Omens, omens everywhere

On Monday, we fly to Munich. We'll be there until the new year. By way of coincidence, the last time I was in Germany for new year's eve was 2004/5 when the England cricket team were, as they are now, in South Africa.

It seems like such a short time ago to me and yet a look at the team that played in the Boxing Day test in that series has only player in the current team. Four have retired from playing altogether, one of whom is a selector for the national side.

It's a reminder of how good that side was that they won the series and then went on to beat a strong Australian side. The current England team has just beaten a moderate Australian side. I hope that my visit to Germany will bring the best out of them.

Listening to the news on Radio 4 earlier today, I heard an item about the tsunami from that same Christmas. It says a lot for the way the (my) mind works. I remember standing at luggage claim at Berlin, Tegel checking the cricket score and finding out that Graham Thorpe has hit a hundred. I remember watching some news items in the hotel room on CNN about the Tsunami but not taking in the devastation.

I guess there are few people who, when not personally involved, would put memory of a disaster ahead of something pleasurable.

Missing in action

For the last two years I have had a wonderful time at Christmas with Diana's (large) extended family in New Mexico.

However, there's something magical about sitting on the sofa in your own home at 8:25 on Boxing Day morning, watching the first day's play between South Africa and England, knowing that later there's live football and the King George VI chase from Kempton Park as well.

Oh to be in England, now that Boxing Day is here...

Now that the day is done

Two observations.

1) Mugs seem to be the present of choice this year. I am guilty of giving mugs for Christmas. On the whole, I think that it is a good thing.

2) Facebook remains a short-cut. The world, his uncle and his uncle's uncle seem to be letting everybody they know, know that they wish them a merry Christmas and so on and so forth. I can't help but feel that there are other, better ways of doing it. It's unusual for some many Facebook statuses to be so similar. But then I guess that this is an unusual time of the year.

You just had to look the gift horse in the mouth

Christmas Day. One of the prime opportunities for those on the lower rungs of the broadcasting ladder to climb higher. Anyone with any power in the industry will be on holiday. Those with very little power will be having the day off too.

So, this morning, the stand-in for the stand-in sports news reader on Radio 5 Live chose to say that the racehourse, Kauto Star "will be hoping to win" the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day.

That is an amazing piece of breaking news from what must have been an exclusive interview with a horse. Straight from the horse's mouth perhaps?

Prologue and fuge

Two films, both alike in dignity
In fair culture where they set their stage

Enough of that. Anyway, there are two films I've seen recently that both startlingly similar and yet I make no claim of stealing.

A couple of weeks ago, the wife and I went to see Me and Orson Welles and thoroughly enjoyed it. The film was funny without being obvious, intelligent without overreaching, well-acted without being showy. Technically proficient, you might say.

Last night we saw The Red Shoes at the BFI. It's a beautifully shot, witty, touching if slightly melodramatic in a 1940s way. Considering it was made in 1948, that is perfectly acceptable. And half way through I realised I was watching the same film over again. Only better, more carefully shot.

Perhaps the love triangle is of eternal interest, how someone can get in the way of love, or misunderstand passion for love. From a male perspective, you are obviously meant to associate with the spurned lover. Although the compose marries the ballerina in The Red Shoes, he is spurned because he cannot replace her love of dancing. And in Me and Orson Welles, it is Me who fails to understand that Sonja is not like anyone he's ever met. She is willing to sacrifice a little bit of herself in order to make something of herself. As, I guess, is Victoria Page.

These films don't offer consistent, eternal truths. On the other hand, they manage to avoid being male dick fantasies of the type found in Love Actually. Whilst it's a perfectly pleasant film with many humorous scenarios and performances, it is almost entirely about a world of male fantasy that just doesn't exist. And somehow it is regarded as a "chick flick" (appalling term, used under protest).

Funny then that a film like The Red Shoes which is from a magical realist perspective can have more to say about life and love than one that portrays several ordinary relationships.

A magic trick!

Surrey County Cricket Club has managed to turn three words into one.

The three words:

Rory Hamilton Brown

have become:

Gamble

Mind you after last season, things could hardly get any worse.

Don't shoot the messenger

He's right. He's absolutely right. It's just not always right to say it.

Hugh Grant suggests that seeing a play is a hit and miss affair with the majority being, well a miss. Whilst it would be easy to carp and suggest he examines his own catalogue for the odd howler, it would miss the point. And the point is that he is correct.

There are three productions this year that spring to mind. Firstly, Three Days of Rain starring James McAvoy. After a perfectly decent first act, the whole plot quickly unravels once the rain starts and then only the most short-sighted person would miss each and every clue offered before the interval. Suddenly the play becomes a case of join the dots and the last 30 minutes are rendered meaningless because what looks like a taut script turns into plotting so obvious you've seen it in a dozen ITV sit-coms.

The second production is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Whilst it would be churlish to knock anything with James Earl Jones in, he did star in both Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof suffers from being lionised. And yet this production made it seem like a Carry On film with enough innuendo to lubricate everyone's throat. Everything about it carried the weight of people trying too hard to be clever, all too aware of the play's reputation as a classic and trying to justify it.

