...ruffles...

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

This week we will have a baby; this will change our lives forever. Everything will tilt on its axis, and I will be responsible for keeping a little person alive.

Next weekend if Oxford win at home to Leyton Orient we stay up. If we don't we are no longer a football league team. An Oxford win would mean we'd have 52 points. Then the loser of the Notts County Vs Bury game will go down; if it's a draw then Notts County go down because of their inferior goal difference. That's if Stockport, Barnet, Torquay and Macclesfield don't go lose and Notts get at least a point. Then one of that quartet will go down, probably Stockport, unless they win in which any of the other three will have to look over their shoulders nervously. For Oxford its simple, we just have to win. They're at home, and they're playing Leyton Orient. If Orient win they will be promoted. This makes them a. good and b. determined. Expecting a win is a big assumption, but at least its simple.

It's not the thought of Oxford slipping into the black hole of the Conference that concerns me. Many teams come back to the football league rejuvenated, and Oxford have a good set up so I wouldn't expect the stay to be that long (that's not to say we'll walk it next season, though that may be the assumption). It may be an opportunity to refresh things. The Conference is mostly professional and not that different to League 2. Its the tour of ignominy and humiliation that we will undertake if we drop down; playing Canvey Island, competing in the FA Trophy and qualifying for the FA Cup. For now, the humiliation isn't a factor, we know we've been rubbish, we've been through defeat after defeat; other fans telling us this doesn't register. Now we've set up this cup final scenario its exciting and I'm looking forward to it.

Now, I know the two events aren't comparable, but I've never had a baby and I've watched Oxford since I was three. This makes them both significant. I know where my priorities lie, should the baby start to come on Friday or Saturday, I know I'll be at the hospital not on in my seat at the Kassam. I know there will be those out there who are not interested in babies or football and who will read this in bewilderment. All I can say is that the timing is terrible and its building up a lot of nervous tension.

Not much is happening at work, thank god, because it's going to be quite a week.

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Labels: Football

Mining to the bottom of Emma's mum's daftness is a thankless and endless task, but it may be worth dedicating a whole website to it, if I wasn't dedicating a whole website to me that is. Aside from announcing that the cat has leukaemia and identifying my iPod as a baby monitor much of her time is spent letter writing. Usually this involves writing to Marks and Spencer to complain about how their pleated skirts are not navy but dark blue. She once wrote to the Times in response to an article about Eddie Stobart trucks to say she preferred Nobert Dentressangle. She even wrote to the head of a large charity to complain that the gold medals given to the best fundraisers was a misappropriation of charitable funds, the head of the charity being the Queen.

She reads This England; 'Britain's loveliest magazine' a fanzine 'celebrating' an England of yore; of teas, vicars and white people. The England they depict is based on a complete fantasy of harmony and nobility where the global empire was based on the exportation of scones and music hall. They don't like shopping centres, baseball caps and foreigners. Every day is sunny in This England; and slightly racist and jingoistic. Emma's mum doesn't see it, she just sees its loveliness.

Word reaches us that she's now decided to join The University of the Third Age, a community for the retired. Technically its for for those 'no longer in full time gainful employment'. Presumably the term 'economically useless' wasn't appropriate. A quick scan of their website reveals that the Lincoln chapter's programme of events is scrabble, history and bird watching. Go to Peterborough, however, for Shakespeare, patchwork, geological matters and swimming on Monday mornings alone. You actually have to apply to join the, *cough*, U3A; not everyone gets in. Emma's mum is applying because she 'never went to University', I think she knows that this isn't a real university, but she may be in for a shock if my suspicions about links to swinging and scientology are in any way founded.

* please note picture not Emma's mum

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Labels: General me

Still nothing. There was progress on Sunday when Emma experienced something inelegant that signalled something was happening. Ater that, nothing, nada, nowt. This movement eased the midwife’s mania for an internal prod, she was more interested in what Emma was wearing. The girls at yesterdays baby class coffee morning agreed that she shouldn’t be pushed into anything she wasn’t comfortable with, so the waiting game continues. This advice may change at today’s baby class coffee morning. Or next Wednesdays.

This advice could be from The Maker himself in comparison to Emma’s mum’s imparted wisdom this week. On Friday, 24 hours before the due date, she scared Emma silly by declaring with some vigour that the cat had Feline Leukaemia (prompting me to ask, with more vigour, ‘exactly how many years of veterinary training have you done?’). This was followed up yesterday with her saying that our new baby monitor was very neat… a baby monitor that is, in fact, my iPod.

