ShibbaShabba

The one I wasn't going to post....

2008-04-29T22:48:00.002+01:00

I wasn’t going to publish this on here. But reading back on it now, with my first uni year drawing to a close, reflecting on my first thoughts whilst settling in, it’s quite sad really innit? I settled in quicker than I ever expected, met some utterly fantastic and interesting people and have already got memories that will last me a lifetime. And for the uni people who haven’t seen my blog before….read away!

Emotional, moi?

Ladies, gents, everyone – this is one I wanted to just call “Bye…”

___

I guess that’s that then.

It’s strange, you know something’s been coming for weeks, months, even a year at a push but you don’t know how to prepare yourself for it. All the talk of saying that “I’m definitely ready for this”, there’s always a slight doubt at the back of your mind whether what you’re about to do is the right thing for you. Yes, it’s very exciting, meeting all sorts of new, interesting people from different areas and backgrounds; getting plastered on pints of Snakebite at £1.50 a go and waking up with your head down the toilet; trying new things; being independent and doing things for yourself.

But these last days leading up to leaving when you start to realise how scary and sad it is to be turning the page on a big chapter of your life, and starting a new one. Living 150 miles from home, from the comforts, from having meals cooked for you to just kicking back and doing sod all in the garden, even the petty arguments are something I’ll miss, knowing that everything would be OK 5 minutes later, glad to have let off some steam. And Freddie…I’ll miss Freddie of course. He’s the coolest rabbit in the world.

Wrote that opening on Saturday evening, having finished my packing and getting ready for “The Last Supper”. Am now sitting in my room, writing this after a relatively (rather) heavy first proper night out yesterday – quiet night in, in Freshers’ Week is rarely heard of I suppose – but I’m independent, thinking for myself.

I could reel a list off of what I’ll miss. It ranges from the obvious to the obscure. My football coaching is going to be a massive loss for myself. Being part of the Otters “family” for nearly 14 years has been the best time of my life. My now Under-11s are improving no end – leaving them in the capable hands of Alex, Mary and Conrad – things will always improve and our little lot can surprise a few this season. Hopefully my coaching career will improve and further itself up in Gloucestershire – the goal to work at Cheltenham Town FC will always be in my sight.

Will I miss Palace. Under Peter Taylor at the moment, I don’t honestly know….of course I’ll bloody miss it. The Palace rollercoaster will always continue without me being there, I’ll get to more games this season. Though I think promotion may slightly be out of reach….
I know I’ll make a shedload of friends here. But the people at home – Ben, Jez [even though I’ll see you up there :o)], Kev, Bishop, Dan, Ross, Tom B, Ferg, Kym, Pricey, Tom N, Mike, Dan G, Ian, Beckie and everyone else who I cannot think of at the minute – it’s been an absolute pleasure to be your friends over the years (some of you just months). Despite everything that’ll happen on our separate paths at uni, work or whatever, I’d like to think that our relationships will remain as strong as ever when we meet again at Christmas before making Summer’08 the best ever.

Keep smiling – you know where I am. And are probably thanking yourself that I’ve finally f*cked out of your life. I know I couldn’t put up with my barrage of crap jokes if I was in your shoes.

Now, where’s that beer…..?

I fancy a quiet night in...

2008-03-27T19:03:00.004Z

Yeah, so my 'resolution' of keeping a regular blog going throughout my first year at university hasn't exactly gone to plan. About as well to plan as the opening to the public of Heathrow's new Terminal 5 today....suspensions on luggage check in and long flight delays. And it's only day 1. The words piss up and brewery come to mind.

Hopefully this installment of el blog will whet the appetite for more in due course. Which, I PROMISE will be more regular in future. Perhaps not weekly, maybe a couple a month. If I don't live up to that I'll buy everyone a drink *(terms and conditions apply)*

University eh? Hardest you'll work in your life apparently. Bollocks to that. It's a breeze. Granted, I'm only a first year doing, admittedly, not the most difficult of courses compared to some (maths and law to name but two) - but the workload borders on taking the piss...if you keep on top of it, though if not you're hardly under any real pressure. You sit around in your room wondering why you're there sometimes, racking up debts of £20,000+ to be patronised and robbed blind of any educational dignity you may have left. Then you see the 'real' reason you're probably there....

"I'm not going out tonight, fancy a quiet one in". 3 hours later you're as drunk as a skunk - 4 VKs in hand, "raving" it up to Rihanna in a club somewhere. That's what university's about. The dull things in life have never been so exciting. Going to Asda not really wanting anything and coming back with 30 quids worth of stuff you don't really need. Throwing oranges at a tub of cold mince. Hiding people's beds a block or two away from where you live. Nicking someone's bathroom door. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Some people call it being spontaneous. Others call it procrastinating. I just like being childish sometimes.

Being a stoodent, saving money is the first rule of survival. Primark is your friend. Just don't buy shirts from there. Fuck me they itch your neck to lengths you've never itched before. I work as an events steward and needed some white short sleeved shirts. £3 each. Bargain. At least that's what I thought before I wore one. You get what you pay for. Standing on your feet for 9 hours talking to pissed up Irish people about horseracing can be arduous, but to have it whilst the cheap cotton fibres are eating your neck away isn't a great experience I can assure you. It feels like syphilis on your neck. Not that I know what syphilis is like...

Coaching for Cheltenham. Brilliant. Having to deal with a rather severe racist incident when coaching. Not so brilliant. It's a shock to the system when one 10 year old calls another a "fucking nigger". Perhaps he's a member of the BNP, shoulda checked his bag for a membership card. Bugger.

There is so much I want to say in this blog it's untrue, I can't remember what to type.

Errrrm.

What the bloody hell is going on with the weather? I bet Michael Fish is sitting at home scratching at his bald head with a glass of scotch trying to make sense of the isobars, pressures and dodgy BBC weather maps. Sun, snow, wind, rain, hail in the space of 10 minutes. Can't beat a bit of climate change. Perhaps we should all refuse to recycle, use the car as much as possible and fart as much as we like - it makes it all a bit more exciting and unpredictable. No thunder or lightning though. Disappointing. Poor show, God, poor show.

Too much has happened in the football world in the last three months than I care to remember. But Richard Scudamore can sod off and stick his 39th game up his arse; Avram Grant needs some happy pills; Javier Mascherano and Ashley Cole need some lessons in manners; Kevin Keegan at Newcastle and Derby provide enough entertainment on MOTD without the need to show any of the big four in action; Palace are gunning for glory in the Championship and England pose as much threat to any other nation of that of a hamster to a shark. Happy days....

Oh. I play hockey for Cheltenham Hockey Club now. Only played two games mind. My hockey skills can only be similar to that of Cristiano Ronaldo's with a football. I don't know whether I've ever got the ball under control. Nor do my opponents, it's a mystery to myself when I take it past someone and pass to one of my own team-mates. Still, you could call that the element of surprise.

I'll call it a wrap there methinks.

Take it eeeeeeeeeasy :o)

All I want for Christmas....

2007-12-19T21:05:00.000Z

(Ridiculously high female voice)

........IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS (Pause) YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!

Me? What's so good about me. Does Mariah Carey not know the majority of people into this kind of happy clappy Christmas song crap are ugly ming type people. Why she'd want them is anyone's guess. Perhaps they're all incredibly wealthy.

Cliff's pissed and STILL on about Mistletoe and Wine. Slade are still mental and The Pogues still sound ridiculously pissed. Band Aid really don't give two sh*ts about poverty and just want to improve their image. I could go on, because I'm 20 going on 70 wanting to whinge and whine at anything.

But yeah, Christmas started 3 months ago apparently. All be over in a week and then people will be crying that they've spent too much money and wonder why they're a singleton living in a council house with 3 kids under the age of 4 with nothing but a tacky "Santa Stop Here" sign and a heroin addiction for company. All funded by the government...

Anyhoo. I've not opened this thing up for a month or two so cobwebs have needed to be dusted off. Two months is a long, long time and a fair bit has happened. Lovebites, lesbians and being thrown out of nightclubs for being too drunk. Rock. And. Roll.

So I'm back home from uni for the festive frivolities. University is an incredible experience, the people met, the things I've done (good and bad) and suchlike - it's a style of life I'd recommend to anyone. The private jokes, the piss-taking, the banter - c'est magnifique. It's such a shame that the work sometimes gets in the way. I've learnt a lot about myself already in 3 months. I can cook for myself and look after myself, my confidence around the opposite sex is slowly growing for the better (takes a couple of pints) and my general attitude towards various things has changed dramatically.

The coaching opportunities I have are excellent and working for Cheltenham Town has been a great springboard for other things - I'll be on various community projects in the New Year and doing my FA Level 2 in due course. I've learnt lots of new drills and have been complimented myself on my way of coaching, which is always nice. Getting into CTFC games for nothing is a nice little perk as well, now officially my 'second' team and are going to stay up in League 1 this season!

As for Palace. The rollercoaster ride continues. More wunderkids than Kev could shake a stick at and a 9 game unbeaten run under Mr Warnock has reignited my optimism for our fortunes this season. Playoffs are a distant, but reachable possibility. Roll on Saturday when I get my first visit to Fortress Selhurst in 3 months. Woop woop!

Really can't be arsed to write anymore as I'm watching something funny about learner drivers on ITV1.

I WILL blog after Christmas, hopefully more regularly than the last 10 weeks or so.

Laterinos....

"What's crackalakin?"

2007-10-06T20:49:00.000+01:00

Thought it was time to blow the cobwebs off of this old thing again...

You see, in the last three weeks - my life's been flipped, turned upside down - I no longer live in the ravingly sexual hotbed of East Preston in sleepy Sussex, but now some 150 miles up and away in the rather nice city of Gloucester - home of cheese, rugby and funny farmers accents. I'm a "big boy" now, at university and totally independant. Shit.

It's been a whirlwind 21 days. From unpacking on the first day, to now - there are far, far, far too many things that have happened to mention. Largely good, not so many bad, but numerous ugly ones, but less about the rugby women (controversial.....)

Once here, it was daunting. You could cut the tension in our hall with the proverbial knife. Everyone was absolutely shitting it. Who was going to say the first word? How am I going to introduce myself? They say first impressions are vital. Luckily for me, the people in my hall, or flat as I now call it, are absolutely top people - easy to talk to and up for a laugh, what more could I ask for? I apologise I've not cooked for you yet in three weeks, but as I keep saying, it's for your own safety!

On the subject of cooking, and how I'm coping? Thank god for pasta, ready meals, toast and a frying pan. I'm getting by, let's leave it at that - I know that when something's burnt, it's more than likely to be cooked. I'm looking at spending a day in the kitchen trying a few things out from the cookbook I brought with me. Can fire engine's ladders reach the third floor?

Not having a car was something I wasn't looking forward to when coming here, however I must say that the bus is a bloody good invention. Frustrating at times when catching it at 7.55 in the morning for a 9am lecture some 10 miles away, travelling at a snail's pace and having absolute nutters as drivers, one lady driver (nuff said?) who seems insistent on taking out every tree in Gloucestershire whilst also being on a one-woman crusade against litterers is particularly entertaining.

The work's starting to gain momentum now, it's largely reading though the difficulty level doesn't seem all bad on the business side of things. The sport development half of the course is highly enjoyable, practical lectures combined with discussion and other things make it something worth getting up for in the morning, having had a heavy night the night before. The opportunities here seem absolutely brilliant too - am currently in the process of starting my FA Level 2 Coaching Badge and also possibly working for Cheltenham Town FC and maybe even Arsenal as well!! Watch this space...

Socially. Well, what can I say? It's very good indeed. OK, the main clubs are in Cheltenham, but Moda and Blush are absolutely excellent when rammed full of stoooooodents. Top music, cheap booze and numerous hilarious incidents, too many to mention already. Then there's the SU bar about 15 yards from our halls' front door, again, cheap drink, quiz machines and everything make for an easy and convenient evening.

The invention of new dance moves, the infamous game of boomerang, Pro Evo sessions going on late into the night and so on - three weeks have gone so, so quickly.

Roll on the next three, and the weeks after that!

PS >>> Swing Low, Sweet Chariot! Get in there England and the rugger! Now for Lewis Hamilton to wrap up the Formula 1 tomorrow and it'll be a great weekend for English sport.

I'd tap that, Zante styley (Part 2)

2007-09-08T21:48:00.000+01:00

Bloody hell. Is that the time?

Sod going for breakfast. This bed is where I’m staying. Yeah – no sleep in about 40 hours had taken its toll on most of us – the devoted had gone and grabbed the sun loungers before returning to bed, but I don’t think anyone was up before 11, and even then – we had a snooze on the sunbeds. Lunch was most inviting though. A selection of salady bits, chips and some strange looking chicken things, which Ben complained weren’t cooked as they were “a bit pink”…so that put everyone off that idea. Conversation revolved around the rules of shotgunning on holiday and how many Brighton were going to lose by that afternoon against Tranmere (they lost 2-1. Shame.)

Killer darts was again on the menu, along with nobbing around in the swimming pool. Cult Hero John was once again working his topless magic and calling out “funny” things to put people off and generally engaging in banter. If he wasn’t always topless, I’d call him a bit of a knob – but that’d be ever so harsh on someone who carries off his look so stylishly, and effortlessly. Good on him.

Bishop’s cat-like reflexes in goal at water-polo caught everyone’s eye, Kev’s goal-to-shot ratio kept going up (I think he ended the holiday on a goal every 46 shots) whilst I couldn’t be arsed because I couldn’t touch the bottom. Still – my contribution was priceless, naturally…

The second evening was fun though – the evening at the hotel, nondescript. Bit of food, free drink and a bit of a chat. Bishop took the invitation of free drink too far and must’ve had a double measure each of vodka and tequila (and other spirits) in his coke. When we reached Down Under – Bish’s drink of death consigned him to providing entertainment for all. Attempting to walk in a straight line through the bar degenerated into a game of how many bar stools he could knock over. Then there was the matter of the shrieking of “GOAL” at the TV screen whenever something remotely interesting happened. I didn’t know late-night Greek TV was so exciting, nor did I think that Bishop spoke the language. Is there no end to the boy’s talents?

London 2012’s on the horizon, and Britain are a shoe-in for a gymnastics gold medal. That is at least if Bishop’s competing. Demonstrating superb coordination, coupled with excellent posture – all under the influence of alcohol, he cartwheeled down the road. Well, at least that’s what he said he did, looked more like a log roll to me. He celebrated the feat by falling in a ditch by the hotel, which he maintained wasn’t his fault. Hmmm….

Day three was much like the second. Round the pool though the small matter of Palace’s game with Ipswich took control of me for mid-afternoon. Wish I hadn’t bothered…then watching Ben and Bishop squirm when ManYoo just about squeaked past Spurz was good fun. Not to mention John’s memorable commentary at the darts board. To be frankly honest, this is how much of our days were spent, chilling by the pool – having a laugh in the pool and just doing whatever. Worked for me.

That evening….Down Under again. Cocktails flowing. Bishop wasn’t with us because of the previous night’s antics. Poor love, couldn’t handle his shandy. I hear there was a shandy back in his hotel room though, but let’s not go there. Nice image though…

Monday was the day we’d all been waiting for. That’s right, we were so keen of what was ahead that some of us got up for breakfast. 18 hours later, we were finally in Laganas. One of the best clubbing spots in Europe we’d been told. Led by Tess and Jaime from our favourite bar in Kalamaki, we couldn’t go wrong…well – we didn’t get there until gone 3am for various reasons which meant that everything was just starting to wind-down. Not to worry, we made the most of it – cheap drinks, lots of dancing and chatting to random people, usually commenting on Kev’s height, and then the conversation tailing off – before being stopped by someone else “Blimey, isn’t he tall?”. 20 seconds later and it was the same again. Still, I prefer being short…you’re at a good height to look at boobs that way. At least that’s my take on things.

