...happy when skies are grey

Yesterday it was sunny. Really sunny. I squinted so much on the way there and the way back I still look like I'm faking gratitude on receipt of a present from an elderly relative. It was disturbing therefore that Middlesbrough was covered in cloud which I guess is the consequence of the industry that pretty much defines the place. I parked in a back street and walked towards the ground which is made all the more incongruous by the wasteland that surrounds it. The ground itself is OK on the inside even if it's a bit drafty. We deserved our victory and the Spurs fans were relentless in their mockery of the Boro support but I kinda felt bad being part of that. It's no bloody wonder they're quiet: It's a really depressing place.

Flip n flyer

It's not often that a toy lives up the hype of its box. We bought this thing this morning in JJB. It was reduced from 11.99 to £9, then to £7, then to £6 then finally to £4. The obvious desperation to offload their surplus stock and the superlatives in the packaging hooked me in as intended and as we drove back I thought 'D'oh! I've got something else that will give us 2 minutes of disappontment that will clutter my boot til I sell the car.' But... it's brilliant. You chuck it like a frisbee then catch it by its string and spin it about and ...err...stuff. Clearly I'm lacking in the same kind of superlatives and I've already put the packaging in the recycling box so I can't copy them. I do remember they used lots of exclamation marks though. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But what does it mean?

Walking along the canal I see the Spurs cockerel crest. On the ground. Left, as it were, by a bird. Is it a sign of imminent success or, more literally, an indication of impending crappiness?

Groundskeeper Willy

London: 4.30pm

The board of directors are investigating claims made by some Spurs supporters that ground staff employed to urinate on away fans at half time deliberately targetted members of Martin Jol's blue and white army. 'Well, you know,' said Jol with a shrug, arms folded tightly across his barrell chest, 'it was a pish poor performansh all round.' A Homeresque wisp of hair fell cocquettishly across one battle hardened eye in the spring N17 breeze as he continued, 'In Holland people pay good money for that.'

Favours for Sailors

I wish I lived closer to a port. I need to earn some extra money to pay for my phone bill. It's at times like this that I understand what people mean when they describe a 'sinking feeling'.

Arcade Art

Saturday pm. Shooting things in an arcade with boy, girl and best mate. I now have a photographic record to remind me of the fun we had. It's rather impressionistic.

Buying tickets online for category A games is always something of a lottery. I needed three tickets and the only ones I could get were East stand and one of them was restricted view. This means that one of only two pillars in the ground partially obscures the goal. Of course there's no price reduction for this but there you go. After a bit of seat juggling with the guys around me I managed to shift my son back a row and it was his teenage sense of the purile/ inane/ scatalogical that first spotted the benefit of our seats in terms of the score readout on the 'Jumbotron'. This kept us amused for most of half time. Well, it kept him amused, I'm much more sophisticated.