...ruffles...

So, I get a phone call from Government Department A because we mention Government Department B in a piece of promotional literature. Why have we done this, she asks, because Government Department B report into Government Department A under some new government initiative (and one which is incomprehensibly named – its all letters – like Swahili translated into text message language).

Because we worked with Government Department A to develop the product, I say, 2 years ago, I say. She then proceeds to try and change things that have been in place for the last two years, things that can only be achieved if we go back in time. For example, the original decision by Government Department B to develop the product. She tells me we should have developed the product with Government Department A, even though when it was developed Government Department’s A and B weren’t linked and, it turns out, she wasn’t working for either. Also, on the same piece of literature, Government Department B are named as users of the product. Who are the people who have used the product, she asks, was it officially sanctioned by the department? When was it? Who authorized it?

I have no idea, I say, after all; they are merely contacts on our customer database. They’ve bought the product, but I have little understanding of what was going through their heads when they decided that the product was for them.

She then proceeds to tell me that they should have been authorised centrally and that they have no record of this happening, etc. etc. Unfortunately I can’t tell her who the people are due to the Data Protection Act.

Why is it that people in government departments seem to assume that you know how they work? It’s like you’re being held responsible if they don’t follow their own protocols and bureaucratic processes. I’m very glad for the government; the roads they lay, the lighting they put up, the criminals they catch. But I’m not really interested in the minutiae of their inner workings, or the endless restructuring. If something is not working at their end. That’s surely their problem.

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Labels: Work

So what is Music Of Black Origin if its not every genre of popular music over the last 50 years? The key contribution that ‘whites’ have made to popular music (specific individual talents not counting) is the ability to sell music as a product and speed up its tempo so you can’t dance to it without the help of drugs – for this read: speed metal and hard house.

We’ll put aside the questionable racial divisiveness of the set up, the spirit of the MOBOs appears to be to give ‘black music’ a platform and a voice, which assumes black music can be defined and doesn’t currently have a voice (try telling that to Beyonce and Jay Z). It also assumes there to be some sort of clear divide between blacks and whites and that one needs to sell its vision to the other, which may lead to the millionaire Beastie Boys' to question how they've got away with their 20 year career.

It would be easier to accept the MOBOs if the music it represented was absolutely incomprehensible and/or unlistenable because it would, at least, allow music that is otherwise not heard (because it is so unpalatable), to be heard. In fact, MOBO music is so desperate to maintain its mainstream appeal, most of its contenders remain stuck in the Mariah/Whitney school of vocal gymnastics, what was known as ‘soul music’ and is now called RnB despite it having no blues in it and precious little rhythm.

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Labels: Music

At the football, every substitution (and remember, there can be six in a game) is followed by the legend '...sponsored by Debt Doctor, prescribing a life without debt'. Personally, I'm scared of debt, credit cards in particular. I don't know why, but they seem more sinister than debit cards, like they have hypnotic powers that can seduce you into spending huge amounts of money. I've always steered clear, I don't even know what a 0% balance transfer is.

As a result, aside from a mortgage and car loan, I'm debt free. I suppose I can't really comprehend what a luxurious position that might be, not like the folks featured in the Picture adverts. Pictures, of course, are friendly inviting things, they gently entertain, add mood, invoke deep emotions. Generally, they're positive, which is probably why a it's so odd that its the name of a debt management company.

There are two Picture adverts with the same formula. A family, evidently very happy living in a big beautiful house, call the company. In one it's a man, who has a chat about football with the call centre person whilst his wife, er, follows him around with a video camera. In the second it's the woman on the phone whilst her husband and child shout out asking where things are. 'It's always like this round here' she says with a laugh.

Both families have clearly spent a lot of money on their houses, video cameras etc. and seem so happy with life they must be deluding themselves. Sure enough both are looking for £25,000 loans. Curiously in both the caller cups their hand over the phone to double check with their spouse '25,000?' they mouth silently as though they haven't actually talked about how much they need before the call is made. In both the spouse gives a big smile and a thumbs up, like they're getting free money... which probably explains why the fucking imbeciles are so deep in the shit.

'Woh, that's much less than we're paying at the moment' is the response to the quote. They get off the phone, talk about how friendly and easy it all was, and continue with their blissful carefree lives. A white box then appears on the screen explaining a £25,000 consolidated loan will have total repayments of £42,000. Which is about the equivalent of buying a Vauxhall Astra for the price of a top of the range Mercedes Benz R Class.

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Labels: General me

It didn't take much badgering, but I've got a new work laptop. My relationship with the old one was like a marriage gone cold. Once we were inseparable; we'd spend hours just doing stuff, being together. But, like all relationships, the initial zing and excitement was replaced by comfort and security. Gradually though, I started to want something else. It didn't look particularly good, it was getting big and heavy, it never wanted to go and see the big wide world (the USB port was dodgy, and I couldn't get onto the Internet). Eventually we just fell into a routine and stopped going out altogether (it became to heavy to carry around). I have to confess that my eye began to wander, and I found myself attracted to sleeker, slimmer models. Eventually, I walked, for a new Hewlett Packard wotchamadoobey.

Its much sexier, it does exciting things the old one wouldn't do no matter how much I pleaded; we watch DVDs and play around with photographs (in Photoshop). It's better looking, and I'm proud to be seen out with it.

But, y'know, she it doesn't know me like the old one used to. It doesn't know my favourite websites, it doesn't remember my passwords, it does things that are just plain annoying. And beautiful though it is, sometimes I just hanker for the familiarity of my old laptop.

This new laptop, and more specifically, the virgin version of Windows installed on it, is absolutely insistent on checking I'm alright at every turn. Every move generates a little speech bubble; open Explorer and it pings 'did you know you've got some pop-ups that didn't appear', eveytime I fire it up it reminds me that it's got some hidden icons, or that there may be upgrades and do I want to install them now. Nag, nag bloody nag. Don't get me started on the bloody cat it keeps in Word.

Still, I've still got my PowerBook for guilt free, no strings attached fun together.

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Labels: Technology

It seems that the Bermuda Triangle is losing its powers. The phenomena was one of those things that disappears from your memory until something dislodges the block and causes it all to flood back. In this case it was hearing Barry Manilow on the radio.

When I was small the Bermuda Triangle was a truly scary thing. It literally sucked planes out of the sky, wrecked sturdy tankers and killed all on board. I didn't know where Bermuda was, but it could well have been near Gibraltar, which is near Spain, which is near France which is where my family went on holiday. My life was in real danger.

Now according the Wiki, the most recent major incident was in 1975, and the last incident of any note was 1999. I decided to investigate further, but though Google's number 1 ranked web resource on the subject appears comprehensive, it is also a subtle homage to the triangles powers. Any attempt to navigate it is pointless, before long you'll be lost deep inside its bowels.

Now the Bermuda Triangle is simply rubbish, this site claims a more recent incident but that was five years ago. Comair Flight 5054 got some ice damage on a flight to Orlando, I get more damage on my car parking it outside the house on a Saturday night.

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Labels: General me

I used to work at home on a Tuesday, the legacy of a study leave arrangement with work. And I actually used to work at home as well, I'd start at 9am, work until 12.30, start again at 1.30 and finish at 5pm.

Mid-morning the phone rang, it was someone from work, they wanted to know if I had some papers with me. I had the phone upstairs, so I ran downstairs to look in my bag. I picked up the downstairs phone to confirm that I did have it.

Completing the call, I went back to work. I only had dial-up, I didn't need constant access to the web. At lunchtime I went downstairs for a sandwich and looked at the news on Ceefax. The third story listed said a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I think it originally said it was a small plane and there were no confirmations of any fatalities. I assumed that this was a regular occurrence, given its minor billing.

I went back to work; at about 4pm I came down to make a cup of tea. Whilst the kettle boiled I flicked on the TV to catch up on the football news. Each channel was awash with pictures of grey rubble. The commentary was talking about a plane hitting the Pentagon. I started to question my own understanding; I thought the Pentagon was in Washington, maybe it was in New York, maybe the World Trade Center was the Pentagon. My initial reaction was denial; hopefully it was just an accident and nobody had been hurt.

I watched on and it became clear what was going on. At some point I went upstairs, and saw that the phone I'd answered in the morning was still off the hook. People had been trying to phone. In part to find out whether I was in London - the fear at the time was that the whole world was under attack and being in London was one of the worst places to be.

My initial reaction was that the perpetrators didn't know who they were messing with. Also that the worst person possible was in charge of any response. Both fears were realised, I guess, looking at the cack-handed reprisals that have materialised.