Needless to say that no-one rushed up on Tuesday morning. Lunch was breakfast, no-one could stomach the chicken because Ben complained it wasn’t cooked again, though perhaps our stomachs weren’t ready for that. Stick to the salad. By this day, Bishop’s shotgun of the holiday in Dutch girl (Alicia) was impressing us all with her English, everyone’s Dutch improved by two words, being able to say “Goodbye” and the number 88. Well, you never know when it might be useful. We thought we were going to have a quiet night in at Down Under that evening, but were persuaded by the promise of free shots at “Fire Bar” with other people from our hotel. We were out until about half 2 having sworn to each other to be back at the hotel, playing cards by about 1. Lovely…

However, I’m bloody glad we didn’t go back to the hotel. John, of no shirt and crap at darts fame was in Fire Bar, topless and drinking from an (air conditioned) fish bowl. John was seriously breaking down the barriers of cult hero status – almost a demi-god I’m telling you. Some crazy lady started poking me with a straw in Fire Bar, frizzy hair, about 40 and probably very drunk. Swiftly ignored, we ‘tagged’ the walls with the felt tip pens, danced around a bit (well, Bishop didn’t, sat in the corner dreaming of Dutch girl) and headed back.

Wednesday. Olympic Day again. Pyramids, table tennis, spaghetti eating and all that jazz was the order of the day. Kev had befriended a 9-year old and started pulling him around in the boat. The police were on the verge of being called, but George was really rather cool for someone of his age. Shame about the hair. Laganas called again in the evening. Waikiki, Bad Boyz, Kamikaze, some other place and Wackabout took our money – we collected the stickers, we drank a lot of alcohol, we danced with some pretty girls, we danced with some not so pretty girls, we got in late. What else is to say? Oh, well Jez and Kev stayed out later until about 7 in the morning and walked back to save themselves €7 in a taxi. Cheapskates.

Thursday. Home day. It took Kev nearly the whole day to pack because his stuff was strewn all over the room, the hotel and Kalamaki. The pool called again, I realised I lost my sunglasses. Shit. Claim on the insurance beckons there (note to self: must do that). Our flight was at 7.45am on the Friday morning, but we were getting picked up at 4.30am so we killed the evening at Down Under and getting a power nap. Magic.

A few goodbyes to various people. Little George, Lil’ Chris, Big Josh, Gareth Bale, Paul McShane, Dutch Girl, Mark, Hannah…and of course, topless John whose antics are enough to write a book about. I’ll just leave you with the memories of the ones in the blog, but that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Off to Zante airport, herded around like cattle for a bit because the Greeks can’t organise themselves…look at the Olympics in 2004 for such an example. Then came the awards for pisstakes of the holiday, within about 30 minutes of each other. Baggage allowances, Jesus f*cking Christ – we were ‘way’ over our limit on our return home, yet having bought barely anything – on the way out, we were totally fine. Charged €90 for the pleasure. And then Kev’s American Football actually got confiscated by Greek customs because it could pose a threat on the plane. Blimey. I reckon they just wanted to set up an American Football team myself, they couldn’t be serious…

Flight home, 3 hours of dozing to sleep and then waking up again. Not very comfortable. Landed, home by half 11. Magic….

What else is there to say? Honestly – an absolutely brilliant week with four top fellas who I hope enjoyed it as much as I did.

Dach.
(That’s goodbye in Dutch, I told you I’d use it….)

I'd tap that, Zante styley (Part 1)

2007-09-02T21:19:00.000+01:00

“What happens in Zante, stays in Zante”

Perhaps not...

My memory is hazed by the alcohol and the sun. However, I’m fuelled by Red Bull, I’m shattered – 6 hours sleep since Wednesday morning and I’m writing part of (what I’ve been told is) an eagerly anticipated blog. This could be interesting, it could get emotional – I don’t like being tired, and I’m sure as hell not going to bed at half 5 in the afternoon. Oh no.

I don’t know where to start, it’s going to ramble on, going nowhere – like the Greek roads, before taking a sharp left turn and before you know it, you’re staring down a 150ft cliff-face. All part of the experience though I guess.

It started in February. The original plan to go to Crete (some place with a long name, ending in –ssossossos) fell through for reasons unknown so it was back to the drawing board. Places were being slowly eliminated for sensible reasons, and not so sensible ones, “Turkey is the gateway to Middle East, we’re not going there”. Zante was the preferred destination, namely in the Kalamaki area. Originally, there were only four takers for the trip – myself, Ben, Kev and Jez. However, after various revelations involving a whale with a bit of a temper, Bishop joined the crew too and the five of us were ready.

6 months passed and we were at Gatwick, all ready to go – Bish had a flashy new passport with a microchip so the government could track wherever he went whilst Kev had packed an American Football into the hand luggage. Like you do. Security was tight because of them Al-Qaeda people, half-expecting a full-on strip search (Kev seemed quite excited about that), it was disappointing that we were only asked to take our shoes off. The american football was almost taken away by security on the grounds that it had too much air in it – hardly a renowned weapon of choice by terrorists, but there we go.

Everything in the departure lounge, bar the perfume place and McDonalds was closed. A Big Mac or two later and all coming away smelling like the bottom of a slag’s handbag – we boarded the plane and were on our way. The flight appeared to be full of either 18-30s, or 58-70s – and not much in between. The gay flight attendants worked their magic, provokatively serving drinks and bending over far too much when stowing their bags in the overhead locker. You began to wonder whether you were on the right flight. An hour or three later, wheels touched the tarmac of Zante Airport’s runway and we were here. 7.00am and it was 28c, Ben’s choice to bring a hoodie looked to be one stupid enough to rival the bloke who, when younger, thought that a fishcake was a kind of fish. Ahem.

The luggage carousel spun. And spun. And spun. And spun (makes you feel like you were there, doesn’t it?) when finally we all had our cases and were greeted by someone who’d obviously put her makeup on in the dark. Reps are a special breed...a quick transfer to the hotel and we had arrived, 5 hours after jetting off and in time for breakfast. Magic.

Oh feck. This hotel’s got entertainers. “Olympic Day”, call me old-fashioned, but when was human pyramid building in the Olympics, ditto French boules and spaghetti eating?! It was quite good fun mind. However, throughout the day – attentions were drawn to a rather loud cockney man called John, who was crap at darts, more to come from him later. In the evening we went exploring and found a cocktail bar, “Down Under”, which became our second home for the week – it wasn’t because the drinks were dirt cheap and the barstaff liked us, honest...

Part 2 will be with you soon.

She's making a list, checking it twice...

2007-08-19T21:14:00.000+01:00

"Get the f*ckety f*ck in there"

Oh yes, 8.30am Thursday morning came one of the most important revelations and things in my life. Having had the dubious honour of "having" to stay on a third year at college to fulfill my A-Level commitments, I was certainly over the moon, cock-a-hoop, glad all over, abso-f*cking-lutely delighted to have obtained the grades to get into my first-choice university, Gloucestershire. Those revision posters had proved useful, hour upon hour of reading up on exchange rate systems, binomial expansions and supply-side adjustments of third world expansions. I couldn't give a rats arse what they meant now - I'm off to university!! 28 days and counting....

To make the day that much sweeter, everyone else got the results required and are all off on their jolly ways to whichever area of the country. Oh, and my mugshot (and Jez and Ben's) will be in the local paper this Thursday. Score! I'll be buying a few copies of that...

The resulting night out in Wurvin (having planned to go to Brighton) was also rather good, full of cheap alcohol, lots of old faces to chat to and some cheesy music to dance to in the company of top people, as always! The (2 and a half hour) walk home was equally fun, sobered everyone up. Came home with the obligatory souvenir....a "Your Move" estate agents sold board. Well 'appy. Oh, and I picked up a perfectly flat spoon as well. One to add to the spoon collection...which now stands at a total of one. Oh....

Footy season's back! Man City are top. Bolton are bottom. The big four are somewhere in between. Lots of dodgy refereeing decisions already and Wayne Rooney's injured again. Excellent start to the Premiership...whilst in the Championship, where the real football is. The real fans. The real passion and the real players. Palace are third, top scorers in the division despite having a half-fit squad and still bringing all 11 players back for corners. Sorted - we'll be up by February.

Bread knife, coat hangers, sellotape, airing rack, plates, shaving gel, fan....that's right - Sharon's been making "the list". What do I need to take to university. Seriously, I challenge absolutely ANYONE to suggest something to me that Sharon's not already got on the list. I know she's getting bored in the school holidays and everything, but she's obviously had a little bit too much spare time on her hands, with an Argos catalogue in one hand, computer mouse in the other and the IKEA website on the monitor. After I had got in from work this evening, it had transpired she'd pulled Jim up from the sofa who was enjoying the football on the tv, to take her to Marks and Spencer so she could start buying from the list .... she came home with a kettle, some knives, a couple of pillows and some glassware. Did I know anything about this? Did I bloody likely? Did she know I am provided with a kettle in my room? Did she heck....I know she's doing it because she cares though. I'm not some selfish, ungrateful 19-year old toerag. Honest.

My car's fecked again. The clutch has given up the ghost. Jimbo was driving it up Long Furlong yesterday (a long hill) and it just went. The smell resembled something really, really smelly. It was a right kick in the nuts, luckily Jimbo's off work tomorrow so he can sort it out with the garage. That car is cursed, I'm telling you - and it has been ever since Lucy's been insured on it, innit.

Off on me hollibobs on Thursday night/Friday morning with Team MattBenKevJezBish of Team MBKJB for short. Off to the Greek island of Zante for a week which promises to be a holiday to end all holidays. Read into that what you will, but I've got no doubt it's going to be absolutely fabulous.

Look forward to it.

28 days to go. Keep right on.

Why throwing chewing gum isn't a good idea...

2007-08-08T18:22:00.000+01:00

Destination: Old Trafford, Manchester.

Date: 1st August 2007.

Reason: Taking the mick out of northern people...and watching Man Utd take on Inter Milan.

Participants: Ross "Petrol" Adams; Ben "Gullaver" Alcorn; Jez "Pineapple" Baker; Martin "Doesn't really have a nickname that isn't 'Bish'" Bishop; Matt "Rocket" Miller and Kev "Also doesn't really have a nickname - but Kez will do" Ward.

Oh yes. After the epic trip to Alton Towers, and the previous trek to Manchester in March - the six of us embarked on a trip that wasn't short of incident in either car. It started off late...naturally, because Ben was driving. Once all were onboard, our rendezvous at McDonalds with Ross and Bish saw all involved stock up on stuff to eat/drink. Many took up the generous offer of "One Ribena for £1.14 or two for a quid" - a most bizarre marketing technique by all standards, and not one you'd find in any business studies textbook. Though I swear Kev was taking note of the said technique in anticipation of his second year at uni. Shops in Southampton will all be doing it soon....who said education standards were slipping?

With Bishop and Ross in one car - all the crap pop sh*t music was confined to that car. One blast of Rihanna didn't hurt us though. The iPod rotation policy was again in place and Kev brought the Beautiful Girls to my attention - an Aussie band who, despite the name - are all men with beards. Disappointing, but the music was good by Kev's standard - not an acoustic guitar in sight (though I'm sure there was somewhere). With the odd bit of cheese thrown in - our car was rocking with bad singing round the M25 which drew admiring, and slightly strange looks from other cars. Surprisingly though - there were no delays at all on the M25 - not even around Heathrow where the aeropurto was...luck was on our side.

Perhaps not, as soon as we started heading north in earnest - the traffic began to slow down big time. Made you wonder why so many people wanted to head up there - to the land where people only eat spam, wear flat caps and shellsuits whilst walking their whippets. Lucky I don't resort to stereotypes, eh? Traffic snarled up around Birmingham and we were going rather slowly with the drizzle coming down...I knew we shouldn't have played Rihanna as a dedication to Bishop. Anyhoo, the traffic was almost ground to a halt and some rude bearded dude in a Vauxhall Nova had cut Ben up in the queue, so naturally I shouted a few obsenities which (in the end) thankfully weren't heard by the said man. Kev took matters into his own hands and managed to plant a lovely shot on the blokes rear windscreen with his chewing gum...he didn't see. As we were documenting our trip with a camera, it seemed only appropriate to take a picture of this man as he'd provided a highlight...we decided to do it "on the sly" as it were. But the b*stard noticed. Now any normal kind of man would just laugh this off - not this man, he had eyes like a terrorist and pulled into the nearside lane, told me to wind down my window where he said "did you just take a picture of me" - before I had a chance to answer, he asked it 3 or 4 times, I think he had a stammer of some kind - when I finally replied "No, 100%" he sped off at a whopping 15mph due to the traffic, and physical limit of his car. We never did see him again, but if he reads this...I'd love to meet you and have a proper picture, let's do lunch sometime xx.

Everyone was getting restless, Jez wanted Jaffa Cakes and Ben needed a break from the excitement of motorway driving. A stop at the infamous services on the M6 Toll where I'd previously locked my keys in the boot of my car was in order. After the obligatory banter of "me locking my cars in the boot last time we were here" which didn't get old or tiresome at all, we headed in for much needed refreshment and emptying of bladders. Whilst Ross, Kev and I were inside the shop buying a pastie and a drink for a reasonable price considering it was a service station - Ben and Bish were paying through the nose for a Wimpy - 7 quid for a burger and chips!! Even Wembley Stadium wasn't that expensive, how were the endless Chinese tourists in the going to get their head round that crazy pricing, especially when the burger didn't even contain any dog meat?! Anyway, we were keen to get on our way and the rest of the M6 Toll, like the rest - was a smooth breeze at about 90mph all the way. Middle fingers up to the speed-limit here.

With the sat-nav guiding us towards Manchester, and Bishop's map-reading skills directing the other car towards Scunthorpe - spirits in the car were high when we gave Ross/Bish the slip on the motorway in the hope that we'd get them lost. We're nice, see...anyway, somehow we arrived in the same part of Manchester, parking about 250 yards from each other, arriving at almost identical times. Perhaps I underestimated Bish's map-reading skills, he's now on a par with Ray Mears in terms of navigating. We walked towards the her-yow-ge Old Trafford amongst swathes of red shirts, I felt a bit out of place in camoflage shorts and a brown t-shirt. Attention was soon drawn to the hotdog vans - offering a footlong hotdog for £2.50 - bargain, and friggin' nice too. Our southern pounds go a long way up north...

Anyhoo, after a visit to the 'Megastore' where Bish and Ben sensibly declined the idea of parting with £45 for the new shirt when they could get it much cheaper elsewhere. Though there were stacks of people (or gullible fools) lining the pockets of Man USA Corp. plc with all sorts of tat. We took our seats on nigh-on the halfway line with a cracking view to watch the warm-up which consisted of Cristiano Ronaldo doing all sorts of stepovery stuff and then shooting wide. Still no end product....Bishop was coming to terms with no Alan Smith action (who's subsequently gone to Noocastle) and was crying into his watered down drink. Poor lad, it's not everyday a childhood hero like that leaves you, I felt the same when Palace let Jon Macken go.

The game was good. A good pace to it and Wayne Rooney opened the scoring with a nice finish though Inter were dominating possession and it was no surprise when the equaliser came after some shocking defending, Suazo was on hand to poke home. John O'Shea wasn't bossing the midfield as he normally does, and Darren Fletcher wasn't even on the pitch so United's hopes of winning were slim. As such, Inter then grabbed a second following some smooth silky football which lead to Ibrahimovic slamming the ball in. United's normally unflappable defence then faltered again to let Suazo through to make it 3-1 and the game was getting away from them. After the half-time interval in which we all took a brief foray into the corporate boxes, clambering over the walls and posing for pictures - United threw the kitchen sink at Inter Milan. Poor Adriano got a bit dizzy and headed into his own net unchallenged to give ManYoo a lifeline. United piled on the pressure, Ronaldo finally sprung into life and had two snapshots turned around the post before Rio Ferdinand found the top tier of the Stretford End, unmarked from 6 yards. 3-2 the final score but a great game for a neutral, thankfully.

