foolhandy

Odd isn’t it how this Daily Express front page reads MUSLIM PLOT TO BEHEAD BRITON without mentioning (until paragraph seven anyway) that the headline could (should?) have read MUSLIM PLOT TO BEHEAD MUSLIM? Doesn’t have quite the same potential to stir up hatred does it?

And stir it up it does…if you can bear it have a look at the 61 (at time of writing) comments and witness the kind of debate the editors of the Express get their kicks from stirring up.

World’s Greatest Newspaper? Hmmm…

Deal or No Deal

As seen in the Co-op sale brochure…

I’m not sure which is more astonishing -

• A sale price of £4.50 or
• A normal price of £18.00!!!

Now I know I’m a fan of neither cats nor pottery tat but really…

This evening whilst looking for the paperwork to send in my tax return I also found the final few car pictures to complete my ‘visual car history’ on the About Page.

Not exciting, but a nice record nonetheless…

Today I went down to London for the BETT Show at Olympia. BETT is “the educational technology” source, has over 600 stands belonging to anyone and everyone that has anything to do with IT in education and receive over 30,000 visits over its four days. It’s like a motor show for educational IT. Despite it having been going for years today was my first visit and I was charged with checking out a few pieces of software we have been thinking about getting at school, looking for anything new and exciting, and getting some quotes for the school’s new laptop lease. I was mostly successful…

It’s an astonishing event and in all I spent about 4-5 hours walking around looking at things of interest and avoiding eye-contact with people trying to sell you things that aren’t. I got to see the Softease people and tell them how great they are, and took the opportunities that arose to slag off RM. Almost inevitably I didn’t get to see everything but I gave it a damned good go… One highlight was the moment I was stood between the Microsoft and Apple stands. The Microsoft stand featured a suited middle-aged with a paunch explaining Groove, an Office program which allows group collaboration on Word and Excel documents. Turn around to the Apple stand and there’s a man in his early twenties sporting a t-shirt and an electric guitar explaining the benefits of iLife. It was like being in a real life Get A Mac advert!

It was a useful day. I’ve seen a few things that could be good at school, and a few things that wouldn’t. I also got some quotes for the laptops. And I got some prizes. Watching grown adults queue up and then fight for pens, lanyards and button badges is very undignified, and not something you’d catch me doing. Instead I hung around the BBC stand for a bit and watched out for the arrival of better quality freebies with one eye whilst finding out about the BBC Learning Zone on their website with the other. Why struggle for pens when you can get cotton bags, mugs and engraved oranges? That’s what I pay my TV licence for! Great prizes, great resource - thanks BBC!

And yes, every orange they gave away had the BBC logo carved into it - class!

I am close to losing my girlfriend to Kororinpa.

I like David Beckham, and I really hope he gets his 100th cap from Capello later this year.

But.

Asked what he thought of Mr Brown, after his first meeting with the prime minister, he said: “He’s a very good man, he’s a man who’s looking after our country and he’s doing a very good job. I’m very proud to be here tonight.”

No. No. No. David Beckham should not be sucking up to any politicians. No one should be sucking up to politicians. Politicians don’t give a damn about anything but themselves, Mr. Brown included. He’s not a ‘good man’ - he’s a power hungry monster like the rest of them. Endorse a politician and you sell your soul to the devil himself.

I think David’s let himself down.

But I’d still like him to get his 100th cap. Even after brown-nosing Brown.

So we lost 2-1. The match report is here.

Still, no disgrace in pushing a side three divisions higher to the 88th minute.

Now we just have to concentrate on getting back into the League…

Come On You ‘U’s!!!

1-0 at Half Time, a Scott Rendell penalty.

Come on!

Here are the stats from the BBC.

Hearteningly we’ve got the better record of games between us, but then we’ve never played them from 67 places below them…

Can’t make it sadly, but COME ON YOU ‘U’S!!!

May the magic of the FA Cup be at Molineux today…

Saw this this morning

and I can’t help but be drawn to it. A small Citroen van with windows.

Good job I really like this

or I’d think I was getting old and magnolia…

I didn’t get around to posting anything in November and December - sorry…

Here though is the beautifully colourful chart for January (click on it to see it full size) :

From it you can see that I’m very narrowly in the lead, followed by Murph and then a tie between Gay & Alex for third. It’s all worked out as a correlation so the nearer to 1 you are the better.

There’s still a long way to go, and remember that we have now entered the January Swap Window…

Between now and January 30th you can reply to this post, or e-mail me, stating the two teams you would like like to swap positions in your predictions. For example, if you are now regretting placing Tottenham so well you could swap them with high flying Aston Villa. Or you may be supremely confident and want to keep your predictions as they are - which is also fine. Only two teams can be swapped though, and the other eighteen teams will all stay in the same places, so choose carefully…

A reminder as we enter the new year that the prize this year is £10 to spend in the Cambridge United Club Shop, which can be visited (to imagine what you’ll spend your prize money on) by clicking here.

Good luck, and remember to let me know any swaps by the end of January.

Whilst looking for a review of ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ (as you do) I came across the BBC’s YouTube page.

Three videos on and the living room is still a mess and I’m hooked - how have I not noticed this resource before? What’s great about it is that it’s not just TV programs but webcam footage of radio discussions (for example Mayo & Kermode doing their movie reviews) and trailers and highlights and…lots of other excellent bits.

Well done BBC.