Emma got home, a plumber came round to do some work, looked at the TV and said 'That's fucking scary isn't it?'. We watched for hours, seeing re-runs of the planes slamming into the towers and then the towers falling. We turned off, or over, I can't remember... it was so horrifyingly boring; if such a thing exists.

I've never written about 9/11 before, I suppose mine is not a very interesting story. But this is the event of our times characterised by its mass participation. The Towers were at the focal point of an island that's more photographed and filmed than any other in the world. The news shot around the world in minutes; the internet allowed the reaction to echo back within seconds. Nobody was a observer, everyone was able to play a part, no other building or city would have had the same impact, no other era could have hosted such a response from everyone from firemen trapped in the rubble to people who forgot to put the phone down. Its this which makes the event obscenely perfect. What were you doing?

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Labels: News

I know in these media savvy times that marketing and promotion has to be targeted and edgy. It's got to go to the right person and then induce a response. Its not easy to do and lines to be trod are, as they say, fine.

However, you have to question the promotion that arrived through our door the other day. The NSPCC sent Emma a letter telling her what a wonderful experience becoming a mother is and how special the link between mother and child, but that, did you know, many children are abused - sexually, physically, emotionally etc. All of this was perfectly timed to arrive at the very point many mothers have developed a heightened state of emotional bond with their newborn. Hormones and emotions are not always under control.

To re-inforce the point there was a little book entitled Baby Names, styled like the little books you buy when you're first pregnant. Inside, on each page, was the name of a child and a four line description of the abuse they had received from a cruel relative.

Oh, and then there was an easy to fill in donation form.

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Labels: General me

I've changed my web stat counter thingy to Statcounter. It has a filter do-dah which stops your own hits registering (amongst other things). It turns out I have a healthy number of visits per day from people that aren't me.

It didn't start too promisingly, daily visits trickled in, then suddenly last week it went bananas. Looking deeper it turns out that I was getting a tidal wave of visits to this picture of Sam from Beauty and the Geek.

I wasn't at work today. Millie has started nursery this week (at a cost that exceeds our mortgage) and now thinks that putting her feet in the sandpit is the edge of all human experience. Due to a minor but complex childminding issue I can't be bothered to talk about here, I had to take the day off to look after her.

Nursery evidently makes her very tired, because she woke at 6.45am, then after a bottle slept until 12.30. This allowed me to do a bit of work, and watch the TV. Becoming quite nauseous at Jeremy Kyle I turned to Channel 4 to see, you know, Beauty and the Geek. It seems it's being re-run which is probably driving up my traffic. It's what I call the Garraway/Tits experience where a couple of years ago I had an avalanche of hits because I'd put the two words together in a post (that I can't now find).

Not only that, the episode was the last one, the one I missed having watched the series obsessively for weeks when it was screened on E4. The world is perfect don't you think?

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Labels: TV and radio

We were comparing liars last night, there seems to be three kinds. Firstly, those who lie deceitfully, these are mean and nasty people and, obviously, nobody you know (who are all kind and truthful).

Then there those who lie, or at least stretch the truth, in such a way that ensures they participate in major events (therefore becoming more interesting). For example, I know someone who once went to India and became email friends with someone who worked with someone whose husband was killed in the recent bombings in Mumbai. This meant they apparently had to spend hours on the phone in some kind of undefined relief effort (the trauma she claimed to have suffered was terrible). These people have come out of the woodwork a little more recently with the revelation that one of the July 7th bombers lived in Aylesbury and that the alleged airline plotters were from High Wycombe. Now everyone knows someone who has walked past a shop owned by someone who lives just round the corner from where the investigations are happening.

The best, of course, are those people who start on a story, then, when they don't get the reaction they want embellish and embellish, until, oops, they've gone into the world of obvious fantasy. Our favourites was the woman who claimed a nearby gas explosion blew her tights off, this was the same women who claimed she was feeding some exotic birds for a friend that were so big, when you went in they would put their enormous wings around you in some kind of thankful hug. There was also my dad's friend from school who used to excuse himself from going out because he was competing in the national moped championships at Wembley, or because Bob Dylan was coming round for tea.

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Labels: General me

I hated The F Word, which finished slightly too long ago for me to write about it with any credibility.

[pauses, thinks, shrugs, carries on]

The basic problem with any cookery programme is that you can't taste the food. No matter how closely a show's guest exudes simple orgasmic pleasure from tasting the partridge and banana fricassee you will never know what it will taste like.

So, the next best thing is to be equipped with the information to make the dish in order to taste it. A recipe supported with some instructions on what goes where, Deliah Smith style. Ramsay dispenses with such triviality; he cooks, sure, but he doesn't tell you what he's cooking or how. So, stripped of any value, the programme is little more than self-conciously over-styled claptrap fronted by a man who says fuck. A lot. This is the essence of the programme. Oh, and killing the pigs he's raised as pets in front of his kids, which may actually be child abuse.

Pig killing and swearing aside, he also instigated his own campaign; clearly smarting from Jamie Oliver's ascendance to deity status with his school dinners thing. The best that Ramsay came up with was an amnesty on cookery books. So not only does the programme fail to enrich us with any cooking knowledge; it tries to take away some that we have.

Personally, I would like to see Ramsay campaigning on something useful; like Casseroles or human cheese. The casserole, we're told, is a good wholesome dinner; warming and tasty. This defies all modern logic; a food can't be good when you put all the ingredients in the same pot and cook it for days. And then there's human cheese. A baby can't drink cow's milk but a baby can only drink milk whereas humans drink almost exclusively cow's milk. This doesn't make any sense. Why do we drink cow's milk? Would you find it odd to watch a cow suckling a human? Of course, shouldn't we, as humans, be drinking human milk? And therefore human cheese? I did start to Google this, but what you find quickly becomes unpleasant.

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Labels: TV and radio

We had an evening meeting in Newcastle to put out a small work related forest fire. After an unexpectedly swift and positive conclusion we retired for a celebratory drink.

Our fifty-something, perhaps sixty-something, Geordie host and guide walked us down to a pub by the river, but not before admiring the 'winking eye' bridge and more specifically, it's hydraulic action.

Eventually we entered a pub with thundering pop-dance being played over the PA. The four of us had a combined age of around 190, the average reduced significantly by the presence of me and a colleague, not that this seemed to matter to the man who could have been the father to those around him. We were surrounded by immaculately dressed twenty-somethings, like an explosion at the cleavage factory. And this was a Thursday. The art of dressing up to go out was briefly lamented before leaving.

Having had only a sandwich, and it approaching 9pm, most of us were in that funny place between needing food and being OK for the time being. We decided to get a quick snack. We were lead over the winking eye bridge to Gateshead an old flour mill which was now a swish restaurant. It was closed.

The need for food was then apparently forgotten because we decided we needed to see the Sage Gateshead. Our host, an engineer obsessed with engineering (and not apparently food), took us through the minutiae of its construction before persuading a sleepy night porter to show us around one of the empty auditoriums.

We crossed back over to Newcastle and headed, finally, for something to eat. It was getting on for 10pm and we only wanted a snack, so we were met with a plethora of brilliant excuses for not serving us; my personal favourite being 'sorry we can't serve an espresso with a starter after 9.30, I have to go on a course for that'.

After several false starts and another stopover for a drink, we were accepted at Big Mussel for a half kilo bowl. We then strolled back towards our hotel, but not before quickly going to see the the nearby station, which just happened to have a bar in it.

Eventually we got back to the hotel for a final drink. That was a night out in Newcastle as defined by a semi-retired engineer. In structure, it was rather alien to me; we'd had about 4 drinks in about 8 pubs and one meal from 6 attempts. All of which was less unusual than returning home with an unhealthy understanding of the engineering merits of the city's finest landmarks.

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Labels: Work

'Would you want to be on Big Brother?' said Jo as Big Brother ground to its inevitable conclusion. 'Nah' said Lucy resignedly 'the public would hate me, I'm an acquired taste.'

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Labels: General me

A Big Brother contestant is like a pot of Yoghurt. Whilst kept inside its sealed container it's at its best. Once released, and exposed to the open air, it needs to be consumed quickly before it goes off and tastes like crap.

Which is why Nikki's reintroduction to the Big Brother house is such a disaster. Contaminated by the outside world she's spoiling all those still inside.

What is the point of re-introducing housemates? The final week should be like the last stage of the Tour de France, which is always a celebratory cruise through the streets of Paris. The competition should effectively be over, no more shocks or twists. And there is nothing better than having three emotionally drained people self conciously trying to have the time of their lives in an empty TV studio on the penultimate night.

