Thanks, Bridesmaid, like the beard

Attended naughty driving school yesterday and was surprised by how bl**dy useful and informative it was. Most people there had the same cheesed off attitude as I held on arrival ("Tsk, what an inconvenience, i was only doing 93 in a 20 zone"), perhaps because being sent to Keynsham for the afternoon felt like punishment enough. Some folk had travelled down from London, which also seemed a bit harsh. There was also a very annoying Bristolian in attendance, who had the most local accent you'd never wish to hear,(seriously it was terrible, like a pirate's wench or something). Anyhoo, the afternoon showed me that I had forgotten nearly all of the highway code. i think the course should be compulsory for all drivers every ten years or something, 'cos as Rocky said, "If you can change and I can change, etc. Adriannnn!!"

Spent a couple of nights down Steeple Morden's finest (and only) pub, the Waggon on Friday and Saturday evening. Good to catch up with everyone, and glad to hear the beard get the stamp of approval from most folk. Mr Linngoo managed to grab tickets for the Arsenal - Fenerbahce game on November 5th for a few of us so that's something to look forward to. With Arsenal's membership scheme you're often left sitting on your tod, but thankfully we can all cuddle together on bonfire Night for a change.

Some very drunken people were in the pub for karaoke on Saturday, really bad, wobbling then singing, one guy (who I believe was a Tottenham fan) seemed to have completely lost control of his 'wind duct' and was depositing smelly flappy woof woofs all over the place, yuk. Headed back to the Hasler compound about midnight for some chat, coffee and a brilliant 'dub dance' from Kristian. Walked back past the pub at 3am and it was still open, ahh village life...

As I mention in the above paragraphs, it was a blinding weekend back east, with the obvious exception of the Arsenal match. Unbelievable (Jeff), it was a sunny day, had a lovely couple of pints with Rich and Dave before hand. what could possibly go wrong? One of football's worse enemies - complacency. I wonder if back in the day, if Morden Magpies under 15's had the same level of belief in ourselves (and the defensive abilities of Philip Winston and Daniel Horne) we would we have lost 43-0 to Standalone? That said, we can always cling to that magical 3-2 victory over St Thomas' Colts at the Rec, they were chasing the Royston Crow League Championship, whilst The Magpies were sitting near the bottom. I grabbed an early goal, then dynamic midfielder Ben Chapman added a brace to give us a shock, but wonderful victory. As Ben wheeled away in celebration after heading in his second, Daniel Brown was heard to utter "I want to sh*g you!". Ben left the club soon afterwards...

Return of an irregular feature now, as Dudley ex-pat Brian Stevens returns with one of his lovely gags:

a couple are about to tee off a round of golf. the husbands turns to his wife:

"now listen.....i cannot afford to pay for any more broken windows...so for god's sake try to keep the ball on the golf course this time ok??"

"no problem," she replies, and tees off. the ball shoots straight over some trees and an enourmous CRASH is heard.

"jesus wept," the husband cries, and runs to inspect the damage.

the couple find the ball in the hallway of a huge mansion, having smashed clean through the bay window. a man is standing amongst the broken glass, scratching his head.

"i am so sorry sir," the husband stutters to the man, "my wife is always doing this and it's costing me a fortune!"

"do not worry," reassures the housekeeper, "for i am a genie, and your wife's golfball smashed straight through the window, knocked my lamp off the shelf, and released me. i now owe you a wish, and you must allow me one in return. you may choose first."

the husband thinks, and says "could i be a millionaire please?? my wife costs me a fortune in broken glass and golfballs."

"very well!" says the genie. "now my turn. i have been locked in that lamp for 1000 years, and i am horny...i wish to take your wife upstairs and have my way with her...then you will recieve your million pounds."

the man thinks long and hard, for he loves his wife very much, but needs the money.

"erm...okay i guess.." he says.

the genie and the man's wife go upsatirs, and she gets the ravashing of her lifetime. lying in bed together, the genie reaches for a cigarette, and the wife happily takes one.

"you smoke??!?" she says.

"yes," replies the genie, "now my question. how old are you??"

