasn't confirmed.

The alarm clock went off at 8, another more leisurely shower later and I knocked on Jon's door and we headed for breakfast, my third fry up in as many days. That's one thing that hotels can't go wrong with is breakfast and it hit the spot. During breakfast a couple from our group took the bus keys and did a compete tidy up, so our crew were ready and packed and checked out by just after half nine, and by the time we'd loaded up and said our goodbyes we were on the road by a quarter to ten. I'd worked out our route, the halfway stop point to change drivers and fuel stops the night before so we were clear when we left whereas the other groups were still trying to work out which way to head back. Sam did the first stint knowing that she had another hours drive home after we got back to Peterborough.

Again the 465 mile journey was pretty uneventful with our team remaining easy going as ever. We kept them informed as to how far to go to the stop and even when we got there, 15 minutes was enough for a stretch of legs, a drink, some food and a toilet break. It was on the last leg that I somehow momentarily got the bus up to 68 mph just as we were going past a police car, but I've no idea how I did it and couldn't repeat it. We were getting regular updates from the other buses and it was quite obvious that we were at least an hour ahead of the other teams so when we arrived back at our start point at 6 pm and the heavens opened once again, we didn't hang around, said quick goodbyes and went out separate ways. It was a shame as we didn't get a team photo of bus three and although we may have had some of the slower climbers in the team, we were the first to get to Snowdon, the first to the hotel and the first back to Peterborough so I see those as moral victories.

I do hear that Stephen from our team is trying to organise another independent attempt in a few weeks time, so good luck to all who endeavour to do that. I know I could never achieve the climbs but would be more than happy to drive again, with one caveat that I have slightly faster equipment, as it was an honour to be part of such a monumental effort.

A big well done to all that took part and no matter how many peaks you conquered you were prepared to give up your time and energy to attempt it, so kudos to you all.

Sorry folks but yes it has. Imagine, in that same time a mommy and a daddy beaver could have made a new baby beaver, but enough about beavers for now.

Those that know me well will understand the hiatus in my blogging activity, but those that don't, let's just say that I'm now officially an orphan and leave it at that.

So, I hear you all/both say, why start blogging again now? Well as I sit here pairing up my odd socks I thought I'd get back into the habit prior to the road trip.

I had planned on doing a retrospective of 2008, it being a shitty year, but winning the joint employee of the year a couple of weeks ago put things into perspective and I decided that there was no point wallowing in the past.

That said it was those past events that led to me saying "fuck it" and agreeing to the forthcoming road trip. Now I could go way back in working out the starting point for the trip (Yes I know it's Orlando), but in a spiritual sense I guess it can be traced back to 1990 when I first encountered our webmaster. Obviously a lot has happened since then that has led to the literally minutes of organisation that has gone into the trip (let's face it we're not climbing Everest here), but it is our shared interest in motorsport, him now living in the US and my gambling addiction that has actually made it happen.

So, what next? Well, the next blogs will be recorded in the Road Trip section of the blogs on the site with pictures making it onto Facebook. It's up to you dear devoted fans to keep up.

I now pass you over to our Grand Marshall for those immortal words....."Gentlemen, start your engines"

I have to agree with our webmaster, Sepember has proven to be a pretty quiet month, however I have just had a pretty bizarre conversation with one of my local takeaways!

It's been one of those lazy Saturdays, getting up late, watching Liverpool win the mersey derby, do some washing and housework and veg out in front of the TV. It was getting late and I fancied a takeaway so phoned up. I had finished placing my order and given my postcode for their new sat-nav when the guy on the other end of the phone asked how I was and said long time no speak. Worrying really as it had only been about 4-6 weeks sinced I'd last used them. Admittedly these guys usually give me a Christmas card but I'm not on first name terms or anything. I suppose if I ever did have an accident at home and couldn't get to the phone they'd be the first to alert the authorities!

As an aside, I went out for lunch with my team at work the other day and looked up the menu on the net in advance, here's the link to one of the most informative websites I've ever visited..

Fox&Hounds (sadly the website linked for foxandhoundslonghorpe.co.uk no longer exists)

I was going to issue a postscript to my previous entry when the dour Scot Andy Murray reached the final of the US open tennis, but he lived up to form and lost the final in straight sets, typical.

However tonight the football team have come good. The only problem being only a small percentage of the population are actually watching the game. The game is being shown on Setanta sports, a small satellite channel that is a subscription only service. Most people are on Sky so are unwilling to pay the extra £10 a month for the monster truck racing and UFC that are normally shown on Setanta, worse still the highlights are not being shown free to air.

I know this is the future of tv, but it is a shame that such an important game is so inaccessible, especially when England win so convincingly. Thank god for BBC Radio 5 Live.

Today had the potential to be a good day in British sport, and just like the weather it turn into a damp squib.

It started badly when I slipped and fell down a grass bank at the work's family fun day and covered half of myself in mud. I realise that the words work family and fun don't normally go together and I have no family but I needed to drop something off with an old colleague who happened to be there, so I went along. Fortunately no-one captured the moment on film so there were only a handful of witnesses who have subsequently been sufficiently bribed.

Anyway, the plan for the rest of the day was to go over to see some friends, watch the first England qualifying game of the world cup qualification campaign and then sit back and enjoy the Amir Khan fight.

Well the England performance was lacklustre at best, the fans were right to boo them off at half time, and despite two goals from the little shit named Joe Cole the overall performance against Andorra, 186th in the world rankings, was poor.

So after grabbing a pizza we headed back to my friends' house and paid our £15 to watch the boxing and we waited in anticipation. First up was Audley "A-Force" Harrison, and he lived up to expectations by being even worse than England. The only notable moment was when his shorts bunched up at the back and "fo" of his nickname were hidden and the word "Arce" was spelt out on his backside, summed it up really.

Another fight on the undercard was sat through which was pretty good and the underdog won, leaving us clear for the main fight to begin at around 11pm. That in itself was a god send having stayed up to 4am on occasions with our webmaster waiting for Prince Naseem Hamed fights were the entrance sequence lasted longer than the fight. Well tonight, I've sneezed for longer than the fight lasted. Khan has been knocked onto his backside before but has popped back up and thrashed his opponents, but this time he got hit so hard after 30 secs that his legs went (he looked like a bird that had been hit by a car twitching by the roadside), a few seconds later he was down. The ref should have called it off then, but he let it go on for just another 10 seconds before he was down and out. To say it was a shock would be an understatement but when they showed the shots on super slo-mo it showed just how hard he had been hit.

I do wonder if such a shot will be a career ender. It certainly was the case for Hamed. I just hope Khan learns from the fight and that England perform better against better opposition on Wednesday against Croatia.

Today was a controversial day in the Olympic TaeKwonDo championships, words you'd not normally put together.

Earlier in the day a British fighter had clearly kicked her Chinese counterpart in the face and didn't get the points awarded. A protest was made and the fight decision was over turned much to the dismay of the local crowd. The poor British girl was roundly booed by the crowd through her next two bouts.

Thinking that was bad enough, Angel Matos from Cuba decided to take his protest one step further and took out his frustrations directly on a referee.

TaeKwonDoh! For our US viewers (link removed as no longer active)

TaeKwonDo-nut! For our UK viewers

Apologies blog fans, have been enthralled by the olympics and all of the gold medals that Team GB have been winning. Some sour grapes from the Aussies who claim we only win medals in events where you are sitting down (Sailing, rowing & cycling), which although true, is a little harsh.