Meanwhile, Glyn has turned into a proper turd in recent weeks. He hasn't been exposed to the outside world, although in a sense he has. He now realises that people are divided into more categories than just 'Welsh' and 'Others'.

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Labels: TV and radio

Odd being an evening-only invite to a wedding. The official history will not record your appearance unless the bride and groom have paid a little extra for a bit of reportage evening photography. Your existence is largely inconsequential; the important people are the ones who have been there all day. This is not a bad thing; not everyone can be special, and anyone who expects an all-day pass really has too high an opinion of themselves, unless you're the parents who've paid for the thing, of course. 



An evening-only guest has their own issues to deal with. What to wear? A suit may suggest that you expected an invite to the real deal, jeans are too casual. Maybe the more experienced fifty-something men at the bar (wives on the dancefloor, barefooted, swaying out of time in a sequin dress) have got it right by playing it down the middle in a pair of comfy slacks and a nice polo shirt (St Christopher chain optional).



Ingratiating yourself into the party is hard. Drink-wise, you're miles behind everyone else; meaning ascendance to the dance floor for a bit of Dexy's is somewhat slower than the more oiled all-dayers. What's more, a well-oiled all-dayer is more likely to sling a friendly, but wholly offensive; "you fucking boring bastard" at you for not sidling dancefloor-wise with appropriate gusto. When the wedding DJ says "let's take a walk down to Itchycoo Park with the Small Faces and a song they call [pause] Itchycoo Park" you want to heckle, or at least laugh until snot comes out of your nose, but you instead find yourself agreeing with some random uncle that the DJ is really good. You then pray he doesn't put his arm around you to encourage you to join in with a bit of "It's all too beautiful" whilst Uncles pint sloshes over your head. The DJ on Saturday announced that the buffet was open and then cut into the next record to tell us that he was enjoying his bacon sandwich from it. He also air guitar-ed to McFly.



Being more sober than pretty much everyone; your graces remain largely intact, social mores suggest you should pick out the happy couple to congratulate them, but by this point they're not together (in parallel with the aforementioned slacks-and-polo-shirt couple; bride, on dancefloor beaming, groom, resting pint on his belly near the bar or avoiding eye-contact with Mum's Best Friend who wants to slow dance with him to Careless Whisper). Anyway, you know they have more important things to do, so keeping your distance is probably more appropriate. Even if you do talk to them the conversation is flighty, superficial and half finished; of course it is, they've got hundreds of people to get through. If the bride beams at you and wraps her arms around you in a wave of unbridled euphoria; you can't then start saying that you've got a bit of a cold and are feeling under the weather. Tell her she looks beautiful and ask her whether she's had a great day, and then leave it at that.



Still, you don't have any lines to remember and you're don't contribute to the plot (unless your way of congratulating the bride is by squeezing her bum and trying to stick your tongue down her throat). And at least you're not the Philippino second wife/twenty something toy-boy of octogenarian great aunt/drunk in a trilby at the reception who nobody knows.

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Labels: General me

It was the Ruffles' first family holiday this week. We stayed at the stunningly beautiful Pennard Hill Farm in Somerset. Resisting the temptation to call it a baby farm, which is something entirely different, it is designed to be baby friendly. This doesn't mean that it's all primary colours, face painting and teenage X-Factor rejects enthusiastically singing the theme tune to the Tweenies; it's just designed for people like us. Well, sort of, the other people staying there, who you would assume to be like us, had children called Florence and Sicily (aka 'Sistles').

The farm's whole approach is to avoid damaging children; its remoteness makes it completely safe, they have a 'eat at home' service; which is basically restaurant food delivered to your door. Even the pool is chlorine-free, it's cleaned by ultra violet lay lines or something. This meant that Millie had her first swim, which after a wobbly start she seemed to enjoy; until her daddy got a little over enthusiastic and bobbed her a too close to the surface of the water causing her to swallow half the pool and do the saddest little face ever.

Pennard Hill Farm is just round the corner (and up the hill) from Worthy Farm. Owned by Michael Eavis. Who organises the festival. The Glastonbury Festival. The farm overlooks the site though you wouldn't know it. Its not far from Burnham-on-Sea which is a classic crumbling English seaside town, which I truly wanted to enjoy. If you're a black and white photographer working for the Guardian it's probably a dream, if you're a visitor, it's pretty shit. Pound shops nestle amongst places selling fried things, fat people waddle around in England shirts and nasty gold jewellery. Part of me wants to love its English charm, but I just don't.

Having been to the festival but not the town, inevitably we also went into Glastonbury, which was much more my thing. It was full of women dressed in the fashion that fashion forgot; floaty skirts, black vest tops, leather flip flops. The men wore long wispy beards and t-shirts with purple unicorns on them. The shops are, as you'd expect, are all new agey, selling witchcraft and miscellaneous healing.

The common thing about both towns was their predicability and that they appear economically unsustainable (how can a whole town function on selling chipped porcelain dogs or healing algae?) You do start to wonder whether you're in the Truman Show that they're sophisticatedly branded theme parks, like Disney World with grit. In fact, when the fortieth numpty family blocks the pushchair whilst admiring tan leather sandals for 7.99 (for two pairs) you start to wonder whether you're being delayed whilst they set up the latest scene.

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Labels: Holiday

It's been Russel Brand's summer, some of his best bits:

On Jonathan Ross:

JR "You've been in trouble with the police haven't you. Tell me about that."
RB: "Well Jonathan, the thing about this story is that although you may admire my rehabilitation from my addiction to drugs I fear that by quoting the first line of this story your opinions of me will change for the negative."
JR: "Go on"
RB: "Well, I was stealing pornographic magazines from a garage..."

On Big Brother's Big Mouth:

RB: "What do you think?"
Audience member: "About [Big Brother contestant] Richard?"
RB "Yes about Richard, not about people having sex with animals we'll talk about that when we're older" [turns to stare wide eyed at the camera]

In his Guardian World Cup column:

Rooney is at least keen, even were he not so sublimely blessed. His touchingly apparent frustration mirrors the fans' and he has a crackling authenticity no amount of media training can emolliate. If he carried Max Clifford around in a knapsack relentlessly muttering into his constantly incarnadine lughole he'd still eff and blind and lash out at dug-outs.

How many pairs of boots did he remove on Tuesday? Every time the camera cut back to him he was petulantly tossing aside another boot. Was Sammy Lee acting as an obsessive-compulsive blacksmith re-shoeing him to prolong the outburst. It went on interminably. "There's Rooney throwing down his boots in disgust." It was like a tantrum from a centipede.

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Labels: TV and radio

Emma’s family are obsessed with Premium Bonds. When they all meet up they chat about who’s won what (inevitably nobody has won anything). Even dewy eyed musings about future prosperity is described in the context of Premium Bonds; ‘I’ll go and live on a paradise island when I’ve won the Premium Bonds’.

Inevitably, Millie was bought some as a present when she was born. Being just 12 weeks old, her first draw was last week… she won £50.

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Labels: General me

Work is full of charlatans. They're pretty easy to spot. Charlatan salesmen always use too many words in their sentences. This is to prevent you from butting in and telling them to go away. When you pick up the phone and hear "How are you on this very fine day today?" you know you've got someone who is either crap at selling, or selling crap.

Then there are people who have jobs which have made up words to validate their existence. Made up words distances the user from those who might question their purpose. This week I was working with a knowledge management specialist who continuously patronised me when I offered some possible alternative approaches to get her failing project back on track. The problem was that I knew nothing about knowledge management, apparently. She pulled out a 'brilliant book on the subject I should read' (for this read: I've read it, well I've bought it, please don't read it you might find me out). As I always do in situations like this, I opened the book and read the contents to show polite interest. The opening chapter was titled The massification of knowledge.

Then there are problem orientated people. These are people unable to offer any solutions, but are good at offering problems. One senior manager I work with complains about our culture and communications (always a good one for senior managers to complain about). In recent time he's successfully identified that we have an email culture (which is too impersonal), a meeting culture (too unproductive), a water cooler culture (too gossipy), a bottom up culture (not strategic enough) and a top down culture (no engagement or buy-in). Next week we will be communicating only in semaphore.

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Labels: Work

Wiggaz is an old old friend but we don't meet up as much as we should. Last night we managed to find a suitable date. We wanted a beer in the evening, so we went to beerintheeveing.com to find a suitable venue.

We settled on The Cricketers at Littlewick Green. Not least because of this review from one John Bonser...