We ambled back to the cars, agreed to stop at Oxford services on the way back and it was finally my turn to take the wheel. Got out of the car park no problem, Ben's sat-nav skilfully negotiated us out of the busy match traffic and onto the M6. Shit. Roadworks and bumper to bumper traffic. Never fear - Jez's iPod was here. The windows were wound down in anticipation of blasting out music to entertain the masses nearby...."Do they know it's Christmas time at all?" - we were playing sodding Christmas songs. Never mind knowing whether it's Christmas or not, it's fecking August ferchrissake. Saying that, it was rather funny, and drew many-a-smile from other people crawling along in their cars. The techno dancing amused one lady passenger whilst her husband gave us evils. Then there was the people carrier with about 30 kids in the back all waving to us - for once in our lives we felt like celebrities, in a Vauxhall Astra in Manchester at 11pm. Nice. The roadworks were soon negotiated and we were out, breezing along down the M6 at a nice cruising speed homeward bound (good film, scary dogs).

But how were Ross and Bishop getting on. "We're still in traffic, should be with you soon". Oh, that's not too bad then, half-expecting Ross to cruise past us any second we got another call "Still stuck in traffic, not moving too much - in fact a cigarette packet is blowing faster than us in the wind". Not to worry, they'll catch up....an hour and a half after we'd got out of traffic, they finally did too - and Ross was on a mission to catch us up. We were about 40 miles from the services, Ross about 130. Oxford services brought welcome relief for us all to stretch our legs at 2am and buy all sorts of crap to eat in the car. A call to Bish and Ross was in order..."we're nearly at Oxford now". You f*cking what?! Nearly at Oxford when we'd only been there about 20 minutes. Bloody ridiculous, we waited around a little bit to see if they'd walk through the doors...suffice to say they didn't and were a little further away than they thought. We got some petrol and went on our way.

The phone rang again (Orange must have been making a mint from all these phonecalls) - "We've got a slight problem - just got through half a tank of petrol in 40 minutes, and driven past the services". That's not a slight problem, that's a big problem for them, and the planet - imagine the carbon fecking footprint they were making bombing it down the motorway, we know who to blame for the icecaps melting from now on. After a brief discussion, they went back to get petrol and Ross 'sensibly drove home' though it turns out he was only doing 100mph on his way back from there, as opposed to 130. Sensible indeed.

Ben managed to take a wrong turn on the M25 and took us to God's own arsehole - Watford. Other than that, the drive home was a breeze and no trouble...back home by 4, up for work at 9 and serving people in Haskins at 10.05am. Magic.

A long day? For sure.

A good day? Too right it was.

Roll on the holiday....

Sven FM

2007-08-04T22:21:00.000+01:00

Blimey. The last time I started one of these blog dealies was over two weeks ago. Half the UK was underwater, Frank Butcher was still alive and Sven Goran Eriksson hadn't heard of the game "Football Manager" (more of that to come).

It's been a busy couple of weeks for yours truly, in that time I've taken in four football matches, travelling half the length of the country in the process ("Matt, Ben and Bish [and Kev, Jez and Ross] do Manchester: The Sequel" will be coming to you soon) - I've coached 30 hours of football to 22 nine-year olds and argued to the bitter end whether royal blue really does look good with orange.

Understandably, and unsurprisingly - football has been high on my agenda recently ahead of the impending season which starts next Saturday. And after the four pre-season matches I've taken in, to ease myself back into the swing of things football wise - questions still remain:

Why don't Brighton use their running track to warm up on? The 'keepers could throw a discus or two to practice their distribution whilst the outfield players practice sprinting when they've been turned for the 35th time by Rotherham's 3rd choice left back.

Who bought Shefki Kuqi for Palace, Dowie or Taylor? No, really. It's beyond a joke now. For every good moment he has 20 bad ones.

Does anyone know John O'Shea's best position? Midfield? Defence? Defensive midfield? Waterboy? The poor bloke's an Irishman anyway, why the need to further confuse him?

How does Sven cope on Football Manager without a "shag the secretary" feature? He's just signed eight players for Man City, without seeing any of them live in action only through "video evidence"...and they're all really quite good on FM, yet no-one's really bothered to find them in real life. Hmmm - interesting times ahead at Man City. It turns out Valeri Bojinov is actually a carpet fitter, Elano is a Flamenco dancer and Vedran Corluka is a Croatian transexual, previously working in a brothel in Zagreb.

Who told Rafael Benitez to grow a trendy beard? Was it his kids? Was it something to lure more Spaniards to Liverpool, make them feel more at home? Next week, Rafa Benitez shows us all how to use Heelys.

Should we feel sorry for Leeds? Errrm. No.

All in all, an interesting season lies ahead.

Otherwise, I was a coach for the seventh time on the Champions Soccer camp last week. Had a bloody good, albeit sometimes difficult time. I was left with the biggest coaching group - 22 energetic 9-year olds. Discipline was difficult initially and despite wanting to throttle one or two of them, they all went home smiling. Which is the main thing - taking part (or some friendly crap like that anyway - play to win!). I also learnt that week that 9-year olds have a rather large vocabulary of swear words which came as quite a shock as I thought that was more of a northern thing. Perhaps northern 9-year olds are a bit more developed now - owning pistols and starting fights in pubs maybe...us soft southern pansies are trying to keep up with their ghetto ways.

Film-wise I've watched a couple - The Simpsons Movie was rather funny. Plenty of gags to keep me laughing for the duration which was quite nice after I thought the TV series had lost its spark. And last night was Evan Almighty which was alright I suppose though they put most of the funny bits in the trailer, though nothing could've prepared us for the cracking one-liners from the black secretary lady (speculation about Sven and the said lady is unfounded...). Nothing to write home about though.

So, erm, yeah....there'll be a blog detailing the trip to Man Utd/Inter Milan soon.

Cue madness...

My car's a bit like Grolsch...

2007-07-17T22:35:00.000+01:00

And why is my car like Grolsch?

Last Thursday, my car went a bit schizo on me - the accelerator didn't feel right, pulling back on me. It was alright when I got up to a decent cruising style speed, but when building it up it was all juddery. I put it down to an air bubble in the fuel tank (or some bullshit like that) and thought it'd go away. I even turned it off, and back on again as seems the normal protocol when something's broken nowadays. Anyway, I took it to the garage on Tuesday morning at 8am - I'm not a morning person at the best of times, I'm even grumpier and irritable than usual (!). It didn't help I may have been slightly hungover too after a cracking night out at East on Monday. Anyway, I left it there for the day, went to glorious Haskins for a 7 hour shift. Nothing really happened, apart from some lady storming out of the shop because someone (Richard) outside had accidentally squirted her with a hose. Silly bint. Anyway, got a text from Jimbo saying my car was ready to be collected after work. Excellent I thought.

Sharon took me to the garage to pick the car up, I got in, turned the key...

And the engine light was still on. For crying out loud! Someone can't do a job properly, or was on a wind-up. The car's still there, and any additional work they do, having handed over £150 already I'm going to suggest they do free of charge. Though they would be quite good on the Grolsch adverts - "Your car isht not quite ready yet", well that's if they grow some bollocks and develop a bit of honesty.

Anyhoo - I've not blogged in a couple of weeks. For various reasons, not being arsed, being relatively busy etc - but the above incident kinda pushed me into wanting to have a rant and a rave.

Was up in London town last Thursday for Athlete's gig at the Koko Club in Camden. Was very good indeed. Nabbed myself another setlist, had a strum of the lead singers guitar and ruffle of his hair in the encore - was a very decent gig. Heard new stuff from their album coming out in September which I've *ahem* acquired, it's well worth checking out as and when it's released. Otherwise, their new single "Hurricane" is out this month, and currently getting a lot of airtime on Radio 1 I believe. You can also listen to it on Athlete's website.

Kez's birthday on Friday could only mean one thing was near. Our annual trip to Woodside Road to watch Worthing play the Seaweed from Brighton. It was a sunny afternoon, lots of gays on the terraces all w*nking over their new 34 year old signing Nicky Forster (he was very good actually...but it was only Worthing) and we were unfortunately standing near someone who had the footballing knowledge and commentary likeness of David Pleat. Many gems were heard, from the old-skool "get stuck in", and then there was the old "he was never offside"and general abuse of the linesman whenever a Seaweed player was a good 3/4 yards off. It made for an entertaining afternoon. And then we all went back to Ben's for a BBQ...well it nearly wasn't a barbeque as we couldn't get it working. Thank God for Sainsbury's disposable BBQs is all I can say. A good day all round.

Rihanna's still #1 then. And the weather's still all crappy and changeable. Needs a good hard slap with a wet fish that girl does. She's got no idea the grief she's putting people with SAD through, they all want it, and expect it to be sunny, but she insists on it raining so people can get their umbrellas out....selfish cow.

A week of football coaching is on the horizon for next week. I genuinely cannot wait for it. Marvellous fun indeed. It's bloomin' knackering though, gotta be all bouncy and energetic for 6 hours non-stop, though it's rewarding at the end of it all (when I get paid haha) when you see how much the kids have improved and enjoyed themselves. It's all gravy, baby.

Errrm, I'll wrap it up there for now me thinks.

I'll leave you with a thought:
Putting Magners in a Bulmers glass is like taking a shit in a urinal - 'Spoons should be ashamed.

It's all Rihanna's fault

2007-07-05T20:34:00.000+01:00

After the brief interruption in el bloggo for me to bring the amazing two parter of our excursion oop north - of which you can see parts 1 and 2 by clicking on the numbers I've just typed (flash, huh?) - normal service will be resumed this evening in a slightly shorter blog, but still as good as ever. I hope anyway...

For once, global warming is not to blame for the absolutely shit weather at the moment. I blame pop star Rihanna for it. Naturally, the link I make is tedious - but ever since her song 'Umbrella' has been at the top of the charts in the UK - it's absolutely pissed it down, incessantly. I don't care whether the whole song's some crap innuendo for something else - the fact that it's about umbrellas and it's now started to rain cats, dogs, elephants and Bolivian tree frogs cannot be ignored. Coincidence maybe. Perhaps the weather might stop if every radio station in the country stopped playing the song, and gave our gardens and ears a nice rest. Music is more powerful than you think, y'know.

Wimbledon isn't going to get finished this year as a result of Rihanna. I'm bored of catching highlights during the rain breaks of the Men's final from 1983 when everyone had a bubble perm, moustache and wore tight trousers (sounds like Kev's dad) . Though the one day I went, last Thursday, was the only day it didn't see a drop of rain - result! Watched Tiger Timothy Benjamin Edward Albert Henman from Middle England come from behind....and still lose because he's a bottler. Watched a bit of Miss Gruntalot Sharapova too - that was nice. Saw a fair bit of action on the outside courts - Ivanovic (fit as...), Safin and also saw Roddick practising where I snapped a few decent piccies. Didn't have time to see Rafa Nadal play though which was disappointing as I had to dash back and take Lucy off to play a tennis semi-final. Not to worry. Next year will be Tim's year...

Certain people have been spreading rumours about me too. About my whereabouts on Saturday evening for a piratey party. Many have said I had drank too much on the Saturday afternoon with some old friends and wasn't in a fit state to go. I'd like to categorically accept these rumours are true. Unfortunately. But I live and learn that I'm not a heavyweight when it comes to drinking. Not to worry, makes life interesting I suppose. Speaking of parties, Beckie's 18th on Sunday was good fun indeed - shame I was driving but I probably deserved that. Saying that, I didn't fancy paying £3.20 for a bottle of Corona - feck that for a game of soldiers.

The transfer market's playing silly buggers again - £17m or something for Darren Bent - f*ck me sideways. Is he really 17 million quid's worth? Spurs in "throwing money at someone relatively young and English" shocker. Saying that, I wouldn't call £27m on Fernando Torres wise either - far from proven at the top level though is probably going to do the business for Liverpool, it's a big risk. Ditto Arsenal's £10m move for Eduardo Da Silva - he's a cracking player, but far from proven at a high level and not many of Wenger's bigger money signings have come off - Reyes, Wiltord and Jeffers to name but three. But we'll see - I look forward to seeing Torres and Eduardo next season and seeing whether they can adjust to the rigours of the Premiership. Stick to Palace's policy - bring in a left back from Millwall and one from Lincoln - we don't even know if they can kick a ball straight, but at least they cost peanuts.

Work at Haskins has been as exciting as ever with the summer overtime really kicking in. I sold £350 worth of picture frames to a lady today though. She seemed a bit strange, probably lived alone with about 50,000 cats, which is a surprise as she didn't buy any cat food. Her loss I suppose. The dreadful receptionist, Sue, is on holiday for a week so our brains can rest from her boring stories about "when I was a girl" and then asking you for your thoughts, and not letting you get a word in edgeways because she's then off on another tangent. Not to worry, I leave on 2nd September, I cannot wait....

That'll do - cheerio cheerio cheerio.

How hard could it be? (Part 2)

2007-07-03T03:01:00.002+01:00

(I'm well aware it's 3 in the morning - I've just been out clubbing and am currently a buzzing on Red Bull [drew the short straw so I drove]....which is nice)

Where can we pick it up from last week....Hot Car brought heat, sweat and tears to the car on the way up before I locked my keys in the boot, needed a Brummie bloke to come break into my car with some funky equipment to get the keys, Ross' sense of direction took him the wrong way around the M25 - but it's OK, Ben's sat-nav kept us on the straight and narrow....kind of.

And you wonder why Hollywood made films about Road Trips, ours minus the sex and drugs but it had the rock and roll, well, apart from Kev's music choices.

Having found the Travelodge after an uneventful trip from a soaking wet Alton Towers - we spruced ourselves out in anticipation of a night out in the party capital of England: Stoke-on-Trent. I had, however, managed to turn our bathroom into a lake....though I could blame that on the weather, and therefore - global warming (click it - go on...), lovely.

After Jez had turned his hair into a hairy pyramid, or pineapple if that floats your boat - Ross drove us into Stoke having lost a one-off rock, paper, scissors game to yours truly to decide who would be chauffeur for the evening. I didn't win another game of that with Ross for the whole trip, I know how to perform when the pressure's on though - that's what counts. It was only a short trip down the road, but we contrived to spend half an hour looking for somewhere to park, northerners obviously don't have cars so the need for car parks isn't great. We found a particularly ropey car park which looked no safer than calling Ricky Hatton a "soft, pug-ugly wanker" but it did a job. A curry was needed to set our mouths on fire for the fine people of Stoke, so we found Stoke's answer to the 'Curry Mile' which consisted of 3 curry houses, JJB Sports and a Woolworths. In which time we'd been confronted by a kangaroo trying to get us to go to Walkabout...we took a flyer, and I took the kangaroos head. Deal. A curry later, or a chicken and chips (that famous Indian dish) for Jez we came across a studenty looking bar.

Best decision we'd made all day (saying that, we'd not made many good ones) - the music was superb, the drinks cheap and the standard of females wasn't bad either, surprising for northern birds (who smell of burgers - not my opinion, listen to a hilarious song by Amateur Transplants - available at all good filesharing websites and programs near you) - which was nice. Once the music wound down to the generic r'n'b, hippity hoppity type shite you hear in a lot of bars, and people slowly filtered out, we did similarly and were at a loose end as to what to do.

Wandering around aimlessly, past the Walkabout - a familiar sight greeted us down a side-street (easy tiger) - Stoke had a Liquid Lounge. Bingo. Now the one in Wurvin isn't the greatest, surely the wonderful people of Stoke knew how to build and run a nightclub....the sight of dancers on platforms (not the shoes) quickly suggested that Stoke-ites knew how to pull the punters in. It was massive, the drinks were naturally overpriced oop north as they are down south but that didn't matter - a quick dance upstairs and we headed downtown into some cowboy bar downstairs. Now, this is where Stoke's pondlife appeared to hang out, fat ones, ugly ones - I'm sure they're all nice on the inside though.