It's been an amazing event with some amazing performances, week 1 belonged to Michael Phelps, but week 2 has to be Usain Bolt's although Chris Hoy deserves a shout.

Anyway, to the subject of the blog, the Modern Pentathlon, subject of much debate as to how "modern" it actually is. According to wikipedia it was created to simulate the experience of a 19th century cavalry soldier behind enemy lines: he must ride an unfamiliar horse, fight with pistol and sword, swim, and run. Maybe the ultra modern penthathlon should include events such as programming TiVo/Sky+, rescuing personal belongings after your house has been flooded/repossessed, fighting off muggers, driving through rush-hour traffic and running for the bus? Maybe you can think of better ones?

However, it's the comment about unfamiliar horses that led me to blog. Apparently the competitors in the show-jumping section of the pentathlon have a random draw for which horse they get to ride, which leads to all kinds of confusion. The problem is that you get all kinds of penalty points for refusals, knocked down fences and going over your alloted time, all of which add time onto your run in the final event. Today it seemed that someone had spooked all of the horses as all competitors were having a mare so to speak, averaging over 200 penalties each, however the following video shows a poor Hungarian who was given Pingping to ride. I don't know much about horses and show-jumping, but I'm sure it helps if your horse has actually seen a fence before. Check it out.

Pingping stinks For UK Users

Pentathlon horse capers For our American buddies (link removed as no longer active)

Listening to the radio last night there was this guy on who'd just written a book about the pointless arguments he has with his girlfriend. Well rather than buying the book, read his website.

Trust me, you'll recognise at least 90% of the scenarios.

Pointless Arguments

Enjoy

This was a good week if you were following bizarre national celebratory days.

Not only is it national hot dog month, Monday was "take your pants for a walk day", Tuesday was "national chocolate day", yesterday was "national cheesecake day" and today is "national orgasm day", I suppose it only goes to reason after the previous days. You would have thought that tomorrow is "national fall asleep avoiding the wet patch day", but no, it's "national raspberry cream pie day", go figure.

I can't wait for October which is "national pizza month" and "sarcastic month", that'll be productive.

If you'd been down the pub with me about 6 months ago you would have witnessed one of my trademark rants against social networking internet sites such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace etc. I just didn't see the point, in fact I thought the term social networking was an oxymoron.

Six months later and my position has changed. I'm no longer sitting in the pub. Cheap gags aside I now kind of see the point. I got persuaded to sign up by an ex-colleague who I'd met at a testing conference. She said that she'd managed to catch up with quite a few old friends and colleagues through the site.

So with this information, I took the bold step and signed up and within a week I had over 20 "friends". Admittedly they were all people I work with and see on a daily basis, but you get the point. I then did a bit of digging and found a load of ex-colleagues and got in touch.

This weekend was the culmination of those efforts when a group of 15 adults and 20 kids all got together at a bbq, all people who I'd worked with in testing over the last ten years (the adults, not the kids). A good old catch was had by all and plans for a follow-up were made. I guess it goes to prove that the sites work. I'm now going to find some even older work colleagues from my previous role, wish me luck.

Happy networking.

Firstly let me officially welcome the Rag to it's new home, let's hope for bigger and better things in the future including the 10th person to sign up for the newsletter.

So, onto my story. It was during a rare spare 5 minutes at work when I got the chance to read the computing magazine I subscribe to. It was a story about how political correctness has been taken to a new level of stupidity.

The airport at St Marys on the Isles of Scilly needs a new air traffic controller so they have put out a job advert. One of the key attributes of the role is 20-20 vision, however they have made a Braille version of the job spec and application form available due to local laws around not being able to discrimate against visually challenged individuals.

What do they expect, the guide dog to bark when the planes get too close, or piss on it's owners left leg for left and right leg for right? It's mad, some people are just not suitable for some jobs. I know I'll never be a 100m runner but I don't expect to be asked.

Plane-crazy

I'm not sure if this is going to turn into a Seinfeld-esque bit, but what's the deal with milk these days?

When I was a kid, milk came in a bottle and it was left on your doorstep early in the morning and your only problem was keeping the tits off it. Plus milk was milk, you didn't get the choice of different types of milk, it was milk straight from the cow rushed past your face, i.e. pasteurised (past your eyes - oh forget it). If you were lucky you got gold top as a treat, but normally you got standard milk.

With the onset of global warming and the never ending march of the supermarket we stopped getting milk delivered and sold our soul to Tesco. It was amazing you went into the milk "aisle" and you had the choice of three different kinds of milk (ignoring the flavoured milk options), normal full fat, semi-skimmed and skimmed. As time went on, other kinds of milk like organic, goat’s milk and milk of magnesia appeared on the shelves.

However, I was in the supermarket the other day and a new kind of milk had appeared 1% fat milk. I hadn't realised that there was a gap in the market, with full fat being 4%, semi-skimmed at 2% and skimmed at 0.1%. 1% fat was the obvious choice, but where does it stop, 0.5%, 3%, 2.6565645%? I guess they'll only stop when the rub out of colours for the labels.

What I want to know is where they keep the fields of low fat grass they are feeding the cows on to make this new kind of milk.



Right I'm off to find some 1% fat cookies to go with my new milk, happy drinking.

When I say Monday I mean bank holiday Monday, when I say night, I mean afternoon, when I say football, I mean English football (soccer) just.

In UK there's a tradition of crap movies on TV, this particular bank holiday that movie was Escape to Victory (E2V), a film loosely based around football, although it does star Sly Stallone. In fact E2V is the answer to a bit of pub trivia, as in "In which team did Pele play alongside Ossie Ardeles, John Wark and Russell Osman?", but again, most of those names will mean nothing to our American readers apart from why is a guy who advertises Viagra playing football?

So the alternative to E2V was the Women's FA Cup final on the BBC, now having been to a women's soccer game, I decided that quality of the football in E2V was going to be much better, Stallone included.

I'd been to see a Women's international game at the Sixfields stadium in Northampton a few years ago. Jon and I have a habit of finding cheap alternative sports, and this was cheap, a whopping great £3 ($5 as it was). It was England versus Denmark in a friendly. Jon and I certainly felt out-numbered in the crowd by the amount of women, in fact I think the line I used was that there were more dykes there than in Holland. Ok cheap line, but an easy one to make. So the quality of the football on display wasn't that great, the skill was there, but it just wasn't fast enough, to be honest the best part of the game was watching the Danish subs warming up at the side of the pitch directly in front of us.

So back to Monday afternoon, knowing how bad women's football is as a watch it had to be E2V. That said, I did miss one of the best passages of commentary on live football on the BBC in ages. Apparently the male commentator turned to his female co-commentator/pundit and said "I understand that one of Leeds players is nicknamed Munch, why is that?" After a few moments of awkward silence and stifled giggles, he swiftly moved on and changed the subject. A definite case of foot in mouth, or should that be rug in mouth?

I was flicking through the BBC sport pages when I found the link to this video.



(Video on flash - no longer supported)

Taken from the Reuters website it shows the German chair racing championships.

It tickled me as it reminded me of what we used to get up to when we worked night shift. We set the lap record of 43.4 secs for a lap around the office pushing yourself backwards on your office chair. It wasn't that dangerous unless you hit the edge of a cabinet and sent yourself flying into a set of wastepaper bins. Oh those were the days.

