Throwing your money around

I've often been tempted to throw my money away on needless things. A subscription to Razzle has usually been a carrot under my nose since the age of 16; whilst the temptation of frittering away another few pence on an elastic band to stick around my wrist has always been there [penny-saving tip, pick them up off of the pavement when the postman's dropped them...] - nothing compares to the fun of the football transfer window, due to close in about an hour at the time of writing.

Notably, West Ham's reaction to languishing in the relegation zone is to throw money at whatever defender becomes available. Matty Upson, Calum Davenport and Lucas "I really didn't come here for the money" Neill all found theirselves in the jellied eels area of London - all for a bargain combined price of around £10 million. Desperation really appears to be the name of the game at Upton Park, and I don't think a formation of 6-3-1 will endear Curbs to the locals. But they'll still stay up. Wigan are useless [Cheers for the £3m for Fitz Hall by the way...].

Moving on.

Whilst the question of "How do chickens have sex" was the main talking point of conversation on Saturday evening, it didn't detract from a fantabulous Bloc Party gig and though support act Metric did their best to spoil the evening with their god-awful blend of synthesizers, guitars and a drugged up lady to woo the crowd and sing the songs - Bloc Party certainly didn't disappoint. A perfect blend of old and new material and Kev walked home with a pair of earplugs and a hat thrown from the stage - happy days.

Finished my exams until March well, for your information - the revision tools seemed to do their job and I could answer most things on all papers, which was nice - though the invigilator clad in a loud pink blouse and Elton John style glasses did her best to distract me. Bitch.

This weekend promises much - a quiz night on Friday night followed by Palace trouncing the Traaaaactor Boyz on Saturday afternoon and then a gig from Air Traffic in the evening. There's an airplane pun there somewhere. Answers on a postcard.

I'll leave you with a thought:

I like to walk a mile in a man's shoes before criticising him. That way, if he gets angry, I'm a mile away. And he's barefoot.

Kiss kiss, bang bang

You'd have thought BB guns would be something that only a 12 year old would be fascinated by, but it's certainly a novelty that captures the imagination of all it meets. No more so than Kev, Ben, Jez and I on early Saturday evening who spent a fair amount of time giving each other bruises in areas probably left best not talked about (Kev's areas especially, crikey - it's the stuff of nightmares I'm telling you). In the process, approximately 46,028 pellets were fired - ceramic bowls were 'pinged' off of, doors were subject of intense pressure and you couldn't turn around without stepping on one of the little things. I'm thinking that rather than using nuclear weapons in World War III, BB guns would be a lot more entertaining for the neutral and less harmful. But perhaps that defeats the point of war, blow the nadgers off of the enemy until you get what you want...and they call kids immature! Once a truce was called, target shooting was the name of the game. Lining up tin cans on the far side of a garage seemed a little mundane after a while so the subject of firing was still a can, but the aim was to shoot it off of my head. No-one succeeded in doing so, nor did Jez, Ben or Kev resist the temptation of shooting my arse. I wasn't going to let the moment pass without having a shot myself. Ben volunteered, there was an eerie silence in the garage (this is me building the tension) - the crowd gasped as I pulled the trigger, for the shot to arrow the can straight off of his head, akin in accuracy to my football shooting....of course.

Most probably the highlight of my life so far, 19 years and however many days boiled down to me shooting a can off of someone's head in a garage. What a life I lead.

Following the bacon sarnie related mishap of a week or so ago, Jim regained the reins of chief sandwich maker on Sunday morning, and bloody nice it was too. Perfection between two bits of bread. I hope Sharon's reading....

Moving on from BB guns and sandwiches. What about the snow today. Everyone creaming themselves over an inch or so of the white stuff, still, it didn't stop me hurling a snowball or two around, generally in Jez's face....but he didn't mind. Well, at least I thought he didn't until he threw one at me. And a 'blizzard' is forecast tonight, sensationalist bollocks innit - cue a bit of sleet overnight and the weathermen turning round and saying "ahh, we told you there'd be a blizzard, wrap up warm, drive carefully and look at this great picture that Graham from Bognor took of his dog running around in the freak weather". Weathermen are pretentious wankers (discuss...).

I've almost finished my chocolate from Christmas, just one selection box to go, and it's one I made myself, filled of all the chocolate bars I didn't like from other boxes. If anyone likes Snickers, Maltesers or Galaxy Ripples, I might be able to help you.