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Labels: Babies

A extract from Chris Waddle's expert analysis of the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Chelsea on the radio on Saturday...

Commentator: "Free kick to Liverpool just outside the box, Riise, Alonso and Gerrard are over the ball"

Waddle: "This isn't for Riise, its more a free kick for a right footer for me."

Commentator: "There's a lot of jostling in the wall, Makele has broken off ready to charge the ball down."

Waddle: "I hope they're not going to tap it, Makele will be two feet from it by the time they hit it, it'll be a massive waste."

Commentator: "Riise taps it to Gerrard who tees is up for Riise who curls it round Makele... GOOOOAAAAALLLLL!"

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Labels: Football

Today is supposed to be The Day, although all is quiet so far. Admittedly I'm sitting blogging this with headphones on listening to my first mix created on Ableton Live; which may be available as a download in enormous file-o-vision soon. I s'pose Emma could be upstairs rolling around in agony; but I doubt it. I'll go check in a bit, if I've got the time.

The midwife seems very keen to get the baby out before the bank holiday; maybe she has plans. She seemed a little disappointed that Emma's bump is not yet hard (and therefore ripe). Her solution, it seems, is to threaten bigger, more intrusive and rustier implements, all in the hope that Emma will be able to reach a pact with the baby and get pushin'

The baby is relatively (though not unhealthily) small which means it won't grow to the size of a small teenager as the days tick by, its also perfectly positioned for exit so there's nothing to worry about. it's not usual to go 10 days over.

The baby group had seven bumps, we have news that two have popped. The first to arrive was the last due; four and a half weeks early. At some point I will get onto the baby group's obsession with coffee mornings, but in the meantime, I go to the football, we wait.

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Labels: Babies

I can't let the day pass without marking the 20th anniversary of Oxford United's greatest ever day. Oxford beat QPR 3-0 to win the Milk Cup at Wembley in front of 100,000 people. I was 13, it was my first visit to Wembley and it was vast.

Oxford fans still sing "When Shots* went up to win the Milk Cup we were there, we were there" when you know most weren't. I was though, with my flag, Oxford shirt and my silky blue and yellow flatcap. I looked like a teenage football casual. Well, it was the 80's.

I still remember driving down the M40 with 35,000 Oxford fans, watching the Oxford team bus steam past with a police escort, seeing Trevor Hebberd take about twenty minutes to line up his shot and put away the first goal and being worried about losing despite being 3-0 up with 5 minutes to go.

Great days. Dad had watched Oxford since their non-league days so the transformation was even more startling. We're now 3 points off the bottom of League 2 with three games to go, it's not inconceivable that I too will be able to boast that I've seen the mighty U's at Wembley and Woking.

* Shots was Malcolm Shotton, the Oxford captain.

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Labels: Football

The house has never been more sorted out. You can walk in straight lines from a to b. There are no piles of washing, extraneous cables, cobwebs or rogue pasta swirls crunching under foot on the kitchen floor. We are ready to receive a baby.

The last remaining room to be sorted out was the cupboard under the stairs. We got everything out, had arguments about the difference between what things are worth and what they cost (old dresses are not worth £300, they cost £300, they are only worth £300 if someone is prepared to pay £300 for them) and threw away 38 bottles of booze (mostly free wine they give away with at the Chinese takeaway). The kitchen was a mess of ironing boards, laptop bags, paint pots and videos which had things like “Dirty Dancing – do not erase” written on the side.

At this point Emma announced that she was having an ‘unusual twinge’. I pleaded for her to not go into labour because a) there was junk everywhere and b) giving birth in the cupboard under the stairs would present a raft of unique problems not considered at the ante natal class.

“It’ll be fine”, she said, “Jesus was born in a stable”.

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Labels: Babies

Any of you who uses my feed to keep up with this site, and you should, it's terribly clever, you'll be impressed by my prolific morning of updates. Hundreds of them. You may also be disappointed to see the net result of all this work being this measily post. Sorry, I've been doing a bit of maintenence on my archives and hitting update blog too much. You won't see any differences unless you look really hard, but it makes me feel better.

And for anyone who thought I had a car crash on Monday (see post below). I didn't, IT WAS A METAPHOR.

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Labels: General me

There are few greater experiences than a car crash Monday. Its what happens when you exit Sunday too quickly, usually having been propelled by a fantastic Saturday, or in this case, Friday. This weekend spat me out at a such a velocity I don't think I landed until Monday lunchtime.

