It's all gone quiet over there

My new routine means I do not get any time to do "normal" things like blogging.  For my regular readers (and you are out there somewhere), you will know I am no longer working in London, but instead near Epsom.  This means I am back to driving to work, four days a week for the first few weeks.  The commute is around 1.5 hours each way, so a fair old drive, but I am catching up on all my podcasts, and have just finished a great story CD, so I am happy.  This routine is fairly short-term I think since firstly, as I get to understand my new customer, I won't have to be at their offices as much, and secondly because within the next 4-6 months, the account will be moving to a Starfleet office much nearer to my home.  Once that move happens, I will be in clover.

Now I am rather pleased with this next bit, since it also ties in to title, sort of.  I want to mention the fine establishment of Portsmouth Football club, since we have had the title song sung at us a few times, along with a few other choice medleys.  Over the last 4 years, we have experienced the highs (FA Cup Winners), and the lows.  The lowest of the lows was only twelve days ago when the administrator, in what is now interpreted as a game of chicken, or sh!t or bust as we call it down South, announced that the club was twenty four hours from going bust.  This piece of brinkmanship was done, so us commentators believe, to force one of our old owners to sign up to "the plan".  Within a day the said owner had indeed signalled his intention to sign said "plan", and the club is saved.  

Combine that good news with what we are achieving on the pitch, something that got a bit lost in the smoke for a while, then you have the best good news story a football fan could wish for.  We simply cannot stop winning, and our squad, thin as it is, does seem to be really doing something special in the teamwork and togetherness department.  

Now this may sound daft, but for me, I would like it to stay like this for a while.  By that I mean I wish we could stay in the Championship for a couple more years, get stable, enjoy some success, and then look to get back in to the Premiership.  However, money and ambition are kings, which means there is already talk of us getting in to the play-offs this year.  I almost cannot bear the thought of going for promotion, again.  This means us getting a larger squad, which means paying top dollar for better players so the squad is strengthened as well as enlarged, which means the wages will go up, which makes the stakes higher, then we get promoted, have to buy half a squad of Premiership players, wages go up, the stakes get even higher, we still only have a nineteen thousand capacity stadium, so our gate revenue remains that of a low Championship/high Div 1 club.  Then, sometime in the future, when we are on our second or third owner, and the money is drying up, we get caught up in the same kind of mess from which we have just got clear.  Now I am in the acceptance camp when it comes to the many cycles of life, but really, do I want to go through this again?

What a difference a day (or two) makes

I am, of course, talking about football.  On Saturday, Fabio said he still believes we can reach the final.  Which is interestingly when his bonus clause kicks on apparently.  But I squirrel.  On Sunday, at 5pm, we thought it was all over, and by wotsit was it over.  I fear the economic recovery will be slowed as a result.

I really am not sure I have the answer.  Many have made the comment that they are paid too much, although from my little poll, this was predominantly from Daily Mail readers.  I don't believe that particularly.  I agree they are paid a lot, and maybe that is too much, however they are more than competitive for their clubs, albeit the British teams were not so hot in the Champion's League.  So the vast sums of money they are being paid does not really affect them during their domestic season.

Maybe they did not respond well to Fabio's strict regime.  I would say that they are mostly over-grown school boys anyway, indeed they often do go straight from the cloistered environment of school to the equally cloistered environment of a football club, so this should feel like normal life for them.

And let's not forget that under Sven Goren Erikson, we concluded that their failure was to do with the relaxed atmosphere filled with the inane giggling of WAGs.

