Medieval Festival

After a relaxing Sunday working on a boot fair, to earn the princely sum of 97p (don't ask) we decided to head down to The medieval fair in Hurstmonceux this bank holiday.

This was the 18th fair and the event is said to be the biggest three day event of its kind - as it is The only one I know I can not say if it is or not, but it was quite big - the event consists of a medieval market which had a wide variety of goods, mostly jewelry and new age products along with a quite fascinating array of weapons, I stopped short of picking up a mace. Along side the medieval market was the food court, we had a hog roast and a glass of mead as we like to be authentic where we can, if you prefer however there was always ye olde donnor meat and chips. There was also a living history village, where you could chat to a blacksmith or learn to shoot a bow and arrow.

The main "show" aspect were two battles fought between the houses of York and Lancaster, this featured a siege of the castle including a cabbage firing trebuchette which was very good. I can't say if it was worth the £17 admission fee but it was a good day, after all how often do you get to ask if they take "ye olde credite carde"

Champions League Draw

I watched the Champions League Draw last night, for obvious reasons this is the first one I took a real interest in, the draw itself is one of the most mind numbing experiences I have ever sat through. UEFA seemed to be unsure if what they wanted was a draw or an award ceremony, they mixed in draw between annoncements of UEFA player of the Year 2010 (Strange to have in August.) The draw was split into a very confusing structure in which each team is drawn into a group where they can not play against a team from the same country and where each federation would have their games split between Red and Blue groups to spread out the TV coverage.

It was a strange draw with one person drawing the team and Gary Lineker Drawing the group which ment that Tottenham didn't get a choce of Group and missed out on the easiest group (B) as Shalke could not go into the same group as Bremen.

Anyway the Groups are:

Group A
Inter Milan, Werder Bremen, Tottenham, FC Twente

Group B
Lyon, Benfica, Schalke, Hapoel Tel-Aviv

Group C
Manchester United, Valencia, Rangers, Bursaspor

Group D
Barcelona, Panathinaikos, FC Copenhagen, Rubin Kazan

Group E
Bayern Munich, AS Roma, Basel, CFR Cluj

Group F
Chelsea, Marseille, Spartak Moscow, Zilina

Group G
AC Milan, Real Madrid, Ajax, Auxerre

Group H
Arsenal, Shakhtar Donetsk, Braga, Partizan Belgrade

So for Tottenham I think that drawing the Holders, Inter Milan, is never a great draw however With Breman and Twente at least we have no long haul mid week flights. I still think that Group B is the easiest group but at least we avoided Group G where AC Milan, Real Madrid and Ajax have 20 wins between them. so not great, but could be worse.

Church Mural

Being stuck in Worthing did at least give me some new Things to look at whilst walking around in the rain, like the Mural on the side of a house next to a church, I am assuming it was put up by the church, or possibly by a roaming metal band.

Not quite enough to lift a very bad mood, but at least it was something to see.

Unplanned Worthing Adventure

Had a problem with the LPG system on my car, this combined with the dealer where I brought the vehicle meant I ended up with an unscheduled trip to Worthing.

Now on paper a morning in Worthing in August wouldn't sound so bad but as the picture shows it was more like a November than an August day. Anyway I set up a temporary office in McDonalds - the only place I knew would have WiFi. Not a pleasant experience! They managed to fix up my car so it could be driven, but it looks like I will have to go back to get the system fixed, hopefully at the weekend and with better weather.

Can Budget Cuts Ever Not Hit The Poor The Hardest

Latest story on the Obvious News Gazette comes from the Institute for Fiscal Studies a “leading think tank” - read quango - who in a study paid for by the End Child Poverty Campaign who state that the Emergency Budget apparently hit the poor and those on Benefits the hardest, not in actual terms but as a percentage of income, now I am sure that this is a very worrying trend but unfortunately there are two facts that can not be ignored.

