2 - 1

Oh my
Oh my
Oh my
After watching the nail biting defeat of the Aussies, I am too exhausted to write anyth........

Now that's cricket

Watching the Ashes over the last few weeks, it is heartening to see that the game is returning back to the old principles of fair play and sportsmanship.
England v Australia games used to be plagued by abusive sledging and bad feeling between both sides, which often spilt off the field.
Now we see opposing players smiling and chatting to each other and shock horror, even sharing beers in each others dressing rooms after the days play.
Whatever next?
Having played cricket for many years I now see similarities between the friendly, sporting club cricket I used to play and the test matches we are now watching.
Batsmen are actually walking without waiting for the umpires decision and admitting to dubious catches going to ground.
Compare this behaviour to the overpaid, prima donna footballers gracing our fields this season. With their constant abuse of the referee, diving, getting opposing players sent off and generally cheating to gain an advantage.
Maybe these so called professional footballers should sit down and watch a days play.
They can certainly learn something.
Hats off to Ricky Ponting and Michael Vaughan and their teams for conducting themselves in such an honest and sporting way.

Democracy?

There was meant to be a march by the National Front this Saturday, but it has been banned on the grounds it may upset the local community.
I am no lover of the National Front or its ideals, but what happened to freedom of speech?
They allow religious nutters to spread hate and incite senseless violence in the name of religion (for the moment anyway), but when citizens of this country attempt to express their views, however nauseous, they are promptly banned.
Well we've got that right then, haven't we?

Get out of the fucking way.....

An incident happened today that really pissed me off.
Nothing winds me up more (well at least not today anyway) than two or more airheads having a pleasant conversation whilst standing in the door you want to walk through. I mean, they have all the fucking corridor to chat about the wonderful holidays they experienced, yet they pick the busiest portal to idly chit chat.
I have had a pretty grim day. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Easy prey.
Without batting an eyelid, I calmy told them to get out of the fucking way as I promptly parted them. The look of pained surprise was priceless.
Don't get me wrong. I am usually calmness personified. But every once in a while, something presses THAT button. This hit it square on.

Spud or Love Apple?

Over the last few weeks, slowly but surely, a little piece of nature has been growing in the garden. There were several of these plants gradually pushing their way up to the light.
What were they we asked ourselves?
Some foreign weed perhaps, or maybe some dodgy weed. No such luck there I'm afraid. Neither of us remembered planting anything there, but relying on our combined brainpower is a bit risky these days.
After a while, a few white flowers started opening and I had cracked it (or so I thought). They were the humble British potato, until that is, a slightly bulbous growth appeared on a couple of the upper branches. They were getting quite big by now.
Change of tack. Our mystery plant must be tomatoes then. Spuds don't grow above ground.
"O yes they do I hear you cry".
Yesterday, whilst hacking the grass down, I glanced in the direction of the alien plant and noticed a yellowish hump just breaking the surface.
My first deduction was correct and I unearthed a small bowl full of home grown spuds, which I promptly cooked up for us accompanied by some delicious lamb. Mm mm mm, home grown veg .
I remember now planting some rather pungent potatoes that were well past their sell by date when the little one was over here last summer - I think. There goes the memory again.

Greens? I hate 'em

Here's a funny little ditty compliments of eclectech. Not only do sprouts have a severe effect on your bottom, but they taste disgusting, as does anything green.
Apart from peas.
Oh, and broad beans.

Oops.......

Well that's torn it.
I've been buggering about with my template so much, it was virtually unrecognisable. Eventually, I just renewed it. Thus losing all my 'Cracking Blogs' links.
Do not despair. Normality should return soon if only I could get my head around some of these design gizmos.
I,ve seen some fabulous blog designs whilst browsing. Trouble is, I'm a tight bastard and cringe at the prospect of paying someone for their imagination.
And it is SO time consuming.

Ahhh. Utopia

Last night I was rubbing shoulders with no lesser mortals than

• Phil Tuffnel (Eng)
• Richie Richardson (WI)
• Rachid Latif (Pak)
• VVS Laxman (Ind)
• Jimmy Adams (WI)
• Chris Harris (NZ)
• Alvin Kallicharan (WI)

and several other past international cricketers.
They were representing Lashings Cricket Club which is a motley bunch of ex test cricketers who travel around the country taking on various clubs and generally entertaining oiks like me to some class cricket.
My local club, Rainham were the lucky victims this time and we were privileged to observe a 20/20 game which, of course, Lashings easily won.
Sitting in the early evening sun with the missus listening to the crack of leather against willow. Pure bliss. What a great way to spend three hours at the end of a hard days graft.
A nice cool pint would have slipped down with no bother, but at £2.50 a shout, no way Jose. Burgers were good though.

Back home

For the last two years I have been suffering.
I have had to endure the constant humiliation and jibes from friends and colleagues at work and at the pub about my beloved West Ham United wallowing in the Championship.

WE ARE BACK

An emphatic 3 - 1 victory over those Northern thugs masquarading as Blackburn Rovers was just reward for my misery. I can now hold my head up once more now that we are back home in the Premiership.