But what's that on the other side of the dancefloor? A drunk bird looking scarily like Amy Winehouse caught mine and Ben's eye, for the wrong reasons - she took it the wrong way and came over for a 'friendly' chat. Lasted all of 60 seconds mind you, Ben did the talking and got offered a 'proper handshake' - who said northern people lack class? They're clinical and to the point when they want to be. The gent that Ben is, declined politely and we slipped off elsewhere - quick dance, out the club as the time limit on the car park was nearly up.

Easy trip back up the dual carriageway it was then, back to the Travelodge and sleeping ahead of a long day Tuesday. Wrong....where's the Travelodge again? What road do we need? Cue an hour of driving aimlessly around Stoke and it's surrounding area - we were on first name terms with every junction, roundabout and traffic light set in Staffordshire by the time we'd found our way back. But we still had time for Jez threatening to walk back because we didn't know where we were going...errrr - OK. Blame the alcohol.

Back at the Travelodge, four/five hours kip and we were up and raring to go ahead of a second day at Alton Towers. A quick Little Chef brekkie was in order, greasy spoon stylee - love it! We were ready to go. Stopped at a nearby Asda to pick up a few supplies for the journey home later - our southern money goes a lot further oop north. Then for the relatively straight forward trip back to Alton Towers....well, at least it was in my car anyway. Ross decided to follow directions he'd obtained off of some lorry driver he met in the Travelodge foyer, which guaranteed him there in 10 minutes. It took him nearer 90 minutes to get there, especially considering he started going in completely the wrong direction - again. Nice one.

Ben, Kev and I decided to make use of our headstart on the other two by joining the queue for Oblivion. A 40 minute queue you say? With it being one of the bigger rides, with a vertical drop - you'd like to think that you're safe and that nothing could go wrong - the videos on the screens in the queue did nothing to scare, more annoy me. But the fecking ride kept breaking down, temporary delay, tests and everything meant a 40 minute wait turned into nearly 2 hours before we'd got off the ride, which was very good - but an anti-climax given how long we'd waited. Thereafter, Enterprise was a decent ride in itself. We went on the Rapids too - Ross developed a mild case of tourettes, introducing the fine people of Staffordshire to the word "bollocks" and it's many uses, well - generally used when Ross got a bit wet (ooh err). Speaking of getting wet...

That cunting log flume. Stuck at the front, first went down a drop of about 2 feet and water poured over the front getting my shorts absolutely soaking whilst the others at back were obliviously admiring the scenery. This repeated itself in a drop in the dark before being confronted by a giant duck which scared the sh*t out of me. This wasn't my favourite ride of the day....and the biggest drop soaked me, but left the others with a gentle shower. Poofs.

Ripsaw was another soaker - flipped over, upside down, inside out and all that and getting soaked in the process. I enjoyed that one though...hopped in some cooker thing to get dry - that was nice. There was still time to go on one last ride - the pinball wizard which was surprisingly good, a rollercoaster in a teacup I guess you could call it. Pretty darned good. Wandered back to the car park, time for Ross to perfect his heel-clicky thing, some strange pictures in the shop and reflecting on the past day or two.

The car journey home was nowhere near as eventful as the one coming up, in fact not a lot happened. We drove back on the right roads in decent time, stopped at services together, via the hard shoulder of the M6 to stick the door seal on my car back down - Ross headed off to Wimbledon with his sister on the Wednesday. Played Hot Car from Oxford to home - but incidents - none. No locking keys in the boot, no going the wrong way. It was perfect.

Still, we had Kev's guitar music keeping spirits high. Hmmm.

A very good couple of days if you ask me and many decent moments to look back on.

How hard could it be? (Part 1)

2007-06-27T16:52:00.000+01:00

Four 19 year olds (and an 18 year old). Two cars. 450 mile round trip. One destination - Alton Towers.

How hard could it be?

The route was simple enough - four stretches of motorway would do the direct bit. Then the A-roads to just get us around the smaller bits. The drivers had been agreed - Ross and Ben were given the responsibility of getting us all there, Jez with Ross; Kev and myself with Ben. Due to leave at 9.30, my phone rang at 9.45am - it was Ben, "Matt, we've got a slight problem. My car's engine light has just come on - what do you think we should do?". We agreed that it wasn't wise to drive with a dodgy engine. Now, with Kev not holding a license, never having ever sat in the driver's seat of a car before, because he was upstairs strumming away on his guitar - the solution was simple. I'd drive.

OK, a minor hiccup. We were on our way by 10 o'clock. Met Ross and Jez at the petrol station that no-one knew the name of, but it was at the lights at West Grinstead - had a Maccy D's brekkie then headed up on the first part of the journey. Accompanied by many great tunes from mine and Ben's "generic indie band" genre, a few from Kev's generic "one-man and a guitar" genre. Everyone's happy. Kev's strong start to the car transporter game soon ended when he was distracted by an article on 5-year old Brazilian wonderkids in FourFourTwo and I soon capitalised, all while Ben was wondering over what was up with his car...

There was something up with my car - no petrol. Paid an arm and a leg in Oxford services for petrol - 98.9/litre! F*cking disgrace. And now we have an economist for Prime Minister [well, for 3 hours at least] - perhaps Browny might pull a few strings with our mates in the Middle-East, well the ones who don't want to blow us up anyway. Petrol was in. Meanwhile, Ross' sense of direction had deserted him [for the first time this trip] earlier, having gone a number of junctions the wrong way around the M25. Tit. He corrected it, and duly passed us when we were grabbing fuel, and some toilet paper - sorry, I mean the Sun newspaper.

Back on our way on the motorway, making our way up the M42, then onto the M6 toll road, which was nice and open, allowing pedal to the metal and cruising past all, even in my little 1.3 Fiesta - wahay! For some reason unknown to man - we played a game called Hot Car at this point for an hour or so, where you turn the heating up in the car at full blast and just sweat your nuts off. Up until Monday, I didn't know my car doubled up as a sauna, now I do. Well, barring the nakedness bit anyway, that's probably best left optional and to attractive ladies. Some more one-man and his guitar music later, it was time for a break at the services. No-one really fancied getting ripped off by about £7 for a burger and chips from Wimpy, so we all emptied our bladders and then pockets in the shop (we didn't empty our bladders in the shop by the way...) and all came away with stuff for the relatively short trip from there on in to Alton Towers. Ross even came away with a dance CD - they sell everything, even solar powered lights for your drive - though I guess you could whack them on your car too.

Hot Car had made us all rather dripping with sweat and just looking rather minging, so we decided to deoooodorise (sounds boring this bit....but read on) so we went to the boot of me motor. When suitably refreshed, the boot was shut.

Bollocks. Where are the car keys?

We're stuck in the middle of the M6 Toll, in the middle of nowhere and I can't get into my bloody car because I locked my keys in the boot. Cue a variety of ingenius ways to get into the boot...

In no particular order:
* Using Nuts magazine to wedge the window open, then open the door.
* Using a 20p to wedge the window open, then open the door.
* Trying to pull the windows down with our hands.
* Going underneath the car and under the boot, trying to find a hole to get into it.

We even contemplated breaking into the car. After all, that's what they all do up north isn't it? Jez seemed clued up on it - "use a jumper to protect your elbow". Something you're not telling us? Anyway, I then realised I had breakdown cover which meant I could get some bloke out to come and get the keys out for me. And he did. Job done - and only 45 minutes wait. These trips wouldn't be worth going on without such incidents...

On our way again, not far to Alton Towers where Ben's sat-nav directed us through Stoke. Seemed OK at the time before we hit ridiculously slow moving northern traffic. Top speed of about 5mph and this was going on for about 4 miles. "F*ck that, we're taking a shortcut." Mistake, or masterstroke? I'd have to say masterstroke, not only did I give all in the car a magically scenic tour of Stoke's housing estates in the pissing rain, we also bypassed the traffic. Well, kind of anyway....

By which time, Ross and Jez were already in Alton Towers. Hey-ho....we got there eventually. And in time to go on three of their bigger rides. Rita, which was fecking quick, 0-60mph in 2 seconds or something stupid, a bit like being in my car really. Nemesis which was quite cool and also Air in which you were suspended horizontal to the floor in like a flying position. Shame that only went about 10mph, but you can't win them all...

Offskis to the Travelodge it was then. Uneventful journey. Straight there. How boring...

I'll leave Part 1 for there - find out about our night out in Stoke and the epic journey back from Stoke (just to the Travelodge) and other bits and pieces in the next part. ETA: Monday.

Got wood?

2007-06-19T21:48:00.000+01:00

Back of the net! No more exams. No more trigonometry, no more exchange rates, no more Mr T, no more of the disorganised, useless Batista, no more Angmering School. End of an era? Yup, but I'd probably outstayed my welcome anyway so I'll be glad to turn the page on the Angmering School chapter of my life. There have been many good times, not many bad times - it's been a blast and I think i'm getting shot of the place just before it becomes overcrowded with chavs who appear to be infecting the school at a faster rate than crap talent shows on tv. Ooooh let's choose a new Joseph for a musical and make him as camp as possible to appeal to the minorities whilst ITV1 choose to remake Grease for the 67th time, once was enough! And then there's Britain's Got Talent - magicians, jugglers, singers, breakdancers, wankers....All so we can pick someone to be the next target of the gutter press' adoration for a month before the bubble bursts and they're confined to people spotting them in the street, snapping a photo and sending it to Heat magazine in return for 50 quid. What a world we live in.

The Gasman came on Monday to look at a leak in the roof. Most boring man ever, who seemed to spend an age in the loft to come to the conclusion that we did have a leak, and that he couldn't fix it as he didn't have the parts. Always the way isn't it? I was dragged out of bed at 7.30am by Sharon to sit on the sofa and wait for this geezer arrive between 8 and 1, half-expecting that he wouldn't turn up until 12.55, I fell asleep in front of Jeremy Kyle trying to solve some 13 year olds pregnancy and how it was possible that it was in fact fathered by her mum's new boyfriend. It's like an interactive version of some glossy trash woman magazine. Excellent. The gasman turned up at about 10ish in the end and the rest, they say, is history.

So the leak in the roof's being fixed tomorrow. Again, between the ambiguous timeslot of 8am and 1pm so it'll be an early start for me tomorrow. However, for the bloke to fit a new water tank (or something) he needed a bit of wood - endless supply of jokes there - so I went to Focus today (with Jez, who still needs a room btw) to get some. There's so many different bloody kinds of wood. MDF, fibreboard, hardboard, softwood, hardwood - why is it all so complicated? I settled on some MDF in the end, and paid through the nose for it - £6 for a small piece, takes the fecking piss. Then came the fun of cutting it at home. I ain't the most practical of fellas - sawing this bit of wood - balanced between a table and some procariously balanced paintpots took me over 20 minutes. Mr Lillywhite would have gone nuts if he was here, thankfully not though - I'd have had to stuck an air freshener or 12 in his beard to alleviate the smell.

Fantastic 4 is quite possibly the worst film I've ever seen in my life. An absolute crock of shite.

90 minutes of Jessica Alba couldn't be bad, surely? Oh it was, she's the fecking invisible woman for crying out loud - why make her invisible?! The director was obviously a feminist. Elsewhere, the huge planet eating thing from space that no-one knew why it existed that threatened the earth and sent the silver man who was powered by a surfboard indicated that Hollywood's scraping the bottom of the barrel for decent scripts. What's next? Surfing pengiuns? Oh wait.

Elsewhere....

Sheffield United are still whinging that they got relegated because they were too shit to stay up.

Air Traffic gig on Thursday in Brighton. Should be good.

Friends is the biggest load of wank ever, after Fantastic 4 and Fanta fruit twist.

My dentist appointment's been cancelled tomorrow so I can wait for the gas-man.

And finally, I've run out of deoderant so need to go and buy some. Any recommendations? I fancy something new and manly.

Cheery bye.

WANTED: A room for Jeremy

2007-06-14T22:00:00.000+01:00

Six exams of seven gone, now only one more left to go (now there's a twist on the opening lyrics from a song there...answers on a postcard) - this time of year always creeps up on you, and when it comes - it's gone in the blink of an eye and you wonder where it all went. It's been like that here in my 'bubble'. The hours in the day you allocate to revision are all totally innocently delegated, and then filled up with watching some funny, pointless crap on YouTube. You're then playing catch-up, revising for hours on end, missing Neighbours and confusing yourself with 3 times the amount of equations and theories. But hey, I'm 19 years old - I'm not a perfectly tuned machine who can do everything perfectly. I know the effort I've put in this year has been far more than the last two put together, and I hope I reap the rewards in the way of grades - but we'll see - still got a couple of months until "Judgment Day".

However, waiting for me - assuming I get the grades - my little shoebox room in Gloucester is waiting for me. All confirmed, the digs are sorted - Oxstalls, Birdlip Room 308 - moving in on Sunday 16th September - magic! Three months to go. Mustn't get complacent though.

And if anyone's reading from Gloucestershire Uni - give my good mate Jez a room in halls in Cheltenham somewhere. He's housetrained, he accidentally bleached his hair once or twice and he loves to dance. He'll sleep anywhere, an industrial sized dustbin, a drawer - anywhere will do. He'll even sleep with the horses at the racecourse.....if I've not sold him - I don't know what will.

Elsewhere, barring the boredom of exams and all that shiznit - Lucy's closing in on the magical 6 driving lesson mark where by which Jimbo says he'll insure her on MY car. For crying out loud, this whole sex-equality bollocks is getting ridiculous. The premium will shoot up, and she's not even going to pay her share. And she'll blatently crash it too, though as I've shown in the past, perhaps my car is leading a charmed life.

Footy fixtures came out today - Palace kick off away to Southampton which is a nice little journey down the coast for me. Summer, sun and watching Palace on the south coast - can't ask for much more than that. August 11th, it's already marked on my calendar. Elsewhere, the fixture computer's been bastardising as usual, away to Cov on Boxing Day ffs - how the hell can I abuse Dowie now?! Speaking of whom, he lost his court case against CPFC, poor bloke....NOT! That'll teach him to cross the orange, bleached one - feel the wrath of his citrus peroxideness.

Moosical wise. Got Air Traffic lined up next Thursday at the Komedia in Brighton and nearly bought some tickets for the Pigeon Detectives in Bristol for November, then I remembered I didn't know the address of my uni accommodation in Gloucester for the tix to be sent to. D'oh. As for the downloading - the Twang are worth a download, as are the aforementioned Pigeon Detectives....even Maroon 5's new album deserves an honourary mention. I was determined to hate it, but can't - it's really rather good. Got my hand on some early Arctic Monkeys EPs too, which are well worth a listen to if you can get your mitts on them, they don't actually have a name but they're on the 'net. I can't remember where though - sorry!

Jimbo and Sharon were in the New Forest on Sunday and decided to bring me back some, what Jim called, "proper cider". I looked forward to tasting it. It was pissing horrible! Paint stripper of the cheapest variety and something I wouldn't even clean my wounds with. Absolutely wrank. I'm not letting Jim buy me alcohol like that again, unless it's in a pub of course and he offers.

Ocean's 13 is a decent film, if a bit too long - saw it on one of our now regular again cinema trips. Some unsurprisingly wooden acting from Matt Damon who can't appear to ever get excited in any form, which must be a real turn off for women. George Clooney is someone I'd like as my dad though - effortlessly coooooool. Even cooler than Jim...sorry Jimbo!

Top blogging...

Mugging Sharon off, Stateside

2007-06-05T21:55:00.000+01:00

That's it.