1) All budget changes affect the poorest the most as if you only have £100 pounds and lose a £1 it is 1% if you have £1,000 and lose a £5 it is 0.5% therefore the less you have the more you will be effected, to claim this is a Tory plot is quite frankly ridiculous it is just basic economics.
2) If you are living on benefits and the country runs out of money (Which it has) you will obviously be affected, similarly if you are working for a company that runs out of money you will be at a risk of losing your income, the state is no different.

What the report does not mention however is that what the coalition are attempting to do is increase jobs and keep the country operating, no one in the government has ever said that people who rely on benefits will not be affected, obviously they will as we are all in this together, what they are saying is that if we did nothing and handed out more money we simply didn’t have eventually the facility to borrow money would dry up and the country would collapse, if you are worried about reductions in benefits how do you think it will effect the poor if benefits have to be stopped entirely (And the NHS and all other services) because the government are bankrupt? It will make losing the Child Trust Fund seem like winning the lottery.

It is time that everyone stopped worrying so much about what everyone else may or may not be having that is better than them and instead start to simply look at what is in the best interests of the country.

Too Much Salt for my Diet

This weeks movie offering was Salt, the Angelina Jolie Action Spy flick which although formulaic still leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth, The story had nothing too extraordinary in it and yet as a story of rogue Russian agents trying to turn the cold war hot would have caused a stir in the 80’s or 90’s but with very few cinema goers remembering what it is like to live under the threat of Nuclear Holocaust the story loses a bit of its fear, but I guess it would have taken a bit more guts to have Jolie as a suspected Islamic fundamentalist.

The film tries to keep up the suspense with a Is She/isn’t she plot line which is about as transparent as they come and it would be an embarrassment for anyone to admit after the first 20 minutes if they haven’t got it all figured out. There are some reasonable fight scenes and enough explosions to keep most men happy. (I doubt there are many men who wouldn’t agree to watch Angelina Jolie for an hour anyway.) My wife didn’t enjoy the film at all but I have a sneaky suspicion that could be more to the fact that she is a massive Jennifer Anniston fan and therefore struggles to forgive Jolie for the breakdown of Anniston’s marriage to Brad Pitt.

The main co-star is Liev Schreiber who despite being great is as vast an array as X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Hamlet was unbelievable as a CIA agent. The film also co-stared Chiwetel Ejiofor who is better known to Sci-Fi enthusiasts as the Operative from Joss Whedon’s seminal Space Cowboy Movie Serenity (the movie based on the short lived series firefly) who was very good as the counter intelligence expert assigned to bring Salt in. This has been a reasonably bad year for movies with very few making a real impact and most of them being an uncomfortable watch, but I guess if we were going to look for a saviour we should have looked further than a film written by Brian Helgeland The man who brought us Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and 21st Century Knight story A Knights Tale.

Should London Go It Alone for Euro 2020

Sticking with Tournaments for a while I have been thinking of late that Boris should look at tabling a Bid for the Uefa European Championships, I say Boris rather than the Government as I believe that London should look to hold the tournament alone, Obviously the tournaments are usually held by one or sometimes two countries but London probably has much better facilities than Austria and Switzerland combined. In order to hold the tournament you need 8 venues all of which must be over 30,000 in capacity.

London has (or Has Planned):

Wembley (Home of England) – 90,000
Emirates (Home of Arsenal) – 60,355
Twickenham (Home of Rugby) – 82,000
Olympic Stadium (2012) – 80,000
Northumberland Road (Proposed Tottenham Stadium) – 56,250
New West Ham (Proposed West Ham Stadium) – 50,000
Stamford Bridge (Home of Chelsea) – 42,055
The Valley (Home of Charlton) 29,111

A Total Seat across the 8 venues of 489,771

Compare this to Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland and you have

Vienna – 53,295
Klagenfurt – 31,957
Salzburg – 31,020
Innsbruck – 31,600
Basel – 42,000
Bern – 31,907
Geneva – 31,228
Zurich – 30,000

