Le Tournoi

This is the day, this is the day… the day every year that the tax payers on the sceptred isle pay for me to play in an Inter-Research Council football tournament. I love this day.

Last year we went and won the blooming thing… a real underdog story… fluking our way to the final with nothing more than belief, a few hefty tackles and a large chunk of daring do. We then kept ourselves in the final and from 2-0 down fought back to 2-2 then won in on pens. (not unlike Istanbul 2005).
So here I go…the coach leaves at 11.

Update: we did less than well… i’ll leave it at that.

Good story in the locker! - the Tour de France

[greatest 'hits' redux] 

I’m always of a mind, that it’s good to have an array of good stories in your (metaphorical) locker. To the point were i’ve certainly ‘done things’ in my past just cause i knew it would make a good story to tell.

Sometimes though , good stories just happen. A few years ago i went to Paris with a couple of mates (very last minute thing - wanna go somewhere next weekend? yeah. ok where? etc etc). I should note that we were staying in the south coast of England anyway, so its slightly less flash than it sounds.

ANYWAY, on the Saturday we decided to go to the Arch de Triomphe, to check it out. When we got there is was crazy busy, and i mean busy! There was obviously some kind of event happening on the Champs Elysees (we assumed Red Bull promo or something). Being up for any kinda of craic we fought our way to the front of the crowd only to see a whooosh of colour and excitement as, of course, the riders of the tour de France crossed the finish line right in front of us!

People in the crowd had traveled all over the world to be there, for a once in a life time opportunity, and we had just stumbled upon it!

I think thats a reasonable story, and 100% true. What do you think?

(still think cycling is boring though)

Liverpool Football Club.org

It’s of note to mention how much I love hot cross buns, it’s nothing to do with this post but I feel the need to confess that I can easily down a pack of 6 in about 10 mins, barely knowing I’m doing it.

Liverpool football club are my team. I’m not from Liverpool, but that’s irrelevant, the only qualification for being a fan is to truly feel it when they lose and experience the ecstasy of a good win. There’s definitely a limit to it and I have a few friends who I think are a bit too involved and prioritise too highly seeing every single match. My mate AD and I do go to see matches at Anfield occasionally, sitting in the kop singing the anthems with tear in either eye - and out of ear shot of our wives we talk about getting season tickets. It’s all about perspectives though and I feel the need to confess that if this year’s Champions League final had gone to extra time, I would have delayed my trip to the maternity unit and I would have missed the birth of my son. There is it, it’s out there, I’ve said it.

The club was recently bought over by a couple of rich Americans who promised to put money into the club for new stadium and new players, but after a brief honeymoon period things have turned a bit sour. There is already a scheme underway for the fans to raise money to buy the club back. I have a feeling that its a bit pie in the sky but it’s made me question what I actually want from the club, and I think its this.

I want them to take up the Barcelona model with the club owned by the fans, which can’t be sold. There is no sponsorship on the shirt nor has there ever been, as its too sacred. Until recently, when they dropped their ethic… not to make money to sign a big player but, to advertise Unicef. I love it. That’s what I really want, I would rather Liverpool were a club like that and never won the league than constantly on sale to the highest bidder to pay massive wages to greedy players. It must be said though, it hasn’t done Barca any harm.

I’m a football club owner - update

A website called http://myfootballclub.co.uk/ has sprung up over the last few months with an aim to raise enough money to buy a controlling share in an English football club. The idea is that it will be completly democratic, the team will be picked via the website, as will the actual club that they buy.

It’s £35 to have a share - Question Monkey has joined the movement. Join him. JOINNNNN HIM.

Update: We’ve just bought Ebbsfleet United     See Here

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

So, THATS why im fat - it’s because i care about the environment!

Sushi Akabusi

It’s possibly my greatest franchise idea ever, if only I could get the big man on board!

i don’t understand! This post gets about 50% of my daily hits!
Contact me and let me know what led you here… apart from its obvious comic brilliance

Irish Blood, English Heart

I’m a proud Irishman, well, a proud Ulsterman, well, not that proud. A few years ago i moved to the South West of England for 9 month job - just for a change, and in true story telling fashion, here i am 4 years on with a house, a garden, a cat, a wife and 3 month old son!

 

Cards on table, i’m a Northern Irish unionist (with a very small ‘u’), so deep down i consider myself more British than Churchill! But, i’ll never be English. I like English people, probably more than any other national group, apart from N Irish (of course), my wife is ‘one of them’ which is great. BUT i’m not sure how i feel about my son being English.

I think it all comes to a head when i think of sport, obviously my son is going to end up being a world famous sports star - but would i be happy with him representing England at football or rugby. So i’ve made a decision.

If he’s a rugby player, then its gotta be Ireland, Ireland are a world class team and there’s a history of English born players like Easterby playing for them (i’ll not mention Shane Geraghty to him!). But if football is his game, much as i love N Ireland football team, i do tend to support England anyway - so i’ll let him off with that.

Or maybe, i get no say whatsoever anyway!

Is friendship like a cricketers batting average?

I’m a cricket fan. Not to the extent that I go to all the home  games or know obscure statistics from 1956. But I watch every England test match on TV and usually go to The Oval one day a year with my dad. And I tend to go and see a couple of county 20/20 games, whilst sipping pimms on the village green.

Batting averages are generally taken as the telling statistic when judging a players quality… a good test match player will have an average of around 40, a great one will have an average over 50.

The average, of course, starts to mean more as time goes on. Sometimes a player will burst on the scene and score 3 hundreds in his first 5 games, and have an average right away of 60+. People will love him, and think he’s the next Bradman, but inevitably he has a bad run of form and his average dips. As time goes on though, he can afford to get 3 or 4 low scores and his average won’t be effected too much, and 3 or 4 high scores won’t make him out to be a genius.

(I used to go to church where the preacher would tell a completely random story then at the end say ,  ‘and that’s a bit like Jesus’… and it was all wonderfully make sense!)

Well, that’s a bit like friendship. Sometimes we make new friends (especially of the opposite sex) and they are wonderful right from the start, you love everything they do, it seems like you’re going to be best friends for ever (BFF!). Then you start to fall out with them, they do something that annoys you, really annoys you – and if you haven’t build up enough of an average then, that could be the end of it.

Whereas you have other friends you’ve known for years, with whom you have a decent average. If you, for some reason are a really good friend to you a couple of times, its not going to move them too far in to ‘brother’ status right away… similarly if they upset you or do a few stupid things  they will have built up enough average to still be a good friend.

(this is my worst and most obvious post to date, sorry )