I'm in there. The thick of it. 2 weeks of unrivalled hell. 2 weeks of breathing equations, phrases, terms and definitions all for the sake of points to get into university. Today was the first exam. Statistics. It appeared to go all well up until the last page when the wheels may or may not have come off my gravy train. 1 down, 6 exams to go ....

Barring revision, revision, revision - a little bit's been and gone in the last week in my little bubble. Jimbo and Sharon have been to New York and come back again, minus a comedy Yank accent which was disappointing, but they came back with all sorts of random crap. Try convincing me that $80 on two tealight holders was "a good investment", especially when they look like cheap ice cream sundae glasses - whoever mugged Sharon off in Tiffany's is bloody good at their job. Thank feck for the good exchange rate.

They appeared to have a good time though and haven't even argued since being back - result! Though Jimbo's had a sly dig or two like the sly dog that he is, but he's back to work tomorrow so presumably his self-esteem will be at an all-time low tomorrow evening, and even lower after the Estonia/England match.

Speaking of Eng-er-land - the trip to Wembley to watch England vs. Brazil avec Kez was absolutely excellent. Having already been to the rebuilt Wembley for the U21 match there back in March, it was a whole new experience seeing it jam-packed with England fans all eager to see the national side back at their proper 'home'. It's a shame that Steve-o Mac was in charge, as he's a clueless, monotonous fuckwit but even he couldn't dampen the spirits of 89,000 England fans. David Bekkum's return to the international fold just added to the occasion and when he got a free kick 25 yards out in the first half, it seemed set-up for him to score the first ever England goal at the new Wembley Stadium. Alas, he fizzed it inches wide with the goalkeeper beaten. He'd just have to settle for providing John Terry with the best of whipped crosses for him to thump his header home and send the England fans into a frenzy. When England looked to be sending the Samba boys crying back to the Copacabana, incredibly shite marking at the back allowed the 3 foot Diego to trickle a header in, and all in the 92nd minute.

It was a minor kick in the teeth. Then for the fun of getting back home, having parked in Croydon - we'd left ourselves with a decent chance of getting home at a respectable time. And we did, at 1.30am - the transport out of Wembley was quite efficient really, though involved the inevitable queues. And I ran a red light on the way home, I felt so alive....

Elsewhere....plans for the summer are picking up at a reasonable pace. Alton Towers is sorted for the end of the month. Couple of gigs (Air Traffic and Athlete) lined up with probably another couple later in the summer. I'll be off to Wimbledon on the first Thursday with Loocy. Errrm, the holiday's all paid for at the end of August and I'll be coaching footy at the end of July for a week. Oh yeah, I'll be in glorious Haskins for much of my spare time otherwise so come and say hello, and I'll let you nick a hanging basket.

The new London 2012 logo is a piece of crap. It signifies nothing but 4 blobs in the rough shape of a bloke having a shit into a toilet, or another man recieving a blow-job. Last time I checked, these two things weren't Olympic events but I guess you never know - Britain might actually win something for once. Though I bet the Americans would win the shitting, they're full of it.

Paris Hilton's offskis to jail. Well, I say jail, it's a glorified hotel which she can't leave for a few weeks. It'd be harsh to say I hope she dies whilst in there, but I do despise her - she's a talentless no-mark who's only famous because she's got a bit of money from her dad's hotel chain. Celebrity my arse, and she's not even attractive - her face is deformed and mangled - anyone who has urges towards her needs their head sorting out. She is a minger.

That'll do, revision to do, people to see.

Toodles.

The sticky floor of a cinema is the place to be

2007-05-28T20:27:00.000+01:00

So the man said to the waiter, "Can I have a blog please?"

Matt the waiter said, "Coming right up sir".

I absolutely love grumpy people. Not in a sexual way, but when it's over a chip in a £34.99 pot to whack in their garden, a grumpy couple who were absolutely soaking wet from this piss-poor weather just added to the fun. "Can you knock any money off", they said. "I'm afraid not, it's not within our policy - we're able to recieve credit on any damaged stock". After 5 minutes of the same question and answer being said in different guises, with the couple, the bloke especially getting increasingly frustrated, he lost his rag, told me to "Fuck off" and they both stomped out of the shop, potless, and plotless. Happy people are great, but the stressy ones bring a genuine smile.

Anyway, Bank Holiday weekend at wonderful Haskins was hectic. So I'm flagging a little today. "I'll just have a carrier bag if I can, it's raining"....."It's not, is it?" - state the bleedin' obvious why don't you?. "Last of the big spenders".... it wasn't funny the first time a customer said it, it's not funny now the 578th customer has said it. "Do you sell newspapers?" .... that's a new one. First stamps, now newspapers - what do people expect garden centres to sell next? Class A drugs and iPods? Jeeeeeeezus christ.

If anyone wants to know what to get Matt for his birthday - 27th November - in case you'd forgotten - I would absolutely love an Orgazmatron head massager. Having been put through the paces with it last night at Beckie's indoor BBQ (great fun btw) - I would very much welcome one, though I don't know how you'd wrap it up - it's all wirey and that. Apparently provides you with 1/8th of an orgasm, or some bullcrap like that. All I know is that it made me tingle and relax....hmmm. Next week, I'll declare my love for little dogs and pink fur.

The leavers do on Friday night was a good laugh, though was absolutely cream-crackered by the time we got to the club though. Much was drank, many were nipple-crippled and everyone ate a chocolate cock - who says we don't know how to party? Leavers Do rating of 9/10.

Elsewhere on the radar:

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is pretty good, I even managed to understand the plot despite falling asleep for half an hour of it. Not recommended is buying a 'large' drink which turns out to be about 30 gallons worth. I can swear I'm still pissing it out now. Or in Jez's case, don't buy a large popcorn - no matter how many people you share it with, the bag is bottomless and it will never, ever be finished. And that's the law of cinema. Oh, not forgetting that you're not in a proper cinema if you can lift your feet off of the floor without them sticking. The stickiness is character.

Pardon me for being slightly insincere, but do the news bulletins have to take up 75% of their airtime giving us an update on whether Madeline McCann's been found or not? I hope she's found, but the more they're flooding us with the same regurgitated stories about the search, the more people will get bored and disinterested. The media's siege mentality isn't big, it's not clever - especially when it's The Sun directing the search, Kelly Brook and Keeley are much better suited searching other areas....ahem.

Oh yeah, I told you all that AC Milan would beat Liverpool 2-1. I told you so. Ner ner ner ner nerrrr. And the scouse muppets aren't happy for some reason and are blaming it on everyone apart from themselves, but what do we expect from a support based on self-righteous claptrap?YOU WEREN'T GOOD ENOUGH - get over it (and get a job - cheap shot).

Jim and Sharon's packing for New York is coming along slowly ahead of their departure on Wednesday morning - Sharon's running around like a headless chicken and Jimbo's cooking dinner. What a fortunate son I am....

Cracking and smashing

2007-05-22T20:38:00.000+01:00

Two weeks to go until my first exam, and four weeks until my last. Tensions are high in my bedroom, there are exam papers everywhere, notes strewn over my bed, crammed inside books, covering my desk. I had to send out a search party to find my laptop to write this blog, so you'd better be grateful! Lucky I know where everything is though, people might start calling me disorganised. But the revision is going pretty good at the moment - I'm where I want to be, got plenty of papers to practice with and the theory is largely under control and lodged somewhere in my brain. Got to coax it out at the right times though, and that's the hard part.

I've got a half term week coming up which is pretty free of plans and has numerous blocks of hours in which revision can be done so it's all under control. Still doesn't mean I won't enjoy myself....oh no. Got the Leavers Do on Friday night which I hope will be excellent fun, all suited and booted, getting intoxicated with mates and teachers - what else can you ask for from a college social?

Elsewhere on the radar in the past week or so....

The FA Cup Final was one of the worst games I've seen in absolutely yonks. And I've seen some crap at Palace this season. Neither team seemed bothered about going over the halfway line in fear of getting a nosebleed. The new Wembley didn't deserve such a crap game beneath it's fantabulous arch and in front of 90,000 ripped off punters, and the fact that Chelski won made it even worse. Makes me sick just thinking about it. Not to worry, Frank Lampard's still fat - that's karma for you.

My bedroom window has mysteriously been smashed. It's made a crackingly cool cracked (seamless, huh?) pattern on it, but it's a damned inconvenience. Not to worry, nothing an insurance claim won't fix. Could well have been the nutty woman next door throwing a squirrel, or Freddie headbutting the window to get my attention. I don't know what it was to be honest. Any suggestions/ideas are welcome.

Music wise, I have to recommend Fields' new album, "Everything Last Winter", probably quite an acquired taste in music to like it - it definitely took a while to grow on me, but it's really rather good. Saw them support Snow Patrol back in December and liked them there, and their debut's good too. Not sure who I'd compare them to, but it's worth an *ahem* download.

Jimbo and Sharon are gearing up for their trip to New York next week and they have no idea what they're going to do. Sharon's panicking as usual that they're not taking enough money with them, Jimbo's not particularly fussed and tells her to calm down. Though it does mean I've got to look after Lucy for 5 days at home - talk about care in the community. Hopefully she won't pester me for lifts 24/7 and whinge when I refuse. But I have the power to put my foot down...I think grounding her might be taking things too far though, she's 17.

Oh, Champions League Final tomorrow night, prediction is 2-1 Milan. Hopefully I can come back next week and say I told you so....

Washing machines live longer with zombies

2007-05-14T22:15:00.000+01:00

Washing conditioner samples. Tonnes of 'em in our kitchen. Absolutely stacks. Why? Lucy decided to bring home Sainsbury's supply to our household just in case the world has a national shortage of fabric conditioner. I'll never be walking around in dirty clothes again....not that I did anyway.

Sharon was pleased though. Anarchy in the house is spared for 24 hours at least...

I nearly got killed today. Twice. I didn't get the whole 'life flash before my eyes' jobby but speed + wet roads is never a particularly good combination. And for once (some might argue) the two quite near misses today weren't my fault. Tommy B was wanging it down the (double parked) rally road as he calls it and slipped and slid his way past an oncoming car. That was more of an adreniline rush than a near-death experience, but they all count. And the other was just absolutely shocking judgement from a 96 year old driver at a roundabout. Obviously late to get their pension from the post office and crawled out without looking. I immediately felt bad having beeped at the elderly and that they probably fought for us in the war, but if they can't drive a car properly, they're better off using their free bus pass.

Elsewhere on the radar...

* Sheffield United got relegated. It was a win-win-win situation for me who got relegated, I didn't like either of the three clubs involved and whilst gutted that West Ham didn't go down as I'm itching to go to Upton Park (one of the rare London grounds I ain't been to...). Wigan I just loathe Dave Whelan because he's a whinging (rich, huh?) c*nt. Sheff Utd are Sheff Utd. I don't mind Neil Warnock as it happens actually...bit of a tit but a dying breed of manager who speaks his mind properly and the passion he has is infectious sometimes.

* Went and saw another film on Saturday afternoon. 28 weeks later. Follow-up to 28 days later and prequel to 28 months later. And a very good film it was too, much better than that Spiderman 3 tripe last week. All blood, gore and zombies in London. Lurrrrrvely stuff. I won't spoil the plot but it gets a rating of 28 out of 30. One glaring inconsistency regarding Wembley Stadium, but that's for the trainspotters.

Three weeks tomorrow until my first exam and I'm quite confident that I can get the grades required. Revision is pootling along nicely, it's not a perfect plan, but I'm learning new things and picking up new techniques which is the main thing. Had a mock exam in statistics today which all seemed pretty dandy. 5 and a bit weeks and it'll all be over. And boy will the summer be brilliant.

Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration....best get a decent deoderant.

Robots, Peak Practice and errrr.....Dentists

2007-05-10T00:05:00.000+01:00

It dawned on me today that us human lot really do put way too much faith in technology. I was writing something on Word earlier and the fecking thing crashed. I'd not saved it but had certainly made large inroads into what I wanted to do. What happened to the old pen and paper method, eh? It's trustworthy and foolproof (to an extent). I'm doing all my revision notes by hand for example. Do we really need Microsoft Word? Any one can pick up a sheet of A4 and start scribbling without worrying about the font, size and whether it's all in the margin of the printer - it's more "personal" handwritten innit. All about the feeling of reading someone's writing rather than the generic 3 or 4 fonts that everyone uses to write on Word with, on a similar vein, who uses Wingdings ferchrissake?

Technology's great though. However, I was cruisin' down through the ghettos of East Preston earlier listening to some chooooons on my iPod and it cut out. Why? Because the bloody battery had gone. I don't give a rats arse what Apple say about improved battery life, my iPod can only take about 2 rousing renditions of my "Rik Waller/Gareth Gates megamix" playlist before dying on me. What an absolute pisstake. The people who make these kinda things are all too keen to bring out new crap to flood the market with at extorcinate prices, but can they get the existing stuff right? Of course not. Lazy, lazy people - I'd rather have an iPod that lasts for 12 hours playing time than a robot that can do the ironing, because Sharon does that, and very well too...

Sky+ is a great invention. Though when in the wrong hands, it's particularly devestating, Jimbo's broken one Sky+ box already with his first "exploratory" session with it, probably trying to record some hardcore p...erch fishing programme on Discovery Fishing. However, Sharon's an absolute demon with the controller, shame she doesn't watch half the stuff she records - still got some Peak Practice on the box, unwatched from the end of February. But she insists it's untouched. And until I saw what she had been recording, I didn't realise there were so many programmes about fashion and allowing 2 middle class whores to dress up a fat northern bird. I fancy having a mass delete tomorrow. Next stop - the convincing to get SkyHD.....the ability to see Pepper from Neighbours in high-definition is enough to get my pulse racing, and hopefully, Jimbo's wallet out of his pocket.

Elsewhere on the radar, I was dragged along to Spiderman 3 last Saturday. Absolute crock of shite. Honestly one of the longest 2 and a half hours I've ever endured. I just don't get the appeal of superhero films, especially ones based around Uncle Ben's rice fortune, Lee Evans' dad, a bloke in lycra and some alleged eye candy who's ginger. No thanks, a whole-hearted 3/10 from here.

A visit to the dentist tomorrow for the first time in over 18 months is certainly playing on my mind at the moment. Not least because I've got to pay for it, and on the NHS - the cheek of it! £16 for a 15 minute check-up and a Lithuanian (yes, seriously) bloke prodding his tools around in my mouth. But it gives me peace of mind I guess...

Palace managed an average 12th in the Championship this year, solidifying it with a 2-0 win at Colchester. A totally underwhelming season with few perks, but the flame of optimism for next season is starting to burn again - patches of play in recent weeks and development of youngsters play a big part here, I'm going to miss not having my season ticket. Though I guess Saturday afternoons in Gloucester could be well spent watching rugby, Cheltenham Town in League 1 or recovering from the night before. I can't wait!

Super, smashing, great....

Low-cut tops but nothing to show off

2007-05-03T22:54:00.000+01:00

Long time, no blogging. A near two weeks since my last installment and a lot's happened.

Sharon and Jim's Silver Wedding on Tuesday was a blast. I don't understand how they could live with each other for so long, Sharon's cleaning habits piss me off no end and Jim's habit of walking away from you mid-conversation would be enough to drive anyone up the wall. And I'm only their son....thank feck I'm off to uni in 4 months or so. Only kidding Sharon/Jimbo - you're bloody marvellous parents and as I said in your card, you've made me who I am - a short, foul-mouthed, inappropriate racist (apparently), you should be proud....

Elsewhere, Golfing Tuesdays are back on the map again. With two rounds gone in the tour already, it's seen shots to rival that of Tiger Woods; but the vast majority of shots have put anyone in the vicinity at great danger. See right for an action shot...

