this is me this is

There are plenty of things that it's worth spending ages getting good at: Piano, football, brain surgery and so on. There are other things of which I found it hard to understand the motivation or reward: running a long way, synchronised swimming, preparing blowfish. This is something I would love to be able to do and I can imagine (almost/ sort of) actually putting in the hours if i had a genuine Bonzini table and a cool French bar to keep it in. ps. I know it's a Nokia viral but it's still impressive. pps. it's 'babyfoot' not 'foosball'.

Blog from iPhone

I tried this when I first got it. It didn't work immediately so as with all things technical I gave up. A virus of some sort on my laptop is only reason I am checking e mail on this and therefore only reason I needed to reject a comment and finally the only reason why I am writing this descriptive account of what I am doing in some kind of more than 160 character tweet. Colleagues were trying to persuade me of the educational benefits of Twitter last Friday at a conference. I tried therefore for a 4th time but I am still missing the point somehow. I also saw a demo of how Second Life could be used in education. I definitely learnt something. Too much bloody effort! It was awful. I felt sorry for the guy presenting but he only has himself to blame- he was nervy, not convinced himself and didn't know how to compensate for tech glitches.

As I post this I am on the phone to my wife. I am in trouble for not concentrating. Or at least I will be when she sees the post time. Perhaps i should change it to earlier this morn. Then, of course, none of this would make sense and all this awkward prodding would be for nothing.

This is the world we live in. Arsebook, twattier etc which can be great but so often is the kind of descriptive banality I have written here. Anyway, I must go and clean my teeth.

Pre-season warm up

Not long to wait now until the friendlies. Then 14 August is the first game. Against Man City. Who says it's a computer that works out the fixtures? I wonder who Cheslea have....? Oh yes, Granny Town FC. Still, I actually think that it's got to be better to play the MiddleEastlanders early considering the purchases they're making. Maybe the new boys will not have had a chance to gel by that stage. Today I heard Ya Ya Toure will be getting more than 200 grand. A week. As the boy says on Facebook: WTF?

Anyway, these will warm everyone up. It was especially chilly in South Africa for Defoe, Crouch, Lennon and King. Not to mention Assou-Akotto, Bassong and Gomez.

fears and irritations

Family medical worries, money, pompous colleagues, change at work, pain in my knackered hand, squeaky breaks on my car, Champions league qualification, The Tory and 'New' Tory coalition, poverty, homelessness, abuse...
Sometimes it's hard to put any of it into perspective; either relative to the worlkd or to each other. Lucky I've got a song and someone to sing it to.

I have nothing to say

Flags and Vuvuzelas

Weeks of build up enabled us to speculate, stress, argue and dream. It's the last one that is the most damaging though. Carried along on a wave of misplaced confidence the flags started appearing about a month ago. After Saturday's performance I wouldn't be surprised if a few have been surreptisiously removed. Some have travelled so far that they are already tatttered and forlorn. It's not difficult to see parallels with the England team each time you drive over a little piece of plastic and cloth on the motorway.

I'm happy for anyone to stick the flag on their car of course. In fact the more Asian cabbies that do it in Bradford the better as far as I'm concerned. My colleague overheard some bloke moaning about 'them' taking 'our' flag the other day so if it's pissing off the Nazis, casual racists or plain old ignoramuses then that's fine by me. Even if I didn't feel a bit uncomfotable with it (as much on 'cool' grounds as anything) I'd still not do it as it seems to invite misfortune on the pitch. I used to stick a scarf out the car window on the way to away games but stopped that when I lost my treasured, childhood scarf on the motorway after opening the wrong window.

On Saturday we got ready for the game and I annoyed the boy and wife (formerly known as girl) by blowing on the vuvuzela I brought back from South Africa- especially loudly after the early goal. I should have known that England could only manage roughly 4 minutes of good play.

It irritates me no end when the 'pundits' discuss pressure being brougfht to bear by broadcasters on FIFA to ban the vuvuzela. You may as well ban the England brass band, giant flags or the army of midwinter shirtless Geordies at St James' Park. All are irritating but they are part of a much stronger fabric than the type used to make the little crosses of St George.

I haven't abandoned my blog

I know it's the end of the footy season though of course the World Cup will preoccupy me until England get knocked out early and come back with their pampered tails between their legs. This, though, is not the reason I have not been blogging. I got married two weeks ago and the lead up and aftermath (I am sure there's a more apposite word) have been busy to say the least. Anyway, I will be back soon. I'm missing my regular catharsis.