Friday was Katie and James' superb wedding, surrounded by my favourite people in the whole world. Saturday was our baby class, which despite all expectations to the contrary, has been excellent. We are now fully licenced to turn our lives inside out. Then I had a sleep deprived out of body experience at the football, which was absolute garbage, but I no don't care. Saturday night was more time with my favourite people (sadly not all of them, this time). Sunday, I had to endure some extreme nesting from Emma (which basically involves smashing the house to pieces), then over to mum and dad's for dinner, then...

Petoowee! car crash Monday. Ace. Again! Again!

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Labels: Friends

Ah bless, one cherubic poster on the Depeche Mode message board was ruing the fact so few people turned up to Friday's NEC gig in iconic Violator era Dave Gahan leather jacket, Aviator sunglasses and white jeans. Apparently this was his garb du jour. Some years ago it wasn't unusual to see Depeche fans dressed like this, but now they're defined by their girth, not their dress. Many still wear tour merchandise of various vintages (generally speaking Devotional t-shirts have survived years of wash and wear best) but most freakish obsessives limit themselves to comedy Gestapo leather coats because they're more slimming than white vests.

Despite the tired, lazy, media coverage about their doom laden Essex boy electro pop, The Mode still give great show. It's a little grungier than the polished electronica from the first time we saw them sixteen years ago, but sometimes its good to indulge in proper portentous stadium rock. Gahan makes no excuses for his well rehearsed rock god performance; happy to lead an arms in the air clap-a-thon or screech "C'MOWN!" in an odd LA drawl. He appears to have added a subtle Spanish theme to his stage show for this tour, and a 'bolted horsey' foxtrot. Ah well, he's 44, even he has to be embarrassing dad once in a while.

Of course he's supported by the awkward, but brilliant, Martin Gore who now seems permanently attached to his lead guitar. Conversely, the band's other stalwart, Andy Fletcher, sticks with what he knows; bouncing behind his space aged console on lead, em, Excel. His presence on stage disguising the fact his principle role is actually as the band's accountant.

The beauty of stadium rock is its slickness; video, song and sensible health and safety regulations meld as one. Films of demure, usually half naked, models bathed in brooding coloured light are interlaced with live action band close ups that reveal years of drug abuse and peculiar sex are not without consequence. Like the venue, the show is convenient, safe and well thought through. The live drums and guitar mean they're a bit more ragged than usual; they have to restart Personal Jesus after attempting to play the whole song in the intro, but even this cock up is suspiciously slick. In the end the set is predictable; a song from the new album, an couple of classics, a couple more songs from the new album, then classics right through to the encore; pop gems Just Can't Get Enough and Everything Counts are rounded off by the ever tumultuous Never Let Me Down Again. At the end Gore and Gahan stroll out to a small stage in the middle of the arena to do the ballad Goodnight Lovers. Its an unusual choice to end a show, but it reveals that, perhaps for the first time in years, they seem to enjoy playing together. Art, its not. A stupendous night out? Well, yes.

The baby enjoyed the show, dancing most to Enjoy The Silence. Emma, just three weeks from the pop, hobbled valiantly from the car park to the arena over a walkway. On the way back one of the stewards stopped us from going back the same way; "You're not walking over there again, I saw you coming down. There's a shortcut down there, ask my mate (another steward) to show you". The pain and suffering seemed to capture the mood perfectly.

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Labels: Music

Penny was a 16 stone teenager
Jo was a teenage goth
Katie is the member of a mafia family running a small Buckinghamshire village
Willy rents her husband from an agency

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Labels: Friends

I've heard some stupid things shouted at football matches, but Saturday capped it all. The triumphant return of Jim Smith to Oxford lit up what would have been a drab end of season meander against Peterborough, that's Peterborough in Cambridgeshire. Half way through the first half the Oxford crowd quietened, allowing the 'borough fans an opportunity to sing out. The bloke behind me shouted...

"SHUT UP YOU COCKNEY SOUNDING TWATS"

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Labels: Football

Although I like the idea of community hospitals and community shops; I'm not really a community person. I don't find myself on committees campaigning for new flower beds to be placed in the middle of the road or saving historic wheelbarrows (used by some dead bloke during the war). I guess I'm the kind of person that's destroying communities, I live in my own bubble of friends and family and shop at Tesco. My non-community milieu is probably the reason I have little need for community centres.