Just over half the total of seats at 283,007 in fact if you were to Host the tournament in London, Austria and Switzerland then only Vienna would be in the eight largest stadiums – And to be honest I am quite sure that as there will not need to be any investment in Stadiums or Infrastructure (Everything being upgraded in 2012) and the compact nature of the city with one of the most interconnected transport systems in the world (Being able to get around the entire area for the cost of a one day travel card.) I am sure that some money could be invested to give the Valley a capacity boost to take them over 30,000 (or if they get back into the premiership over 40,000)

I know that it is not normally a single city that hosts the tournament but London has got a larger population than Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland all of which have hosted the tournament, and have a larger population than Scotland and Ireland combined who have prepared a joint bid.

Why FIFA should Ignore Russia Bid

The FIFA delegation has arrived in England to view the Bid for England to host the World Cup in 2018, it would appear that it will come down to a straight fight between Russia and England, whilst I obviously have to declare a bias here I do think that FIFA must think very carefully before handing a tournament of this prestige to Russia. Whilst I think that the UK bid speaks for itself with world class stadiums such as Wembley, Old Trafford and the Emirates along side our much complained about Public Transport System (Which if we are honest is actually one of the better ones in global terms.) but the simple fact is that Russia has a real problem with racism in their football supporters, And not just a little problem with most BME players coming in for abuse and several recorded offences against BME fans who are following their teams. It would be amiss of FIFA to announce that as the World Cup in 2018 is widely believed to be one in which African teams will start to make real progress that they should have to come into an environment that is violent towards them (It reminds me of when they tried to hold Miss World in a Muslim country – clearly no thoughts required.) Now all that said it is true that Russia are improving and that Neo-Nazism is on the decrease however I think until they get the situation under control it is irresponsible and FIFA are not meeting their duty of care to consider it.

FIFA should take the stand once and for all and say ANY federation who can not show that they take racism seriously can not hold any major tournament or final. I understand that there are occasional racist incidents in this country but they are dealt with quickly and strongly, not denied like they have been of late in Russia and Spain.

Congratulations to Mr & Mrs Cameron

My Congratulations go out to Mr & Mrs Cameron on the birth of their forth child yesterday, After the heartache they experienced with the Death of Ivan it is nice to see some joy brought back into their family, not that I am in anyway trying to say the new baby can replace Ivan as after all, all children are irreplaceable. Conversation has switched now to what they will name the baby with Maggie being one choice put forward as a 50/1 outside Bet, Isabella is at 8/1 with last years most common name Olivia at 12/1 for the bigger bets Ladbrokes are suggesting Beyonce at 150/1 and William Hill offering 1000/1 on Speed possibly the least believable suggestion would be Harriet unless Mr. Cameron wants to honour one of the people that help make Labour such an unattractive choice for government.

"Cat in Bin" Woman Found by The Sun

I wrote yesterday about the Waste of Space who was caught placing a cat in a bin in Coventry, This Woman Mary Bale has now been identified and interviewed by The Sun. Now I mentioned in my last post that I hope she gets placed in a bin herself so she sees what it is like – It would appear however that I am practically her best friend compared to the comments and death threats she has been receiving from around the world. Obviously I don’t condone death threats as although I think she should be punished for what she did I am not an advocate for the death penalty and I think this should definitely not be the kind of offence it is used for.

I doubt very much however that she helped her case with her first comments to go public which included such gems as “I thought it would be funny.” And “What[s] the fuss about, it’s just a cat” clearly this loser has a screw lose and a complete inability to understand when to keep your head down however I also echo the words of the Cat’s Owner Stephanie Andrews-Mann “Now the Police know who she is, people should leave it to them to deal with. I don’t like this woman but I don’t want her to get hurt.”

Football Season is well under way

Well we are into week three of the football season and I have not made any mention of Spurs so far due to my holiday, It has definitely been a mixed bag so far with a Draw against Man City followed by Defeat by Young Boys and finally our first win against Stoke, so I will do a quick review.