"Splendid country pub a couple of miles west of Maidenhead just off the A4, situated in a pretty village overlooking the cricket green. No real fire on our visit yesterday - we were sitting outside in the warm summer sunshine, enjoying a fine lunch. No scumbags or lager louts in sight, just friendly locals and visitors like ourselves. Note the exceptionally large factory clock in the main bar. This pub is highly recommended - well worth seeking out."

He was right, there were no scumbags or lager louts, one or two people from Honda Maidenhead, but they kept themselves to themselves.

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Labels: General me

Moggiopoli, the corruption case, has ruptured Italian football. The verdict of relegation and points deductions for some of the country's biggest clubs, is as startling as the level of corruption that lead to it.

However, I must reveal a level of corruption that beats even this. Emma's mum has a friend that she knows "only through email". From the friend she managed to purloin a recipe for a chocolate trifle. An innocent exchange of remote friends, you may think.

Furnished with this information, Emma's mum then heard on Radio Oxford, that they were running a competition. People were invited to send in their recipes; the best would be made up and tasted and the best would win a prize. Emma's mum chose to send in her chocolate trifle recipe. It reached the final, and she won.

Her defence, she says, is that everyone pinches other peoples' recipes. Which may be true; but not everyone wins prizes with them. It was a prize worth winning; an all expenses meal on a train which is (according to Emma's mum) "like the Orient Express but it runs to Didcot".

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Labels: General me

It seems that pop success nowadays is only valid if you've built up a following through the Internet, or more specifically through MySpace. No number one is valid without a story of a starving muso in a basement flat using more than adequate recording equipment and broadband to get their sounds out to the world. It's an edgy, DIY approach screaming 'fuck you' to the music industry. It also hides the fact that most of the music is actually inoffensive MOR-lite acoustic pop. Mmm, underground.

The Arctic Monkeys, widely fabled to have built their fanbase through the Internet, have dismissed the idea as 'a load of bollocks'. Gnarls Barkley, who were the first to achieve number one status through downloads alone, were hardly unknowns. The musical mastermind of the duo, Dangermouse, produced the last Gorrillaz album. Now, Lilly Allen, described as "the queen of MySpace" sits at number one because of the fan base she's built up through her 'ickle space on the web. Of course, her success has nothing to do with the fact that Allen is the daughter of well connected media whore Keith.

Or, in fact, that MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Sandi Thom, another one, perhaps gives it away with her debut number 1. She wishes she "was a punk rocker with flowers in her hair". She yearns for "69 and 77 when revolution was in the air". She then, laments, however, that she "was born too late to a world that doesn't care".

Didn't punk and the hippy movement happen because the world didn't care? It wasn't sanctioned by the establishment, created through focus groups and market research. If she's in a world that doesn't care then she was born at the perfect time to be a punk rocker with flowers in her hair. What does she want the world to do? Give her a favourable mortgage rate and secure job before she starts wearing stuff her mum might frown at. Of course, it would make her a deluded retro-phile, but it shouldn't discourage her from fulfilling her dream.

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Labels: TV and radio

Millie is 10 weeks old, so here are 10 things I've learnt about parenting.


1. Parenting gurus give their advice like they're stating scientific fact. If it were scientific fact then it would have the same effect on every baby in the same way. You can't know that blowing in the baby's face means they're more likely to be a concert pianist without years of evidence. If the book was written in 2004, it's all guesswork.
2. If you're concerned about something, ask yourself whether they'll be like it when they're sixteen. For example, if they're not lifting their heads up by six weeks, question whether its likely to be a factor in sixteen years time. On the other hand, if their leg falls off, worry.
3. Birthing plans are a nonsense. You have no choice about how the baby is coming out.
4. Your life doesn't change as a result of having a baby. This is your life, a continuation of what you had before, with new influences and factors to consider. If you're life is so heavily locked into a particular routine, so hardened that you can't move away from it, you're either very sad, or you're OCD.
5. People who know the mother best, think the baby looks like the mum, those who know the dad best thinks the baby looks like the dad. Agree, whatever the view.
6. Baby poo smells great, at least your baby's poo smells great. A baby has a minimal vocabulary, so they communicate their well-being through poo. A big smelly one is great to see.
7. It is easier to agree with people that you're not getting any sleep and nappies are a nightmare than to explain that it's all going really well, you're sleeping fine and you're enjoying it.
8. Doctors are always right. If your philosophy is that if a doctor gives you bad news then they're right, but if it's good then they're telling you a bunch of lies, you'll quickly end up in a puddle of your own paranoia. You have to make a simplifying assumption that what you're hearing is the truth and that a vast-majority of doctors have the same values and objectives as you.
9. Phases don't last long. If you can remember a time when she went through a phase of finding it difficult to settle after a bottle; it was probably last night.
10. Don't think about the future. The future may hold Neo-Nazi boyfriends, piercings and heroin. Today they don't, tomorrow they may do. As the great Gaulish chief says, Vitalstatistix says, 'Tomorrow never comes'.

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Labels: Babies

A good World Cup, not a great World Cup. Beautifully staged, fantastic stadia full to the brim, omnipresent sun, a pleasant way of spending a summer's evening after work. But then, so is Big Brother.



So why wasn't it great? In part, it's circumstance of the the modern era that even the most ardent fan has enough football on TV to satisfy their needs. Wall-to-wall-to-wall live football means that it's no longer a treat to see the games. Once upon a time live football was a novelty, from overseas was a positive curiosity. Now it's all a bit too familiar. All but a handful of the squads had players who play or have played in the Premiership and the even those who don't have players familiar from the Champions League, Spanish and Italian football. Very few players emerge at a World Cup. Once upon a time a Brazilian would arrive at a World Cup having played in his domestic league, he may be picked up by a bigger European club, but the gateway was the tournament. Now players outside Europe barely play in their home country, picked up before they get a chance by the hugely efficient scouting systems of the top European clubs. 



Overall, however, there's been no narrative. Every great World Cup has a narrative. The emerging nations failed to compete like they did in 2002, the hosts didn't fulfil their destiny like France in 1998, England failed predictably unlike 1990, Ronaldihno didn't turn up to complete the Holy Trinity of footballing greats joining Maradona's beatification in 1986 and Pele's in 1970. There have been great goals and moments of great skill, but no truly great games, like the 1982 France vs Germany semi-final. 



The rebirth of Zidane flickered briefly against Brazil with a thrilling performance of panache, but then age got the better of him and he was subdued against Portugal before going completely mad in the final. Italy's corruption backdrop, a mirror image of 1982, is a story, but, ironically, it's like the remake of The Italian Job - it may be well made and visually spectacular, but in the end it still stars the lead singer of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Perhaps above all, this was the World Cup England were supposed to win, the nation was no longer enthralled by its betters, or charmed by those lower down the order. The country had a purpose, to efficiently dispose of all that came their way and win the cup. Perhaps next time we need to set our sights a little lower, and allow ourselves to be surprised about what's given to us.

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Labels: Football

When seeing The Mode at the Wireless Festival a couple of weeks ago, we came across the UK Garrison, a small outposting of Stormtroopers redundant from the occupation of the whole damn galaxy (c'mon Mr Bush, get in the game, you nobody unless you own the whole galaxy).

Stormtroopers, sinister anonymous androids with the ice cold glare of a mechanised man-fly. Devoid of emotion and cold and calculated whether patrolling the wretched hive of scum and villainy at Mos Eisley Spaceport or buggering womp rats out of sexual boredom whilst marshalling the supply line down the Kessel run. It's some fall from grace to have been stationed in the UK with a PR/peacekeeping brief, how they must lament, whilst manning little recruitment booths at six form colleges in Essex, that it's not like the old days of the Empire when they indulged in an endless orgy of violence all on expenses.

We resisted the temptation to wave two fingers in front of them saying 'these aren't the droids you're looking for'. Whilst they may not have been the actual 'Troopers to have been duped by the simple Jedi mind trick, the shame that it has brought on the good name of the Empire's finest must still smart today. That, and they'd probably heard it every hour on the hour for the five days of the festival.

We looked on, watching people having their pictures taken on their knees with the hands behind their back in a kind of Guantanamo Bay chic. The Stormtroopers posed for photos pointing their blasters at the craniums of the bowed, giggly, mildly inebriated festival habitue. How the temptation to engage in a little 'weapons malfunction' must have eaten away at them. These guys were running the galaxy, now they were turning tricks for buttons in some obscure outpost.