"i'm 33." she replies.

"and how old is your husband?" he asks, smoking contentedly.

"he's 37." she says.

"really....?" he says. "...and he still believes in genies????!?"

Roll up, Roll up

Hello again and welcome back. Had a blinding birthday this week, Brian did an excellent write up on our night out on Saturday here. Thanks for filling in some of the gaps, Bri. It's a very funny read, even if you have no interest in what we did, my birthday or any of my friends.

The party continues this weekend, I hear there is karaoke down the Waggon on Saturday, dunno if i should sing. There was a little karaoke room in the club we were in last Saturday night, I tried to sing 'South of Heaven' by Slayer, but gave up after one verse as the lyrics are a bit, well, nasty.

There's a massive new shopping mall thing opening in the centre of Brizzle today, 'Cabot Circus' even has a Harvey Nichols. I can just imagine all the Vicky Pollard lookalikes (of which there are thousands, honestly, you wouldn't believe it) barging their way in, muffin tops a' showin', pushing their 9-berth prams asking where the Waggon Wheels are...

As mentioned earlier, am heading Eastside again this weekend, primarily to see Arsenal for the first time this season against Hull. What a result on Tuesday night, Vela looked red hot and it can't be long until Wilshere is seen more in the first team. Those two shone in pre-season and seem to have just picked up where they left off. Hate Sheffield Utd btw, especially that thug Chris Morgan (who punched RvP a couple of years ago but got away with it), my friend Nathan also got punched a few years ago up there, long may they rot in the lower divisions.

The ridiculous case going on between them, the Premier League and West Ham is another shambles blighting football. I feel it's one of the great flaws of the transfer window and especially deadline day that these so-called 'dodgy deals' are rushed through then ramified by the Premier Leaguie in the first place. Surely checking the 'ownership' of the player is vital to the completion of a transfer? Didn't they realise that the Media Sports Investment Group owned the player and the transfer could therefore be illegal? No, let's get more star names into the Premier League, no-one will bother to look too deep into this one, eh? Oh.

Newcastle, eh? The fans want rid of the cockney mafia, now Terry Venables has been linked, he's the effin' Godfather! Also, it seems they've fallen victim to the old 'Nigerian Prince' email scam, wonder if they'll have to supply their bank account details in order for the funds to be transferred? You really couldn't make it up.

"Let's go up there and blast him out of bed with a fire hose"

Birthday week starts tomorrow with a Sopranos style bash in Bath's finest Italian eatery, Martini Ristorante. First night out in Bath for frickin' ages, be nice to see everyone amd meet Pod the Rod's new ladyfriend, looking forward to giving him a big cuddle after the tragedy of his Amsterdam nightmare. I hope Marcus has recovered from his pensioner-style fall last week; his jaw was a bit stiff last Sunday, it nearly fell off whilst we were watching a particular ball-bouncingly funny scene from Family Guy last week (the episode where Peter,Stewie, Chris and Brian drink some **** and see who can stay the longest without throwing up), poor fella.

Champions League footie returned this week; happy with a point in Kiev, even though Arsenal should have wrapped things up before half time. Van Persie and Adebayor were both guilty of missing decent chances; both RVP's fell on his right foot unfortunately (still not really an excuse), whilst Ade seemed to be wearing his jester's booties in front of goal. Our away game triple header concludes tomorrow at Bolton, oh joy. I really hope Bolton go down this year, this fan still hasn't forgiven them for assaulting half our team in 2003.

Refereeing decisions have been in the spotlight this week. I have no idea why John 'untouchable' Terry's red card was rescinded following an appeal; he rugby tackled an opposing player, which is serious foul play and should result in a red card. But no, after Mark Halsey had the cahones to send him off, his punishment is to be relegated to officiate in League Two, whilst Terry will appear before the Sky cameras this Sunday against Man Utd. Additionally, Danny Guthrie's basic assault on Craig Fagan (which resulted in Fagan breaking his leg), will only carry a 3 match ban, staggering.