Maybe it is because we don't have a Winter break.  I need this explaining to me, because if they have two weeks off at Christmas, doesn't the season end two weeks later, unless they are going to trim some games somehow.  I vote for getting rid of one of the cup tournaments

So, this is my blueprint for success:

• make them pay for the pleasure of playing.  Nothing too extortionate, maybe a month's salary
• employ a manager who is strict but not too strict, and relaxed by not too relaxed, and British this time me thinks
• Allow WAGs in to the compound, but only if they can score a penalty, or can gargle the National Anthem whilst downing a pint of Strongbow
• Only pick players who have not played much during the season, you know, injuries, drug rehabilitation, that kind of thing, so they are not tired
• pay the manager on the average going rate for a decent football manager.  Do not, under any circumstances, pay him, or her, double what everyone else is getting.  And forget about bonuses, they are for bankers and other pugnacious larrikins.  And finally, but most importantly, have some clause in the contract that enables you to avoid paying them off with 3 years' salary when you want to get rid of them.

One last thing to report.  I have seen my first iPhone 4 in the wild.  And I can confirm that it is quite literally just a phone with a touch screen.  I did not touch it of course, because I do not have a licence, or as a colleague suggested, because I do have a, you know, winkie.  I have no idea what he was suggesting, but it made everyone laugh so I thought it worth mentioning.  I think Golfy would be very proud, since I can confirm two things about him; firstly, he does not have an iPhone 4 either, and secondly, he does have a, you know, winkie.  Although on the last point the graffiti on the Worcester toilet wall does suggest that it has, how shall we say, shrunk in the wash*.  It doesn't stop him being a jolly decent chap, but it does maybe explain why he possesses an iPhone 3. 

* As I often say, and my lawyer has suggested I say again, you cannot sue if it is funny.

A day of rest, or two

Well folks, what a fantastic weekend we had.  We have been so blinking busy of late that we just needed a weekend when we had nothing on.  And this weekend was that weekend.

Saturday AM was spent as a Parent-and-Child science morning at Maggot 1's school, which was greatly enjoyed by all.  The school have been working on capturing the children's imagination, and they have done this by delivering a box of unknown stuff to each class (even teacher did not know what was in the box) for them to do experiments.  Any experiments.

So on Saturday, we were presented with a whole load of trifle-related ingredients.  Whole trifles in tubs, squirty cream, those funny little finger buscuits your gran puts or put in to her trifles, custard and a lot of other incidental ingredients.  There was also proper science stuff like pipettes, stop clocks, thermometers and other stuff that, had we been wearing one, we would have definitely put in the pocket of our white lab coat.

Our goal was simply to invent an experiment.  The science lady asked us to think "what changes, and what stays the same", and with a few words of encouragement from the school science lead, off we went.

Our first experiment was to test the absorbency of finger biscuits with various different liquids.  Surprising the vinegar was the most absorbent.  Who would have thought it?  Or really care?

Our second experiment was how far different amounts of cream on a biscuit splattered when a 1Kg weight was dropped from a height of 30cm.  That was really just coz we needed to make some mess.

The rest of the day was spent at home, doing stuff, some of it even classifiable as chores, but all making us feel more in control and with some important things off our to do list.

Oh, and of course there was a footy match to watch.  More words have been written about that already than had previously existed in the whole history of the planet, so I will keep my comments brief.

1.  How we played - not bad, could do better, key players performed under-par, so look out world when they have a good game.

2.  The USA goal - poor old Green, reckon he has the strength to recover, is probably an OK goalie, and certainly did a great save in the second half.  Having said that, I am a Pompey fan, so not too unhappy if the big man Jammo gets the next game.

3.  Will we win the cup - doubt it.  Happy to hope.  That is the English curse.  Always looking for hope to triumph over experience.

Have a good week.

So here we are then

Spending Tuesday to Thursday in London is a very intense experience.  I do at least a week's work in those three days, yet I also have a day either end working at home which is obviously still work, but does seem like overtime.  All that is to say, today is Friday but it most definitely feels like Saturday.  And we all know what a bummer feeling that is.

Today is, of course, the first day of the 2010 World Cup.  Only if you have been living on another planet, or Gloucester* as we Londoners** call it, can you have missed the fact that we are about to enter three weeks of either "glorious sporting endeavour" or "the wost three weeks of the summer, but never mind, I need to tidy up the loft and paint the kitchen anyway", depending on which side of the spherical divide you sit.