The uncomfortable plastic chairs and scuffed magnolia paint job was exactly what I expected, but probably not for the spiritual contemplation that was to be our ante natal class. I wasn't sure what to expect to be honest (which didn't help given that the first session was to write down what we expected). My only reference point was the midwife who made thinly veiled comments about how National Childbirth Trust classes would be more appropriate for people of our, ahem, background. This made me think that we might end up spending hours discussing homeopathic remedies and chi... on a Saturday morning.

The session opened with a bit of getting to know you. Whilst the girls compared twinges, the men made lame jokes about football, pints and pies; posturing whilst sounding each other out.. I can't remember who broke the deadlock of actually admitting we did care and that we weren't there under duress, but when it happened we all loosened up.

Thankfully, it wasn't all beanbags and scented candles, the class was pretty straightforward; we had lots pictures of wombs and foetuses in that 'Joy of Sex' 1970's line drawing style and simply worked through the birthing process. Some people were able to quote the parts of the womb in Latin and support their arguments with a rich supply of statistics and research papers, some (me) looked blankly and cracked jokes.

People I know who have done these classes have talked about the friends they've made through it. Personally I was wary of being enveloped in a little clique of baby bores. It's nothing like that, thankfully, it's a good group that's happy to have a laugh at what is a whole world of goop and poo. Maybe I am a bit of a community person after all.

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Labels: Babies

Emma’s grandma offered us a plethora of parenting advice yesterday, my favourites were:

‘Of course, you get no joy from your first’ (number of children she had? One)

‘Well, in my day Family Allowance was a Crown a week, nowadays they get POUNDS!’

The latter comment sparked a(nother) diatribe about the state of the social welfare system. Apparently people now get their benefits delivered 'to their door' (these people being all lazy good-for-nothings). When asked if she went to the Post Office to collect her pension she replied “Oh no dear, I get it paid straight into the bank”.

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Labels: Babies

I like the Money Programme's pop economics editorial policy - analysing the strategies of Tesco rather than meticulously tracking the nuances of futures and derivatives. Their slightly one dimensional analysis of Fifty Cent's 'business empire' was a bit of a let down though. It seemed to have been driven almost exclusively by the fact they'd managed to gain a brief audience with the man himself. For this read; they stood around some palatial hotel room while he absent mindedly played his own PS2 game. The programme basically concluded that Fiddy made a lot of money by putting his name to a lot of merchandise. This was validated by asking a self-confessed Fiddy obsessive, Chanice. They asked whether she would buy a pair of trainers with his name on. The answer was, it seems, yes, which is strange that from an obsessive fan. The conclusion was neither damning, praising or explanatory, the 50 Cent success story was just, y'know, a thing.

Lucien, a brand consultant with a public school education and an American drawl who pronounced leverage as beverage not lever as diva, concluded that Mr Cent had a gangster image, made a lot of money and that the corporations who associated with him may be taking a risk but it may be one that's worth taking. Thank you Lucien. DJ Semtex was equally enlightening when trying to explain why McDonalds had failed to attract a hip hop star to endorse their burgers. His explanation went something like "McDonalds, like, no way, its wack". They failed to mention that Destiny's Child and Justin Timberlake had both been successfully recruited by Maccy D; admittedly they're not very hip hop, but they are very big.

Chanice's mum didn't mind her daughter's obsession with the ex-drug dealing gangster so much (although she doesn't like it when he says "Mother F"). She said that 'he's only reflecting what's happening on the streets'. Really? asked the presenter who they'd deliberately dressed in achingly conservative brogues and Thomas Pink shirts. "Yes", said Chanice's mum, "In Rainham", she qualified with some force. They live in Gillingham, where presumably drive-by shootings are less frequent.

This is a common assertion made by hip hop stars, that their gansta flow is street commentary. But this makes no sense, Fifty Cent isn't reflecting what's happening on the streets. The reason he's hauled moderate talent onto a world stage is because he's been shot nine times. It's a fantastical story upon which an all action vigilante image has been built. He seems like quite a nice guy and understands his business, which helps; but the reason we know he's been shot nine times because most people are not shot nine times in their lifetime. He may be able to mumble humourlessly about his own life, but he's not reflecting what's happening in everyone else's life. If being shot nine times were a reflection of what's typically happening in the world; it would be the equivalent of me leveraging the fact I shop at Tesco in order to foster a multi-million pound music career.

On the otherhand, if Fiddy can rap about Candy Shops, maybe there is something to lever here... "I'm going to the Tesco shop, it has adequately varied stock"

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Labels: Music