The Man City game was a very frustrating match as I feel we were the better team for a vast portion of the match however I did question last season if it was in fact our strikers who are making our opposition goal keepers look good, at least three times last season it was said that we dominated but the Keeper had the game of his life, it leads me to suspect that we are slightly too obvious in our attacks and perhaps we need a striker who can do the unexpected.

Our first experience of champions league football was definitely not a happy one with the synthetic pitch causing us more trouble than we expected, we were 3-0 down by the 30th minute and all seemed lost, luckily we pulled it back to 3-2 which gives us a great chance however the real cost could well be our injury list with Keane, Defoe, Pavlychenko and Modric all out injured we were seriously short on attacking options for the trip to Stoke.

The Stoke game was again looking to be frustrating as we simply couldn’t find away through the breakthrough eventually coming from Garath Bale’s face, some sloppy defending let Stoke back in with an equaliser before Bale scored what will probably be the goal of the week, There was controversy when Crouch cleared of the line after the goal appeared to go in. in my opinion it was over the line and should have been a goal, however there was a foul leading up to it so in fact I feel the actual result should have been a free kick to us before the ball even came close, but I think we will have to put it down to a bad 5 minutes refereeing. But we had our first win and with tonights visit of Young Boys it really could be a turning point in our season, if we win tonight the confidence will be back, we will be in the group stage so the defeat will be irrelevant and we will still be unbeaten in the league, lose tonight and it is all different the news will be filled of only one win, out of the Champions League etc… so we will see.

Sorcerer's Apprentice fails to provide magic

Whilst I was off work last week We attended the Cinema, as it was a special occasion we went to the Cineworld at Brighton Marina instead of the Crawley Branch – I understand if you are intimidated by my champagne lifestyle – Anyway we saw the Sorcerers Apprentice, This film stared Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel in the lead roles with Cage the Sorcerer Balthazar and Baruchel the titular apprentice. The film was basically what you would expect from a Disney film – is it just me or are all films playing very safe and by the numbers at the moment? It again brought home the question of what happened to the image of a cool leading man as Baruchel seems to always be playing a nerd who is lost in the world of “normal” people even whilst he is busy shooting a plasma ball, personally I find it quite an achievement that they can take a guy who is shooting plasma, saving his friend and getting the girl and not make him cool but somehow Disney manage to pull it off. But I guess we just live in the age of the nerd, after all the biggest name in Hollywood at the moment seems to be Robert Pattinson who nobody can say isn’t strange looking.

Anyway the film is saved, as most seem to be these days by Cage who as another experienced Hollywood star plays his part in his usual humoured yet gravely serious way, there is of coarse a homage to fantasia with dancing mops etc… but it is reasonably well done, I would suggest that the main villain of the film is slightly stupid as he tends to feel that having too much help might give him an unfair chance of winning so waits until one helper is dead before calling another (Surely more sensible to build an army.) but I guess if it was not for the stupidity of movie bad guys then good guys would never get to Cages age in the first place.

There were also bit parts for Monica Bellucci (the Matrix Trilogy) and Alice Krige (Borg Queen from Start Trek First Contact) who appear only briefly but in my opinion without cage this film would be showing at 6am on the Disney Chanel in about two months

New York "Mosque" Row

There has been a lot of debate recently around the proposal for the so called Ground Zero Mosque, for those of you who do not know there is an application to build a Muslim community centre, featuring a prayer room, a few blocks from the former site of the World Trade Centre, there has been quite a lot of commentators stating that they believe that this is an outrage and I have to admit when I first saw the story I did think it was slightly bizarre decision, after all New York is a big city and so perhaps you need to question the decision to build this building at ground zero, after all whilst I agree that not all Muslim’s are terrorists it is a fact that all the terrorists of September the 11th 2001 were Muslim. My view did change however when I looked into it a bit deeper and saw that in fact the community centre is a few blocks away from Ground Zero, so to call a building “Ground Zero Mosque” (The name given by the media not by the people looking to build it.) is a bit misleading for a building that is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero. This seems to be a case of people hijacking a traumatic event in US history to fuel their own prejudice.