And finally, the abject Footsbarn Christmas Cracker at the Globe. It's only been on two days and I haven't found a review online yet. There are a variety of reasons for this. Goodwill towards the Globe. The brevity of the performance. The time of the year. The production is so short that calling it limp would not adequately do it justice. It is a miserable trawl through, well what? It was hardly all things to all Shakespeare lovers. It was a confusing, short mess with random tightrope walking thrown in to cover for costume changes.

Three productions with an element of pre-existing kudos. Three major disappointments. Ah, the joys of the theatre. I really want to see Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art. I will need to build up some courage beforehand. I want it to be good but I'm worried that because it has the pre-existing kudos, people are being kinder about it than they would for other art forms. The theatre is weighed down by historical and cultural baggage. Not enough people are prepared to state quite clearly that:

It's not as clever as it thinks it is, as often as it thinks it is.

So bravo Mr Grant. You may be knocked for saying it, not because of what you're saying but because of who you are. And that's a shame. Because you're correct.

When is reform not a reform?

Answer? When it's a "think tank" (pressure group) dedicated to self-promotion and endless public haranguing in order to suit it's own ideological ends.

Reform, the pressure group, claims to represent many shades of political thought and to have some base in market economics but it is thoroughly Victorian in its outlook.

Its basic rule of thumb seems to be, high end education for a few because that's how it stays a high end education. Education must be segmented so you and you can do A-levels and go to university but you, you and you should be doing something more appropriate and maybe one of you can go to an old style polytechnic.

And while we're at it, we're going to remind you, you and you that you are not as valued as you and you because you're not doing A-levels. In fact, if you do try to do A-levels, we're going to say that you, you and you are responsible for dumbing down education.

Reform does not represent reform. It represents regression. This was drummed home when one of it's number, a prospective Tory MP and nominally in charge of Reform's education research said that her view of education was based on the miserable time she had at school. "Quite a lot of my ideas came from what I experienced at my school."

Wow.

No research needed there. Only blinkers.

It's good to know she's broad-minded and open to thinking about new ideas. Oh hang on a minute...

Think tank is one of the most abhorrently inaccurate terms ever used. In Reform's case it should be "grumbling bludgeoning".

Merry Christmas to those whose job it is to come up with ideas and yet manage to only moan and pick. They are responsible to reducing politics to a shouting match where doing is no longer important because saying is everything.

I now pronounce you football club and manager

There's a plethora of crises in English football at the moment. Ignoring the premier league where the trend for managers allegedly headbutting players or insulting fans by picking a team that has no hope of winning just because his better players were feeling a bit tired, it's all fun and games in the Championship.

Whilst my own beloved Crystal Palace struggles with debts that totally outstrips its assets, Watford are in danger of entering administration and Cardiff City were a High Court appearance away from being wound up all together. What does this mean? Who cares? Well, a lot of people who really ought to know better by now. I think the BBC should bring back Why Don't You but aim it at football fans. But let's not get into the argument about whether a football club effectively represents or is linked to the community it is located in, or about why people get so attached to things which, ultimately, cannot return the attachment directly.

Instead, I'm getting confused about the language that is now used in this over-analysed world. No doubt lawyers galore pick over every contract and dictate the terms of every press release.

Perhaps this is why the term "mutual consent" is not so prevalent when it comes to what used to be known as "sacking" football managers.

What does mutual consent actually mean? Does it mean you're sacked, I resign , we agree to disagree or we can't stand the sight of each other?

When someone is accused of wrong doing, suspended, cleared and reinstated, is there any hope for anything other than a swift, departure by mutual consent announcement soon after as in the case of Martin Allen, manager of Cheltenham Town FC?

Jim Magilton of QPR didn't have the chance to be cleared. The mutual consent came in before that. And Brendan Rodgers of Reading didn't even have to be accused of misconduct for mutual consent to be the reason for his dismissal.

If only mutual consent was an option for divorce courts, relationships and friendships. "I can't come to the pub tonight as Bill and I are no longer friends by mutual consent." "Darling, I think our relationship may be but I need to know if that's just me or whether consent is mutual."

Players are never sold by mutual consent. My season ticket is not being renewed by this has nothing to do with mutual consent, after all the club phoned me up yesterday to try to change my mind. Bless them.

I'm not too upset for these people. Football, even at that level, does not suffer from poor pay. Although that may be changing. The amount of clubs that have unsustainable debts may cause more mutual consent that anyone ever thought possible.

Just chequeing

And now, the end is near, I will must write, the final cheque...

In eight years time, another word will become redundant. Another British spelling lost. We will no longer need to worry about tutting every time an American writes check when they should be writing cheque.

I remember writing my first cheque. I wrote a cheque to pay for a curry. I went to an Indian restaurant in glorious Thornton Heath with a friend and I felt so sophisticated as I pulled out my cheque book and scribbled on the paper, handing it over with my card.

There was fear too, fear that I would be seen as some sort of fraud. It was the first time I'd paid for anything without actually having laid down the cash. It didn't seem right somehow.

