WE WON THE ASHES

Unbelievable, albeit with the helping hand of a South African, we have managed to hang on for the Draw and wrap up the series 2-1, for the first time in 20 odd years. Arise Sir Freddie! Bet Fletcher won't get a passport though!

Playing Again

Made my debut for the PwC Buccaneers today, and after only 9 of us got up for it am very tired. Played against PwC TS who had a full complement of 11, and were 1-0 up for about 60 minutes with a right backs to the wall performance. Played quite well, set up the winner with a Tugay volley from the corner that Matt Armitt managed to tuck away. Sadly defeated 3-1 in the end though as them dimwits worked out they could pass straight through us.

Ashes nicely set up for tomorrow after Freddie and Hoggy managed to undo all of the Aussies good work in a morning session straight from the gods. Bloody Warnie managed to remove Strauss, and despite the Aussies best good Humour, light (or lack of it prevailed) and England held steady for the rest of the day.

Sandridge Never Change

Headed along to Sandridge to watch the reserves play and my goodness was I pleased not to be involved in that mess. It was a terribly poor performance against a distinctly average side, relegation was meant to give us a bunch of easy games. Only highlight was Chris Wilding putting the Baldy defender on his backside. But as Chris W beat me to Player of the Year last year, I
have no time for him. Need to try to get to Thursday training though in order to get a game next weekend. I shouldn’t struggle to get a half I shouldn’t think. The first team won in the cup, 4-0, Chris Wickens bagging a hat-trick.

April

Long time without anything here, I do apologise. But what can you do. Working like a dog at the minute and still hating the long commute in. Half baked efforts to do some flat-hunting, a case of believing the mountain might come to Mohammad? Arsenal - Chelsea tonight, fancy Chelsea to accept the trophy on the Weekend as they will probably win tonight and again on weekend against Fulham.

Happy days though, birthday on Saturday, but need to get the old dear something for hers on Monday, buggar.

ambidextrus giblets

There you go, that is what you need

Booze isn't fun

What a pile of old bollocks. Read in the newspaper today that tv adverts that advertise alcohol in an amusing or encouraging way are to be banned. That's the John Smith's/Peter Kay efforts and the WKD ads.

What a pile of crap, why not ban being born for fucks sake. People surely are able to make their own choices every now or then.

Masters, Primed a beauty?

Forgot to include how nicely poised the world of golf is heading into 2005's majors. Woods regained no.1 spot in the world yesterday, pipping Mickelson (last years master!) to the Doral classic in Florida, whilst over in Europe (or Dubai!) Ernie played well to oick up a W there. Vigay has been playing well as other big names Americans are, Monty was in the hunt in Dubai and
hopefully we will see a fantastic week. European hopes appear brighter with the likes of Owen, Donald and Howell playing well and many plying their trade in the US this Spring. Bring on the Azalias and Peter Allis's faux-pars!

Weekend Blues

Strange old weekend, once again all football was cancelled, I know it snowed a bit last week but it really wasn't anything to write home about and Hadley's park should have been able to cope! I think it was more strange with the fact BBC had some sport on it even if it were a poor mans Rugby. Sunday's two close but uninspiring games allowed Jonathan Edwards and Jerry
Guscott to once again castigate the poor skills in the Northern Hemisphere. I kind of like the fact they are using national television as a soap box, Davies appears at times suicidal that people haven't the basic skills he possessed. I get the feeling professionalism isn,t all it cracked up to be
in his eyes.

Good weekend for Chelsea and West Brom, Norwich out of it now and it is 2 from 3 unless Pompy get caught up in it. Fulham too are perilously close to the Championship abyss. Back to the Champions League this week, all talk of Chelsea-Barca and the folks at ITV have got it live. Could be a few freeview boxes pulling up with cramp though as United venture to the San Siro at the same time trying to overturn the1-0 deficit from Carrolls blunder at Old Trafford on the ITV2. I can't call the Chelsea game, think united will go out, Arsenal too although only after giving it a good go and Liverpool too will scrape through, they are a bit of a dark horse saving their best for Europe and their last two performances have a destiny about them.

F1 got underway and it all looks quite happy with the new regulations, it will be interesting what a normal climatic hour of qualifying will do. No one had to push too hard on Sunday am and how long will the engine rules stay in place after BAR so readily manipulated them.

Finally, good weekend for Tennis (yawn) and reasonable for Athletics, that hall in Madrid looks the part, the millennium dome has the promise to be a similar building for us, let it host these things, the capitals answer to the NEC.

Cup Replays

Apparently it was all about the romance of the cup last night, and to be honest, maybe the romance wasn’t there in terms of results, but all three diddy teams definitely stuck it up the big uns at certain points. Whilst Hansen was whining about the lack of goals the Blades-Gunners match was superb entertainment, if only because in the absence of Terence H, Freddie
Ljungberg decided to throw his toys out of the pram, when really he was at fault a lot of the time himself. Exciting to the end though, really made my night, didn’t want extra time to end. Sack shoot-outs, extra time should continue with golden goal after the 30 minutes, swapping halves every 15 minutes. Moment of the match, apart from Paddy Kelly not diving to his right in shoot-out due to injury has got to be Pascal Cygan’s terrible attempt on goal, Shinned it good and proper.

