I'm driving 200 odd miles tomorrow

...and this is what it's like round here today.

Pretty but deadly. A bit like my girl.

Little things...

It was my brithday recently. Allegedly a grown up, I can often be found sulking on my birthday because it's so close to Christmas and people forget or someone buys me something rubbish. This is despite the fact that I always say I hate fuss and don't want anything; you really can't win with me. My boy turned that on its head by excelling on the present front this year. He bought me the bendy guys pictured below. As you may gather, these things have been the source of much mirth and the tame shots below don't give a real flavour of the true flexibility of these guys (intentional pun). This success was tempered with his "joke" card which featured an Arsenal logo and inside had a song. What upset me was that this 2 or 3 quid may be the difference between Les Arses buying another player or something and, mostly, that i couldn't display it but had to tear it up into tiny pieces and then burn them (there's a limit to offspring related sentimentality, there really is).

I love the way each picture suggests a mini narrative. Nothing seems to wipe the smile of these guys faces though. Wish I was like that.

Dave the Moose

Says: " Happy Christmas and come on your Spurs!"

yo yo

Spurs never fail to surprise. They lift you up then drop you from 100ft, still with a faint hint of a smile on your lips on to hard concrete at the feet of a grinning plastic gooner. I really can't think of another team that do a better roller coaster impression. Others are either 'top four' consistent or 'relegation contenders' consistent or 'comfortably mid table' consistent. As the old saying goes, the only thing we're consistent with is inconsistency. You never know which team will turn up.

My poor girl is blaming herself. She came to the Lane on Saturday and saw a dreadful performance. She refused to watch last night and we turned on a blinder against a very limp Man City. They sing 'we've got Robinho'. I'd sing 'you keep Robinho'. He was rubbish and should have been subbed earlier. Lennon, Defoe, Krancjar, Assou-Ekotto and Dawson get special mention as the combined men of the match. 3-0! COYS!

Going to Ewood Park on Saturday. What's the betting we'll drop 2 or 3 points after a lacklustre showing. 'Spurs fans braved the cold northern air only to see their heroes bullied off the pitch. The team that cut through the stodgy christmas puddings from the Middle Eastlands looked like frozen turkeys themselves as Blackburn enjoyed this early gift and the festive cheers of all 7 of their fans'

see if I'm wrong...

{insert balls joke here}

Went to Everton with the boy and a mate on Sunday. I'd have taken 2-2 before the game but after being 2-0 up and missing a hatful of chances it felt like a defeat in the end. Defoe's penalty miss just rubbed salt into the wound.

Much more interesting was what we saw as we walked into the ground and found our really uncomfortable terracing/ seats. (both me and the boy came out with rotten back ache from standing on narrow tilted terraces the whole game- it was like going back 30 years; the whole ground is like that though- charming and nostalgic but ultimatley pretty crap). We saw what we took to be the Everton mascot doing the rounds along our side of the pitch."Dad....what does their mascot look like to you?" There was no context, no explanation, just a giant pair of bollocks with big eyes, a smiley face and pretty grotesque hairs poking out the top dancing around behind three women who (again inexplicably) were wearing Gazza-esque plastic arses. Of course it transpired that it had something to do with testicular cancer awareness which is no laughing matter but they could have flagged that up a little. I'd have loved to have made jokes about the appropriateness of this as a mascot but they came back well and made mugs of us even though it was only 12 mins of the game. Before their first goal you could hear Spurs fans suggesting Moyes bring on Mr Testicles to give them a bit more up front (damn I knew I couldn't get through this without a crap joke) in place of the rubbish Jo. Instead he opted for Saha and Yakubu and they (Saha especially) made all the difference.

The mascot is actually called Mr testicles. We didn't catch his first name but the boy thinks it's probably Dave.

Their fans were pretty poor I have to say. I can recall them beating us at the Lane and coming away feeling pretty crap about our noise levels but it wasn't half as quiet as it was at Everton for the first 80 mins. 'Just like the library' echoed round the ground along with 'We've got Jermain Defoe; you've got our stereos'. You could see the players buck their ideas upwhen the crowd got going. prior to that it seemed to be one 12 year old girls squeeking 'USA, USA, USA' .

The other thing that amazed me was how close Anfield and Goodison are. I've only ever been on a coach before to either ground and had no idea they were spitting distance away from each other. Makes the whole ground sharing thing seem to make sense. To be honest Everyon could play in Stanley Park (which sits between the two grounds) and the ice cream stand there and the public toilets would mean the faciliies were better.

apparently Mr Testicles has his own blog (thanks to best mate for flagging that up- it's in his favourites list) http://mrtesticles.blogspot.com/2007_07_03_archive.html