Ah for nostalgia for the simple things like the expression "it's not worth the paper it's written on". And now, I can pay by card at my newsagents. It still doesn't feel as though I'm spending money.

And I've managed to do most of my Christmas shopping without stepping foot in a shop. If I don't go to a shop, how can it be shopping?

Words are funny things really. They only have the meaning you give them just as a cheque only has the value you agree with the person you present it to.

'Cheque' will go once the physical product disappears but 'shop' remains even when it's virtual.

It's just not cricket

A one-day game, over eight hundred runs in only one hundred overs, a tense, close finish.

It's just not cricket. It really isn't. Not as I know it. India beat Sri Lanka by three runs earlier today and I'm sure a nation went wild. I'm also fairly certain that many people in the cricket world were raising an eyebrow or two to a game that lacks subtlety and replaces it with might.

This match in 1981 took four days and had 787 runs. England beat Australia by 29 runs. It didn't go down to the last ball or even the last day but probably contained more twists and greater tension.

The test series between South Africa and England starts in the morning. Up to twenty days of cricket. Glorious.

I could make some point about how the preference for one-day cricket and now 20/20 (T20, Twenty20, Twenty twenty, whatever) is symptomatic of the modern trend towards a short-term, eat me now culture, how it's a metaphor for the shrill shouts of a Jeremy Kyle friendly culture that wants instant gratification or the right to moan if it's not forthcoming immediately.

But you know what? I can't be bothered. It'll take too much time.

If you stop to think about it, you'd never get anything done.

I had my head stuck in the STPCD (2009) today and it felt good. It's an odd thing to like.

For someone whose attention to detail is, shall we say, lacking, the enjoyment to be gained from writing about the pay and conditions of teachers is rather perverse. But I then I guess I have this overwhelming, and some might say rather unattractive, desire to be right.

It's the kind of attention to detail that used to be reserved for memorising lyrics or football scores or cricket statistics. The mind seems to be changing, no longer interested in clinching arguments, it now seeks to tell the shoulders to shrug and the mouth to say "I see where you're coming from".

Obviously it all depends on who you are and where you're coming from. If you're Paul Dacre then where you are coming from is so far removed from reality that it's impossible to see where you're coming from with the aid of the Hubble telescope. Ditto Michael Bay, for example.

There's no longer a desire to be right when it comes to what you might call the generalities of life. You know, politics, sport, music, film and so on. What it's been replaced with is the desire to be right about very specific, very minor specialities, the kind that would embarrass even the most geeky contestant on Mastermind.

For some reason, I don't see this as a bad thing.

Mr Head, meet Mr Sand

What happens on tour stays on tour. Innit, know what I mean. All for one and one for all, don't break with the team.

Get it? Right. Good, now keep your mouth shut for the good of everybody. Ok?

Or, as Stoke City manager, Tony Pulis, puts it:

I have been a manager for 18 years and you have certain golden rules and one of the rules I stick to is that whatever happens in the dressing room stays in the dressing room.

Meaning what exactly? You don't tell if someone has a small penis or unsightly hairs where society dictates it is socially embarrassing? You don't let on if two people are unhappy with each other? You say nothing about the cliques that are in the team? You stop short of mentioning when everyone is getting along, or who is really drunk and peed in the shower onto an unsuspecting player?

Or you don't bother to mention whether or not an assault has taken place?

But it's ok because it took place in the dressing room. We can do anything in the dressing room. We are untouchable. If we tell them we lose our invincibility.

We can only assume that Mr Pulis will not be writing an autobiography. Or if he does, it will neglect to mention any changing room antics. And can he really stop former players discussing it?

And why would he want to? Can't we break down the barriers that still exist in football, barriers that still assert a male, a macho dominance.

In a week when one of the best coaches in English football, Hope Powell, doubted she would ever get the chance to manage a professional, men's team, it's sad to hear such stuff and nonsense come from with the dressing room of a professional, men's team.

If Tony did not headbutt a player he can say so. If he did, he should face the consequence. Saying that he will say nothing only perpetuates the pathetic, arrogant, macho myth of the sports team.

If he has to resort to this sort of thing, it's a shame that three national newspaper knew about it on the day it happened. That suggests that what happens in the dressing room is rather prone to leak out.

It also suggests that if you have to enforce unity with a blanket manifesto, then you're already too divided.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum

I'm leaving soon to go to the Reading-Palace match.

I'm not looking forward to it. I can't really afford to go but it will be good to catch up with my Reading supporting friend, Mike. I'm not sure there's any other reason for me to go. I don't think we'll win. I'm not enjoying watching football and haven't for a couple of seasons. The football hasn't been great and the social side of it has become less and less enjoyable.

I've also found myself looking at the occasional internet forum. I haven't looked at one for ages but with Palace's financial crisis, I thought I'd try to judge the mood. I've come to the conclusion that those who frequent these internet forums are the dwindling band. The average attendance has been dropping for some time now and yet these people become more and more vociferous and assume that their opinion is more and more valid.