Some cracking music coming out at the mo, got Metallica's new album this week, and it rocks, loads better than their last few. They're a band I've always loved but never seen live, even though I was mad into them back in my thrash metal days; I remember heading straight to Our Price in Letchworth with Nathan to buy '...And Justice For All' the day it came out back in 1989 (?), had a listen to it the other day, but the music hadn't aged particularly well.

New Kings of Leon is out Monday too, they were great on Jools Holland this week (as was the lovely Carla Bruni), new albums from Roots Manuva, The Aliens and dear ol' Oasis are out or on the horizon now, yummy ear food for your, er, hungry ears.

Reading 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' at the moment, bl**dy hilarious, favourite piece of dialogue so far:

"Hell, I forgot about all this beer, you want one?"

He shook his head.

"How about some ether?" I said.

"What?"

Teachers - Do They Have It Easy, Or What?

There's been a debate on this site of epic proportions between heavyweight Mahoney and middleweight Stevens regarding whether teachers have it easy. I know plenty of teachers, some of them have been spat at, punched, constantly abused and one even had a w*nk aimed at her (not sure this went 'hit the target' tho), all of these sound quite hazardous quirks of the job. In New Zealand, Neil sits down with his IT pals and plays Championship Manager all day over his network, probably. It's a debate that will rage on through the ages, but I think teachers suffer a bit in certain aspects (despite the 3 months of holiday), like bringing their work home with them every night, whereas most of us can leave our work head (Wurzel Gummidge style) at the office. Anyhoo, I'll let you two battle it out...

Fab weekend of football, Arsenal caning Blackburn, Man U losing and Tottenham bottom of the pile, it doesn't get much better. To top it off, I've shot to the top of the Schnorbitz Fantasy League (my Spurs supporting friend D Brown is bottom of that). Poor David Bentley, i really feel sorry for him. Actually, I don't, I am bathing in a pool of schadenfreude here, brilliant, I implore all Spudz fans to just keep looking at the table, it won't bite, lovely isn't it? Hmm?

Champions League returns this week too, we've got a tough game away to Kiev. I remember seeing them play at Wembley against Arsenal when Shevchenko and Rebrov terrorised Arsenal's defence ( most notably Martin Keown), they were such a good counter attacking side they really took your breath away. Still, they aren't the same team anymore, but any trip out east is always tough, as you'll soon learn when i get around to publishing Kristian's Euro diaries, think he missed a Kiev-Arsenal game once due to being kept in a police cell off his box on vodka...

See the world's heading into financial meltdown, something to do with Jens Lehmann? Anyoo, just proves that you can't build a world on capitalist cash as the mountain will surely topple down. Most people's ideology would be for all men to be equal, but when one man sits on top of a great pile of cash, he'll have further to fall, so there. Thing is, every other bugger is dragged along, hardly fair, is it?

Get Yourself Together

This may be the last post I put on here since that CERN machine is getting switched on today and there is apparently a possibility (lauded by the Daily Mail) that a black hole will be created and everything will be sucked up into it like the last bit of a chocolate milkshake into La's gullet. I remember reading about it in that trashy Dan Brown novel 'Angels and Demons' , although I thing it's being used then to disprove the existence of God, or something. The most ridiculous part of that book, however, is how one of the protagonists survives falling out of a helicopter from 1000 feet and still gets to kill the pope ( I may have stretched the plot slightly there).

Listened to 'Road to Freedom' by Young Disciples on the way this morning, what a fine album. Although, in order to singalong to Carleen Anderson you'd need the ol' janglers lightly crushed 'txixt a pair of house bricks...

Excellent day in London last Friday for the wedding anniversary, the Emirates tour was fab, bargain at £12. Went up in the directors box, in the changing rooms, down the tunnel and onto the pitch (well not exactly the pitch as that was guarded by Gamorrean Guards). Sat in Arsene's seat in the dugout and managed to resist the temptation to lick it; there were loads of nippers on the trip, think one of them was celebrating his 9th birthday. Still, I would quite happily have thrown them all into the stands head first in order to sit in that bloody seat.