'appy days...

The perfect bacon sandwich

Half-asleep, I tentatively agreed with my mum to having 'tomato' in my bacon sarnie for breakfast this morning. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened when I sat at the table to tuck into the great-British delicacy of ridiculously fatty bacon between two bits of ludicrously thick white bread. Expecting the first bite to be greeted with the fabulous taste of bacon laid on top of thick tomato ketchup, I bit into something cold, chewy and tangy. I almost feinted when I opened the sandwich up to find that my oh-so-wonderful mother had decided to lavishly spread my sarnie in pieces of tomato rather than the customary, obligatory and downright compulsory tomato ketchup. I was not happy. The moral of this story is, of course, to either make the sandwich myself (but what else are mums good for?) or to strictly supervise the construction of the God-like sandwich. F*ck either of those, I'll risk it next time....

The transfer window's a funny invention innit? They call it the January "sales", when really it should be called the January "everyone's ludicrously overprice because everyone's desperate to buy players because their expensive foreign imports didn't cut the Colman's (mustard) in the opening four months of the season" window. I don't think the name will catch on, though Birmingham City are doing their best to destroy the Championship's transfer market. Paying over the odds and throwing their dildo-money (their owners own Porn magazine companies) at any striker that shows a patch of form. Take Rowan Vine for example, a good striker, though having scored 5 goals in 4 games, Brumscum stick another million and a half on top of his value and write out a cheque to Luton Town for the princely sum of £2.5m. Those in Bedfordshire will be laughing, those in Birmingham are staring at each other gormlessly in shock....no change there then.

The countdown is on until my first exam of 2007, namely Thursday afternoon (Jez, please confirm...) and the revision tools seem to be doing their jobs. If not, they'll all be getting the sack. No doubt one will be cramming revision into every possible timeslot this week, well when I say revision, I mean half revising, half keeping an eye on the PC / Sky Sports News. I would take away my laptop and the family Sky+ box, but that'd just be plain selfish. Revision also seems to be easier when listening to music, for example I seem to be associating Aggregate Demand with the Arctic Monkeys (you say the curve changes, when the imports go down). I really should think about taking up song-writing....

Blimey, I'm getting into this blog-writing lark, I'll give it until the end of the month until I give up.

"Matt, are you in Football Manager?"

A New Year brings new challenges, new goals, new people and new things into everyone's lives. I thought I'd see in the New Year by attempting to keep a regular(ish) blog going on t'interweb, for me to be able to look back on in months to come, and for other people to read as well, if you're really interested in my thoughts on various matters and how I go about my daily business in the urban jungle of East Preston, and beyond!

Anyway, let's crack on...

Revision is a bloody pain in the arse. You gear yourself up for 4 months for a 90 minute exam which could prove the deciding factor in where you end up going to university. You slog yourself, cramming revision in at every opportunity to best prepare yourself for what, at the time, seems like the shortest 90 minutes of your life - time ebbs away from you. By the time you've answered the first 2 mark question you're already 15 minutes in and your scribbling answers at a rate of knots. By the end of the exam, your 'answers' look like they're written in Greek and look as comprehensible as a Steve McClaren England team selection. So to help myself prepare for the unrivalled joy of these exams, I've plastered my bedroom walls with a number of "nu-skool" revision posters with key words, diagrams and graphs to assist me in my quest for A-level stardom (this could catch on, you know...).

I wonder if they'll work...

For a revision respite (you'll never see a greater use of alliteration in your life - trust me), I put my whistle round my neck and pulled on my football boots to do my bit for the community, specifically some football coaching at a local primary school. Taking the warm-up generally provides muchos amusement - a bit of 'banter' with them generally results in Crystal Palace being badmouthed because we're in the Championship...honestly, kids these days. But today, one 10 year old lad had been playing Football Manager over Christmas and decided to ask whether I was named as a player on the game for East Preston FC, who bizarrely are on the game. I've been asked many great things in my life (Why did I cut my tennis career short at the age of 13? Did I really bribe the examiner to pass my driving test?) but this is probably the greatest of all. For once, I didn't know what to say...

To round things off, despite not playing for East Preston, or being on Football Manager for that matter, perhaps I could get a game in Liverpool's defence?!