I know I've written about this before but I was reminded of the subject for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I wrote an article for When Saturday Comes about not wanting to renew my season ticket despite the crisis and wanted to have a look to see if there was a reaction. Well, I didn't look very deeply. I'm not completely immune to criticism.

However I did see someone state that he was falling out of love with the club and with the game. Whilst he didn't get abused, he view was dismissed out of hand. It was a "you don't count anymore" attitude that made me sad.

The second reason was something Fulham manager Roy Hodgson said when. One of his players, Bobby Zamora, has been getting criticism from fans on a Fulham website.

Zamora scored at the weekend and in his celebration, he let it be known that he did not appreciate all the negative comments. Hodgson, a man widely respected in the game for his achievements and his approach calmly told interviewers, "these people who write into the club's blogs, they're the real experts."

And he's right. They are the real experts in their own opinion. I'm not worried about what anyone says about mine because I thought about it for some weeks, wrote it up, rewrote it, forgot about it, re-rewrote and finally heavily edited it. It was then submitted for publication before receiving another edit by me and, presumably, the editorial team.

The forums are frighteningly immediate and do not reward moderate views. Like radio phone in shows, the ones who shout the loudest are the ones who get lauded.

It's a little bit like being at a football match.

And so the circle goes on.

I'll be sitting on my own at the game and I'll be quiet. Not because I never want to be heard but because when I am, I want it to be for something worth listening to.

A library by any other name would smell as sweet

Today I planned to write about how I was reliving those days between 1991 and 1994 when I used to camp in the Martial Rose Library of the then King Alfred's College in Winchester in order to write essay from scratch on the day they were due in.

Those were great days although in a slightly embarrassing way. I found it really hard to plan and prepare and submit essays before the deadline. So, like a fair number of other students, I used to spend entire days where I'd pull books from the shelves and plough through them and churn out worryingly poor essays.

Today, I planned to do something very similar. My latest Open University course has only two essay. To be honest, there's been a lot going on recently and I just haven't done the work. However, I set myself up today for a Martial Rose day. I knew that I'd be able to knock-off a fairly reasonable essay in eight or nine hours.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the essay was actually due in at noon today. Imagine my surprise when I found this out at 10am today having only put in about half an hours work. Imagine my greater surprise when I found that I managed to get the essay in by 11:47.

It wont be good. It can't be good. It better not be good or I'll probably do it all over again in January.

I would say that I've learned my lesson but the evidence suggests I've had 18 years to learn it. If I haven't by now, I probably never will.

I'm just covering myself here

Let it be known, I was wrong about something.

Shocking, huh?

Anyway, for many years I have harboured a grudge against anyone daring to carry an umbrella. Well, carrying it is fine. Using it is not.

This is really a height thing. Being two metres tall, that's 6' 7" in old money (or 6"7 in Spinal Tap measurements), I am at the optimum height for having my eyes scrapped by umbrellas. Especially golf umbrellas.

Golf umbrellas that are being used on the pavement rather than the golf course would make the list of the modern ten commandments:

Thou shalt not use a golf umbrella anywhere other than a golf course

Because it doesn't take much to work out that there's more room on a fairway than a pavement.

Other commandments would naturally read:

• Thou shalt not wear combat trousers outside a war zone
• Thou shalt not wear a comedy tie
• Thou shalt not walk slowly
• Thou wilt wear thy trousers so that no one can see your underpants

So congratulations to all those people who lift or tilt their umbrellas accordingly. Kudos, in fact.

Anyway, I have noticed that an umbrella has its uses. Interestingly, I have found that it stops me getting wet.

Who knew?

The downside is, being a special cheapskate at the moment (economic conditions, crappy job market, poor decision making, Christmas is coming and the goose isn't even tubby, let alone fat) I bought a £5 M&S umbrella. And it's pretty good. It's compact, it keeps most of the rain off, it folds up and so on.

However, because it cost £5, it has also started to fall apart. Well, you get what pay for. Or I got what I paid for. That by the way is as daft an expression as, "oh, it's cheap at half the price".

Well, I've taken my first step into the wider world of non-golfing umbrellas. I haven't played golf in two and half years. Consequently I haven't used a golfing umbrella in, well around two and a half years. I need to find a happy medium (another silly expression).

This, by the way, would be a good next step I think. I wouldn't want to go for something too expensive until I've confirmed that I'm not just flirting with them.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

Something unusual may happen this week. I may actually make it to a football match.

I've had other things on, you see. Well, for the Watford game I got to the ground and little bit late. On the approach I heard two roars and two announcements. Palace scored twice. There seemed little point in carrying on. The pub beckoned!

Not that I wish to come across in an alpha male context. I had a pint of diet coke with a friend before catching a train up to town to meet the wife so a Thanksgiving celebration.

On Saturday we went to Reading to watch London Irish draw with Worcester in what must be one of the dullest games of rugby ever witnessed. It rained, a lot, the teams kicked, a lot, only Chris Latham was able to catch the ball or kick it with any accuracy.

