Blog Archives

Good Job, Dave

Well done, Dave, you have come out victor in another conflict started without consent of the British public and at an estimated cost of £1bn give or take a few hundred million pounds. And I thought Britain was broke and we all (that is, the public at large) had to take it stoically on the chin. £1bn? That’s 5 new schools for you right there.

And now, the evil, but slightly comical goatee-bearded villain is dead. No more long rambling rhetorical speeches for journalists to be smugly condescending about and how comforting it is to know that the unelected Libyan transitional Head of State (who, not forgetting, was this time last year the Justice Minister in the aforesaid villain’s showpiece government) has publicly said that the bastions of humanity will not be forgotten when it comes to handing out those lucrative contracts to rebuild the bombed out country. A score for your party donators British business.

Now, Dave, how about this for an idea? Before we go gallivanting as the knight in shining armour in to yet another conflict with an oil rich state in the name of humanity (while of course neatly side-stepping the inconvenient issues present in non-oil rich failed states), why not ask the public if they want to send our (I’m searching for a better word here) defense forces in to a war zone thousands of miles away by conducting a democratic referendum?

Dave, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I would rather see the hospitals, schools and council services be better funded rather than spending another £250,000 to send a plane to drop a bomb on Johnny Foreigner, no matter how much oil the country has humanity the people need.

Daylight Robbery On The British Trains

I just purchased a single train ticket to take me from Market Harborough to London St Pancras tomorrow morning at 9am. The whole journey takes about 60 minutes and East Midland Trains, the thieving robbing bastards that they are, see it fit to charge a staggering £50 for the pleasure. It’s not paying for the fuel or staffing costs, it’s more than likely paying for the station refurbishment at St Pancras.

If the Government want more people to take public transport, then they need to sort out the prices of it first because at fifty quid a go it’s only going to be the wealthy people who can afford to not have a car! What’s more, if Network Rail (or whatever the hell it is now) franchise out the lines it means money grabbing companies like East Midland Trains have got the monopoly on that route and have no competition or incentive to keep the prices down.

£50 pounds for a 60 minute train ride. Britain is broken. The country has gone to the dogs. I’m not going to be hanging round here.

£10 Haircuts?!

Every time I come back to England it seems to coincide with the urgent requirement to get a haircut and so once a year I head down to a local barbershop where I have been going for the last 10 years. Since I go during the day the conversation is always the same…

Hairdresser: You on holiday today then?
Me: Oh, no, I’m just back visiting my parents for a couple of weeks
HD: That’s nice, which part of the country have you come from?
Me: Err, India
HD: India?!
Me: Yeah, I live and work out there
HD: Really?! What are you doing out there?
Me: I work for one of those outsourcing companies
HD: You mean the ones that are taking all our jobs like the call centres and we can’t understand a word they are saying?
ME: Not quite, we build websites and don’t have a call centre
HD: Hmm, it won’t be long before they bloody well take all our jobs and no one has anything left to do here!
Me: Ah, but they can’t outsource hairdressers now can they!
HD:

What’s more is that as sure as night follows the day, the price has steadily gone up and I don’t know if I’m going to reveal my true age here or something, but I remember when a good, honest haircut cost £4.50. Every year the price has increased and now we’ve reached the ludicrous price of £10. I almost choked when she told me the price, ten quid for 15-20 minutes of work, if this carries on I’ll work out a way to outsource hairdressers myself!

The Lilliputians Versus The Brobdingnagians

Today it was the giants of the Premiership. Not in a figurative performance sense, but in a literal, oh my god they are fricking massive, sense. Stoke have forged something of a winning strategy by being bigger and stronger than any other team in the Premiership and with the arrival of Peter Crouch in the summer have raised the average height of the squad from 6ft 6″ to a lofty 6ft 11″. In a word, Stoke City are HUGE!