This is however a very hot political potato with perennial Republican Nutter Sarah Palin calling the entire area “Hallowed Ground”, a claim firmly beaten by evidence by New York Blogger Daryl Lang showing pictures of the area including the Hallowed “New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club.” I think however though that the real loser of this debate is going to be Barak Obama who has stated support in principal to the right to freedom to build a community building in a place that is wanted. (My extension of his comments.) This has annoyed the Anti groups as showing political support for the building and annoyed the Pro Groups as he stopped short of saying he supported it and even questioned the thought process of selecting this site. Either way with the ninth anniversary just a few weeks away and the tenth anniversary clearly looking to be very important this is an issue that will not go away quietly, and I would suggest one that any politicians should try and avoid.

Woman bins Cat in Coventry

After the losers who call themselves Urban Fox Hunters a few weeks ago you may have been wondering if this really is a country of animal lovers, as if to show just what problems we have we people who think nothing of harming animals we today had the video of an old woman dumping a cat into a bin. As an aside I greatly enjoyed the Daily Mirrors description of a “tubby grey-haired woman.”



The video is really shocking, not because the woman is in anyway vicious but simply the fact that she so calmly opens the bin, throws in the cat and then walks off, unconcerned for the animal. It is the relaxed nature which possibly makes it worse in many ways. Also to be honest the fact it is such an old woman, had it been a young teenage boy trying to get laughs from his mates it would seem more expected, but this woman must just really hate cats, well I would suggest that if you hate cats you simply leave them alone, not go out of your way to harm them.

I hope she gets caught soon and is placed in a small box for 15 hours herself, lets see how much she likes it.

Serious Traffic Issues in China

If you thought that the M25 was bad during rush hour spare a thought for Chinese Motorists some of who have been stuck in a 100KM traffic jam which has lasted nine days.

The queue just outside of Beijing apparently stretches all the way to Inner Mongolia, it is believed to be caused by the cumulative effects of Road Works coupled with several breakdowns, and assumingly a lot of the breakdowns would have been caused by the trucks over heating after being stuck in the massive jam. According to State Owned Newspaper, Global Times, the drivers’ main complaints are being over charged by food and drink by locals.

Catholic adoption agency to close

The news is carrying a story today that the Catholic Adoption Agency is to close, this is after a long battle between the agency and the equality commission.

The main issue comes from the Agency refusing to allow adoption from same sex couples, this is an interesting topic as it directly brings religious freedom against anti-discrimination forces, personally I have no formal religion and therefore do not think that a same sex couple should be prevented from adopting as long as they can show they can give a stable and loving home, no different than any couple.

However I also feel that religions must be allowed the freedom to follow their teachings, and for the Catholic church this means not supporting same sex relationships. The equality commission have ruled though and so the Agency will close, I think in the long run however it will only be the children who lose out.

Champions League fever comes to N17

Tonight is the kick off of Tottenham champions league campaign, the first match should not be to difficult as we are playing again Young Boys of Bern, who despite having plenty of Champions League Qualifier experience have never made the Group Stage.

There are a couple of concerns, there always are for Spurs, this time we have to worry about an astro-turf pitch and our simple lack of experience of champions league football - also there may be a touch of over confidence which could be an issue but I think we should be ok, oh well we'll have our answer in a few hours.

Photo

In all the excitement I forgot the photo.

Un-wanted visitor

I have just completed a very unpleasant 1 hour drive to work, I had this little guy on my shoulder.

Obviously my first reaction was to remove it but as it was still I didn't want to anger it and have it flying around in the car, as it turns out it was dead, as I assumed by its not moving, no idea how it got there, I can only assume that it either went on at home or dropped on as I walked to the car already dead. Either way not a great start to the day.