"COME ON YOU IRONS"

Great Britain epitomisd

Sally Gunnell seen congratulating one of our athletes at what is fast becoming a disastrous World Athletics Championships at Helsinki for achieving the distinction of coming eighth just about sums up what is wrong about the state of our sporting nation.
Could you see this happening in Australia or the States? I think not.
But on the other hand, is it such a bad thing to congratulate someone on trying their best even though it is crap in the eyes of the rest of the world?
This is what we are great at. We are undoubtedly the best losers in the world and aren't we so charming and magnanimous about it.
It just 'aint cricket to complain about coming eighth. She did her best and that is all that matters.
Yep, sometimes I am proud to be British (especially now that we are giving the Aussies a taste of their own medicine in the Ashes).

Rain Man strikes again

My lovely lady and I love curling up with a good DVD to watch. We don't actually buy any, but rent them from Screen Select . For fifteen quid a month, we can have up to three DVD's at a time. Great for those miserable nights when there's fuck all worth watching on the telly (that's nearly every night).
Last night was one of those nights. The great thing about renting as opposed to buying, is that you have access to some of those old classic movies you watched years ago and forgot all about.
I had forgotten how brilliant Dustin Hoffman was in Rain Man. His role as an autistic man recently discovered by his arrogant, materialistic brother played by a very young looking Tom Cruise was spellbinding and just reminds you what a superb actor Hoffman is.
Go on, give it a go. You will not be disappointed.

Why, why, why?

"RADICAL cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed is to have his benefits stopped after leaving Britain for Lebanon."
Benefits? Why the fuck is he on benefits?
This prick has been living off the state with his family for the last twenty years, earning around £275,000.
He receives more than £15,000 a year in unemployment, child and disability benefits.
Recently he took charge of a £31,000 people carrier, compliments of HMG i.e. the British taxpayer.
He has been recorded on camera openly supporting suicide bombers who would be prepared to perform their vile deeds in this country. That's right, the same country that has welcomed him with open arms for the last two decades.
If these people hate the decadent Western way of life, then why are they here. They should fuck off ASAP back to their holyland .
I get so bloody angry when I hear that our government constantly defends these peoples rights. And now to cap it all, the cunt is actually thinking of returning to these fair shores for a heart operation (cost £7,500) on the NHS which apparently he is entitled to. And you know what? He will be welcomed with open arms.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I get so fucking pissed off with this and I am not alone.
This country under that wanker Tony Blair has regressed into the worst nanny state on the planet. Other western countries can not believe that we are so lenient towards foreign aggressors. Frankly, neither can I.
Sometimes I am just ashamed to be English.

P.S. See blog title....

A thorny dilemma

A bet the guy in this article felt a right prick. I mean, how can you possibly get lost in a bush?

This is reassuring, I think

You Are 40% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

Fancy a date?

I would think twice about even looking at this nutter......

Sorry, I've got to stop.

My eyes are watering too much.

Birds eye

Birds I have seen/heard in the last couple of days:

1. Blackbird
2. Robin (lots this year)
3. Dunnock
4. Collared Dove
5. Woodpigeon
6. Kestrel
7. Green Woodpecker
8. Starling
9. Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
10. Blue Tit
11. Great Tit
12. Song Thrush
13. Crow
14. Black Headed Gull
15. Magpie
16. Mistle Thrush
    

The majority of these birds can be seen from our garden or local wood and the sad thing about this list is the complete absence of the House Sparrow and Greenfinch. These were in great abundance only a few years ago and now seem to have vanished completely from the garden.
One lonesome male sparrow visited our feeder during hatching time, but has since disappeared. I haven't seen a greenfinch for years. What is going on?
The most common visitor we have is our friendly robin who often took raisins from our outstretched hands to feed his kids, who are now also coming to our little garden. Never seen so many robins.
All part of the changing world we live in, I suppose.

Beware you buxom barmaids

When I was a young lad I had the good fortune to visit the Oktoberfest held in Munich every year.
Ahh the memories that brings back. The huge steins of German lager which never seemed to empty. Singing along with the oompah bands all tarted up in their traditional lederhosen ( the bands, not me. Although leather...hmmmm). And those wonderful girls who brought armfuls of booze to your table where not only the beer was frothing over the top of the glass.
But wait.
These lovely wenches have been got at.
Yes, you guessed it. The latest EU directive states that all ladies serving in the outdoors must cover up all that lovely exposed, wobbling flesh for fear of them getting over exposure to radiation i.e. sunlight , in plain English.
Understandably, this has caused a little bit of a ripple in the land that brought us saurkraut. Even the lovely ladies consider this as ridiculous.
The EU won't be happy until they have banned all traditions from all countries and ours is no exception. Whatever next.
See blog title.

Life's too short

A very humbling event happened the other week, which rather bought home the fact that we are very mortal indeed.

Two friends of ours who we quite regularly meet up the pub went over to Italy to attend their daughters wedding.

Much jollity prevailed. Much vino was quaffed and great merriment was the order of the day, until that is, the wife of the couple complained of feeling unwell and pretty soon collapsed in a heap on the deck.

No, it wasn’t the plonk. She was rushed to hospital with a suspected brain haemorrhage.

Because she was too sick to be moved, she had to stay in the hospital for a month.

This had to be one of life’s worse case scenarios .Your wife in a strange hospital in a foreign land where very few people spoke English. You are allowed to visit her for one half hour per day. No friends or a relative for support and it’s also costing you an arm and a leg despite being insured. And people complain about the state of the NHS

Happily she is now back in the UK, but unfortunately the synopsis isn’t too good I’m afraid. She has never regained consciousness since collapsing.

Every once in a while, life has a habit of reminding you that you shouldn't take it for granted. But we still do, don't we?