At least the Stormtroopers' fall from grace is shielded by their anonymity (read the FAQ's on their website, it's an enclosed netherworld, you can't join them, you get invited - presumably only if you can prove you are a clone of Jango Fett and pay your subs on time). Whilst it is easy to mock, you do know that there are millions more where they came from. Unlike Darth Vader, who is so iconic and whose story is so well known, that he is a mere parody of his original being. He was the Dark Lord of the Empire, a shadow across the galaxy, distanced from every individual yet capable of ordering their destruction with a nod. Now, there he was, stripped of his dignity, wandering around trying to get the attention of portly men in Nine Inch Nails t-shirts. There was a time when he would have ordered the destruction of whole planets for wearing aged industrial rock merchandise. It was like seeing David Beckham driving a taxi.

I may be wrong but I'm sure I heard him slurring to one disinterested punter that he'd 'had that Skywalker in the detention centre of his imperial cruiser last week'.

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Labels: Music

The bunion, the scar of women's battle for equality, the Blahnik and Choo, the spoils. Womenfolk place a lot of importance in their shoes. They're a celebration of sexuality, choice and independent wealth. A pair of women's shoes is an episode of Sex And The City distilled into footwear. Eclecticism, achievement, vivaciousness, cocktails and lunch.

Whilst the battle for gender equality has been a fierce one, women's shoes are also a place for the genders to meet. The passionate fixation of a woman on her shoe collection remains baffling, yet above all they openly recognise men as a component that is both required and sometimes desired. It is the terms and conditions that have changed.

Psychologists say that one of the reasons a pair of heals is deemed sexually attractive is because the shape of the shoe, and the angle of elevation offered by the heal make the toe look like a furry front bum. Shoes say, look at my fanny, but you're not actually going to get to look at my fanny unless I say so. Oh, and stop looking at my tits and keep your eyes on the floor, damn you.

The sexual subtext of the shoe is a deep and layered. You know, therefore, you're in the wrong party when one of the first things you hear is "Ooh Margaret those sandals look comfortable".

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Labels: General me

OK, I can't let it pass without comment.

The familiar pattern of England's exit from the World Cup on Saturday left me rather cold. There was a time when I would have got excited by the tournament. The squad recognised that the Quarter Finals no longer represent success, their interest was the final. For me also, only achieving something beyond the quarter finals would have raised the excitement levels.

And so to the aftermath. Was Eriksson overpaid? His agent, as agents always do, stresses that he was paid market rate. So if the buyer is willing to pay £4million a year for something, then it's not unreasonable to accept it. It would be unfair to blame Svennis for taking the money, but the FA ought to take a look at themselves for offering it. Argentina's coach was paid £100,000 a year. This recognised the facilitator role of a national coach; they can only work, for very short periods, with the product they are given. The national coach should be paid a premium for the pressure, but that's it. Seb Coe cited Jack Charlton's philosophy with the Republic of Ireland; choose the system, pick the team, practice set pieces, rest a lot, then let the players get on with it. The national coach's role is not to improve players, but to simply choose the best 11.

The billion pound Premiership machine has produced a slew of quality players coached to the highest possible standard. Sven needed to marshal this glut of choice, and resist the rampant media. The first choice eleven was self selecting. Take the Beckham versus Lennon debate. Lennon has just begun to emerge as a talent, Beckham, though not having the pace, has years of success behind him and contributed to 50% of England's goals. Using Lennon as a replacement for Beckham to chase a game, or stretch the opponents is a good one. But Beckham, though not as influential as he used to be, remained the obvious starter. That said, I hope he will retire from international football now, it would be a shame to watch him be dropped and remembered as a has-been.

Eriksson had precious few decisions to make, but the one key one, was wrong. To take only four strikers; two injured, one teenager and an acquired taste was a key error. Owen's injury against Sweden meant that Rooney had to play on his own. This was frustrating and exhausting, leading in part to his sending off against Portugal. Had he taken Defoe in place of the unused Jenas then there was a ready made replacement for Owen, the system didn't need have changed, the players could have got on with playing rather than trying to re-learn the pattern of the team. I'm not saying that England would have won the World Cup, but the over-complication certainly contributed to failure.

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Labels: Football

It's a bloggers bind; you have to have a life in order to blog but if you have a life there's no time to blog. Routine does not a good blog make, but routine is what I currently have. I've spent three years at work developing a department that functions so well we literally get to the end of the day having no idea what else to do... we're a bit like that now, Big Brother and the World Cup are a ubiquitous presence on the TV, even Millie has settled into a routine. I went to the O2 Wireless Festival to see Depeche Mode last week, and the week before we went to see Gifford's Circus. Great though both were, we knew what to expect, because we've been to both before.

It's not that I feel in any way restricted by the routine, on a meta-level there are many non-routine things happening, but you don't want to know that Millie has developed a phase 2 sleeping pattern at night that's different to the phase 1. As perfect as she is, I know you're not going to be as interested as I am.

The most routine of all is the gym. For a year now I've been going regularly in the morning. Up at 6.30, on the bike at 6.45, forty-five minutes and I'm out again, in the winter I'm sixth in, in the summer I'm 12th. I started going five times a week, but that's dropped to three. I'm a stone and a half lighter and people are starting to notice. Women in gyms are made up of two types; those who pull their trousers up after they get off a machine, and those who pull them down. The former are there to work out, tone up and burn calories, the latter feel the gym is an extension of their Heat inspired image, they buy the latest sexy skimpy gym-wear, including the low slung trackies that reveal their 'just above bum crack' tattoo and then use each machine on the lowest level for about 45 seconds each abandoning them when they feel an minor ache. When they've finished they leave swigging on bottled water dabbing the sweat off their forehead.

The 6.30am crowd is made up wholly of the former. Serious gym-bunnies. We're all acquainted in an eye-brow raising, half smile kind of way. Those who do the Spin class on Wednesday and Friday seem to talk to each other, everyone else just gets on with what they're their to do. I, being I, now know everyone only by what I've observed. So, in an occasional series, for this read, will get bored and/or forget about it before long, let me introduce you to some of the people from the gym:

Miriam T - can be quite abrupt and rude, especially when people leave the doors open rendering the air conditioning useless. She once commented that I'd really started looking good since coming down the gym. I said I'd lost over a stone, to which she replied 'Wish I could': I wasn't sure whether to give her a hollow reciprocal compliment or to laugh weakly. I did the latter. Actually, I don't think her name is Miriam T at all, it's a name on the signing in list, but I think that might be another women who gets in early. Miriam T will always be Miriam T to me.

The Kid From Fame - The Kid from Fame has a dizzying array of elaborate 80's-chic gym-wear. Cropped lycra tops under a t-shirt made of netting, three quarter length leggings and matching trainers is not unusual. The trainers change with the outfit. Serious about working out, serious about what she looks like when working out.

Tumble Turns - You can tell which of Tumble Turns' many routines she's going to do the moment she walks in the gym. Cycling shorts and she'll be on the bike for ages; running shorts and you know she'll be running. One morning I saw her head for the pool, which the gym overlooks. I couldn't see her in the pool until I worked out that the women powering up and down in a Speedo swimming hat, googles and doing tumble turns was, indeed, Tumble Turns.

The Robot - The robot is a woman who has been put together by a computer calculating the perfect female form. She's 5ft 6", slim, with pert breasts and a round, though not fatty bottom. She has long silky hair, white teeth and a symmetrical face. Her gym kit is subtly colour co-ordinated and fits perfectly without creases. There are no bulges anywhere. However like Laura Croft in Tomb Raider, she doesn't seem real enough to be attractive. She's being gently wooed by the Sales Rep, a man who looks like a sales rep. His tactics so far include writing 'nice bum' on the signing in sheet next to her name, and turning her running machine up whilst she's on it. It's horrible to watch.

Moby - Short and bald, probably not a sexually ambiguous Christian, vegan, techno rock behemoth. Not that it stops me thinking he is.

There are more, lots more...

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Labels: General me

At work we've got a World Cup prediction league going on. After a good first week, I've had a pretty poor run of form and I'm now lying second behind our work placement student who takes whole days off to get ready for England games. I had England v Sweden down as a 1-1 draw. Which is a good thing given that everyone else seems to have England down as winning every game 5-0. So, with nothing in the real world to really play for in the game, my interest was more in gaining some prediction league points...

England score, 1-0 - YES
Sweden equalise, 1-1 - YES
England score again, 2-1 - BOO
Sweden equalise - YES

I'm so confused.

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Labels: Football

I needed some t-shirts, not that this is something you generally needed to know, but it is the reason we went shopping. There hasn't been many tears as a result of losing a stone and a half down the gym in the last year, but there has been a shedload of sweat. My endeavours coupled with particularly unsympathetic washing detergent, has trashed many good and worthy t-shirts. The favourable weather in these parts meant that they needed replacing.