It was something that Jon said to me after he'd been looking after my house whilst away on holiday. He said the only things that came through my letter box were pizza menus, free newspapers and charity clothing collection bags.

I'm not sure if you get the equivalent thing in the States, but basically they're plastic bags that you are expected to fill with unwanted old clothes that then get picked up dodgy guys in a white van and allegedly taken to the charity shop of the particular charity written on the bag.

Anyway, I’ve worked out that my house is where all of these bags go to die, either that or there’s an awful lot of charities out there desperate for stinky old clothes. I’ve had four different bags through the door this week, on top of the six I’d had last week. Who has that many unwanted items of clothing? Surely it would make more sense, and be more environmentally friendly, if all the charities got together, sent out the one bag and shared the proceeds. Then if you wanted to support an individual charity you could take the stuff to that shop, if you just want to get rid of old clothes, just dump them in the one bag.

At least with all of these bags, it gives me somewhere to store the pizza leaflets and free newspapers.

Of course whilst I was enjoying myself watching all of the motorsport today, one of my best mates, Jon, was putting himself through 4 hours of torture.

I'd had a bit of a dilemma, trying to work out whether I should have gone down to London to watch and support Jon in the marathon, or whether to take up the offer of the free ticket to the BTCC. I decided, possibly a little selfishly, to go to the motor racing.

Anyway, when I got home I checked Jon's details and he finished in 3 hrs 57 mins, 10679th overall and has raised nearly £4,000 ($8000) for his charities. So well done Jon.

I did send him a text to congratulate him, and his response was two words.....

"Never Again".

I'm sure you'll all join me in congratulating him on his effort.

Today I spent a few hours at Rockingham (Rockingham, Corby, Northamptonshire, England, not Rockingham North Carolina) watching the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) racing.

I guess the BTCC is the closest equivalent to NASCAR we have in the UK now that ASCAR is all but defunct. ASCAR cars were the equivalent of the NASCAR east or west series cars, but the problem being that we only have the one oval circuit suitable for the cars at Rockingham and we only get the one weekend that stays dry, usually the one the racing isn't on, so it didn't really take off. Even at it's height the grids only had 25 cars, which compared to the 43 you get in NASCAR, seems quite pathetic.

BTCC cars are stock saloons with some minor modifications, but have much smaller engines and are designed to run on what the Americans call road courses. That's the big difference between American petrolheads and the rest of the world, in America the oval rules, over here it just doesn't seem to work. Personally, I enjoy both, and can see the positives and negatives in both forms.

The other big difference between the two forms is that NASCAR events run for 300-500 miles and you get the one 4 hour race on race day, whereas the BTCC race day has a number of much shorter races. On the Sunday there are 3 50km (32 miles) races in the BTCC championship, interspersed with a mixture of single make saloon races and single formula open top races, all about the same distance, all lasting about 30 minutes per race.

Anyway, I managed to get a free ticket to this weekend's event from an ex-colleague, Martin. He is one of the happy band of volunteer marshals that make motorsport possible in this country, so am doubly grateful that he's prepared to give up his weekend for the benefit of petrol heads like me.

I timed my arrival just perfectly, the first race of the day had just finished, which were the Porsches, whilst although sound exotic are the most dull race on the card. I checked in with Martin the marshal to see which post he was on and made my way to my seat. Rockingham has a main covered grandstand on the start/finish straight that overlooks the entire oval and infield circuit, so I made my way up to the top and found a seat in time for the Clio cup.

The first three races pass off relatively uneventfully although the rain shower towards the end of the first BTCC race did make for a few spins and slides. So at lunch I agree to meet up with Martin and make my way to the infield paddock. We catch up and chat about the morning's racing, but he had to dash back to his post as he has to be back 10 minutes before the next race cars form on the grid. The next race is the second of the BTCC races, which had some good close racing and some excellent examples of car control but no major accidents.

At this point I check the program of events and realise that there's a two hour gap before the next race that I wanted to see, and seeing that the weather was closing in again I decided to go home and watch the last race at home on TV in the warm and the dry. The bonus being that I got to see the last half an hour of the Liverpool football game as well. However, watching on TV the Clio race provided a pretty spectacular crash and the last BTCC event was held in a torrential down pour, which always makes for fun racing.

I have also watched the coverage of the NASCAR night race from Arizona from yesterday, it was nice to see Dario Franchitti qualify, shame his race pace still isn't quite there. Good finish to the race though, with Johnson just managing to keep enough fuel in the car to make it to the end.

All in all a complete petrol head day. Makes up for the rained off event in California in February.

It must be the friends I keep, but why are they all on the look out for a bargain? After the free bowling ball escapade, another such episode came to light last night.

I'd popped down to see a friend who is due to run the London marathon this weekend (see shameless plug), I'd gone down to give him his sponsorship money and to wish him luck. I was chatting away when his wife said, "has he told you about his latest purchase?". Of course he hadn't, so I had to ask.

It turns out that he'd been trawling ebay for bargains and he came across a piano for 99p ($2) so he bought it. It then cost him £50 ($100) to hire a trailer to pick it up and £40 in petrol to drive there and back. The downside to this is that it is now sitting in his garage gathering dust. There's no real room in his house for it, neither he nor his wife really play and his kids are far too young to start learning, but it was a bargain.

Personally I don't get ebay, it just seems like people exchanging a load of old junk.

I think I've worked out the root cause of our webmaster's current illness.

I've just finished polishing up "Andy" for a bowling session with some cream that a mate lent to me. Reading the label of "Platinum series high performance ProPolish plus" it says it's for "Maximum length and backend reaction". I think he should stick to his blue pills if he wants maximum length without the backend reaction.

What is it about a fireman's uniform that drives women wild?

Let me explain. Last night we had a bit of excitement when the local mechanics garage's car storage area went up in flames.

I didn't know anything was going on to start with; I'm used to the sound of sirens on a Saturday night. It wasn't until I heard a bang, kind of like a wheelie bin being blown over, did I think to look out of the window (knowing that no wheelie bins were out and it wasn't windy). I got into my kitchen and it smelled quite smoky, and although I'm not exactly a gourmet chef, I knew this wasn't my doing this time so looked out of the window to see a huge great big fire engine and plumes of smoke.

Of course a fire brings out lookers-on, and of course firemen bring out women, there were about half a dozen of the local hausfraus out in their nighties. The ironic thing being was that most were smoking cigarettes whilst looking.

This should be quite an unusual occurrence, but it's the fourth or fifth time this storage area has gone up, so you do wonder if it's an insurance job. It's strange that the garage is allowed to store cars that close to a residential area, I wonder if the local council will review the situation.

Ok so we moved our clocks forward and caught up with the US on Daylight Savings Time this weekend just gone. Having worked night shifts in the past, this was one of the nights you looked forward to having to work one hour less than scheduled to do so. Obviously the converse happened in October when your shift was an extra hour longer.

What I don't understand is why we still use daylight savings time. Surely midday is the time at which the sun is at its highest point during the day, but no not for the next six months. I know the argument is to give both lighter evenings and the advantage of bright mornings, but I just don't get it.