Me?  I love it.  I have to admit that somewhere through the first week the prospect of three games of football in one day between teams I have no interest in does pale slightly, however overall it is a delicious prospect, and I do rather enjoy all the spectacle and the buzz that is created amongst the England-supporting members of the community.  I even love flags, which would probably rank as an extreme social faux pas were I not already a self-confessed 'vanner, and I expect we will have one or two around the house.  It's not for me, it is for my children of course.  I am just trying to work out if I can dye the lawn in my back garden with a red cross, and must remember to borrow the ladder off my dad so I can fit the ten metre square roof-top tarpaulin***.


Tomorrow, England play their first game.  We had planned a family pizza and footy session, but Maggot 1 has just been invited to a sleep-over birthday bash, so we are recording it to watch on Sunday.  Obviously that will be "watch it for the second time" for us adults, but don't tell the children.


Have a good weekend, speak next week, and ...

... COME ON ENGLAND!!!!

------------------------------------------------------

*  Remember, you can't sue if it is funny.

** Did you notice that?  I have only been and gone and called myself a Londoner.  Whatever next?

*** Remember, as long as it is funny****, you don't need to be truthful either.
**** Humour is, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder.

PUP PPU

I am not a true fan.

How can I even show my face round here.

How could I have forgotten the most important thing that happened this weekend.


POMPEY ARE
IN THE
FA CUP FINAL

Obviously I do need to apologise firstly to any Spurs supporters. Sorry for giving you our manager, our deputy manager, half a backroom and most of our good players, just as they turned not so good (I know, that bit is a lie). Mostly, I am sorry for the pitch cutting up only where your players were standing or, in the case of Dawson, sitting.

Anyhow, enough of the fun banter (eh? Ed), what a fantastic thing for every Pompey supporter, and every neutral, and even a couple of the Spurs fans.

We face some other London club in the final. Talk is they were the same shirts as our boys, and they are a bit handy, although they are also a bit over-paid. Well, whatever happens, win or lose, BRING IT ON

My only fear is what we now do for the remaining 6 league games. There are some dodgy rules about playing the second team, but we really must ensure our best players stay fit, get match practice, but stay uninjured. We cannot afford even one more injury to our threadbare squad. Maybe we should give them all 1950s football boots, with all the strength, padding and protection needed to keep our lads' feet safe. So what if they look like a deep sea diver's boots. So what if they slow people down. WE ARE IN THE FINAL.

Play up Pompey, Pompey Play Up

Easter is over.... sort of

We had a lovely day yesterday. Went to church for the Easter Sunday service which, if truth be told, was half an hour too long. Father Stuart is prone to talking a lot, or including lots of sections that draw out the service.
We were just on time (which equals late really) and had to separate in to two pairs. I got off lightly, sitting with maggot 1 who was very well behaved. LO was not so lucky with maggot 2 who, in fairness, has always had a 40 minute attention span, so the second half of the service was an ordeal, made worse because they were not sitting in their usual places, so were therefore sitting next to some of the more elderly members of the congregation. I believe there were a few silent tuts.

Then we had 10 for lunch. After an unfortunate potato peeling incident, I peeled what I thought was way too many potatoes, but by the end of the meal all the main course food had gone. It must have been all that running around outside playing a "football match". At least there was plenty of puddings left for later eating.
The lawn is absolutely knackered, but no point spending too much effort on it this side of the extension, but more of that another day.

We don't have much on today, so I hope to spend a bit of time in the garden, pruning an over-hanging apple tree that, in the autumn, is prone to dropping hundreds of apples on my lawn, which are a pain to keep picking up. I will also try and get the maggots inspired to do a bit of maintenance on the trampoline, which needs some green algae cleaned off the bottom of the net, and some general repairs to both net and spring padding.