It wasn't the first time we'd gone out with Millie, but due to the heat it was pretty much the first time she could easily be seen in public from her pushchair. As we walked along people (women mostly) would turn and look, nudge their friends and saying 'Ooh look tiny baby'. As she's still pretty small, Millie looks like a brand new born baby, but she has the slightly more controlled demeanour of a six week old, where there for short periods at least, she coos sweetly looking like the most perfect baby in the world... which she is, of course.

When she did cry I took her out of the pram and carried her on my shoulder (a sure fire winner, although I do worry it only stops her crying because it restricts her breathing). As we walked along I began to sense particularly ethereal, barely audible, 'aahhs' from people. Women would tried to catch my eye, but I'm not best at engaging with strangers so I became increasingly conscious of my surrounds. it was like a rather cutesy version of the Blair Witch Project, where you could just about hear voices in the middle distance without ever actually working out which direction they came from.

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Labels: Babies

In China, people will tell you, women will give birth in the middle of a paddy field, sling the baby on their back and carry on working. In Britain the support received is somewhat more thorough. Once pregnant, the mother is assigned a community midwife. This is not necessarily the person who will actually deliver your baby, Emma had three additional midwives during her labour, plus a number of others who appeared and disappeared, and doctors, and anaesthetists, and other people. Then there's the post natal midwives who look after mother and baby. Once out of hospital you resume a brief relationship with the community midwife before being handed over to a health visitor.

The health visitor is part nurse, part social worker. A woman with no portfolio; which is probably why she's so keen to create one. The role is less than clear, she seems to have an array of surgeries, groups and meetings, none of which require pre-booking or an appointment, none of which is compulsory. From speaking to others, they're aim is to be as prescriptive and reactive as possible, scaring and stressing out new mothers at every opportunity. The advice they give is always retrospective and generally inconsistent. Emma's health visitor is full of nervous energy, when she first came over we told her that Millie was pretty much sleeping through the night. "EXCELLENT ARE YOU CALM PEOPLE BECAUSE GENERALLY CALM PEOPLE HAVE CALM BABIES ITS GODD TO BE CALM ISN'T IT, I LIKE CALMNESS, IT'S GOOD, BEING CALM, THAT IS". We were calm people until she walked through the door.

She wanted Emma to attend her post-natal classes held at a surgery a couple of miles away. This is despite the fact Emma already goes to a post-natal group and couldn't drive because of the caesarean. The reason given, breathlessly, was that the children that go are the ones Millie will be going to school with. I've just checked the calendar and Millie is 5 weeks old... school doesn't start for another 1,800 days. Feeling that she should at least try to attend, Emma spent the week trying to work out the logistics. She couldn't do it and had to tell the health visitor at the following week's meeting, the health worker, completely contradicting herself, replied "Oh no, I hadn't expected you to come".

Generally speaking Millie's is doing really well. She's alert, she's contented and sleeps well. We're in the rare position of actually enjoying having a new born baby (as opposed to coping with the culture shock on no sleep). What's more, Emma's feeling pretty good after the caesarean and is recovering well. The only issue is that having thrived in the first week, Millie's been losing a bit of weight, this is obviously something that needs reversing. After each weigh-in the health visitor presents a different pearl of wisdom. Looked at in one perspective, Milie has lost 3 ounces in a week, from another she's gained 5.5 in four weeks (or 5% of her birthweight). Not perfect, but not yet a crisis. When her weight did drop a little, the health worker said Emma shouldn't 'go home and cry about it'. She wasn't planning to, but it did get her pondering whether there was actually something serious going on, something to cry about.

If Emma was to take it all on board she would be eating six times a day, doing nothing and waking up Millie in the middle of the night to feed. Given that waking Millie up for a feed is a fool's errand (she just lolls around utterly uninterested) the net result of taking this advice on board will be to make Emma bloated, lethargic and tired. This, along with the fact it is Emma who has to visit the clinic, it makes the term 'health visitor' something of an anomaly.

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Labels: Babies

As Simon, Islay and I sat watched the first half of the Sweden versus Trinidad and Tobago game we lightly joked about which stereotypes the commentators would trawl to describe the West Indian debutantes. Simon searched for his answer having dismissed that it was the African's that would be labelled 'defensively naive'.

We concluded, well Islay mostly who claimed to have gleaned much from her mother, that comments would be about the colour they would bring to to the tournament, the constant partying of the fans who and above all, their nice smiles.

Indeed all three were insinuated throughout the game, but we hadn't banked on 'the Trinidad and Tobago players should really be wearing flip flops', that the game would have been fairer 'if it had been half a game of football and half a game of cricket' and that their time wasting was just 'them playing at Caribbean pace'.

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Labels: Football

Has hit, hasn't it? We've had a sweepstake at work (I got Croatia and Portugal), the whole thing caused an inordinate amount of excitement, particularly amongst the people whose knowledge extends to knowing that Wayne Rooney plays for Manchester Rovers.

Now, I don't wear novelty Christmas ties to work and I've never been one to dress thematically. A trip round Tesco on the Saturday morning of an England game will tell you that many people do. Lots of people must wake up in the morning and think 'Ooh, England game today, where's my England t-shirt'.

I can just about understand the psychology behind wearing an official England shirt, there's something in the assimilation to affluent, young, fit and celebrated individuals. A vintage England shirt, displays something similar, but a 1966 shirt suggests a deeper, historical appreciation for the game. But what does a generic loosely themed red and white England T-shirt with a number 7 on it say? 'Yes, I want to be assimilated to the affluent, young, fit and celebrated, but I'm clearly none of these and so to accentuate this fact, here's a £6 t-shirt from Asda to prove it.

And what does this fashion for flags on the sides of cars, communicate? Given that they're England flags in England and they only come out during the football it surely says 'I'm English, and I'm going to watch the football on the telly later'. Mindblowing.

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Labels: Football

I know what you're thinking. What was playing on Ruffles' new iPod whilst he made the dinner last night? Playing on shuffle and drawing from the 6827 songs on it, it came up with...

No for the 13th Time - The Wonder Stuff

Bruce Lee - Underworld

Mobeus - Orbital

Mercy in You - Depeche Mode

Hallelujah (Deadstock Mix) - Happy Mondays

Born to be a Dancer - Kaiser Chiefs

Rockin' It - Deejay Punk Roc

Sitting up Straight - Supergrass

Intro - Nas

And me - Beastie Boys

Izzy Izzy Ahh - Missy Elliot

Hit the Hi-Tech Groove - Pop Will Eat Itself

Potion - Ludacris

Highlight of the week on Big Brother has to have been the argument between Sezer and muscle queen Richard. Well not so much the argument but the aftermath. Tourette-y Celebrity Pete took responsibility to comfort Richard in the garden acknowledging that the pervasive bitching was what fuelled the blow-up.

"They're all a bunch of WANKERS" he said, his infliction attacking him once again... "Ooh, for one my tourettes has context." he concluded with pride.

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Labels: Music

Football is a wonderful wonderful game. It is, check out this site. Those who don't follow it should separate the business from the game itself. Its easy to play and understand; difficult to master. It's the same whether you're playing it in the street or at Old Trafford. It has no certainties and offers excitement, drama, boredom, despair and elation, sometimes all in the same game. It gives its fans focus and structure. This World Cup will see a team from Angola, where life expectancy averages 36, and Japan; life expectancy 81, playing on the same stage. It promotes racial, religious and political harmony; Iran and the USA will both be there. If they meet, like they did in France 98 (Iran won), nobody will die.

However, its not without its problems; the growing plague of celebrity football, for example. It enjoys a ridiculous media profile nowadays. It started years ago with Soccer Six, a tournament where teams from Blur and Oasis played against each other at the height of their Britpop battle. This year SKY dedicated a 6 hour telethon to it, despite there being no celebrities on it at all (the tournament included an Iranian celebrity team). Then there's SKY's summer schedule filler Masters Football, where its not unusual to hear things like "There's a goal from Willy Smith for the Motherwell Masters. Of course, he only played once from Motherwell reserves, he spent much of his career at Stenhousemuir reserves playing nearly nine times".

More recently, there's been The Match, where a team of celebrities train for a week to play a team of ex-internationals. This was followed by a charity re-run, sorry, walk through, of the 1986 Everton v Liverpool cup final. Liverpool won when John Durnin (a stalwart of all Liverpool Legends teams) scored after 89 soporific minutes. Durnin's legendary status being defined by his two League Cup appearances for Liverpool in the eighties scoring no goals.