I've never seen shots come off at right angles to the club face before....shot of the day on Tuesday just gone, however, went to Tommy B on the tricky 5th hole at Littlehampton. A shocking tee shot into the trees saw him hack out in two to the rough, about 30 feet from the flagstick, he then proceeded to snake a ridiculous putt into the hole avoiding divots, other people's clubs and adders in the grass. Impressive Tom, it was a fluke, but my golfing flat cap is off to you. Rumours on the grapevine suggest that Jez is taking it seriously and he's invested around £400 in a putter and pitching wedge for himself. Whether or not he can get it in the air or not, remains to be seen until this coming Golfing Tuesday which takes place at Rustington Golf Centre at about 12.45pm; spectators welcome.

Palace managed to beat Derby last Sunday in front of the nation to nail the last coffin into the Rams' automatic promotion hopes. The downside was that we sent Steve "flatnosed c*nt" Bruce's Brumscum up and Sunnerlan (who I don't mind). But hey, we knew it was going our way when Mark Kennedy scored a goal, following some shocking defending from Derby, which had their entire back four inspecting each others boots on one side of the pitch, allowing Kennedy to waltz into their area and slam a shot past Lee Camp (who's not improved since the Eng U21 game - still shit, always will be shit).

Talks of trebles and quadruples were rammed straight back down SirAlex and Jose's throatsthis week when Liverpool and AC Milan came from behind (insert joke here) to leave Ferguson and Jose eating proverbial dust. Poor b*stards, couldn't happen to two nicer blokes....

Spiderman 3 comes out tomorrow, 12 or so of us are offskis to see it on Saturday and I'm going purely for the social side of it. Superhero films aren't my thang, but I could be surprised by this original story of how some bloke in lycra saves the world using special powers. Can't wait.

Errrrm, what else. Ahhhh yes, saw the Maccabees in Portsmouth last Thursday. Bloody brilliant. A top, top band who will be big by the end of the year in my opinion. New single's out on Monday (7th May) called Precious Time, which is my favourite song on the album. Top gigging, sweat, the only downer was the number of girls wearing low-cut tops but had nothing to flaunt. What a let-down.

Revision's started in earnest now, which is a great relief. Still finding excuses not to do it sometimes, but hey, who doesn't?! The distraction of the beach, frisbee and football in this bloody gorgeous weather is a good enough excuse.....right?

Top bombing...

Frisbeeing - a new Olympic sport?

2007-04-22T21:27:00.000+01:00

Ahhh....the joys of frisbeeing. Who'd have thought such a simple object could bring such endless fun. It's a glorified game of throw and catch, but the curl, speed, height of the frisbee make it a bloody fun way to pass the time. Intertwined with a bit of keepy-uppy, frisbeeing turned what was going to be a boring Saturday afternoon into a rather decent one. Goring Gap (the non-dogging part) was packed with underaged girls flaunting their boooootay, a number of arguments involving chavs which in turn involved the most consistent use of "oh my God" I've ever heard in my life whilst also it saw the invasion of about 40 tourists who spent the afternoon running around broomhandles. Those crazy foreigners and their weird ways to pass the time....

I see the Snooker World Championship is back on again, I swear it only seems like yesterday that the last one finished. I don't watch it, but it's hard to avoid it when it's on the TV for the whole bloody day. I fail to see the obsession with it. John Parrott's crap jokes in the studio are funny for about 5 minutes, after that, he's someone you just want to slap in the face with a bag full of doorknobs.

Team Win's fluke streak continued yesterday early evening with a number of lucky goals which knocked the stuffing out of Team (No idea what our name is) whose great defending and sexy attacking play weren't rewarded because the referee was being particularly cuntish.

T'Arctic Monkeys new album is released in the morning. Although it's been leaked for a good couple of weeks, and whilst I've listened and somehow acquired it, I'm dreadfully tempted to break my CD-buying amnesty and go out and purchase it tomorrow, given how good their first, though overhyped (Cheers NME), album was. I doubt I will though in the forseeable future, but we'll see. Off to see Maccabees on Thursday in Portsmouth. Hoping it's a good gig and I don't come away with any STDs, in fact, a crap gig and no STDs is a good evening in Portsmouth....

Just when you thought Chelsea might peg ManYoo back to a point in the title race, Titus Bramble plays a blinder and Chelsea escape St James' Park with just a point, leaving the gap still at three points ahead of a nervy title run-in. I reckon the psychological blow of being kept at bay by Titus Bramble might just put Chelsea off of overtaking United, though with them both set to meet in a SkySportssettocreamthemselfoverthepremiershipagain match on May 9th at the Bridge, I guess that could be the decider....

Cristiano del Flipflop Ronaldo has just won both the PFA Player, and Young Player of the Award. Can't really argue there. For someone who's turned into someone with feck all end product into a player who can make even the greatest defenders looks stupid, yes, even Titus Bramble. He's one heck of a player, one I've had the privilege of seeing live and hope to do so again in the future. Take a boo son.

Revision is the order of this week. It's making me tired just thinking about it.

Global Warming debate: Part 567,201

2007-04-15T22:02:00.000+01:00

No sooner had we all recieved our Easter eggs had they all been melted by the sun, which is unusually radiating down on sunny, cosmopolitan East Preston at the moment. The government tell us to eat healthily and encourage a healthy diet, incorporating the '5-a-day' portions of fruit and veg; yet at the same time they condemn global warming and all that comes with it. This is the same global warming that has just melted thousands of Easter eggs which are notoriously unhealthy and 'against' government recommendation. If that's not a sign of blatent inconsistency and that they don't know what they're doing, I've got no idea what is.

And yes, that's an incredibly tenuous, strained and tedious link between the two, but if it works for the newspapers, who sell shedloads of papers which are built on the solid foundation of bullsh*t - it can work for me.

If it wasn't for global warming, people wouldn't be going out earlier in the year than usual and buying shorts, flip-flops, t-shirts and all that jazz. And with the summers getting longer, people are liklier to spend more on summery things which can be rather costly. This all contributes, healthily, to the UK's GDP which increases. This means the government can increase interest rates to combat inflation following increased spending, increase tax to put people off of spending, all in the way of raising MORE revenue to piss away on crap projects like the Millennium Dome. So, really, global warming's quite good for the government. Yet they condemn it.

And I don't see that making the papers.

I could bore you with a whole tonne of these analogies, but I won't. I'm nice.

Fecking warm though, this weekend. As such, loads of single mums with vest tops on, gut hanging out of the bottom, fag out the mouth and pushing a pushchair, certainly makes you proud to be English. A lot of horse-sh*t sold at Haskins (literally) and apparently it does good stuff for your soil. In that case, why do horse owners have crap looking gardens? Another one for the conspiracy theorists....

Went to go see Shooter on Friday night. A film about a sniper who was framed for killing the US' president. It then went off on a number of tangents before coming to an ending, 2 and a half hours later. Went on a bit, but probably just about worth watching for the time spent there. Mark Wahlberg's one coooooool cat in it.

Palace drew 2-2 with the Wolves yesterday. And I've never seen such an awful referee. But hey-ho, it's another point towards the midtable obscurity we've been longing for, for ages. But it's so friggin' boring, frustrating and downright naff. Certainly not the life that a Palace fan is used to, saying that, we were soon reminded that things could be worse....could be a West Ham fan.

Done and dusted...

Caught in a sticky patch

2007-04-12T23:10:00.000+01:00

Here's a handy tip, when walking into your room and you have a glass bottle filled with liquid standing on your chest of drawers...don't walk into them and let the bottle fall off. I know it seems like common sense, but when the liquid falls onto laminate flooring and it spreads across the floor at a speed in comparison to Bishop running to the front of the queue for the Sugababes concert, as to get the best seat - it ain't a great idea. I now have a rather nice wet, sticky patch on my floor (there's a masturbation joke there somewhere, make it up yourself) and the rather sexy orange walls now have that 'damp' look to them. You know what that damp look is, you can't explain it - it just looks damp and messy. Hey-ho....

I've concluded that running is the key to your soul, spirit and all that razzmatazz. I've rediscovered my enthusiasm for it in the past week or so, completed 3 lots of 5k already with another run scheduled in after glorious Haskins tomorrow. Makes you feel good about yourself afterwards, in the process of getting fitter and you feel like you've achieved something at the end of it. My target's to run to the top of Highdown and back in the summer, I reckon I can do it, will need a bit more 'training' though. After Highdown? Perhaps a run to Worthing, the London Marathon is something I've always wanted to complete, and in a couple of years, why not? Maybe I'll win it without needing to have a piss and a shit in the street like Paula Radcliffe. Dirty bitch, go to the khazi before you start, darling!

My car washing skills are shocking, having spent a good half hour cleaning the 'Millermobile', I proceeded to throw all the dirty water from the bucket over it again. I wasn't thinking, I was terribly pissed off, so I kicked the neighbours cat. Metaphorically speaking of course, if I were to abuse a cat in any way I'd probably just pull it's tail and tease it. Come on, we've all thought about it....

David Pleat went further down in my estimation when watching Spurs shoot themselves in the foot in the UEFA Cup this evening. He's an awful commentator, I'd gladly pay for an assassin to take him out and spare me of the pain of listening to his "analysis" - one golden piece this evening was that "If that ball was on target rather than 3 yards wide, he may well have scored", no sh*t, David. And his commentator buddy on ITV, Peter Drury ain't much better either. In fact, ITV's football coverage as a whole is absolutely terrible. And they've bought the rights to England internationals and the FA Cup for crying out loud! Seems like the FA just wanted the most money, but are we at all surprised? ITV = Imbecilic Twattish Viewing.

The Easter holidays are nearly over, and Sharon is doing her best to buy up Sainsburys' supply of Creme Eggs. She's already surprised me twice and I fear that tomorrow she might surprise me again. But you can't turn down a Creme Egg, no matter how sickly they are after a while. Sharon's Nectar points must be mounting up, and it must be down to her impulse buying. Y'know when your mum comes home from the supermarket and has bought all this new 'crap' because "it was on offer", or "there were double points", I swear Sharon buys every offer going. No-one in this house likes Elderberry and Raspberry juice for crying out loud. "Oh, but it was on offer". Does my head in.

And one more thought...Rome sure wasn't hell built in a day. But it sure was destroyed in one! 7-1 to United and all they talk about it the crowd trouble. But hey, that's England for you. Concentrate on the crap bits and the good ones just seem that bit better when they come around.

Philosophy rocks!

Free-wheeling

2007-04-07T21:59:00.000+01:00

As I've told you all along, Shefki Kuqi is the best thing since sliced bread. Everything I've said about him being a shite, overpriced waste of space was merely a figure of speech and I did of course mean that he could well be rivalling Cristiano Ronaldo for the World Footballer of the Year award at this rate. I am on such a Palace induced high after their 3-0 thumping of Preston today, and it could've been about 7-nil and it wouldn't have flattered us. Shefki "Pele" Kuqi grabbed a brace with Leon "Cannavaro" Cort thumping home a header in true Corty style. Shame it was in front of our lowest crowd of the season, but the 15-odd thousand (including about 27 Preston fans, all with their whippets, flat-caps and hotpot in a flask) that were there must have been impressed by Palace's performance. It blew me away that we could actually pass the ball forward rather than sideways, backwards or not at all.

Shame we've left it a little too late for the Playoffs, but hey. We still might need a new striker next season though. Perhaps we can fork out a few million for Rio Ferdinand; his clinical finish for Pompey today certainly caught my eye - did Edwin van der Sar "with the eyes" and slipped it the other way. You can't teach that.

I did a good deed on Tuesday. After a really enthralling 2 hour maths revision session, five of us decided to play golf. Big Tom and I went and got our golf rackets but when Kym arrived it turned out she had a flat tyre so I helped change it. I've changed too many tyres in my young life but the Littlehampton seafront didn't compare to doing it with my back to 70mph traffic on the M4. All in the aid of a 0-0 draw in Cardiff. Balls.

Played my second game for Chopper United on Thursday night, missed a sitter from 4 yards, open goal and I contrived to hit the crossbar. I did, however, win a penalty and score it - sending the goalie the wrong way - Yakubu styley. I also managed to get a guy sin-binned when he took me out after little old me, all 5ft 8, skin and bone shoulder charged him to the ground. We won 7-2. Magic. Top of the league, and certainly having a laugh...

Easter tomorrow and a day off from glorious Haskins after an arduous Good Friday. Busy as feck and everyone was buying shrubs. Shrubs. Fecking shrubs. Photinia this, Azalea that. And no, we don't sell fecking stamps.

Ahem....enjoy your chocolate tomorrow. And make sure to run it off, otherwise you'll just be adding to the problem of "Fat Britain" that the Daily Mail keeps harping on about.

Pigeon-hole this!

2007-04-01T19:22:00.000+01:00

The weekly check of my pigeon-hole at college brought shock to my system. It was unsurprisingly littered with the normal bits of paper, memos that were about 3 days old saying I'd missed an appointment with my tutor or a weekly news which was telling me about the Year 7 homework and beekeeping clubs, but not both at the same time of course. Imagine doing your homework with one of those big white suits on trying to figure out the square root of 473, it'd be mental. But after I'd sifted through the other numerous pieces of crap that had probably been in the hole for as long as I can remember, one piece of paper told me that I need to remodel my next 3 months. The exam timetable had been delivered. 7 exams in the space of two weeks with ample gaps for revision in between. I was happy, starting with a gentle statistics exam on June 5th and finishing with the economics synoptic paper on the 19th in which I could be asked nearly anything about the economics of anything, anywhere in the world. Scary huh?

So I guess the revision needs to start in earnest now, building up slowly before the end of May where my life will be 100% trigonometry, fiscal policy and correlation momentarily and I'll become the most boring person on the planet for 2 or 3 weeks. My first blog ever detailed my revision plans for the January exams which seemed to pay off with a MAHOOSIVE improvement in my grades so I guess my room will again become a shrine to economics diagrams, maths equations and all sorts of other graphs. I won't be able to escape it.

Tomorrow's plans: Work at Fortress Haskins followed by an hour or two of C3 maths. Love it.

Last Thursday saw my debut for Chopper United and my first bit of proper competitive football, albeit 5-a-side for a while. After some abysmal finishing that would have made Shefki Kuqi's efforts yesterday in Palace's defeat to t'Wednesday look good - I finally managed to grab a goal in an easy 6-0 win which involved me being accused of elbowing someone in the face. What a load of crap, I got him in his chest.

Easter holidays are now finally here and as you can probably tell, revision is going to be the name of the game for much of it. However, I'm also doing a shedload of overtime at Haskins so I'm educating myself and earning money - I can't really complain. I'm sure various socialamanising events will come up at various points over the next couple of weeks which is something else to look forward to. Of course, there's the matter of gorging myself stupid on chocolate next Sunday and rotting my teeth beyond the point of repair. Gotta love the bible, gotta love Jesus for coming back from the dead. Where the feck did the chocolate idea come from though?!

A short blog, but as sweet as ever - I'm sure you'll agree...

How many people can you fit in a Ford Fiesta?

2007-03-27T21:36:00.000+01:00

Matt's been active this week. Whether it was from rescuing a frisbee from a tree "Jack Bauer styley" like I did today and scraping the skin off of my arms and legs in the process, I'm a self proclaimed hero and definitely need an MBE for services to errrrm, frisbee rescuing. Elsewhere this week, the cold snap turned to a full on 16 degree heatwave and the shorts are now out on display for all to see. But the main attraction in my life of the past week was definitely the visit to the brand-spanking new, £800m Wembley Stadium to see the first competitive footy match between England's Under 21s and their Italian counterparts.

With it being an early 12.30 kick off, and with us all wanting a look around at the new ground, I headed up to meet the others and left at the ridiculous time of half 7 from Aygemang station. Trains are one of the most soul-destroying, boring and downright miserable places to be when you're on your own. Conductors who are happy to play with the tannoy system and update you with everything that's going on - "carriages are being attached, keep hold of all your hot drinks" and just being irritating. I know I whinge at most things, but conductors are power-crazed people. Give them a tannoy system and they're set for life to irritate millions of train users.