Another Travel Company Folds

Holiday Firm Sun4U have today announced they are folding, this is a worrying trend where several travel firms have had to be assisted by ABTA to get people home.

There are approx 1,200 people stranded this time but they should all get home safely

The Birmingham-based firm's website advised customers to phone claim handlers CEGA on 01243 621 500.

It must be a really horrible thing to be stuck in another country and not know how you will get home but at least we have safety nets in place for this kind of incident. I am however very glad that I will not be going away this year, and I think in future I may have to stick with bigger companies.

Top 10 "Secret" Office features

I came across a website with the Top 10 "Secret" features of Microsoft Office for me the biggest shock is that these things were considered secrets, I have to admit I only found 1 thing of interest - That when you drag a cell around in excel #6, you can hold down control to copy - the rest however are mostly elements such as Format Painter, Search, Presentation View which are all basic toolbar options.

I may have to start work on my own list of top 10, I think my list would contain stuff as for example in Excel to copy the details of the Cell above by pressing Ctrl + D, or that you can switch between pages by pressing Ctrl and PgDn

Anyway, Post your suggestions and I will start compiling a Top Ten - That does not include menu items.

Knight and Day

Went to see Knight and Day this week, the film is your classic Spy meets girl story that has been played out many times in the past, most recently in The Killers, The Killers starred Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl where as Night and Day stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz and until you see some of the New-ish stars against a pair of 80's - 90's stars you really don't realise how much better the older stars are. There seems to be a complete lack of acting talent coming up into movies these days (In Fact Shia Leboef seems to be the only actor left in Hollywood capable of not playing a nerd - And he is very nerdy looking for a leading man) so it is no wonder that action movies must look to the 80's and 90's for a decent cast.

Tom Cruise was very good in his role as a slightly psychotic yet very laid back CIA agent who runs into naive car mechanic Cameron Diaz, both give great performances which meant the film was one of the better attempts at this genre with enough laughs and outrageous action to pass the hour and a half.

There is a tendency of the movie to avoid finding solutions to outrageous situations by playing for laughs but it is handled well so it does not feel like a cop out

Easy day at Netto

I walked past this shop on my lunch time walk, it shows quite well why you should never combine twelve and twenty four hour time formats.

Unless the store really is open for just an hour a day.

Do Men Work Harder Than Women? and is it Important?

There was an article a few days ago in the Telegraph saying that contrary to popular feminist ideology Men are more productive than Women.

I have to admit that I have always found the Feminist belief that all men are incapable of raising a child or completing any simple domestic chores, whilst women are taking high level buisness meetings whilst juggling a vacuum cleaner and baby to be at odds with my own world view, I have also struggled to understand men who expect everything done for them (And I am not stupid enough to not believe there are still many out there.) but for me, I love cooking, I enjoy washing the dishes (can't tell you why I just find it relaxing.) and my time looking after our daughter is some of my favourite time, although she did just bite my toe so maybe I should reconsider!

So I guess this survey came as no surprise, especially as it stated that men are only just slightly more productive, I would assume that another survey may find that women are only slightly more productive than men - As in my experience I would assume that both sexes in a marriage would (mostly) be equal partners. or maybe my wife and I are just strange!

Woman arrested for wearing a Bikini

Another story that caught my eye today was of a British Woman being held in Dubai for wearing a Bikini in public, It appears the woman was walking through Dubai Mall in a low cut top when she was challenged by a local woman, after a heated debate she stripped down to her Bikini and was arrested when the police attended the scene. Now this is not the first case of public indecency charges against UK citizens this year as it follows the case of an unmarried couple imprisoned for “Kissing and fondling each other” personally I am getting a bit sick of hearing these stories and the inevitable claims of unfairness that follow. If you go to another country – respect their laws! It is not hard, if you wish to walk around in a bikini or you can not control your actions in public perhaps the Islamic world should not be your first choice for a holiday destination.

