Blood Bins in Football

Last night Ipswich had a goal scored against them, whilst they were down to ten men, due to Jason de Vos being off the field for a blood injury.

Surely, it's time for football to follow rugby and allow a temporary replacement for this type of injury.

The fact that the goal was blatantly offside made it even worse!

 

Footballer for President

There are rumours that George Weah might stand for President of Liberia. From his record it certainly seems he might do a better job than his corrupt predecessors.

I hope he gets the job and succeeds. It might just be what some of Africa needs.

After all if we look at history, countries often need a charismatic figure to take them safely out of dictatorship. Look at Juan Carlos of Spain, Mandela of South Africa, Havel of Czechoslovakia and Walensa of Poland to name four!

 

Three Cheers for BT

Everybody knocks BT!

On Friday our fax line got so noisy it didn't work hardly at all, so I used BT's web site to report a fault at about three in the afternoon. As it was not urgent a call back on Monday would have sufficed.

I was very surprised when I got a call about fifteen minutes later asking if I'd like the fault fixed on Saturday a.m. or p.m!

The van duly turned up at about 11:45 for a p.m. appointment and after ascertaining that it was a problem with the overhead lines in the lane, we had a decent line by about 1:30.

Not bad service at all!

Especially, when you bear in mind that we now have an excellent broadband service in a very rural area, some miles from the exchange.

So don't give up on that either!

 

Shefki Kuqi

What an enigma!

Sometimes plays crap, but always gives his all, but when he has a good day like he did on Saturday, he's not bad at all.

Especially, when he brings Ipswich back from the dead against Plymouth.

Yet again, Ipswich won with ten men after being behind.

 

Great Wall of Bradley

They have now chopped it in half and put up a For Sale sign.

What stupidity!

How much has all this cost them, now that house prices are starting to fall?

 

Accidents on Railways Hit Record Low Levels

I must be lying!

But I'm not!

In today's FT, it has a headline which says just that about a report from the Health and Safety Executive.

But I didn't see the report on the BBC or any other newspaper. Good news just doesn't sell.

 

American Leadership against German

It was no contest really as Bernhard Langer showed Hal Sutton how it was to be done.

Hal Sutton seems a nice enough bloke, but he does seem to have the leadership skills of George W Bush.

 

BBC Radio 5 Live

According to John Inverdale and as he's the present, I think he should know, the BBC Radio 5 Live commentary of the Ryder Cup in Detroit is being broadcast locally on FM.

I don't know whether it says more for the quality of the BBC's commentary or for the complete inadequacy of US radio.

I hope we don't end up in the same state as the US in a few years time. I always think that the pictures are better on radio!

 

No Smoking at Horringer Beehive

We went to the Beehive at Horringer last night and it is now no-smoking!

 

Great Wall of Bradley

Rumours are rife, that they didn't get planning permission for their hideous construction!

Yippee!

 

Chip and Pin

I now have a chip and pin Nationwide credit card which supports Comic Relief. I like the chip and pin concept and I've moved most of my business to the card from others without the extra protection. Many friends seem to have done the same thing, as like me they think the technology helps to protect them!

Certain businesses like BP in Newmarket, sometimes ask for the pin and other times they don't bother! I'm also surprised that some like Waitrose, Sainsburys and Tesco seem to have no plans to introduce it on their side.

Perhaps they feel that the extra time chip and pin takes isn't worth it!

 

Assault Weapons

So it's now legal to buy one in the States.

Surprising really that this ban was brought in because of the attacks on Ronald Reagan and Paul Brady. Weren't they Republicans? And isn't Dubya!

Ah! But it is more important to win an election so that you can continue to antagonise and terrify the rest of the world, than to protect the lives of those of your citizens, who will get killed by assault weapons.

Strangely, Blair is using hunting for the same purpose.

Let's hope they both fail to win their respective elections!

 

Regenerating Cities

Thirty years ago, we lived with our three children in the Barbican in London. It worked very well so much so that one moved back in his twenties.

Don’t say that city centres are not for families.

Often they are so much better than the suburbs where I was brought up, with parks, museums, rivers, restaurants etc.

As to affordable housing the problem is that there is not enough housing of all types. The more we build of all types of housing, then the price will stabilise and eventually come down. But no-one would vote for that, so development is blocked if at all possible.

 

Worst Newspaper Ever!

We returned today from a few days holiday in Spain.

At the airport I picked up the latest Daily Telegraph and it was probably the worst newspaper for stories I have ever read starting from Beslan and working downwards, through Iraq, one about Bush leading in the polls, to Blair banning hunting.

The news just gets worse.

 

Motoring Fines

When are we going to get a system that is fair to all? Never!

I live in the country and have only ever had a few points on my licence in many years.

But if I should lose it, it would cause me great inconvenience and seriously damage my employment prospects.

On the other hand, if I lived in a city such as Manchester with excellent public transport, it would only be a small irritant.

All systems that don’t address this problem are very unfair and totally worthless.