And that’s why so many teams struggle against them, which is what happened with Man Utd today. Stoke used Crouch as the point man to great effect. The football isn’t pretty, it isn’t technical but damn it caused problems for Uniteds back line. At every opportunity the Stoke keeper or defenders would literally hoof the ball in to the United box and hope that Crouch could get on the end of it, which since he’s a full head taller than even Ferdinand or Jones, happened quite often.

What’s more, Stoke closed down United so quickly, it was like the charge of the light brigade every time a United player touched the ball, Stoke’s giants would rush on in. In the past this kind of pressing play worked great for the first 80 minutes and then everyone dies and United said thank you very much, Goal. Now though, I’ve noticed that teams that have to press United can do so for the full 90 minutes.

There was less of the tiki taka football on show today, Anderson continued with his loose balls and as I’ve mentioned before De Gea still really needs to work on his distribution, especially when you are playing against a team the size of Stoke – I don’t think any of his hoofs was caught by a United player. That said, he pulled off some exceptional saves and he’s looking a bit more comfortable than a few weeks ago and looks like the quality United need at the back.

Nani was once again the best player for United, the last season or so he’s finally beginning to fill the boots to match his ego. Always written off as a poor man’s Ronaldo, he’s more like a middle class man’s Ronaldo now. Rather surprisingly was that Owen managed to last the full 90 minutes, but his contribution, yet again, didn’t do justice to his ability. A good run to draw off defenders to help Nani’s goal, but apart from that when he did get the ball there didn’t seem to be any killer strike, there was too much hesitation and on more than one occasion there was too many touches. Maybe with more games he could get back to his goal scoring ways and with the injury to Rooney and Hernandez (how many injuries do United get in a season!) maybe he’ll get his chance.

Two points dropped here, but Stoke were a very tough side to deal with.

This Is The Worst Flu Ever!

I’m currently down and out with man-flu, which is a little bit like a cold that women and children get – what with all the aching joints, mucus oozing out of various orifices, a single functioning nasal passage, sneezes so hard it gets picked up by seismometers around the world, sinuses that have inflated to twice their normal size and general Sunday morning tiredness – only man-flu is scientifically proven to be 10x worse. Yes, it might mean we are a weaker sex, but damnit if that’s what it takes for you to believe that this flu has me at deaths door and it’s using all my bodily strength to fight it off and it’s not ‘just a cold’ then so be it.

So far, I’ve kept myself occupied by finding out why mucus is yellow when you have a cold (and that your nose contains the same, err, expandable flesh, as male sexual organs), what the hell the sinuses even are or do (I was surprised), read an entire Star Wars novel and then researched who Sifo Dyas was and why General Grevious was a cyborg with lightsabers. So despite being completely knocked for six as my body battles this virulent man-flu, I feel as if I’ve achieved something with my new found knowledge that Grevious was trained by Count Dooku and will be sure to pass on this information when I meet new people.

Oh yes, and my girlfriend has sent a care package to help me get better which consists of honey, pepper, ginger and cloves which I’m to mix in to a cup of tea and then take a Combiflam afterwards. If you haven’t heard of Combiflam it’s an awesome 1+1=3 painkiller where the creators thought “Hmm, Ibruprofen and Paracetamol are great but they both lack that little something. I know let’s mix the two together and call it Combiflam!”

Edge Of Your Seat Stuff

United just beat Chelsea 3-1 at Old Trafford but the scoreline certainly didn’t reflect the nature of the game – it could have been 5-3 or even more. United offered a bit more of their tiki-taka football but Chelsea were pressing and closing down very quickly throughout the match which disrupted United’s flow somewhat. United were very fortunate with all their goals because any other day they’d have been ruled out for offside and the third was just the kind of luck you sometimes need in a match.

Overall, Chelsea were the better side showing more desire to attack and shoot which I think was reflected in the stats with Chelsea having 20 attempts on goal vs United’s 12, however once again Torres proved what a £50m waste of space he is, missing sitter after sitter until the dying minutes where he managed to miss an open goal which even my granny could have converted.

Rooney uncharacteristically missed a penalty after he slipped on his run up, but there was a semblance of fate about it because the penalty was very soft and again on any other day would never have been awarded. Berbatov too, missed an open goal when Cole came back and cleared the line – it was getting to the point where people were queuing up to take a shot but no one wanted to score!