Of course what is worse, the idiots in UK think that now we are on Summer time, it must be summer. In fact on Monday I saw my first ice cream van of the year out on the streets. This is fine except the previous weekend we'd had widespread snow. I'm not sure if our American readers are aware of what an ice cream van is, hence the picture. But they sell something called ice cream but is more akin to sloppy frozen milk, and other frozen deserts and they are called Mr Whippy and they play crappy monotone versions of classics such as Greensleeves or The Happy Wanderer. Many a Sunday afternoon was spent queuing up to get a 99 from Mr Whippy. That said, when I was at school the local ice cream man used to sell individual cigarettes to kids at 10p a fag, which even those was highly illegal and quite expensive.

But not only did BST bring out the ice cream vans, but I saw two people in t-shirts, shorts and flip flops in the supermarket on Monday, ok so it wasn't blowing a gale, but it certainly wasn't t-shirt weather.

I think that our climate is so bad that even the mention of summer brings out the worst in the average Brit.

As an update - we actually had snow this weekend, flights were cancelled, yet still the ice cream vans came around on Sunday.

Not that I mean to use this blog as a place to vent my spleen, but I want to add my voice to those other web dissenters over Sky's coverage of Nascar.

It was bad enough that last week the missed the first 34 laps of the race because they were showing live badminton. I wouldn't have minded if the game involved a British team or fit women, but no it was two teams of Korean men. They also are very bad at coping with the copious advert breaks from the US coverage, handing back too early or too late.

However this week, only 5 weeks into a season where they claim to be showing the entire season exclusively live that we get "as live" coverage 4 hours later than the start time. Added to this the "as live" show is only two and a half hours long, which is not long enough to cover the entire race let alone any pre or post race activities. Even worse, the programs on at the time the race actually started were a 2 hour golf discussion show and "as live" coverage of the first A1GP race from Mexico (again no explanation as to why this wasn't shown live)

Come on Sky, get your act together, either be serious about the coverage or let someone else who can do it, do it.

On a lighter(?) note, in a recent survey, this weekend was deemed as the most dangerous to be riding a motorbike. Apparently one in seven motorbike collisions involve a Ford Focus, followed by a Fiesta and a Transit van. You've got to be pretty unlucky yo get hit by all three in a row.

Ok still not gotten around to finishing the holiday blog, but had to get this off my chest.

Last night when I went to bed I stuck on my DAB digital radio. I was after some music to listen to whilst reading. After coming back from the states where it seems that every town has at least two rock stations and even the interstate between Vegas and LA has it's own dedicated rock station, I'd hoped that with the introduction of digital and more availability of licences the station choice might have been better.

But no, the only new station added was one called Birdsong, and yes it is a case of a ronseal moment, it does exactly what it says on the tin, it plays recordings of birdsong 24x7. Who on earth wants to listen to that? Not only that but how can that be commercially viable, unless they are playing sublimal tweets that are really adverts for trill or something, they're not going to make any money.

Maybe I should shit or get off the pot and do something about it and set-up my own radio station, but maybe there's just not the appetite for a rock only station in the UK.

I'm back from my epic adventures, a full blog to follow, but I wanted to share this link to an article about one of my best friends and him running the London marathon for charity.

Localman-runs-for-son (link removed as no longer active)

I'm sure you'll all join me in wishing him all the best with the run and the fund raising.

Good luck Jon!

That's something that advertising guys at Sky obviously don't do.

We've just had the first ad break in the live coverage of the Daytona 500 (Nascar) motor racing, and not only was there an ad for nappy rash cream but also a cure for thrush. I may have mis-read the viewing demographics for Nascar but I would guess it's 95% male. Surely all ads would be for beer, cars and Lynx deoderant.

As a follow up to a previous post, on Wednesday my ex-work colleague picked up his new bowling ball and I went along to get mine re-bored. It's amazing how scientific it is getting your fingers measured for your bowling ball. Afterwards we agreed to get a few of us together and go bowling on Friday, so we did.

The price was £10 for the first two games and £2 for the next, so we paid for three games and off we went. We spent the first couple of games getting used to the balls trying to get the spin on it like the pro's do, but by the third game I'd decided to give it the full beans and bowl as hard as I could. That was fine until someone looked at their watch, said that it was still early, let's see if we can another game for £2 which we did, and then we did another.

Three hours of bowling later, I worked out that I'd bowled/thrown a 16 lbs bowling ball nearly 100 times. Surprisingly I am having to type left handed as my right arm is aching a tad.

It seems as if this is going to be a regular event so I'm going to have to somehow build up the muscles in my right arm, any suggestions how?? :)

With the protracted writers strike still dragging on (apologies for the tautology there) I came across something in the movie channels section on Sky (Satellite TV) that may fill the gap in the cinema schedules.

On channel 331, there is a channel called Nollywood. I had to look it up on Wikipedia, and it is channel devoted entirely to films from Nigeria. I guess if Indian films come from Bollywood (named from the portmanteau of Bombay and Hollywood), the natural progression is the Nigerian version Nollywood, but it does make one wonder what will come next.... perhaps...

Collywood - films about English sheepdogs
Gollywood - films starring characters from Robertsons jam labels
Mollywood - films starring Molly Sugden making references to her pussy
Pollywood - films made entirely with talking parrots

I'm sure there are more, and seeing as the caption competition has fizzled out, there's a prize for the best ollywood pun. The prize being an automotive PA system, which I appear to have become the sole UK distributor of. Good Luck.

When it's free porn.

Ok so I should say that when I say football I mean English football (soccer) not what our American friends call football. This all on Superbowl weekend as well. My prediction for that is that a team with the word "NEW" in their name will win.

Anyway, back to the story. Recently I came across this bit of software that allows you to watch TV channels from abroad, interesting but not that spectacular until you realise that it means you can watch live soccer over the net that is not being broadcast on local TV, more importantly games that I actually want to watch.

I mentioned this software to a friend at work, having watched the Liverpool game the previous weekend in perfect Chinese commentary, and this saturday afternoon I sat down to watch the Spurs Vs Man Ure game at 3 p.m. (it was actually a stream of the Setanta sports US broadcast). It was all fine until half-time. I'd got up to make a cup of tea but had left the PC on during the ads, when in the kitchen I heard something that didn't exactly sound like an ad or football, I came back into the room (pardon the pun) to see that it had somehow switched to streaming the playboy channel (not sure who'd be streaming that at 4pm UK time/11am EST). What made it worse was at the same time, my work colleague had just hooked up and was about to sit his 9 year old son in front of the same stream. Not surprisingly my phone went to confirm that what he was seeing was what I was seeing, to which the answer was yes. Fortunately a quick refresh and we both got the football back and were able to watch Man Ure fluke a last minute equaliser.

I've no idea if this is legal or not, but I guess if the biggest risk in watching live streaming football is the occasional blast of porn, it's a risk I'm prepared to take.

When it's a bowling ball.

One of the guys at work decided that he wanted to take up bowling a bit more seriously, not sure why, but he has these whims every now and then. He decided to go to the local pro shop and put a deposit down on a ball. He then dragged me down to the shop to try and convince me to buy my own ball, but I said I'd wait and see how he got on with his own.

All was fine until I got a phone call yesterday morning from him saying that he'd picked a free ball and did I want it? The problem is that he's left handed and the ball was right handed (apparently there is a difference). He'd been to a wedding the day before and was chatting to someone, mentioned that he was buying a ball and they said that they had an old one and were planning on throwing it out so he could have it for nothing.