The biggest of the lot was Saturday's Soccer Aid, teams of celebrities and ex-pros, lead by Robbie Williams and Gordon Ramsey, played in front of 70,000 at Old Trafford. Robbie's "England" team got to wear the full official England kit, like they were top professionals when surely they barely merit such an honour. Jonathan Wilkes, who is most famous for being Robbie's best mate (there's a site dedicated to him called Fansite for Jonathan Wilkes (aka Robbie WIlliams' flat mate), has a catalogue of showbiz career failures to his name and is now the closest thing you can get to a professional celebrity footballer.

The commentary, at one point, suggested that Wilkes had indeed been groomed to be exactly that in some kind of celebrity football academy. He had been a youth team player at Everton, where he played with the likes of Michael Ball. Although apparently, this was a rotund no-mark midfielder, not the bubble haired crooner your mum loves.

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Labels: Football

The composition of the Big Brother house follows a familiar pattern this year. Shahbaz was the fluffer, following a tradition that includes Kitten and Mary the Witch. They're not expected to last long, but they contain the requisite level of borderline insanity to kindle a fire of resentment in the house. Meanwhile, the motley assortment of over excited and sexually profligate act as the bellows to keep the fires burning. This allows the bevy of lad mad cannon fodder and boy candy to be the sausages cooked on the bar-b-que they create.

Presumably Channel 4 hadn't expected Shahbaz to move from charmingly bonkers to the early stages of a mental breakdown before his inevitable early exit. The frantic backtracking of Dermot O'Leary and Russell Brand whenever their guests put the words 'Shahbaz' and 'insanity' anywhere near each other suggests the channel are aware of the misjudgement they made when selecting him. Still, now he's out he seems to have steadied; albeit with a belief he has become some kind of Princess Diana figure.

There's little to admire in the house, which is how it should be. Nikki, who insists on over enunciating like a misfiring engine, can't drink tap water because it makes her 'PHYSically SicK' and is afflicted with being 'MIddle CLAss' although she was 'BOrn to have MOney'. She surely won't be tolerated simply because she has a nice bottom. Richard - 'Hi I'm a sexual terrorist' - no you're not you're a waiter - and the truly damaged Lea have styled themselves as a hideous house parents. The pre-requisites for this seem to be their age and experience, although few children would look for experience of 'hardcore pornography' and 'buggery' on any ideal parental check list.

The true mummy and daddy in the house are Imogen and Sezer, who in just over a week have settled into a pipe-and-slippers relationship without any problem. You suspect they will do little more than sit indoors worrying about the kids; the Chinese Jimmy Cranky, Lisa and Pete the 'Tourette-y Celebrity'. The long term aspirations of this duo will surely be curtailed due to the fact they're a bit of a novelty, thirteen weeks of 'WANKBOLLOCKSWHISTLE' will eventually erode any tolerance people will have for him and she's a, food fight/mis-directed vol-u-vent/argument/ejection, waiting to happen.

The evolution of the Mikey, Grace, George love triangle seems to have been born out of general boredom, although it's good to see how this has adversely affected Nikki, who is feeling generally left out because she doesn't have a house boyfriend, like Grace and Imogen, and has never been double penetrated on celluloid like Lea.

All of which leaves the door open to welsh speaking Glyn, who earlier in the week was chastised by Big Brother for 'speaking in code' after a chat in his native tongue with Imogen. This simpleton seems to have the winning formula, he's not offensive to anyone in the house and seems settled to simply sit back and enjoy the daftness around him, like everyone outside it.

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Labels: TV and radio

Some pearls of wisdom from the Midwife of Doom -

DOOOOM! - Her ex-husband once designed an educational leaflet about teenage pregnancy, when he presented his ethnically diverse designs they told him to take the Asian faces off because had only been one unplanned Asian teenage pregnancy in the Cardiff area in 40 years.

DOOOOM! - When she had a baby in Cardiff, she was moved to a ward for 'mature mothers'; she was 28, the average age of a Cardiff mother is 18.

DOOOOM! - Oxford has a terrible heroin problem.

DOOOOM! - If there'd been no intervention during Emma's labour she would simply laboured for days and then died,

DOOOOM! - and so would Millie

DOOOOM! - Level 7 at the John Radcliffe Hospital is where they take all the still born and deformed babies and the babies that have resulted in a maternal death.

DOOOOM! - In this country there area round 7 maternal deaths a year.

DOOOOM! - Maternal death is the biggest killer of young women in the world.

DOOOOM! - A popular celebrity London hospital is not popular with the truly posh because there maternal death rate is 'off the chart'... mainly because 80% of their births are 'too posh to push' caesarian births (national average 23%).

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Labels: Babies

Andy Gray was apoplectic about the pivotal moment in last night's Champions League final. Jens Lehmann's sending off, he said, ruined the game as a spectacle (though not, somewhat perplexingly, 'as a contest'). Richard Keys reinforced this by pointing out that people had spent a lot of money to watch the final (not least, one assumes, SKY themselves).

If football matches are simple 'spectacles' offering cast iron value for money why not make the goals bigger to guarantee goals. Or you could have a ball for each player - after all, who wants to see lumbering defenders hoof the ball into the stand when you've paid good money to see Ronaldinho's exquisite talents? Hell, why not get them to play the game behind closed doors then cut the best bits together; like a Nike advert.

If you didn't see the key moment; Barcelona's passing cut Arsenal to shreds, Samual Eto'o broke through, Lehmann came out and grabbed his ankle dragging him to the ground. The ball squirmed to Guily who slid it home. The referee chose to send Lehmann off and not award the goal because he'd already blown up for a foul. Technically there wasn't much wrong with the decision. The foul was clear and cynical, preventing a clear goal scoring chance. Once the offence was committed and the game was stopped. If anything, the referee was wrong not to send off Lehmann AND play the advantage therefore awarding the goal. In a sense Arsenal got away with it lightly.

Not in the eyes of Gray who managed to lose all sense and objectivity. When Eto'o slipped in to score the equaliser. Gray was adamant he was offside, firstly he wasn't, and secondly surely on borderline decisions like that you give the striker the benefit of the doubt... after all, you don't want to ruin the spectacle do you?

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Labels: Football

Woman standing up: "Have you eaten anything?"
Woman in a wheelchair: "I asked Nath to get me some Pot Noodle, 'e asked me what colour I wanted; i said brown and 'e got me red.... 'im and Naomi are going down the carvery today. S'pose they'd be finished by now."

As if to reinforce this, Emma overheard this as a woman had an internal examination:

Nurse: "Right, this could be a bit uncomfortable, so think of something nice."
Woman: "Oooh, MacDonalds."

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Labels: News

It was, for once, a classic Cup Final. The first Cup Final I remember was in 1978 when Ipswich beat Arsenal 1-0. Since then, of the 28 finals (and 5 replays) only a handful have fallen into the 'classic' category. This year's had everything; goals, near misses, lots of 'what could have beens' and a proper man of the match performance by Steven Gerrard. Oh, and cramp, lots of cramp. All great Cup Finals finish with the pitch looking like a particularly colourful interpretation of the Battle of the Somme. Yes, it was a very satisfying final indeed.

The Cup Final is the one game the super casual football fan will take time out to watch, after all, it is still the only domestic cup final that you can watch live without a SKY subscription. Unfortunately, this means it has become infested with the modern day phenomenon of ' celebrity communal singing'.

Presumably some marketing bod in a record company sees the Cup Final on the BBC as the single most valuable opportunity to present their stars of classical-light opera singing to a captured audience. Therefore, we get Michael Ball and Lesley Garret ladling their shrill talents all over the otherwise rousing FA Cup haka of Abide With Me. This is an corporate occupation of a national institution resulting from the increasing marketability of sexy, accessible, classical artistes such as Charlotte Church and Katherine Jenkins. With good promotion, a smile and a bit of cleavage (or nice hair, in Ball's case) there's good money to be made from selling your £9.97 'Emotions' CD from Tesco without disturbing the tawdry side issues of talent or originality; Jenkins, Church, Garret and Ball all have renditions of Ave Maria on their 'Best of' compilations.

I understand that a corporate marketing executive from EMI will pay a good few grand to the FA to get their man or woman pitchside for 3 minutes but I doubt anyone has been offered a Cup Final ticket and asked who's doing the pre-match sing-a-long before accepting. 70,000 emotionally charged football fans already singing themselves hoarse has, for many years, been quite enough to get the hairs on the back of the neck standing up thank you very much.