Blogging the way forward

Thought I'd blog from work, not too bad, very tired, working hard and looking forward to Arsenal on TV tonight even without any centre-forwards!

Girls name! Not really surprised though are you!

Beckhams get 'hat-trick'

Hooliganism Rules Again!

Really is a pushing need to deal with all the hooligan issues quickly and decisively this week with the three weekend examples in Liverpool, Glasgow and Burnley. It isn't about kickoff times, the latter two showed this, it is about laying down the law and really detering the idiots. Can't see it happening though and TV will be blamed!

Best Aussie Open Ever!

First both ladies semis go all the way to set up a clash of the heavyweights, then this, Safin upsets Federer in 5 marathon sets. Plus still have Hewitt trying his utmost to stop Roddicks fire.

Real news for a change.

This is going to sound a bit ‘Big Brother’ diary room-esque, but I am amazed by just how popular and in the news this blogging is. In the dictionary; bloggers: ‘people of the year’ and now the bloggers; the Oscars of the blogging world. I didn’t realise just how many people own/run/record/make one! Fascinating stuff, I’m sure someone is missing something, but surely it could be good publicity for a celebrity to set one up and keep a diary of their lives, literally that would be an up to date autobiography, or a glimpse inside a heat magazine or hello world. I guess that would make those magazines a bit defunct. Also, the celebrity is totally in control of what they do and what they do not put on it, instead of relying on manipulation of the press. Just a thought, but I hereby copy write it, ©.

Talking of the Oscars, which I wasn’t apart in passing, already there is a story of how an actress has made good in all the glitterati of Hollywood having grown up in a rough and ready neighbourhood. This time it is Sophie Okonedo, who is up for best supporting actress for her role in Hotel Rwanda. I have no idea if she is going to win or not, I have not seen the film and hence nor have I witnessed her performance. Anyway, in today’s evening standard, it talks of her upbringing in the Chalkhill estate, Wembley, an upbringing where harsh doesn’t do it justice. Now again I’m not going to judge the area, I’ll go with the journalist who wrote the piece, but I find this sort of journalism very easy, write a piece on someone’s childhood and sensationalise it as against all odds story line. Apart from the odd Hollywood family, how many of the big names are actually Hollywood born and bred. Very few, most of them can be classified as incredibly good looking and can act pretty well (looks don’t win big roles, I don’t care if Julia Roberts is fit and Brad Pitt adorns most teenage girls bedroom walls, they both can act), but most of them are from their own humble beginnings. We don’t hear about the big names history when they are nominated so why bore me with details about the newbie’s. Sure mention it, I certainly have a lot of admiration for this lady, but I’d rather hear about the work she put in just before and during the filming, I’m guessing that the film is probably quite a good conversation if about Rwanda in the last 15 yrs. Remember more folk died from ethnic cleansing there at the hands of fellow humans as died in the tsunami.

Trying Again!

Thought I should start this bad boy up again, mainly as I have nothing to do at work until I get an important email in and it makes me look busy. Sadly, the longer I wait the quicker I will have to work this afternoon as apparently it is very important and needs to be completed by this evening. Out goes football training tonight then.
So, work is good, a little up and down in terms of having work to do, on the whole working at work is better than having to while away time, but sadly much work is just calling up people, mostly French who don’t understand me. Not so good.
It is better than the old ICAS exams though, although i'm sure I have mentioned this week during a bad moment that I’d rather be back at college. Gotta stop doing that then!
I think last week really tired me as the Kelster was here too and great as it was to see her, I tried to be to good a host (when I really didn’t need to as she is a grown girl like) and all that worrying and crap i didn't need to do tires you out. Took her to the Vic’ though and saw the hornets win and everything. Sadly they were crap last night.
Well, hopefully keep more up to date like Ollie does, we’ll not hold our breath though.

Week is a long time in accountancy

Wow, so 1 week worth of intensive accountancy training is really very tough. Plus, am at considerable disadvantage having not done any of it before unlike many others. The old progression test of Friday highlighted the need to be able to apply everything and not make silly mistakes some of which i cannot believe i made. Well not to worry, just need to stick at it, i do understand it all, just now i have to make sure i remember everything and learn from Fridays mistakes, onwards and upwards as they say!

Wednesday, Feels like Friday

So working life definitely is quite tough, especially with the old commuting lark on top of it. However, 3 days gone now and enjoying it a lot even though they are throwing so much information at you it is hard at times to remember your own name. Anyway, information is not the only thing they are throwing at you, money for one thing, the induction week so far has been class with free food and drinks, including last night that turned into a bit of a lengthy one, drinking in the west end, Budvar following Budvar, had better not get to used to that as my group are off tomorrow night to a right skanky night out, happy days. Plus they persuaded me to take a proper nice top of the range IBM laptop computer at me, so not to bad at all. The people are all cool, the only down side is the first visit to college tomorrow before starting there full time on Monday.