But hey, this day was going to be special - having met with a few of the others at Waterloo, we travelled up to Wembley Park with lots of other excited people to see whether the new Wembley was worth a 7, what should have been 6, year wait. And when we stepped off the tube onto the sparkling new platform, we gazed down the new Wembley Way at the massive structure that would be home to English football once again. I'm not kidding when I say it really did take my breath away. The arch is stunning and more than an adequate replacement for the Twin Towers and will look magic lit up at night. We ambled round the stadium for a bit and had a cracking view of the building sites next door, obviously all part of the 'new Wembley experience'. We decided to go in and look at the stadium from the inside and went through the surprisingly casual security checks. I don't think the security bloke knew what he was doing, he felt my pockets, dangerously close to my crotch area, sick bastard. But then we turned round and wondered how to get upto our seats...An escaltor! I've never seen escalators at a football ground before, but with £800m being spent, with was obviously no expense spared. What a novelty that was.

We stepped out into the vast bowl that is Wembley and it was ridiculously overwhelming. 90,000 brand new, shiny red seats and the new grass down below. It's a stunning stadium. Many pictures were taken but it was so cold outside that you could have mistaken some of the white seats for polar bears. We headed onto the concourse that was so wide you could have driven a fleet combine harvesters through it. I needed CPR to bring me round from seeing the food prices. £4.50 for a hot dog for crying out loud! I settled for a hot chocolate at the extorcianate £1.70.

12.30 came around, the teams were out on the pitch and by 12.31 the Italians were already 1-0 up. Giampaolo Pazzini rifled in a shot from 25 yards that stunned the 56,000 crowd. Cue wild Italian group-sex orgy celebrations in the corner. Imagine the grease in that bundle....England equalised through a great free kick from David Bentley. Half time came and went with the pitch looking like it had passed through a cheese grater, blender and shredder. Soon after the restart, ex-Palace winger Wayne Routledge slipped a shot in to make it 2-1. But with ruthless efficiency, the Azzuri equalised 2 minutes later through that man Pazzini who was terrorising Anton Ferdinand for the entire game, saying that, who doesn't terrorise Anton Ferdinand on the football pitch? Matt Derbyshire (great name) put England 3-2 up before Pazzini completed his hat-trick with a snap shot that squirmed under Lee Camp (if you put the QPR keeper in goal, you get a QPR goalkeeper's performance....) and the game ended 3-3. Kieron Richardson was shite by the way, does he ever play at Man U?

Now we needed to get to the tube station with the 56,000 other people. A quick sweepstake was had as to how long we'd be at the station with guesses ranging from an hour to 2 hours and 34 minutes. We were in fact there in 25 minutes which was very quick considering the volume of people. Dodging the horse-shit on Wembley Way, we were on a tube back to London to have a drink or two in front of the England game.

.....

Those four or five hours are a bit of a blur to be honest. And the England game was awful, so I've been told. I was back home by midnight and ready for another riveting day at Haskins where I was asked whether we had a postbox. For f*cks sake - we're not a bloody post office.

Last night was a bloody good night. 80s night at East with cocktails and that beforehand. Highlight of the night being Flain 'getting off' (if you can call it that) with Mike - hilarious, just a shame Jez didn't catch it on camera. I decided, for some reason that I don't really know now, to drive there so was lumbered with the 'honour' of taking everyone back in my little Ford Fiesta called Shiela. Only really meant to fit 5 in, at a push, 7 people in the car meant that Shiela's legs were struggling with the weight a bit....not to worry, she's alright now.

So yeah, next step....8 people in my car. It's one to try in the summer....

Bish, Ben and Matt do Manchester, Part 2

2007-03-20T19:01:00.000Z

We'd already met Park Ji-Sung at a service station, listened to hours of crap infectious pop music, taken a wrong turn or two and I'd unsurprisingly spent my whole time whilst driving with road rage at the number of car transporters on the motorway. I kid you not, there were bloody loads of them, all seemingly carrying Vauxhall Astras as well. Makes you wonder whether there really is a market for Vauxhalls after all...

But we were here for a football match. We'd parked in a school playground patrolled by a couple of the locals who bore a big resemblance to the Elephant Man. Now we needed to find the ground, a 78,000 seater stadium shouldn't be too hard to find. We spotted it in the distance and walked round the backstreets of Manchester to get there. It's an experience I don't want to relive in a hurry. And until last Tuesday, I didn't know Manchester had ghettos....

We found it with relative ease in the end and were hit by the smell of burgers and hot dogs being stewed by the convoy of vans parked at various points around the stadium. The three of us had an hour or two to kill before the game started so we began to wander around the absolutely massive structure that is Old Trafford. It quickly dawned on me that the local females had very little attraction and had more bacteria on them than your average toilet brush. Many were wearing tracksuits and had those god-awful fluffy boots on, as if things weren't bad enough. In retrospect, the song "Northern Birds" is certainly true, perhaps the smell of burgers wasn't actually the burgers after all, eh Bishop? After the obligatory few pictures outside the big old glass wall that Sky Sports News often report outside (left) we went into the Megastore. Naturally my idea of hell, being surrounded by more Asians than I could shake a stick at, all salivating over some overpriced Manchester United alarm clock. It was rampacked with people, after a number of kickups with a mini football in the corner, we left, all empty handed, which was surprising as Bishop and Ben both said they'd buy something. Obviously put off by the stupid mark-up on a training shirt...

Having ambled round the shop, we decided to wait for the players to arrive at the entrance to the tunnel. Big mistake. We mistakenly stood next to some people from Birmingham. All of whom sounded to have blocked noses and say "blooooooooooimey" at every opportunity. Certainly pissed me off no end. However, after a good 20 minutes or so of waiting, a car turned up, everyone got excited and it turned out to be the referees. Cue disappointment. But just 5 minutes later, a big old coach turned up with the United team on and dropped them as close to the door as possible so no-one could see who it was. B*stards. We couldn't be arsed to wait for the European XI to turn up so we decided to go into the ground and gawp and gaze at the largest league ground in the country.

Having scaled at least 56,000 stairs to get to our level on which our seats were on, braving nosebleeds and needing oxygen on our ascent to level 5 of the North Stand, we were eager to see our vantage point from where we'd be watching the game. And boy, was the trip worth it, the picture above doesn't do it justice, Old Trafford is a truly stunning stadium, combining modern with bits of "old-skool" thrown in for good measure. It's definitely one worth visiting if you ever get a chance. Having metaphorically ejaculated over the stadium (Bishop almost feinted, bless him) the lure of a hot-dog and a coke was too much to bear and we all parted £4 for the pleasure of having a luke-warm oversized sausage in a bun far too small. And who said that football charged crazy prices? No sooner had we finished our hot dogs had the teams come out to warm up. We were busy spotting which stars had actually turned up for the Europe XI. Ronaldinho was apparently otherwise engaged because his teeth had got stuck in a car door. Whilst Juninho Pernambucano was busy writing his full name on a tax return form. But that wasn't going to spoil what was already a very enjoyable day.

8pm came and the teams stepped out in front of 74,000 people, the formalities of a fair-play handshake were exchanged and the game got underway at a predictably casual pace. 5 minutes in and Ryan Giggs' sliderule pass found Wayne Rooney, I celebrated about 10 seconds too early before Rooney coolly stepped over the ball and slipped it past Santiago Canizares. The second goal soon followed when Giggs' trickery from one of the game's numerous short corners provided Wes Brown (is he ginger or blonde? Black or white?) with a simple tap-in. The next 10 minutes were filled with some stunning trickery from Cristiano Ronaldo who stepped over the ball more times than I've had hot dinners, he's a excellent player to see 'live'. However, Florent Malouda's 25 yard wonder strike past Kusczack was certainly a pleasing thing on the eye. Andrea Pirlo's dictating of play for Europe in midfield was as good as I've seen, unsurprising from a World Cup winner but he's a dreadfully underrated player. But when he tripped Paul Scholes up 30 or so yards out. Cristiano Ronaldo was sizing it up; I turned to Bish and Ben and said "He'll never score this, the angle's not right and it's too far out". A vicious dip and swerve or two later and the crowd were on their feet to see the ball fly into the top corner. I've never seen a free kick like it. Half-time was drawing near and a sweeping Man United counter attack saw Wayne Rooney slide home from our mate from the services, Park Ji-Sung's cross. Half time came and there was a rapturous ovation for David Bekkum who returned to Old Trafford to say thanks to the United fans. But the best was to come after half-time...

And that was amongst the 5,698 substitutions, my hero was on. John O'Shea, utility man extrordinaire had taken to right back and boy did he not disappoint. He ran up and down the right wing like a man possessed and provided the biggest cheer of the night, well between Bish, Ben and I anyway, when he was through on goal and sliced his shot 10 yards wide. Class. World class. The second half was a slow affair taken up by loads of Mexican Waves, and booing of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Robbie Fowler whenever they touched the ball; Bishop enjoyed that. An El-Hadji Diouf brace made the score 4-3 and that's how the match finished. Great entertainment for a good cause if you ask me...

The trek back to the car was easy now we knew where we were going. We got back onto the motorway in the blink of an eye, drugged ourselves up on caffeine with Relentless and made ourselves ready for the trip home. Same route back, no cars, foot down, crap music and four or so hours later - I was in bed by about half 3 having had as good a day as I'd had in a long, long time. Absolutely brilliant.

Ben, Bish and Matt do Manchester (Part 1)

2007-03-15T22:37:00.000Z

Our faith was placed in a grey box containing a woman in a box who sounded like she was on her period. Would Ben's sat-nav get us to Manchester in one piece for the Man Utd vs. Europe XI charidee game at Old Trafford? Read on, trust me, it's worth it....

I prayed to God the night before for Michael Fish, weather god, to bring us some decent weather for the 500 mile round trip and he did. Blazing sunshine. Magic. We were soon on our way and it didn't take long for Bishop's tacky crap music to infect my ears, thankfully Ben was fresh out of JoJo (well, only one song) but the one-song rule meant that she got one playing. No sooner had "Leave, Get Out" stopped playing, than we'd stopped for petrol. £30.86 to fill up, this country's going to the dogs and it's all Tony Blair/George Dubya's fault, well and Gordon Brown for making us pay stupid taxes on petrol. I'd gladly trap them all in a room, naked, full of hungry badgers. But anyway, we were really ready to go and we were on the nation's most treasured road to nowhere, the M25 in no time. It was full of many characters, including 'Beemer Bob' (left) who drove like all pretentious BMW drivers do, like wankers, and the Adcock van man who seemed happy to tailgate for much of our time on that particular bit of road. Abuse certainly flew out of my mouth, but it was alright, Ben was driving - I could give them a good fist waving.

The M25 was soon behind us and we were on the M40, the road up north. The road to the northern monkeys, hotpot and whippets. The music was getting marginally better as the trip went on though still entwined with the rubbish that only 10 year olds, and Bishop, listen to. Girls Aloud videos are only good when on mute and with the ginger one pixellated out, they're not well known in my head for their musical "talents". But anyway, Bishop stunned us all with his knowledge of crap celebrities during the numberplate game, where he got Terry Butcher from is anyone's guess. I definitely stunned Ben and Bishop with my call of June Whitfield though. Our mission of making up chants using modern day songs was coming along....slowly. Conversation of the upcoming game was largely revolved around John O'Shea and his many talents. Has he really played in every position on the field?

Sooner than you could say "Bang bang, Darren Fletcher", we hit a service station for a break and a driver changeover. But this wasn't any old service station, this was one of beauty, a building to rival that of the new Wembley Stadium with its shiny glass and many wire cables that held it up from blowing away in the wind. Inside was full of various football fans, ones from Burnley, Ipswich and Wolves, all of whom were understandably shocked at the ridiculous prices of food and drink. I could shit a burger and sell it in a service station for £6.50, such is people's desperation for it. Bloody supply and demand economics. Anyway, queuing up for my Wimpy I noticed someone familiar wandering aimlessly looking at his phone. Now, I know all Koreans look the same, but Park Ji-Sung was definitely just north of Birmingham at the same time as us. He was in full-kit for the evening's match as well. Amazing. I was tempted to ask for an autograph, but he looked distracted, well at least I thought he did, his hair was covering his eyes. I got a piccy though (below). After our burger, we all went to the toilet together, which sounds very gay - but we did all go at the same time. Bishop wasn't happy though so duly complained using their nifty little toilet voting system (right).

We left the services and I was in the driving seat. This meant the standard of driving decreased and Ben was in charge of the camera which was an absolutely disastrous decision. We hit the M6 toll road, more money for the bloody government, and it was as clear as the sky. Few cars, but full of egotistical tossers in their gas-guzzling, air polluting 4x4s practically hogging two lanes because their car was so bloody wide. Having got off of that road, the regular M6 was busy as feck. Full of lorries trying to deliver flat-caps up north no doubt though we were soon off the motorway and trying to find our way into Manchester. One wrong turn later, which was definitely the sat-nav's fault, we were on the inner-roads of the city. Lovely. I swear Manchester's residents are all inbred, they look and talk funny, "hey, give me 6", but we parked in a school playground in no-time and some bloke with an ASBO took our 6 quid with much pleasure.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Ain't nature brilliant?

2007-03-04T21:48:00.000Z

I don't know who said it, but the best things in life are free. The conformity of having material possessions; the iPods, the laptops and new pairs of trainers give you a great buzz whenever you open the box and use them for the first few times. The novelty soon wears off, and you take these kinds of items for granted after a while. To put it bluntly, and before I get too sentimental, new technology and new possessions can give you an artificial erection, much like that of one on viagra, trust me, I know. But nature, when you look at it closely, is something that just keeps pumping the blood through into the end of your knob for as long as you need, there's no danger of it ever going limp.

(I'm bloody proud of that analogy, btw)

Whoever created this world, this land, this planet in this bloody brilliant universe of ours - be it God, the Big Bang, Allah, Mohammad or David Beckham, depending on who you believe. Anyway, whoever, or whatever made it is certainly the best thing before sliced bread was invented. I could go on for days about it, but thinking about it all, the whole idea of space, the universe and all that jazz is mindblowing and will put more knots in your brain than a Ronaldinho flip-flap. The lunar eclipse last night was one of the most awesome things I've ever seen in my life, it really was beautiful, though strangely creepy at the same time. The way the moon slowly descended into shadow, before being illuminated in a pinkish-reddish light was incredible. Just hung in the sky, like nothing I've seen before. I'd bloody love to go to Jupiter to lie on the grass up there (they do have grass in Jupiter...right?) and stare up at the sky, to see 12 moons circling, of all different sizes - it'd be incredible. I love nature.

And then there's the sea, the waves which are all affected by gravity and the moon which is bloomin' clever if you ask me. Walking, or running as I sometimes do, down the beach with the waves crashing against the shore is another one of those feelings that money cannot buy, and you'll never, ever get bored of. It's magic. Thunder and lightning - the latter especially, bolts of it ripping through the sky and electrifying the environment, and my mind - feck me, nature's a real treat when it wants to be. It really does get bad coverage in the press, "Mother Nature destroys New Orleans", "Tsunami terror hits Asia" - perhaps Mother Nature didn't take too kindly to 9/11 and decided the latter was its idea of revenge. Still, in that vein, I hope George Bush doesn't get a weather machine.

Assuming I've not lost your attention during my tribute to nature and all its tricks, I would highly not recommend getting stuck in your room. I woke up on Wednesday to find that my door was stuck and I couldn't get out. 4 days later, it's still stuck and I've not been out of it, I've lived on eating books and rationing a bottle of Fanta in my bag - I feel like Ray Mears, but prisoner to my door, as opposed to the elements.