There shouldn't be many draws in rugby, there normally aren't many draws in rugby. There seems to have been a lot this year. I think that says a lot about the season so far without me bothering to have to research it. Worcester has now had three drawn games in a row, scoring no more than 16 points in any of them.

Anyway, Palace are playing away to Reading on Tuesday night. I am planning on going. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's been a long time since I've been to an away game on my own. I'm getting a lift from a Reading fan I know so at least I'll have some motivation to get there. Of course, it might be more fun to go in with the home fans. It might be a useful way of making football a little bit more enjoyable for the moment.

Face it, I've been watching trash recently. Palace scored twenty-six goals at home last season. Thirteen came in just four games. This season we have scored eleven goals in ten. That includes 4-1 and 3-0 wins and four games in which Palace has not scored.

Sport is meant to be a lot more fun than this.

Time for revision

There are people who stick to a belief rigidly. It can be too unsettling to go back over what seems true to you and it's often easier to retain a notion, a like or dislike than spend the time rethinking things.

This is the case with Donnie Darko. An odd choice you might say. Why not religion? A political belief? A lifestyle choice?

Well, Donnie Darko will do for now. An it's timely as there is a slew of film reviews for director Richard Kelly's latest film, The Box, that refer to the promise of his directorial debut. Donnie Darko seems to have passed into myth.

I liked the film when I first saw it. I bought it based on word of mouth recommendations. It's that simple, a couple of people thought I'd like it, I watched it, I liked it. When teaching GCSE and A-level I used it as a resource. It baffled most students but that made me like it even more.

However, when Kelly's Southland Tales was laughed out of Cannes, I went back for another look.

I changed my mind.

It's a shambles of a film, a rambling, non-sensical mess that tries ever so hard to be difficult but merely ends up being inexplicable.

So, it's really disappointing to hear the film still be lauded as a work of excellence, as a demonstration of promise yet to be fulfilled. And even more of a shame to hear Mark Kermode peddling this untruth so firmly.

It really doesn't matter. It's not important in the grand scheme of things. I'm not sure why I mentioned it. Perhaps I didn't get enough sleep.

Praise so faint you can barely see it

Just a thought. Next Saturday we are going to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the West End starring Darth Vadar and Mrs Cosby.

I simplify for effect, of course.

On the train back from London this afternoon, I noticed an advert in the paper for the play. It had a picture of each of the four leads. Above each picture is a word relating their performances, culled from reviews. The words include 'superb' and 'stunning'.

Amongst such praise, the 'excellent' above Phylicia Rashad seems a little flat. I know excellent should be high praise, maybe it is a touch overused. Excellent is not, after all, stunning. It is merely excellent.

But then excellent should not be merely anything. Odd really.

As a footnote, I notice that Richard Blackwood appears in a small role. Remember him? It will be interesting to see if he is worth his place in the cast or if the producers had a very limited imagination when compiling a list of actors to appear in this 'all-black production' (Evening Standard).

Social climbing

It's quite a day.

I guess there are several big events, not least the assembly of the Christmas tree. I mean assembly, not in the sense of putting together all the ornaments for display but attaching the branches to trunk.

Yes, it's artificial, of course it is. However, it's been a long time since I've had any kind of Christmas tree (bah humbug, well not really). The last artificial tree I remember putting up or pulling down had branches that simply folded. Therefore I have no idea is this is the norm now. I didn't notice the dismantling being part of the sales pitch.

It's not a whinge, you understand, just an observation.

Which is kind of important because of what else happened today. I had a meeting with a small charity in London for whom I am doing some writing. The person leading the project was late. I was therefore left in a meeting with two cats marking their territory.

I felt thoroughly patronised. The level of condescension reached epic proportions every time I opened my mouth. Of course, because I do not work there, because I am merely an outsider, I do not understand the subtle nuances of the organisation., blah, blah, blah.

When the project leader (terrible expression) arrived, he proceeded to completely change the course of the meeting and we ended up a million miles away from where the cats wanted to be.

Hilarious.

Make up your mind!

I think it's very easy to say what you don't want to do. It's easier to say what you don't like.

Even now I struggle to get out the words "I want to write for a living". It just seems a little, well awkward as parodied by Monty Python. Whenever I think that it's what I should be doing I hear the words:

What do you know about getting up at five o'clock in t'morning to fly to Paris... back at the Old Vic for drinks at twelve, sweating the day through press interviews, television interviews and getting back here at ten to wrestle with the problem of a homosexual nymphomaniac drug-addict involved in the ritual murder of a well known Scottish footballer· That's a full working day, lad, and don't you forget it!

So, for the second time, I've tried to go back to teaching as a means of solving a job crisis. And for the second time, it's gone wrong.

I have to remember this now. It's just not for me anymore. And I think the trouble was that it was lurking behind me during my last job search, don't worry, there's always teaching!

I'm not trying to denigrate the profession. I've got nothing against teachers, I married one. Mind you, I think that was part of the problem. We are both natural teachers, we both have a way in the classroom (she much, much, much more so than me). She, however, can do all the other crap too, the marking, planning, preparing, the dedicating sundry hours to the job to get things done.