Great result for hornets yesterday stuffing premiership Southampton 5-2, revenge definitely served cold.

Day 1

Wow, only 1 day in and I am totally knackered. Quite a slowish day, but with nerves, meetings and introductions, it was a long and tiring one! Still it has only taken me 1 day to work out that the commuter life ain't for me.
Still on the plus side met loads of good people and am in a group of cool people, so it looks promising. Off to main office tomorrow to learn more stuff and meet other people in my field for drinks tomorrow night, nice!

Weekend over, REAL WORD!

Crap-a-doodle-doo, so the weekend has come to a climax and I managed to lose both footie games I played in although Saturday playing a side 3 divisions above us we put in a great performance and was a pleasure to play in. Good on the RL boys although Scotland took a doing from the aussies.

Anyway, off to work tomorrow, bought first ever season ticket, albeit a weekly pass. Bags packed, shoes shined and alarm set so I'm off to do this bad boy. Brilliant email from the Kelster made my day too.

Suited and booted baby!

Obviously, the Hornets taking on Derby is all the talk, Tommy 'I've played for the same team as Neil Robertson' Smith making his second return to the Vic.

RIP Daytime TV

With a heavy heart I had to say farewell to 'This Morning' today, a sad occurrence at the best of time, but my mood was further tempered by the fact Fern doesn't work on Fridays anymore, leaving Lorraine Kelly to receive my adulation. Anyhoo, daytime TV is off the menu as I start my professional grown up life with PWC as a trainee auditor. Pretty excited about the whole affair, although commuting and all the studying is going to be a bit of an arse, especially coming up to Christmas. Also not getting paid until the end of November could be arseache too. Well I'll have to wait and see about all that at my induction at some hotel on Gloucester Road on Monday. Mind winning the 10 yr anniversay Lottery draw on Saturday might change my life a bit more!
Off to watch Sky Sports News so I can feast on all the sports action this weekend. The premier leagues of course will dominate (although they are staggered a bit due to uefa cup action last nite), the return of rugby union with the southern hemisphere sides gubbing the Celtic sides tomorrow, but my pick, especially after last weekend is the rugby league tri-nations, as the lions host the Kiwis. Because I'm playing tomorrow and don't have sky, I will be entertained by Radcliffe passing out somewhere in Brooklyn on Sunday and the culmination of the Bupa Bowls championship, word!

Couldn't have planned that better, the boy Andy 'The Viking' Fordham only got mentioned by Dr Karl Kennedy during todays Neighbours episode, doesn't get better than that!

Viking in Rehab

Brilliant item from the BBC (quality television for all the family), the recuperation from injury of Andy Fordham, World Darts Champion 2004 from a broken wrist.

Anyway, From one long-faced loser to a long-faced winner Ruud van Nistelhorse sorted Sparta Praha out a treat last night with his 4-goal soiree, word is G. Neville fresh from naming Rio Ferdinand the greatest English defender ever (?) has called the Dutchman the greatest Dutchman to ever to play the game, however he went on to say Marco Van Basten is Hollands best player. I wonder how he rates Pascal Cygan?

W for win!

So after an intriguing couple of days George W. Bush managed to 'hold' off Kerry and unlike his father be returned as US President. In the end with the war on Terrorism, Iraq and homeland security it seems the morals of each were the deciding factor with Republican evangelists winning the election. I can't help but think if Kerry had shown his raw personality of his concession speech during campaigning he may have fared better. Meanwhile the most and least popular president (most votes ever for a president & most votes 'against') has a lot of work to do to repair the divisions seen in this result. But there are a few happy democrats; the satirists, Michael Moore who can make more films and money from Bush, and Hilary Clinton who could be the first female President in 4 years time. I bet there is no one happier than Bill Clinton who will be able to create his own job description for the First Gentleman, insert your own intern gag here.
My favourite part was when the vice-president introduced Bush to the podium for his acceptance speech, The smuggest man in the world now had a chance to look even smugger, I thought his face might explode! Although he may have just drunk 3 year old milk, I'm not certain. Mind it really was a bit of a gubbing he gave Kerry and now he has the power to do all he wants to leave his legacy, what with the two houses Republican, he really has a shot to finish his 'war'. We will have to wait and see what the consequences of this are.

The Neilly Boy Starts Up

So this is my quest to basically trivialize, advance myself technologically and basically journal my role in the world, so I am going to try and get this blogging thing going on and unleash the neilly boy on the world. You'll note a slightly sporty bias to most of this bloggy thing though.

What with a new job on Monday, War in Iraq and (apparently) "the most important democratic vote this century" (Sky News, 2004) in the endless throes of completion there's much to be interested in and talk about, but when it all comes down to it I'd agree with the Sun this morning, Stan Collymore is a Prick!

So here we go, hold on to your indifferent cap and wait for some infrequent words of wisdom!

The Neilly Boy is off and running (aka, still watching daytime TV for a few days)

Me 

Weird day

Deciding to listen to The Corries Silver Collection in Russia!