Now here comes the expensive bit, if you've got your own bowling ball you can't really turn up to the local alley with it in a Tesco carrier-bag. You either get laughed out of the place or the bag splits before you get there and the ball rolls down the street. So a proper bag is needed. The other problem is the finger holes are a little small for my chubby fingers, so I will need it re-boring. Oh and on top of that, the previous owner had his name etched on the ball, so I'm going to have re-name myself Andy.

Of course, now I've got my own ball, I've now got to go more often and raise my average above 42, so all in all it could prove to be a very costly freebie.

Having read Webmaster J's business plan, I have decided to formulate my own. I could have delved into Maslow's triangle but decided to follow that of American billionaires and sports teams.

The plan is to offer $8m (well below the market valuation) and fund this purchase with a number of high risk loans with no real collateral behind them. I then plan on interfering with the way the website is run, denying funds for new servers, hard-drives and memory. This should then upset the "fans" of the website prompting protests and boycotts of the site. This should then come to the attention of a few people wearing tea-towels on their heads to whom I'd sell the site to for $12m. I'm happy, Webmaster J's happy, and nuts to the fans of the site.

All I can say is - "Gillette, not necessarily the best a man can get"

Ok so it's over two months since I've blogged, and yes I've seen a doctor and prunes have been prescribed.

So happy New Year, and a big apology two both of my regular readers for the lack of content recently. I'd love to put it down to being abducted by aliens or something, but it's a combination of too busy at work, a bit of can't be aresedness and lack of interesting things to say.

So onto the blog, the real reason for it is that I was doing a bit of research at work the other day and came across a competitor's website. Pretty run of the mill stuff, the usual things I'd expect to see until I stumbled onto the "recommend a friend" page, a bit unusual for a forex site, but even more unusual was the fact that you got a free gift for recommending a friend, a pot of clotted cream. I had to double check as this seemed a tad strange, but no it was true, for each friend you recommended to their website you got a free pot of clotted cream. Now obviously I would like to point you to this site, but that would be disloyal to my company, plus it's winter and strawberries are out of season.

Talking of doing double takes I had to do one in the supermarket the other night. I was walking past the display where the have the business cards for local merchants and services when one caught my eye. I thought it said 10% off slut hire, and although knowing that the supermarket was in a rough area of the city, I knew this couldn't be right as the normal discount is usually 25% off. Actually it was 10% off suit hire, but that was less interesting.

It is strange to note that I have chosen the most depressing day of the year to do my first blog in ages, but there you go.
Blue Monday (link removed as no longer active)

Right I'm off, have another quiz to compile to tax the bumpkins, so look for that on the site in the coming days.

Adios.

Bloody work, had to stay late for the umpteenth week in a row, that means that I've missed the pub quiz again. I'm sure the country bumpkins will be sending out the search parties soon.

I've just found we've got a local library, they kept that quiet.

Ok, so I promised to post an update with the results of my gambling on Saturday. The bad news is that I wimped out on Saturday after a quick visit to the shops in the morning, I decided with the help of the British weather that it was too effing cold to be standing around for 3-4 hours facing directly into the wind.

I feel vindicated in my decision as Liverpool won 3-0 and the main race of the day was "contested" by just two horses, so I didn't miss that much.

Anyway, here's to Ian Holloway the first Leicester city manager to win his first game in charge since 1943.

Well it's a unanimous decision, well if 2 can be counted as unanimous, it looks like I'm going to the races tomorrow, all I need now are the winning tips. The bad news is that my usual betting partner in crime can't make it, which means I can't rely upon him picking the losers allowing me to get the winners so don't hold out much hope for winning big. Will post the results tomorrow. Come on Hoof Hearted.

Well England lost to Croatia and failed to qualify for next year's European championships. It's especially bad given the lifeline they were thrown at the weekend, but no they decided to balls it up.

It brings to mind the lyrics of a song by those poodle permed rockers, Poison, "I tried all night not to break down and cry as the tears rolled down my face." All I can say is that whoever was singing couldn't have tried that hard.

It's been emotional.

A number of you have been asking where I've been, what I've been doing, why haven't I been blogging? Well, when I say a number, 1, but 1 is a number. The answer is that I have been busy and couldn't be arsed, that and as I've said before, I don't have that much of a life and therefore not much to say.

So onto the dilemma, it appears that I may actually have a free day on Saturday and I don't know whether to go to the horse racing at Huntingdon (it being Peterborough chase day, the most prestgious day on the Huntingdon calendar) or to stay in and watch the football live on sky and then whatever sport I can find for the rest of the day. On the plus side it'd be good to get out and get some fresh air and daylight, on the downside it'll be effing cold, could be expensive and I'd miss watching Liverpool.

So I thought I'd leave it up to the hoardes of loyal readers to decide, so should I:

a) go to the races,
b) stay in and watch the footy, or
c) actually get a life?

Vote by posting a comment.

And no, I'm not talking about some dodgy film sequel starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta, I am in fact referring to coincidental fact that I too went to a hockey game this weekend. I went to see the Nottingham Panthers play the Hull Stingrays. The score, sponsored by East Bay Rag, was 5-1 to the Panthers, the first two periods were a bit scrappy and there were a lot of mis-placed passes, however in the final period an almost completely different Panthers side came out and took control and scored three goals. There was an injury to one player, three pucks went into the crowd but no fights, although there were a couple of occasions where it looked as if it was going to kick off. I do hasten to add that I had arranged and bought the tickets before realising that our webmaster had just gone to a hockey game.

This was my third hockey game, my first being a proper NHL game where I saw the South Florida Panthers play Carolina Hurricanes, which was a much grander affair with video replays and ice dancer cheerleaders. My second game was a Peterborough Phantoms game, which was a re-arranged game after the first one was called off due to a hole in the ice. Peterborough is a lower league side, probably equivalent to the old division 4 in football, so everything is a bit tatty and small scale, but the atmosphere is fine and they won 6-3 and there was a punch up when I went to see them.

One thing I had forgotten, or maybe it was just more in your face at Nottingham, but everything is sponsored, the team, the period breaks, the helmets, the penalty boxes even the bloody air in the arena. So everytime there was a break in play not only did their young girl cheerleaders try and react to whichever random tune they played (I'm convinced that one of the girls on the middle row had just turned up to watch the game, but was given an outfit and told to join in, she was that far out of sync) but everything had it's sponsorship message read over and over again, even now I could tell you that the away penalty box was sponsored by PWP (not that I could tell you who or what they do). Another thing that has made across from the states is the over-sized replica jerseys, well they maybe over-sized for the majority of fans, but I guess for me and most of the American population, they are snug-fit.

That aside, hockey is a much more friendly and civilised spectating experience than football (soccer), you can take beer to your seat, there's a real mix of ages and genders in the crowd and you don't feel intimidated if it's your first visit. If you've never been, I highly recommend it.

I got sent this link and a song from someone. It's quite clever, you enter a sentence/phrase and it sings it back to you using lyrics taken from other songs.

http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/Src/sing/sing.asp?key=undefined [edited - link doesn't appear to be working anymore]

In this day in history:

1982: Mary Rose rises after 437 years
1958: Grandstand first broadcast on the BBC

Oh, I was born a long long time ago.

I also share a birthday with people such as Dawn French, Luke Perry and Bergerac himself, John Nettles.