Although to be honest I don’t actually see any reason for people to be half naked in this country either, or be all over each other whilst you are out in public, people often talk about the laws in Islamic countries being very backwards but there is a word for creatures that can not wear clothes or resist their urges for a few minutes and that word is - Animal. So perhaps we are the ones who are going backwards, whilst I am a lover of freedom I subscribe more to the philosophy that you have the freedom to go to Dubai or not, rather than the freedom to go there and act however you wish. I have chosen not to ever go there but this is based more on my experiences in Egypt and Tunisia and my desire to be treated as more than just a walking wallet than a worry of being unable to dress myself in the morning.

Uni Courses to be Rated

There is an article in the Daily Mail today which suggests that universities are soon going to have to give a rating for each of their courses, The ratings will be in the fields of Teaching Quality, Salary Prospects, Tuition time and Value for Money. This is a plan that has come down from the Higher Education Funding Quango, although I am usually against Quangos as I see that they give very little benefit for the costs, and especially at the moment when they seem to be desperately trying to justify their own existence ahead of the spending review in the Autumn, but I think this has real merit. It is a massive choice what you will study at university with the time either being the cementing of a lifelong career path or simply the wasting of three years before you end up not knowing what you want to do and still working in burger king. Myself I have a degree in politics which does not come in very handy in my career as a Database Engineer – this is perhaps one reason I became involved in local politics, to try and justify my degree.

Obviously these statistics being available on a comparisons website will not stop subject fatigue (I know someone who spent 7 years studying for a PHD in Palaeontology only to realise that she never wanted to dig in a dusty ditch again, and now runs a florist in London.) it will finally help potential students realise that the degree in Klingon or Facebook studies is not going to be the key to a long and successful career.

Champions League Draw

Well for my money the most interesting champions league draw ever has just taken place - I wonder why I think that? - Tottenham have been drawn against Swiss runners up, Young Boys - warning do not try and Google them without safe search switched on!! - there is lots of excitement from Spurs fans who think that the group stage is a dead cert, perhaps I have just been a Spurs fan too long, but I struggle to feel that confident, after all they did just beat Fenerbache so are having a good season. But I do think it was one of the easier draws, but so was our World Cup group, so no chicken counting.

Spurs are the only British Team in the draw today as Celtic went out and everyone else already waiting in the group stage, however the Europa League (Uefa Cup) had there draw as well today, no real problems for the British teams

Liverpool vs Trabzonspor - Turkey
Celtic vs Utrecht - Holland
Dundee Utd vs AEK Athens - Greece
Rapid Vienna vs Villa - Austria
CSKA Sofia vs TNS - Bulgaria
Odense vs Motherwell - Denmark
Timisoara vs Man City - Romania

So I am not expecting too many British Teams to miss out with TNS, who are the lowest rated team in the competition and Dundee having the hardest matches, but still you never know. All I need to do now is get my ticket for the Spurs game, I'm actually going to get to see a Champions League game!

The A Team

I saw the A Team this week, There is very little in the movie that will take you by surprise or involve actual thinking but then, this is the A Team, so what do you expect.

The film has a great many similarities to the Losers I saw two months ago (As I knew it would do.) the film includes some back story of how the team got together and focuses on the actual crime they were wrongly convicted of.

The main characters were all very competent in taking on roles that are so well known it is impossible not to draw comparisons, Individually they were not quite as strong as the original actors in the parts however as a team they clicked very well, Face was probably the best change as the original Faceman Peckman was always very stylish but it was hard to imagine anyone staying that pretty in a war zone. Bradley Cooper however is believable as both the "pretty" one and an American ranger, and whilst Liam Neeson is very good as Hannibal he lacks some of Peck's original charm.

The film itself had several points that demand the utter suspense in all realism, but again it is the A Team, although the ending can have no excuse for the atrocious CGI that makes up the final scene.