So I have to make sure the career choices work this time.

Day one led to having an article accepted by a national magazine only for them to offer £75 for its publication. I assumed it was a negotiating position and asked for me prompting the magazine to threaten to withdraw its offer altogether.

It's a start. I have some ideas and I have a couple of regular sources of writing income. It's up to me to make sure that there are more sources. I need to do it properly this time. After all, there's no going back to school. Not anymore.

How did it come to this?

I'm planning a lesson on similes and metaphors. For a year 8 English class.

How did that happen. Not so long ago I was writing articles for headteachers on complicated school issues. Now I'm back putting together worksheets with poems about greyhounds.

I'm not sure what I make of that yet.

However, today I visited a charitable foundation in central London who will hopefully be offering opportunities to write for them. The pay is low but the opportunity is fantastic.

Patience is required.

In case of emergencies, pull the plug

Facebook, the final frontier. These are voyages of people who have forgotten how to communicate outside of a set of pre-defined options.

Or, how I learned to stop worrying about Facebook and just get on with my life.

I do not need to know what you are thinking and when you thought it. If you need me to know, tell me. If you've read a good book, recommend it to me. If you want me to know which Simpsons/Rocky Horror Picture Show/historical age/American state best represents you, give me a call and let's discuss it.

In the meantime, I'm going to withdraw from Facebook and try to remember how to communicate with people by other means. But this is not a crusade or a campaign. It's just something I'm doing.

What interests me is that I am not the only one. I am not a pioneer, I am a follower. There are plenty of website dedicate to rolling back the advance of social networking.

Of course, the net is stupidly addictive and I'd be a fool to think that leaving Facebook would be the end of it. I haven't looked at www.cpfc.org for three years because I was wasting too much time reading the opinions of people I had not interest in meeting.

I don't write this because I think anyone will read it. Sometimes it pleases me to think that no one does because it means I can be less inhibited about what I write. All this is to me is a replacement for pen and paper, a means of self-expression.

And so, in just over a week, I'll leave Facebook. Why a week? Why not now? Well, because in a week I'll have a photograph to post on there, something I'm really proud of. And before I disappear from social networking, I want as many people to see it as possible. Whatever else I think about Facebook, it's an easy way to do it. Does that make me a hypocrite? Yes, of course. But I'll get over it. In about a week in fact.

Leaving Facebook:
Quitting Facebook
Permanently deleting a Facebook account
Why I'm deleting my Facebook account
Urban dictionary: Facebook withdrawl

You have the right to remain silent

Internet forums. They are great. Where else could you read pure, unadulterated bile?

So, Ted Kennedy died. It's been coming for a while. It's not a shock to anyone. It is, however, a form of catharsis for those people who disagreed with him to be able to express their disagreement in a public place, the internet forum.

I went on the Fox News website (it likes to refer to itself as Fox Nation, oh so many issues...) to see what it made of the death of someone who is the opposite of everything it stands for. And, well, the news coverage was dignified.

The comments from the public were not. I saw vile, disgusting comments that can only serve as an act of transference. I saw comments from people who, whilst not defending Kennedy, were at least suggesting a little respect was due. And consequently bile poured onto them. Mind you, not all of the counter comments were particularly well thought out.

So as not to thrash away at the members of the Fox Nation (because they just don't like the one they've already got), I read the comments on the Guardian's website.

It was more of the same only with more comments related to Northern Ireland.

Now, I realise there is a pot/kettle/black scenario here but the internet has really given a voice to some of the most disgusting views. It allows them to be written down, to be given a sense of permanence, a sense of perceived importance. After all, education system constant espouse the importance of literacy as the principal form of intelligence. Without proficiency in reading and writing there is no success in education. If someone has the opportunity to write something where others can see it, it must be important and worthwhile.

Good job no one reads this but then it isn't attached to a news organisation's website.

There comes a time when saying nothing is more than enough, when internet forums should be substituted for genuine human interaction. If you want to hear more, give me a ring.

Advice for those in HR

Firstly, even if you do receive "over thirty applications" and it does take two days to shortlist, do not tell those who did not make the shortlist.

It may help you to pad out an otherwise awkward letter, it may even help you to justify what you've done but it just sounds patronising.

Of course, if it did take two days to shortlist from "over thirty applications", you're not doing it correctly.

Secondly, when firing someone do not fall into the trap of "this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do" type comments and certainly do not commit then to print. It is undeniably a difficult thing for some to do but at least you still have a job. Bleating about it in a national newspaper, especially in a section that contains job adverts is just slightly on the bad side of sadistic.

And yes, the newspaper itself is culpable but that's a whole other issue for those of us on the receiving end of the type of letter referred to earlier.