If you are interested in knowing what was No1 in the charts on the day you were born, try this website out. Not only does it give you the UK chart, but those of the US and Australia.

ThisDayInMusic

Happy birthday to me, I'm off tonight to quiz some country bumpkins.

Yesterday was Mascot Grand National day at my local horse racing track, Huntingdon. There is nothing like the site of 50+ 6ft tall mascots stampeding down a racecourse jumping over tiny little hurdles. This year it was won by Wacky Macky Bear from Saffron Waldron FC, although the course commentator kept calling him Wacky Backy much to everyone's amusement.



The race now in it's 9th running is so famous it was shown live on Sky News. Hopefully you'll find the coverage at Sky News (link removed as Sky removed article)

The best thing is that you can bet on the race itself.

After the mascot race, they have a full set of races for the rest of the afternoon. I managed to win enough on the first race to cover my bets for the rest of the afternoon, which was a surprise as my horse came in second, however the bookie made a mistake and paid out for a win, shame.

Last week I went to visit a client's site (nothing special in that). However as part of the visit I got to go into the secure area where money is kept. As part of the various security measures they have these plastic tube things. It's like a big clear plastic tube, where one half slides round, you step into it, it closes back around you, you wait a couple of seconds and then the other side slides back and you step out the other side.

It all seemed pretty straightforward as I watched my colleagues go through until it came to my turn. The door opened and I stepped in, and then the door closed behind me. There I was enclosed in this plastic tube when an automated voice said "one at a time please". It turns out that there were pressure sensors on the floor and it had triggered an alert thinking that my weight was that of two people combined. So now I'm stuck in this tube thinking how I could get out. After about thirty seconds the other door opened and I was safe again. The security guard trigger some kind of over-ride.

It turns out they get at least one fat bastard a week who encounters the same situation so didn't feel quite so bad. At least the guys back in the office got a laugh out of it when I told them the next day.

Whilst watching Soccer AM this morning, they ran a piece about David Beckham possibly being in the Simpsons and showing what he may look like. They also mentioned a website that you could use to Simpsonize yourself, so I gave it a go.



Ok so it's not brilliant, but not bad. You can give it a go yourselves at 'http://www.simpsonizeme.com'

Disguised as the mysterious Mr O I decided to go out and use my share of the winnings from the "bumpkin" quiz last night to buy a new car. Ok the sum total of £5 didn't exactly go that far towards the cost but every little helps.

I have now joined the elite 4x4 gas guzzling brigade, well that's what the government thinks, but if you look at the picture, it's not exactly a Range Rover.



I'm picking it up in a couple weeks time, and no doubt my licence will be garnished within four.

I happened across the rugby world cup game between New Zealand and Scotland this afternoon and must admit that I was finding it difficult to tell the two teams apart. Well eventually it was obvious which were New Zealand as they were the ones scoring all the points. What was confusing was that the All Blacks were wearing a light bluey/grey top. I always thought that they were called the All Blacks because they wore all black! Incidentally the New Zealand badminton team are known as the black cocks, not sure if that's due to the ethnicity of the team or some kind of disease they picked up in the changing room.

Also, whatever happened to Sundays being the day to go car shopping. I went out this morning to find that both my local Scooby garages are shut on Sundays. What's the point of that? Sunday is the best day for it, most other dealerships are open, so come Subaru, find yourselves a half decent local franchise.

I'm hoping to catch up with the webmaster this week, so I'll let you know whether the slide show is worth sitting through, judging by the quality of some of the pictures on the site, the answer is probably yes.

My tirade against television continues.

Bizarrely ITV decided to show Beverly Hills cop at 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. A film that contains at least 20 uses of the word fuck in the opening action sequence in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, you know it's either going to be cut to shreds or very badly over-dubbed. Yes, it was both, totally ruined. Admittedly it didn't help that every time the main theme came on I kept thinking of the crazy frog, which made me want to smash the tv.

So move onto 10 pm and ITV 2, they start showing Shaun of the Dead, and they even badly over-dub that. In the first few minutes Ed asks the guys in the pub if "he can get any of you cunts a drink", except that tonight they are now cocks not cunts. Why, it's well after the watershed, it's an obscure digital tv channel, what was the reason for cutting that word? BBC 3 had an entire documentary on the word and it's acceptance in modern society. Apparently there was a street in Oxford that was called Gropecunt street, which in the olde days was where the prostittues hung out, however in the 18th century they changed the name.

So why is it that cunt is fine on HBO in the States but not fine on ITV2? TV executives in this country have lost the plot, what happened to freedom of choice, it's becoming more of a nanny state with a load of loser sports teams.

For those of you who know me and my driving style well will know how badly I have taken the news of Colin McRae's death in a helicopter crash this weekend. It was his driving of the early Subaru Impreza that switched me onto the scooby as a car to aspire to. It's a tragic loss to the world of British motorsport, especially as our other top rally driver, Richard Burns, sadly died of a brain tumour nearly two years ago.

McRae was one of the best pure drivers this country has ever produced, but because he was in the lower profile sport of rallying, he didn't get the praise he deserved. It comes just a week after the fantastic result in the Indy championship and his fellow Scot Dario Franchitti picking up that championship as well as the Indy 500 in the same year.

Colin McRae RIP

The following is a link to a story about an old couple who have spent the last 20 years living in a travelodge (Best Western I guess is a good equivalent)

Travelodge couple's 22-year stay

An idea for all of you who hate making your bed in the morning. I wonder if carpenters hate making beds?

Picture taken from an edition of the South African Auto Trader magazine, speaks for itself.

One of the advantages of working in an IT department is that sometimes an absolute gem comes along.

Below is the exact e-mail sent to all IT staff worldwide in the organisation.

'To: IT All (Global)
Subject: .


Hello

Our printer,fax and copyer is keeps on printing.
I can.t stop him.
As long there is paper in it, it prints.
The number of the copyer is 15737
I can.t print any reports or make any copys.
'

Me thinks he'd been smoking something.

It's been a strange week, nothing much happened in itself, just a week of strange observances.

It is worth noting that we did get booed again in the pub quiz this week for alleged cheating. Ok so the barman comes rushing over to give us one of the answers, shame we already knew and that the whole pub noticed this act, it was so bad a substitute question had to be found, which we got right aswell.

Also, our webwaster, sorry typo there, webmaster asked me if I fancied a short trip to Brazil in October to watch the last F1 Grand Prix of the season. I had to decline this offer, but it does give you an insight into the thinking of "Rag". Talking of rag, we get rag reports at work, and although admittedly they are from an all female team, it is a red, amber, green report, not an indication of their moods swings.

So, back to the observances..

I was in the supermarket the other lunch time and I spotted an old dear pushing a supermarket trolley, not strange in itself. However, she had somehow managed to collect one of those "slippery when wet" signs that are bright yellow and stand a couple of feet tall, onto the front of her trolley. She was completely oblivious of the fact and I followed her for about a minute pushing this thing on the front of the trolley. I got bored, but I've no idea how long it was before she or someone else noticed. (told you my life was dull if that made into my highlights of the week).