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Labels: Football

Thursday 4.00pm - Emma and I arrive at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford for her scheduled induction.
4.45pm - With the delivery suite heaving nothing is happening. The midwife comes in to explain she will begin the process as soon as the delivery suite is clear.
6.00pm - Midwife explains that the delivery suite is still busy. We should go for a walk and come back at 8pm. We go an buy some chocolate from the nearby garage and watch some football in the park opposite the hospital.
8.00pm - Back at the hospital maternity suite is still busy. Shift changes, new midwife tells us she doesn't think anything will happen tonight.
9.30 - I go home.
Friday 5.00am - Emma sends a text to say that they are starting the induction. There's not likely to be any action for another six hours.
8.45am - I arrive, Emma asleep, nothing happening.
8.45am-6.00pm - A continuous cycle of blood pressure tests, monitoring the baby's heart and telling us that the delivery suite is still busy.
6.00pm - Finally the delivery suite is ready, we pack all our stuff and head down.
6.45 - Midwife applies second dose of gel to get some progress. Emma immediately starts to feel uncomfortable.
6.45-1.00am Saturday: During the next six hours discomfort increases, we walk up and down the corridor, slowly. Eventually Emma can only lie on the bed breathing slowly to 'ride' the contractions.
1.00am - Midwife attempts to break Emma's waters, she can't so she calls in the doctor, he's more brutal and 'thinks' he's done it.
2.00am Emma is permanently laid out on her side strapped to a heart monitor. Midwife suggests that it may be wise to introduce an epidural.
3.00am - Anaesthetist arrives to apply the epidural and the pain begins to subside. A drip is put in Emma's hand; this is designed to increase the contractions to progress the labour.
3.00am-5.00am - Emma continues to have contractions, continues to lie on the bed.
5.30am - Baby's heartbeat begins to drop, two more midwives appear. Emma takes a puff of Ventolin; an inhaler often used by hayfever and asthma sufferers. The baby's heartbeat starts to steady. The dose being administered by the drip is reduced and a heart monitor is attached to the top of the babies head so they can get an accurate reading.
5.40am - Doctor appears and suggests that a caesarian section may be the only option. As the baby's heartbeat is steady, there's no hurry, so we wait.
7.30am - Emma is exhausted, we decide to go for the caesarian. There's one other woman in the queue (they've done 5 c-sections during that shift alone). A new shift is on in about an hour. We'll wait.
8.30am - After phoning home I come back in the delivery suite. The baby's heart beat has dropped and then falls off the chart. More midwives appear, and doctors. They decide to open a second operating theatre rather than wait. The wires and tubes are unplugged and Emma is wheeled out the door. I'm on my own packing our bags and waiting for a porter.
9.00am - A midwife appears, baby is OK, she begins packing up the room.
9.30am - The porter arrives and escorts me into the theatre, Emma is waiting, happy and relaxed. everyone introduces themselves. They are friendly and chatty. Joking about how it's like Holby City. The anaesthetist turns the blips on the heart monitoring machine, to make it 'sound more authentic'.
9.47am - After a few tugs and shunts Amelia Winifred, Millie, is born... the team shout 'IT'S A BOY!.. no, hang on... IT'S A GIRL!".
10.00am - Emma is sewn up, photos are taken and everyone is brilliant. I'm escorted back to the delivery room to take the bags to the Observation Ward where Emma and Millie will stay for the next day or so.
10.15am - Emma is back, looking great and beyond happy. Millie is quiet and contented trying to have a feed. She's not doing too badly for a half-hour old baby.
10.15am-12.30pm Text messages are sent, phone calls are made, Emma's mum and my mum arrive then they have to go because Emma can't have visitors. Emma suggests I go to the football.
12.45pm - Emma's sister texts wanting to visit. After lots of umming and erring we decided to ask her to bring my season ticket so i can go to the game.
2.00pm - Emma's sister arrives and I go to the football.
3.05pm - I arrive just after kick-off on the way I hit something and take my wing mirror off. I might be tired. Oxford need to win to stay in the football league, Leyton Orient, their opponents, need to win to go up. It's a sell out and the atmosphere like a bear pit. There are people sitting on the fence at the open end of the ground and people standing in the aisles of the stand.
3.07pm - Orient are fluid and quick, Oxford huff and puff. After a swift exchange of passes Lee Steele, former Oxford striker, hits the post for Orient. Steele is brilliant throughout; it's clear he'll have a say in the outcome of the day one way or another.
3.14pm - Against the run of play Eric Saban, Oxford striker, scuffs a shot into the corner, 1-0, Oxford are staying up.
3.17pm - Orient attack, a cross from the right to the back post is headed back towards goal. Oxford's goalie can't keep the ball from going over the line. 1-1, Oxford are going down.
4.03pm - Orient striker, Gary Alexander, chips in for 1-2, now Oxford really are going down.
4.05pm - Oxford scramble an equaliser, 2-2, another and we'll be staying up.
4.40pm - Chris Wilmott lashes out waiting for a free and is sent off.
4.50pm - With both teams appearing to play with 5 up front, Lee Steele, a menace throughout the game slots home Orient's third. The Orient bench streak onto the pitch. Their 4,000 fans go ballistic.
4.52pm - Final whistle; Oxford 2 Leyton Orient 3; Oxford are relegated to the Conference and Orient are promoted. I walk out of the ground, I'm not interested in watching the Orient celebrations. Certainly not interested in the lap of honour some Oxford fans think their players deserve.
5.00pm - Nobby phones and rants about the referee and linesman. Some of it I agree with, some I don't. At the end of the day, crap football probably deserves crap refereeing.
5.00pm-5.40pm - Drive home. Listening to the radio the commentators are saying that fans need time to 'collect their thoughts' and 'reflect on what's happened'. It's like someone has died. Given my day, this is all a bit bemusing. Nobby comes on the phone-in repeating his views about the referee. He's cut off moments before he gives a shout out to Millie so they can interview the Oxford manager.
5.45pm - Get home. Watch telly. Have bath. Watch more telly.
8.00pm - Phone for a curry, not sure I really want it, but I should eat. It'll be 25 minutes. Catch opening scene of Friends, fall asleep.
8.40pm - Wake up, realise that I'm fifteen minutes late for collecting my curry. Go and get it. Eat it. Watch some of Match of the Day. Fall asleep. Wake up as Match of the Day finishes. Go to bed.

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Labels: Babies, Football

For the second time in six months my Powerbook has had to go in for repair. This time the backlight has stopped working making the screen too dark to see.

As before I phoned the Apple helpline and was instantly transported to a call centre somewhere in the world. I find being consumed by global corporations disconcerting. Its not natural to phone a helpdesk in California, talk to someone, then ring back five minutes later to continue the exact same conversation with someone completely different in Mumbai. This is magnified further by the fact it’s Apple, who are little short of a religious cult in computing terms.

Last time I chose to send the Powerbook off for repair; within what felt like minutes a man from UPS with a Powerbook sized box appeared on the doorstep and took it away. Days later it reappeared all fixed. In between I watched its progress via Apple’s repair tracking service online.

Brilliant though the process was, I found the experience quite troubling. It was too slick an inhuman.

This time I talked to Priya, who then helpfully sent me emails I couldn’t properly see (because my backlight isn’t working) these explained what we’d been doing. She was later joined by ‘David’ a product specialist who didn’t speak. Instead, Priya ended every sentence with “David agrees”. I wondered whether David was really there, or whether they can achieve greater credibility amongst middle Americans if every “foriegner” is supported by someone resolutely Christian.

Priya: “How can I help you today?”
Me: “When I turn on my computer the back light flickers, then it goes off so I can’t see the screen anymore.”
P: “OK, can you do a hardware test.”
Me: “I would, but I can’t see the pointer on the screen to move it to start the test”
P: “OK, let’s recap, you have a flickering screen problem, a backlight problem, and no pointer.”
Me: “There all part of the same problem, there’s no problem with the pointer, it’s just I can’t see the screen properly because the backlights not working.”
P: “David believes you have a hardware problem, but we haven’t isolated the pointer problem.”

I was tempted to throw in a few random words to see if Priya would process them.

"Yes and when I check my email I can't CHICKEN IN WELLINGTON BOOTS when I then hit send"
"Let me recap, you have a back light problem, a flickering screen, no pointer and a chicken in wellington boots?"
"Yes."
"We haven't isolated the chicken in wellington boots"
"Surely that's the easiest bit; Chickens can't go very fast in wellington boots"

Eventually David concluded, and then told Priya who then told me that the PowerBook should come in for repair. I chose the option to use one of their local service centres (basically a computer shop with a licence to fix Apple products). I phoned one in High Wycombe, there was no answer, as it was a bank holiday I wasn’t surprised, in fact I was rather comforted by the poor service.

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Labels: Technology