We also visited the Arsenal Museum which was good but I think the layout could do with some improvement. Anyhoo, they was a very prophetic quote written on one pillar, (I am paraphrasing slightly here), it was taken from an advert for the vacant Arsenal manager's position in 1925 (a position taken up by Herbert Chapman) and read something like "Any manager whose sole ability to deliver success relies on the payment of exorbitant transfer fees need not apply", hmm...

London Eye was pretty cool, the sun even came out for about 20 minutes, we were sharing our pod with a northern family though. Finished the day off in Punch and Judy's in Covent Garden, a fine pub that serves Leffe on draft (this beer can cause me to lose the ability to speak). We managed to haul ourselves down the Waggon later on in the evening to hook up with Kris and Ange and hear about Kristian's midweek trips to watch Stevenage away at Kettering in the rain, now that's committment.

Thank F the Premiership is back this weeknd as this International double header has been incredibly dull; I'm not the greatest England fan in the world but as the games have been on sultana, i haven't managed to see them anyway. A lot of folk in the country are rightly feeling apathetic towards our national team and things won't improve if the majority of the TV watching nation can't even see the blimmin' games...

Shocking News

Arrived in Steeple Morden after quite a long ol' journey and already have found out some shocking news. I may be the only person who didn't know about this, but it has really hit me square in the crackers - Billy Ocean is English. I've spent my life thinking that he was American, what a waste...


Off to the Emirates and the London Eye in the rain tomorrow, then meeting Kris and Ange (with her brand new superhero eyes) down the Waggon; if you're around do pop in for a jar.

Overmars and the Nigerians

So one of the most frantic days in football is over, Sky Sports News much wish there were more deadline days as the presenters were ridiculously excited (maybe Georgie Thompson was doing a special dance for them off camera?). A frustrating day for Gooners everywhere, I stayed up till midnight in the vain hope that Arsene would do the right thing and grab Alonso, but it was not to be. The club must've been aware that fans wouldn't be too happy so what did they do? Put an article on the Arsenal website about how much Eboue's passing had improved this season. WTF?? Who made that decision?? Be interesting to see what Arsene has to say, yes we looked good against Newcastle, but we've got some tough games coming up (the next 3 are away to Blackburn, Dynamo Kiev and Bolton) and if (as usual) we get some injuries to key midfielders during the International break, we will be screwed and Wenger will have to take the blame, especially after he said he would sign a defensive midfielder weeks ago.

Man City and Newcastle have been dominating the news for the past couple of days and rightly so. The soap opera that is Newcastle Utd is plunging the depths once more, with yet another Keggy related saga. All sorts of confusing messages are coming out of the club, whilst hundreds of torch and pitch fork wielding geordies baying for Mike Ashley's ample hide lurk outside the ground. It's a shame as they started the season pretty well and seem to have a better team this year (Jonas Gutierrez looks mint). This farce is going to end one way...badly.

As for Man City, they seem to be the new Chelsea. Except they're not, because everyone hates Chelsea (esp Peter Kenyon) and Man City are eminently likeable. "40 condoms, please, shopkeep" Robinho is an unbelievable signing, but he is also a bit of a live wire, have a read of Sid Lowe's article from today's Guardian for more info. The new owners seem to be intent on playing Premiership Championship Manager, much like Abramovich did when he allegedly put in bids of £40m for Vieira and £50m for Henry in 2003 soon after buying Chelsea. This story will run and run over the next week, probably meaning England's vital qualifiers will be overlooked.

Was speaking to Neil this morning about the wonderful world of Championship Manager (now Football manager), a legend of a game that I used to be furiously addicted to (El Wristo guitarist Dave Boardman once spent 26 hours straight playing it), it was easy to confuse reality with CM sometimes, the game even was the basis for several divorce cases earlier this century, with plaintiffs citing it as a cause of neglect, brilliant.

A colleague at work, Cycling eco-warrior David has set up a YouTube channel devoted to video he's taken of him nearly being run over every day on the ride into work, you can view some of his close calls here.

Got Friday off this week as it's Lou and mine's 5 year wedding anniversary, we're off to London for the day to do a tour of the Emirates (which I am stupidly excited about), bum around Camden and hop on the London Eye, will take some pics for Facebook.