With the summer A-level exams about three months away, and a university place, and my future at stake - I think I'm going to ease myself back into a revision plan this week and slowly build it up as the weeks build, so expect a flurry of updates on how my revision posters, tools, timetables and tomfoolery all help me, or rather hinder my goal to conquer A-level trigonometry and the taxation policy of Papua New Guinea, thankfully not in tandem with one another.

On the footballing front, Palace's 1-1 draw with Burnley puts us firmly in the driving seat to be the most average team in the average division with the most average goal difference and average group of players, which is rather uninspiring. Though on an uplifting note - I'll be off to watch some proper players play football a week Tuesday when a Matt/Ben/Bish trio embark on a road trip to Manchester to watch Man Utd play a special UEFA eleven, including Ronaldinho, David Beckham, Juninho Per-whassisface-cambo and Stevie G, with more players set to be named. Providing we all get back safely, hopefully I'll be able to dedicate a blog to the day, accomponied by many pictures, hopefully including one of me showing Cristiano Ronaldo how to dive properly.

Now everyone go out and look at the stars - there's more to it all than white dots and a bit of light.

Why Cesc Fabregas is actually an ant

2007-02-27T22:12:00.000Z

On 31st January, I tipped West Ham to avoid relegation and for Wigan to slip though the trap door back to the Fizzy Pop league. Following West Ham's embarrassing run since, especially their 4-0 reverse at the hands of Charlton in which they spectacularly forgot how to defend, attack and play football as a whole - I'd like to withdraw this comment and state that West Ham are as buggered as a bloke walking through Brighton with his trousers down.

Following on the football theme, isn't it a relief to see the FA state that they don't condone the Arsenal and Chelsea players' behaviour in the final minutes of the Carling Cup final. It's nice to see that they don't endorse the handbags at 20 paces approach by both sides in the 16-man brawl, they obviously thought, like me, that it looked a little bit wimpish and they're probably going to fine either club about 50 pence for not controlling their players. Cesc Fabregas certainly deserves an award for physically lifting Frank Lampard off of the floor, normally this would need a forklift, but Cesc did it no problem. Doing the maths, Cesc lifted probably about 20 times his own body-weight putting him on par with an ant. Bloody impressive if you ask me. Of course, Howard Webb the referee gets off scot-free for sending the wrong man off (sorry, Kev!) when Emmanuel Eboue landed his Ivorian fist on Wayne Bridge's chin. Mr Adebayor didn't take too kindly to being sent for an early bath and threw a right paddy in a right old comedy fashion. Can't remember much of the game though, the punch-up took the headlines, well, that and John Terry being KO'd, swallowing his tongue and being minutes away from death if you believe the Daily Mail - thank goodness he's OK, it was like a storyline from Casualty, but with a happy ending.

Moving away from the football theme, I could write about that for days....

What a pissing waste of time The Oscars are. A big deal is made beforehand over who's going to win what award, the stars get there and all get rat-arsed on champagne and martinis, all fawning over each other and licking each others arses. The awards are made and are won by the people who bribed the judging panel the most, ironically it was The Departed this year, a mob film who picked up four statues. The British all go mental over Helen Mirren winning a gong for portraying our Queen, who is apparently German and nothing more than a tourist attraction nowaday. At the end of the whole evening, the bloody papers are only giving two sh*ts about what the women were wearing when they were on the red carpet and whether their outfits were 'hits or misses'. Sod the award ceremony, let's give all the column inches to the overpaid, orange and over-made-up actresses and what they're wearing so Mrs Joe Public can go and piss money up the wall on a similar dress to that of Nicole Kidman from Matalan that she'll only wear once before whacking back in the wardrobe, never to be worn, seen, or spoken of again. Fecking hell. What a world we live in.

But anyway, on a slightly brighter note, isn't it nice to have more daylight in the evenings? Hated having the street lights coming on at half past 3 in the afternoon and having to stick me headlights on in my car at a similar time. If I had my way, I'd never have to put my headlghts on...though that could problems for other motorists. Though I cause enough problems with them on, well apparently so anyway - I think my driving's faultless, always has been, always will be and every bump along the way is just part of the experience and ride. Anyone without a driving license is, unfortunately, not allowed an opinion. Sorry to Kev and Jez.

Oh, I've been threatened to mention Dan Hackett in this blog, by a bloke called Dan Hackett. So there you go Mr Hackett, I've mentioned Dan Hackett in my blog.

The hair wax incident

2007-02-21T22:09:00.000Z

Picture the scene. I'm standing in an aisle at Tesco in Durrington, surrounded by the zombie extras from Shaun of the Dead who are the braindead, airheaded single mums who generally frequent the store on a Wednesday morning. All I'd gone in for was a pot of hair wax, and I fancied trying to try something different. I ambled around the store for a while looking for where I might be able to find the wax, it's amazing what you see in supermarkets if you look close enough, I saw someone slip a chocolate bar into their pocket whilst someone else was getting through a bunch of grapes in fruit'n'veg - but perhaps that was just Durrington's ghetto culture. Anyway, I finally found myself staring at the Shockwave's, V05's and Brylcreem's and started picking up and looking at what I wanted. I wanted a wax or clay that was nice and thick. I opened one or two pots to see how thick they were and gently touched them to see what they were like.

In true Hollywood fashion, I turned round to be blinded by a white light, a 8 foot shadow appeared from the light and started marching my way. A Tesco supervisor, looking distantly related to Margaret Thatcher and Shrek, but with glasses, had spotted me 'interfering with stock' and asked me to stop picking up the pots. "Could you please stop that please, it will put other people off buying them if they see fingermarks in them", "But how am I meant to know what to buy?", I replied. "If you don't stop, I'll have you removed from the store", she snapped. I didn't react too kindly, told her she was being unreasonable and totally ridiculous and stomped off out of the store, without my hair wax. "Shit", I thought, I can't go back in and buy it. So I went to Boots and got the stuff I wanted, for a cheaper price. So I had the last laugh, shove that in your jaxxy Mrs Tesco Hitler Whore, and shove your hair wax right up your arse.

Talk about power going to someone's head. She's probably sitting at home now, stroking a white cat, looking at Tesco security tape and seeing who she should have chucked out. She probably has a quota of people she needs to throw out every day. The old bag needs a slap.

Speaking of crazy people - I've got no idea what Britney's been smoking (probably coke) but why the hell has she shaved her hair off? If it's to enter into a Kevin Pietersen lookalike contest, fair enough - she's a nailed on winner for that, but otherwise - she's a good round of sandwiches short of a picnic. And now she's started wearing a wig. I wonder if she's still a virgin though, hmmm.

Following on from Sunday's stories of amusing questions posed by Haskins customers - I was approached by someone at work on Tuesday morning who began to ask me loads of questions about hanging baskets imagining that I knew everything about them, when they should be watered and what kind of bedding plants are good for them. Rather than fobbing them off onto one of our 'experts', I decided to lead them on a wild goose chase around the shop, picking up the plants and baskets that I thought would look rather good together. Then came the dilemma of the right compost - who'd have thought there were so many different kinds of mud?! Anyway, they headed away happy, so that was my good deed for the day....I'd be interested to see how the baskets came out though.

Finally, I've developed a rather unhealthy obsession with Chicago Town pizzas, I had three for lunch today - still, at least I'm not a size zero stick model person who resembles nothing more than a breadstick.

Beware of the crispy aromatic duck

2007-02-18T21:16:00.000Z

They're everywhere. Of the world's 6-point-something billion population, over a fifth of them come from China. You can't turn around in a town without seeing a Chinese bloke. You can't walk down a road without seeing a Chinese takeaway, which sells chips btw - you know, that fine Chinese side-dish which you have with fish - it's all Chinese, at least that's what Kim Il Fat Shung Dong will tell you. You can't go 10 minutes without using something made in China. You catch my drift. And now they're fast-tracking their production plants to produce more stuff, more chips, more microchips, more trainers - and in the process, accelerating global warming, raising the ice caps and trying to kill everyone in the process. They're hellbent on taking over the world these people - it wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so bloody many of them. I wouldn't be surprised to know that each grain of rice they export is in fact a cell of HIV to infect whoever eats it, killing them off so they're one step closer to getting control of the earth. There again, I may be paranoid, though those scheduled missions to let people live on the moon can't come quick enough, though that's probably being industrialised by China as I type this.

Kim Jong-Il of North Korea, Osama Bin Laden - sod the pair of them, it's those other Asians we need to watch out for. Nuclear war isn't even enough to stop them. Unfortunately.

I say all the above with tongue firmly in cheek (well, kind of).

As you can see, I've had the decorators in to rejig about this blog, now on a red background with white writing which I think looks rather snazzy. Note the addition of a picture of part of my 'mazin ticket collage on the right hand side which currently sits on the wall above my bed. I wake up to look at it every morning and just think of the moment when Jobi McAnuff's sweet strike nestled into the corner at Withdean, or the moment when Shipps' shin condemned W.HAM! to Division 1 for another year to put us in the Premiership and also the day I travelled to Sheffield Wednesday for a 0-0 draw. Can't beat it. Also underneath that, as you'll see (I sound like a (un-camp) tour guide) a list of my 5 last played songs on iTunes which kind've speaks for itself which I'll update whenever I update this thing. And that's the new look blog, which really doesn't look particularly different at all.

Bizarre question asked to me at work today was whether we sold stamps. Yes love, a garden centre sells stamps to go with the writing paper, envelopes and other stationery and post office related goods we don't sell. Crikey. Still, not as good as the time someone asked whether we could give them Nectar points. Or the time when someone asked where she could pay, and she was at the till. Or the time when someone broke the automatic doors when pushing them down when they were locked. It's a great laugh at Haskins Garden Centre, Roundstone Bypass, Angmering, near Worthing - we currently have a special offer on primroses, 10 for £6.90. Bargain if you ask me.

Oh, and Hot Fuzz is a pretty funny film if you like a policeman bringing anarchy to a small village trying to combat a spate of murders. All in aviator sunglasses, Vauxhall Astras and using ridiculously hardcore machine guns. Smashing.

Bloke in poncho + Balloons = Shite

2007-02-13T22:08:00.000Z

As the rain lashed down in Brighton on Sunday evening, OK - probably more of a drizzle, but hey, "lashed down" exaggerates it all. Anyway, water fell from the sky on Sunday evening as I'd made the mistake of paying to park in central Brighton for a gig when I could have parked right outside the venue for nothing. The night didn't start well, got to the Concorde 2 nice and wet - paid £1.50 for the privilege of having some scary looking druggie woman look after my coat, half-expecting to get the coat back with a rock of crack cocaine in my pocket. All was going less-than-excellent. The first support act, who shall remain nameless because I didn't actually find out who they are, were really rather good, bit samey, but good enough. The three of us, Challis, Jez and I took to the bar for a drink, Challis had no form of ID whatsoever but we got him a drink anyway as he looks about 25 so the likelihood of him being asked was pretty minimal. But heck, the way the evening had already gone, some Mrs Hitler security-lady asked him for ID and took his drink away.

We ambled back into the gig where the second support act came on. F*cking hell. If you like a guy in a poncho prancing around the stage like some schoolgirl on LSD, this band were probably your thing. I knew they wouldn't be any good when their opening consisted of the poncho-man opening a black binliner full of about 10 balloons - what the bloody feck is that meant to mean?! But anyway, 30 long minutes later, they disappeared off the stage and I went to a toilet which was an experience in itself. Being in a male toilet in Brighton is scary at the best of times, but when it generally resembles a bombsite, only plastered with posters everywhere - I had to piss as quickly as possible otherwise I think I'd have been in trouble....But anyway. Larrikin Love came on and were excellent. Having started in the middle of the venue, I found myself at the front by the end of the second song and didn't really look back (hey, I didn't need to!). A couple of stage invasions later, the gig was over and some drunk/coked up bloke approached me to help him out the door, I rejected him and he stumbled elsewhere, thank f*ck, he could've wrecked my hair.

And that was that.

Anyway, Valentine's Day tomorrow. Smashing, a day designed for Clinton Cards to make an extra few million quid and for restaurants to mug couples out of more money. Yeah, I'm single (and cynical) by the way...

Went to see Blood Diamond on Saturday with the old man Jim - a bloody good film if you ask me and certainly a real eye-opener as to what goes on in the third world with commodities as valuable as diamonds. I'd recommend it myself. Though what really pissed me off in the evening is the tossers who insist on using their phones during the film. I don't care if they're on silent or not, the glare from the screen practically lights up the whole cinema when they're texting their mum to ask them what's for tea. Just turn your phones off for crying out loud, otherwise I'll shove them up your arse.

Isn't global warming a right old pain in the arse? The poor British weather can't make up its mind what to do, as indecisive as a pensioner in a Nissan Micra pulling out of Sainsbury's, one minute sunny, the next - pissing it down. Then it's windy. Give us our seasons back!

Meh, I like complaining about things.

Northern monkeys

2007-02-08T21:22:00.000Z

Flippin' heck, what a week!

Firstly, the bird flu crisis is here again. The tabloids are going into panic-overdrive with their talk of "it's only a matter of time before humans get it", last time I checked, humans neither had wings, nor do we fly - no matter how much Red Bull we drink, or heroin we inject into ourselves. Sensationalism's big business, it sells papers but it doesn't half bring out the worst in people. Spare a thought for Bernard Matthews who's had lots of his turkeys 'destroyed', though it is a triumph for Jamie Oliver and his crusade against Turkey Twizzlers though, isn't Jamie getting a bit porky himself though? Fat bastard. I heard a northerner on the radio the other day saying they won't eat bacon because of the bird flu epidemic - if ever there was a case for a wall being built across England, just above Watford, preferably destroying Luton in the process, I think that was it. Northern monkeys.

So we're all going to die from bird flu, but at least there's snow to play in to kill the time eh? All 56 feet of it that the weathermen predicted. Again, the UK ground to a halt this morning because everyone was staring at it blankly, like we'd never seen it before. Not to mention being ill-prepared to cope with it. America can cope with truckloads of the stuff without batting an eyelid. Britain gets a small layer of it and everyone goes nuts, running around with their arms in the air, wondering what to do because their car has snow on it. This results in everything being cancelled and closed and the UK comes to a standstill. Unfortunately, the weather barrier that is the South Downs put pay to any chance of sunny East Preston getting any of the white stuff. I blame global warming.

Something's pissed me off this week, and it's those f*cking trainers with wheels on them. Heelies I think they're called. Jesus Christ, what a load of crap - I just don't understand the point in them. Barring the fact that it makes all the kids wearing them look like smug tossers, slide round past you, knocking into you and just being a general irritance. I'd like just one kid to fall over, just so I can point and laugh. Harsh? Probably. Fair? I think so, the £40 or whatever they pay for a pair probably justifies a bit of humiliation for those wearing them.

Steve McClaren's quest to destroy England international football is going along swimmingly. A combination of Phil Neville at left back, Shaun Wright-Phillips getting tackled by his own shadow and playing hoof-ball to a beanpole striker who, despite being 6 foot 7, can't win anything in the air without fouling someone. Cracking work. I could rant all day, as people know, about this, so I'll save you the bother.

Saw Air Traffic with Jez on Saturday night. Good gig which contained a support act whose lead singer seemed to engage in an epileptic fit everytime he wasn't singing. But there again, he was from Manchester so he probably did have something wrong with him. Air Traffic will make it big this year, they're on MySpace - worth checking out.

Oh, and I know prisons are overcrowded, but can we please stick Jade Goody in a cell - the annoying, ugly, talentless, pigshit idiot, no reason for it really, do I really need one?

Throwing your money around

2007-01-31T22:26:00.000Z

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

2007-01-24T20:48:00.000Z

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

2007-01-14T22:02:00.000Z

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?"

2007-01-10T21:55:00.000Z

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?!