Facebook, the final frontier

It's not much of a secret. I didn't really enjoy school. I'm lazy, what did you expect?
The other side is that I wasn't the most rounded of individuals. I don't remember myself at that age with any affection. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Consequently, there are no people from school that I'd regard as friends. Facebook hasn't really changed that. I have two "friends" on there from secondary school. One lives in Canada, the other in New Zealand.
There are others on there from my school although they are not there in their legions.
The thing that strikes me about seeing people from twenty years ago, having not seen them in the meantime, is just how old they look. And how much they've filled out.
That's not to say I don't or I haven't but I can hardly be surprised by the way I look. But I am surprised by the way others look. It's not what I'd imagined. No one is what I'd imagined.
Perhaps my imagination, like my appearance, is not what it was.

I second that emulsion

In 1997, I spent the first day of the Edgbaston Test Match painting my parent's dining room. I painted it pretty badly but that's not the point of the story.

That day, England bowled Australia out for 118. England went on to win the match but lose the series.

Today, I painted my bathroom. Badly as it turned out, but that's not the point of the story.

England were bowled out by Australia for 102. England will probably go on to lose the match. And the series.

After all, it's just a coincidence rather than the cause.

As a footnote, the game in 1997 also marked the test debut of Mark Butcher (see below). All the more reason to fall under the spell of one of society's cheap psychological tricks and feel incredibly old and worthless.

And age shall weary them

Today marks the funeral of Harry Patch, the last British survivor of the trench warfare of the so-called Great War.

I have my own, admittedly selfish, reasons for feeling aged today.

When I was younger, I played cricket. When I was younger still I was reasonably ok at cricket. Like many other people who are young and ok at cricket I represented my local area, in this case Croydon.

Like some of those other people, once things got a little bit hard, I tended to put less effort in, not more and as a result, after the age of about 13 I stopped being picked. The last game I remember playing in was against on the day of the 1985 FA Cup Final. I opened the batting and scored somewhere between 0 and 3 (which is my way of saying I can't remember how many it was but it certainly wasn't more than 3 runs.

I think I flattered myself with the thought that the ball that bowled me kept low but I seem to remember batting for quite some time and missing a lot of the deliveries that came my way.

I first started to feel the age factor when one member of the Croydon schools team, Jamie Moralee, became a professional footballer. On a Wednesday night in March 1992, I saw him play for Crystal Palace at Southampton and, aged 19, stated to feel my age.

Today, the boy who by far the best player in the Croydon schools team retired from professional cricket. Mark Butcher of Surrey and England has retired at the age of 36. I sometimes glibly throw into conversations that I have opened the batting with someone who played 71 test matches for England. I didn't open with him very often. But it did happen and now I wish I'd pay more attention.

There's a line in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that goes something like:
It's at time like that I wish I'd listened to what my mother said.
Why, what did she say?
I don't know, I didn't listen.

I think I was so scared that I was out of my depth that I didn't pay much attention to what was going on around me.

Anyway, he's retired from cricket now. And I feel incredibly old.

The one saving grace is Alistair Brown. Two years older than me, he played with my brother. He's still playing professional cricket for Nottinghamshire. As long as he holds in there for a bit longer, I'll be all right.

Interior design gone mad.

Quoth the Simpsons:

Lisa: Okay, I'd like 25 copies in canary, 25 in goldenrod, 25 in saffron, and 25 in paella.
Clerk: OK, 100 yellow.

In order to forget the disastrous attempts at following my dad's gambling habits (following them would have brought success, my arsed attempts brought penury), I am rejuvenating myself and the house with a bit of do-it-yourself and gardening.

Having plumbed, drilled, shelved and weeded, I have moved on to the most pointless task in history, choosing between several different shades of the same colour.

This would be all well and good if the shades were of the light and dark variety but I know that the living room is going to end up a light shade of yellow. It may come down to a choice between Dulux's "lemon tropics" and "lemon pie".

And what is the difference between the two?

I have no idea. And I suspect no one else does either.

It's a far better thing I do now...

I could have been at home on the sofa cheering home a 25-1 Mark Johnston winner at Goodwood and each and every Australian wicket that fell.

Instead I was touring National Trust properties with my mother.

Although I felt a sharp pain and had the temptation to let out a cry of anguish on finding out that Laa Rayb had won the big mile handicap (damn you Corals for not putting odds up before 9:30), it was only a brief lapse.

It was a good day with good company and in very pleasant surroundings. That's all that matters.

Right, where's the form book gone...

Scrub that

I didn't notice the off time of 2:10 and completely missed putting money on the third Johnston horse.

Just as well, it came nowhere. Instead one of the other won! Roman Republic won at 9/2 but I had a fiver on at 11/2 this morning. So, I'm almost back to where I was at the end of Tuesday.

Funny old game.

If you're so clever, why aren't you rich?

Systems and strategies are all pretty hopeless when up against humans and/or animals.

So, Tuesday's gains were wiped out by a poor day on Wednesday. Two third places managed to keep things respectable. However, in context, the 4:00 race had six horses with money on. That the third place was around 20-1 helped the recovery.

I think dad would have found a different way to make a couple of quid.

And so to Thursday, a much quieter day save for three in the first race. I am being bolder and yet more selective by ignoring one of these runners altogether. This tactic on Tuesday meant I missed an 8-1 winner. Today is could be 20-1. I'm starting to think that a £3 place on the Tote might be in order...