Rooney was easily the man of the match for United but Anderson was the weak link today, giving the ball away far too many times. It was only thanks to Torres’ uselessness that he didn’t pay for his mistakes. Anyway, another victory for United, the Red Devils march on-on-on.

If Ryan Giggs Can Do It Then So Can I!

I’m talking about his yoga exercises here of course, not about his sordid private life. I was at the gym this evening about to embark upon my hellish cardio regime which involves running your heart out until you can stand up no more, which is only slightly worse than the muscle building session which basically involves being laughed at by muscle-strapped oafs as I try to bench press 18kg, when I was asked if I wanted to take part in the yoga class downstairs.

Yoga. That’s just fannying around in different postures and chanting Om all the time isn’t it? Sounds better than a 5km run on the treadmill! Well, I discovered two things about yoga today: 1. It’s not about saying Om and 2. It’s actually not about fannying around because it’s harder than it looks! “Make a nice upside ‘V’ shape with your body” he said but the best I could manage was like a wobbly ‘U’, “now stand straight and touch your toes” I was instructed, I discovered that I could just about touch the top of my knees, “now extend your legs and raise your arms above you” (like a lunge), instead I lost balance and fell over.

Yoga. It’s not what you think!

Irresistible United

I’ve just watch United destroy Bolton, usually a tough team to break down, without really breaking a sweat. If you haven’t watched Man United play this season then you owe it to yourself to get down the pub and watch one of their matches. The statement of intent was cast in the Charity Shield when they thrashed the Man City Wannabes and then went on to beat, an admittedly weakened, Arsenal. The style of play reminds me a lot of tiki-taka, the beautiful, intricate football pioneered and practiced by Barcelona. Some of the interchanges, passes and run-ons have been sublime. The situation and location awareness the players are showing is like no other United team I’ve seen before.

The only chink in the armour so far seems to be with the young keeper, David De Gea. No doubt he’s a talent but it’s quite obvious that his distribution needs a lot of work along with some of his decision making skills. Still, when I was 20 years old I couldn’t even get in to the university football team let alone one of the biggest clubs in the world, so I guess he’s not doing too badly.

On the performance of the last 4 matches, United will run away with the title, but we all know the Premiership is a marathon and not a sprint.

Astrology Will Solve All Your Problems

Many people, both in India and around the world, have a very big interest in astrology and some go as far as dictating their lives based on the arbitrary and entirely predictable movement of the stars and planets. While in the west many people will read their horoscope out of passing curiosity, in India I think they go a step further where marriages are often arranged based on the outcome of the horoscopes, so if the bride and groom to be don’t have a favourable horoscope then the whole shebang is canceled, and some special events are arranged on days when the horoscope is favourable – the most recent example I have is a friend who was due to be married on the 16th of April but then they discovered that it wasn’t the best day according to the astrologist so they postponed it by a month.

Anyway, the funny spam text of the day comes from a professional astrologist who says…

Unstable Relations? Financial Loss or Obstacles in Your Career? To seek the solution to all of your problems contact our expert astrologer. Simply call 5XXX5 at just Rs 10 / min [about 15 pence], enter your full name and date of birth and you will be given a personalized horoscope to guide you through your difficulties.

So if an automated personal horoscope doesn’t sort you out, I don’t know what will! Alternatively, Madame TeaKay will provide you with a free personal horoscope if you ask nicely!

My 2011/12 Premier League Predictions

I’m going to put my neck out on the line and give some Premier League predictions. No doubt they’ll be totally wrong and in 9 months we can all have a good laugh how naive I was. Anyway, here we go, my predictions:

Top 5

1. Manchester United (Champions)
2. Manchester City
3. Chelsea
4. Liverpool
5. Arsenal

Relegated

1. Blackburn Rovers
2. Swansea City
3. Norwich City

What do you think? Am I well off the mark or on to something here? What are your predictions for this season.