On Saturday evening I was flicking around the channels for something to watch, anything but Dance X or X Factor (X meaning [swear filter off] fucking shit [swear filter on]) and I came across something on Eurosport. Eurosport is notorious for it's wacky sports coverage such as tractor pulling, beach rugby, table football etc., so I shouldn't have been too surprised. What I found was ski-jumping, which is not that extraordinary until you remember it's August. It must be from Australia or South Africa I thought to myself, but then the commentator said welcome back to Poland. Yes Poland, it turns out that the height of sophistication on a warm summers evening in Poland is to hold a dry ski slope ski-jumping competition. To add to the drama one of the competitors had been disqualified for wearing the wrong kind of suit, I switched over before finding out that he was wearing a wet-suit instead of the regulation dinner jacket.

On a similar sporting theme, I was watching the coverage of the world athletics from Osaka the other night. It was the heats of the men's 3,000m steeplechase. For those of you that are not familiar with the steeplechase it's like a normal 3,000m race except they put obstacles in your way, a barrier of 91.4 cm tall, the same as the hurdle in the hurdles events, but far more solid, i.e. it's going nowhere if you hit. To add to this fun, they throw in a water jump just to spice things up. So, back to the first heat, they just gone through the water jump and were heading for the last jump on the first lap when the runners bunched up on the approach and one of the athletes clipped the heals of Austrian Guenther Weidlinger and he sent sprawling towards the barriers and he hits his chin square on to the top of the barrier and collapses in a heap. This causes two guys behind him to stumble and they end up somersaulting over the barrier and onto of the Austrian. The TV coverage switches back to the race leaders and then a few seconds later you see a whole bunch of Japanese guys running across the track with a stretcher and poor old Guenther spark out with blood pouring from his mouth. Whilst they are attending to him, the race continues and a minute later the field are heading for the same barrier where this guy is still out cold on the edge of the track, which s not a good place to be when there are 12 men wearing running spikes are about to jump at you. Fortunately one of the stewards realises this and stands in front of the barrier frantically waving his arms encouraging the runners to move to the outside portion of the jump to avoid landing on poor old Guenther's head. He was on the track for three laps before they moved him and was out for 30 minutes, but apparently he is fine now.

(Video is blocked for sharing, but can be viewed here https://youtu.be/g_s6ahuPCwQ)

It's been a great weekend for sport, so I'll leave you to it whilst I get to the cricket on this bank holiday Monday. Until the next time, remember your car keys are on the table next to the door.

The good news is that I didn't get mugged or burgled last night. The bad news is that my activities didn't go un-noticed. On my way back from the ATM the Cambridgeshire Constabulary decided to pull me over for driving too confidently.

I suppose I should take it as a compliment and be pleased that the police are doing their job. I can see their point of view, an Impreza being driven at the speed limit at 2:15 am is an unusual sight, so I guessed they had to stop me.

It all passed off peacefully and I made it home safely.

Best leave you to it, I'm getting prepared for a big afternoon of football.

Ok, some of you may know what I do for a living, but sometimes it does take a turn out of the ordinary. One of the products the organisation I work for offers is a pre-paid debit card, basically it's a debit card that you can pre-load with a set amount of money. Part of what I do is when we are issuing a new type of card, I have to test that it works at shops and ATMs before they are sold to the general public.

Well today, I've had to test whether one of our cards works on online gambling and bingo websites as we've had some questions from customers who have encountered problems. That may sound fun, but after you've entered the same details on the 13th website in a row, it gets a bit tedious.

To add to that joy, and as an open invitation to burglars and muggers, I also have to conduct some testing at 2am tonight/tomorrow morning as a change is being implemented and I have to make sure it works before any of our customers encounter problems.

So if I make it back alive from the dangerous streets of Peterborough tonight, I'll let you know how I got on.

Until then, 22, all the twos, two muggers following you. Happy bingoing.

Before I start on the actual post I want a quick rant about Microsoft. A quirk of embedding a YouTube video onto this page you have to replace double quotes with a single straight quote mark, however if you try and use word to search and replace doubles for singles, no matter how you do it, word always sticks in curly quotes, meaning I have to replace each one manually. Rant over.

Back to the post. Over in the UK there are Sony Bravia Advertisements which are very clever one of which is set in San Francisco.



Now those who know me well know my penchant for a good parody, so here's Tango's parody of the Ad, brilliant.


For those cynics out there who think that original Sony Ad was all computer graphics, you were wrong. Here's the making of video.

Apologies to all the Oblogs fan(s) for the lack of entries but it proves my original fear when first asked to write a blog, my life is indeed as dull as ditchwater and nothing really happens, anyone can see, nothing really happens, nothing really happens to me.

However was chatting to a friend and they pointed me to a video on You tube of prisoners dancing to Michael Jacksons thriller. Amusing.



It's amazing what you can find on there. See my next post for more, see you there.

No it's not a drug reference, but a television programme.

Very much like London buses, my posts come in two's (very much like scoring with twins) [bad pun, I know]

So what about top gear, well a while back they did a fantastic one-off special where the flew to Miami and rather than hiring a car they had to spend US$1,000 on a car drive it New Orleans and then sell it again.

(One of the cars purchased and what they'd written on the side before driving throug Alabama, not a smart move.)

When this was first shown on the BBC it was a one hour show, last night it was shown on a commercial channel in a one hour slot. The problem being that it was cut to shreds, and although you don't expect a plot in a factual show, there was a story which was lost due to cuts including some of the funniest bits and other bits making later commentary make no sense whatsoever. If commercial TV has to show 1hr shows from the BBC please have the decency to put into a bigger slot (ooer sounds a bit rude).

Which reminds me, my DVD of Filthy, Rich and Catflap arrived at the weekend, it being the follow-up to the Young Ones. I remember watching the Young Ones and the many repeats, but don't remember FR&C being repeated so decided to buy the DVD to see what all the fuss was about. I hadn't realised that it had so many up and coming stars in it, there were early appearances from Harry Enfield, Chris Barrie and David Baddiel to name a few. Still have a few episodes to watch, but it's easy to see where Bottom evolved from.

Oh well back to the carry on film on UK Gold.

So on Friday night I went to Newmarket racecourse for an evening of racing and music. Of the 7 races I managed to win on 5 of them, which is nice.

The only problem is that I can't remember who played the music, it's a sin really as they're always on my mind at the moment. I can't help being boring, but I have minimal interests.

Newmarket is a strange place, it's where the streets have no name. That said, the racecourse on a warm summer evening is great, loads of totty, lots of west end girls. Left to my own devices I'd rather go shopping.

Hopefully that's enough clues, but if not, here's a picture for you.

It must be the same across the UK. Normally I quiz with the "country bumpkins" as our webmaster so kindly refers to them, even composing question on occasion, in fact those found on this very site are compiled by my good self.

Anyway, this week I was due to miss this week's "bumpkin" quiz to visit an old school friend and join his quiz team, however that fell through at the last minute so one of the guys at work asked me to join his quiz team.

It seems as if in his local pub there's a team that seem to win most weeks called the quizzington bears that have about 15 people in it and they are most hated team in the pub. This week our team decided to take the piss and call ourselves the gummington bears, which in itself seemed to upset them, however when they only tied for 2nd and our team won overall, the looks shot our way were priceless. We even had other teams in the pub thanking us for beating them. Ironically a couple of the questions asked were one's I'd asked the week before in the bumpkin quiz.

The moral of the story is if you want to win a pub quiz, ask me to join your team, either that or attend enough quizzes so as you know the answer to every question.