Goodwood day two

The next stage of the Channon/Johnston adventure is considerably more complicated.
Multiple entries is a theme again and Mr Johnston has taken it to extremes today.

1st race
Som Tala & Aaim to Prosper are both trained by Mick Channon. I think a couple of tiny each way bets there will suffice.
2nd
No entries
3rd
Lahaleeb runs for Channon but is a big outsider.
4th
Mark Johnston runs five:
Sabotage
Matraash
Topolski
Becausewecan
Fin Vin de Leu
Not sure what I'll do here yet.

Once that race is out of the way, I'll have a look at these:
5th race
Specialising (Channon)
6th race
Atabaas Allure (Johnston)
7th race
Proclaim (Johnston)

I'm torn between the following thoughts:

1. Following the plan
2. Ruling out one or two that obviously have no chance
3. Backing some for a place only on the Tote
4. Stopping because it's unlikely to work two days running, life just isn't that obvious

But I'm a relatively weak person so I think I know what will happen.

Day One - for the record

So, here's how it finished:

Mick Channon had one runner and it finished third at 8/1 (but I had 16/1 earlier in the day, dad would be proud).
Mark Johnston had seven runners across four races. I backed six in the end. The one I missed was an 8/1 winner. However, one of his horses also won the last race and two others managed third places.
If I'd backed the other winner, I'd be substantially in front but then if I'd written A Christmas Carol I'd be Charles Dickens.
Day one of the homage to dad's canniness was a modest success.

Canniness update

4th race

Archers Road came third. I had a mighty £3 each way at 16-1!

Have brought home an astonishingly wonderful £11 from Urban Poet, I got £12.60 back from Archers Road.

It doesn't sound like much but it's exactly what he would have done (see below). It's a bizarre tribute but it's my tribute.

Right, I can now put a couple of quid on the other Johnston horse in the next!

Canny, very canny

My dad was incredibly canny although he tried hard to hide it sometimes.

Glorious Goodwood always saw him at his most canny. Despite not following racing closely, he always managed to come away with a profit. My brother and I, who paid considerably more interest, managed infrequent wins. I used to rely on getting the short priced winner of a two year-old maiden late in the day to get back somewhere close to breaking even.

His strategy was:

• Back anything trained by Mark Johnston or Mick Channon, preferably each way

Especially:

• Any two year-old horse trained by Channon
• Any horse trained by Johnston, running in a handicap

In addition, he would also back any horse trained by Dandy Nicholls running over five furlongs.

On the way I went last year, the first since dad died, this strategy yielded winners at 11/4 and 8/1.

So, I'm going to do it all over again this year. Annoyingly Mark Johnston has a lot of runners.

Day One

• 1st race

A Johnston horse won the opening race of the meeting at 8/1! He had two in the race and I backed the one that came 4th.

• 2nd race

Urban Poet, Johnston's horse came 3rd at 6/1. I backed it each way so there's a little in the bank (but not much).

• 3rd race

No runners

There are a further four races left today:

• 4th race

Mick Channon has an outsider in this at around 14-1 so there's a couple of quid each way invested there two.

• 5th race

Mark Johnstone has three here and I've put a little on two so you can bet that the third one will win.

• 6th race

Nothing here

• 7th race

Mark Johnston has the favourite. No bet made yet.

Come on the canny man!

For what it's worth, language aint what it used to be

If I read that a firework display has been cancelled at the last moment, I would expect to hear tales of people trying to blow on the burning fuse to avoid a catastrophe. Perhaps the fireworks had been knocked and were accidentally aiming at a school at our heroes raced to the rescue.

I would not expect the fireworks to be cancelled by the local council, 48 hours in advance. In Berkshire it seems the last moment can last for days.

Give me a break!

It looks like the football season has started all over again. Notice how I resisted the urge to it has "kicked off" and then publicised the fact that I resisted the urge.

UEFA has announced that if the football season ever drops below 30mph, the bus will blow up.

Well the blues had a baby and the bastard couldn't sing

The dinner party questions.

What are your:

• Top five songs/bands/albums
• Top five films/movies/flicks

The answers vary. Partially through memory, or lack there of. Partially due to the audience. Mostly because I don't go to dinner parties.

Anyway, I should put on the record (ho ho ho) my thanks to Richard Duffy. Although I haven't seen or spoken to him since about 1992, if he hadn't lent my brother a copy of Julian Cope's Peggy Suicide then I would not have been able to fill one of the slots in order to answer one of the questions.

Which is kind of a long winded way of saying that Peggy Suicide is really good and if I hadn't committed it to paper (!) then I might forget when it comes to actually having to answer the question.

There was another point. I forget it now.

So I go out and come in again, so I go out and come in again

I can't get started. Which is pretty obvious really considering the last post was in 2008.
I have all the creativity of M Night Shamalanadingdong. Which is pretty frustrating.
I want to get started on some work but can't until someone called Cherry gets in touch which means my deadline is going to be really tight.
I also seem to have bruised my elbow which is, of course, is much worse.
It's funny how the small things are the most annoying.