So in summery, If you need something to watch, if nothing else is showing, and if you can find it playing, then maybe you can buy a ticket for ... The A Team ... de de de, da da da etc...

Urban Fox Hunting

The web is awash with the story of a group of Urban Fox Hunters who posted a video of them savagely beating a fox to death with a cricket bat in Victoria Park, East London.

Personally I am anti-hunting, whilst I understand the need to control the fox population I find it distasteful when anyone derives enjoyment from the suffering of another animal, however I hope that even people who are pro hunt see that there is simply something wrong with these people.

Anyone who takes pleasure from the torture and battering of a defenseless animal, is only a short journey away from attacking a human, personally I hope when they catch these people they are punished to the full extent of the law, probably an ASBO banning them from battering anyone to death for 12 months.

Does the involvement of Unite weaken a protest

I heard today about a protest at Billingsgate Market, there were concerns over licenses and the workers were worried that it could be the end of the famous fish market.

I have been to this market a few times and it really is a great experience, I was concerned therefore when I heard about this, until I heard that it was our old friends Unite who were organising it. I am sure there is a chance that Unite have had legitimate protests in the past, but ever since the BA insanity, I have really struggled to take them seriously.

Blackberry banned in UAE

This story is not a daring expose of the Arab states hatred of brambles, rather a continuation of an ongoing dispute between the UAE and Research in Motion (RIM) who make the Blackberry smart phones, the arguments have focused around the sending of e-mails and blackberry messenger functions which it is claimed break local laws, specifically that they should be allowed to monitor all communications sent through the device.

This latest part of the dispute follows last years embarrassing incident where they attempted to download spyware onto Blackberries to retrieve the data.

I doubt when push comes to shove however that RIM will give in to demands to hand over details of private communications as although the UAE market is a regional leader it is very small globally and unlikely to be worth the negative effects to the western market of handing private details to a state run organisation.

Wendover Peeking Restaurant

As it was my Birthday we visited my Parents in Buckinghamshire, Whilst there we went out for dinner to a Chinese restaurant in Wendover called Wendover Peeking.

They had lots of signs up stating that they had achieved a five star rating on their environmental "Scores on the Doors" visit, this was quite nice as all of my favourite restaurants in Crawley seem to repeatedly score zero stars, the restaurant was good but there did seem to be slightly too many staff and it felt a bit over bearing at times. The food was first class however, I was slightly worried when instead of Singapore Style Special Fried Vermicelli the menu had the much more simplistic name of Spicy Noodles, however after ordering them I found that they were Singapore style and in fact some of the best I have had for a while.

And best of all, unlike the properties in the adjacent estate agents the food was not overpriced with a few reasonable set menus and a very tempting "Surprise Me" option, although we did not quite feel brave enough for this.

Address: 4-6 High Street, Wendover
Tel: 01296 622713

Birthday Weekend with Red Pandas

It was my birthday this weekend so as a treat my wife took me to Paradise Wildlife Park in Broxbourne Hertfordshire, I have never heard of this Zoo before so it was quite nice to go somewhere new.

The park itself is more than a zoo with lots to do aside from the Animals (Although the collection of exotic animals is worth the Admission alone.) along with the Animals there are two adventure play areas, a soft play gymboree and a water park, but the main event for us was the "Meet the Red Pandas" Experience which was my birthday treat.

I have always loved Red Pandas who I find are massively under appreciated and often over shadowed by the more popular Great Panda so the chance of actually going into the enclosure was a real highlight for me, the experience basically involved me feeding the Pandas by hand whilst the keeper did a talk to the public and then having a private talk with the Keeper whilst the Pandas ate from large bamboo branches. It was really amazing as I did not just get to hand feed the Pandas but also got to stroke one as it came to brush past me.

It all seemed to go very quickly and before I knew it I was back outside but it was still a great experience, Paradise Park seem to specialise in these kind of events with experiences available for most of the animals, as we were going around we saw people feeding the Tigers, Cheetahs and Zebras - but there were a lot more available