A Trevor is what I call a boy racer. A spotty youth in a souped up car that drives around in a low gear with the souped up stereo on 11. Basically a nuisance to society. Anyway, about five minutes ago a gang of Trevors decided to use my leafy suburban street as their race track and my driveway as a convenient spot to turn around.

Here's a typical Trevor car

I know there's some of you out that that may label me a Trevor wannabe, but I deny all claims and my name's not Trevor. I'd best go, I've got to be in Maccie D's car park by 10 for a burnout.

I re-watched Mallrats today on DVD, a much misunderstood film. Anyway, what I hadn't noticed before was the carpet shop in the mall called rug munchers. How could one miss such a sight gag?

Surprisingly it's raining again and we've had more flooding over the last few days, it's playing havoc on the roads.

However on a lighter note I came across this story about a seagull that has been walking into a newsagents in Aberdeen and picking up a packet of crisps(chips) off the shelf and then walking out again. (see picture)



I think it was after the scampi fries.

No real story, Celtic came to play Peterborough in a pre-season friendly last night and couldn't resist the opportunity to use the spoonerism above. (thanks to Jasper Carrott for that line, taken from the very funny song bastity chelt). Oh it finished 1-2 to Celtic.

Summer started proper today, first chance to have all of the windows open in the house, the downside was that a local cat decided to pay a visit and I had to spend 15 minutes chasing it around the house and back out again. Not to worry, it's forecast heavy downpours again tomorrow.

Anyway, back to the poker.

I've finally worked out what I am good at, cultivating weeds. Not the good kind that I can sell to the local sk8ter bois and grls, but those that grow in unexpected and unwanted places in the garden. I'm sure my local garden centre is getting suspicious given the amount of weed-killer I am buying. I've tried all sorts and makes, none seem to last more than a couple of weeks. I wouldn't mind except that weeding is not exactly high on my list of pleasureable weekend past-times.

Anyway, seeing as the done thing is to copy a link to a youtube video, here is what some of my work colleagues get up to on a rainy Tuesday night in Peterborough. Enjoy??

The BBC coverage for most of yesterday was dominated by the Live Earth concert from the new Wembley. What I don't understand is how you can promote ecology and economy by flying rock stars all around the world to play on a stage lit with millions of bulbs and video screens and electric guitars etc. Surely that concert cannot have been carbon neutral. I presume the concept of carbon neutralisation is known in the US even if it is largely ignored, Let's face it the closest you get to ecology is a Toyota Prius. That was the irony of the US Live Earth concert, it was in a stadium full of adverts for Toyota, still can't imagine them being the most eco-friendly company on the planet.

This weekend also sees the start of Le Tour de France (The tour of France) from London. Ok I'm sure you've worked out that London is not in France, but they swap around the start every year. It was quite a spectacle over 3 million people lined the streets of London to watch the prologue yesterday.

It's also he British Grand Prix today (Like NASCAR but with corners (turns)). I'm not going to say too much as I don't want to jinx the British drivers taking part.

I'll leave you with this screen shot I found on a competition site, me thinks the picture and caption don't quite match.



Right I'm off to take some pictures with my new Brita filter jug.

As a follow up to yesterday's entry, yesterday was also financial independence day as I awoke this morning to find that my numbers had come up on the UK lotto. Yes I won a big £10, which given the current exchange rate is worth about US$2500 (good job I work with forex and know how to work these things out).

Have just read the last comment, not entirely unexpected if not entirely constructive, but that's what these blogs are all about, the ability to take the piss. Well I hope that's what they are for, not actually expecting anyone to actually read them, actually.

Was meant to be taking part in the country bumpkin quiz tonight, but due to previously mentioned illness, decided that a late night and a 40 mile drive each way was ill advised, especially without the aid of toilet tissue. Will have to resort to watching the aforementioned darts, should be an interesting tournament now that Phil "the power" Taylor has been knocked out in the first round.

I always find it difficult ending these entries, it's not like an e-mail or letter, and never having kept a journal or diary (or dairy) before, not sure what the protocol is. Sometimes its just best to trail off mid sent

Apologies for quoting Bill Pullman from that awful Will Smith film (ok, Independence Day, I realise awful, Will Smith and film are often in the same sentence), but I don't see what all the fuss is about? Why anyone would want to celebrate independence from the good 'ole UK beats me. Interestingly I used to work with someone called Jonathon Hancock (hopefully you knowledgeable readers will get the link).

So back to the weather, its still cacking it down here, yet when I switch to the darts from Las Vegas they are saying that it's reached 130 degrees (54C), which apparently is a record. That's my question for the day, is/are darts big in the US? Over here it's massive and getting bigger every year. There were events this spring that attracted crowds of over 5,000, which for a pub game is incredible.

It's also a good day to celebrate my independence from the bathroom after a particularly violent attack of food poisoning. It's amazing how much rubbish you can find on satellite TV when you are not in work.

Well to those of you in the US, enjoy your day off, and to those in the UK, keep practicing the swimming.

It's amazing how us Brits moan about the weather, however if we didn't have such changeable weather what would we talk about?

Saying that, the crappy weather today cost me £10. Had bought tickets for the 20/20 cricket (a bit like baseball, but interesting), thinking that a Saturday afternoon at the end of June might just have 3 hours of fine weather to get a game in, but the British summer(?) decided otherwise.

Just to prove how English I am though, rather than driving to ground to watch, stayed at home at watched the rain live on television.

It was either that or watching someone drive a flaming car into the terminal building at Glasgow airport. Yup, Britain is in the grip of terror again with two car bombs found and disarmed in London yesterday and the latest attack this afternoon, we are on full alert.

On a lighter note, when researching my previous entry about the two countries separated by one language, I found a link to YouTube and the unaired American pilot of Red Dwarf. Oh dear, they missed the point somewhat. Having been brought up on things like H2G2 and Blakes 7, Red Dwarf was a classic sci-fi comedy that was quintessentially English. Then again it works both ways, we've made dreadful versions of American programs as well.

Right I'm off to buy a canoe.

Ok some real news. It’s summer, it’s Wimbledon fortnight and therefore it’s raining. It’s been raining so much that some of the major cities have flooded. On Monday night 100 people had to be evacuated by helicopter.This picture was taken at Hillsborough, home of Sheffield Wednesday football (soccer) club. Yes they play football there, not water polo. I was once asked “what is the difference between polo and water polo?” to which my response was that the horses drowned. But that’s just my dry wit. Then again, that question was posed by the same colleague who asked “what do you call that game where you pin the tail on the donkey?” Doh!

Is it just me or are we all surrounded by idiots, either that or the ever increasing flood water? Anyone got a lifejacket or towel?

Well somehow I got coerced into producing my own mini-blog on this site and I have hit my first dilemma before I even start. Who are my target audience and therefore which version of English should I use? Obviously Bill Gates would have us believe that the Americans invented the language, but as George Bernard Shaw said, we are two countries separated by a common language.

So back to the dilemma, do I call my mobile phone a cellphone, do I call football soccer, do I drop the letter U randomly from words and stick Z's where an S should suffice?

I think the answer is nuts to the lot of you, I'm writing this from the otherside of the Atlantic and I'm going to use the Queen's English, however that could be classed as discriminatory, so I guess where confusion could be caused I'll use both versions of the words.

Right I'm off to smoke a fag.