Day off #1

The last time I had a day off, was the Bali trip, since then, I've returned to work and not stopped, so a couple of days off to chill, relax and continue improving the flat isnt too much to ask, is it ? You would think not, however waking up around 10.30 to monsoon style rain over the canal, I decided to turn over and fall back asleep.

After deciding that I needed to do something with the day, I replied to a couple of football related emails, made myself a cup of tea and decided to get ready for a trip to Ikea. Normally a 35/40 minute trip on a good day, why not ?! Well, I knew it was going to be a bad day, when the shower wouldnt run hot, so checking the boiler and 20 minutes later, getting the water temperature I desired.

20 minutes into the car journey up the M6 - I was stuck in tailbacks of around 10 mile, knowing Newcastle United were kicking off around 15:55, I wanted to get back with enough time to get at least a couple of beers inside me. I reached my destination after 2 hours, scooted around Ikea, and returned (via a diversion) at 18:05 - finding out NUFC had win 1-0. In that process, spending around 100 quid on nice funky things for the flat, when in reality, I went for a pair of curtains I could dye! Needless to say, I also managed to pick up norwegian style chocolate, pastry and alcohol - alls not lost then!

Different levels of desperation!

OK, I admit it, mainly before someone else spots it and takes the piss, I joined a dating website. Most of it was because I wanted to see who was out there on the market, and another part of me is fed up with being labelled as tapping people who, then going away feeling guilty about it. Why shouldnt I be "tapping" people up, I'm youngish, I'm alright looking, I'm single, and dont want to spend the rest of my life regretting things.

So, I've done it, I'm not convinced I'll do anything about it, nor am I convinced I'll spend money so I can "talk" to other people looking. But again, thats how I've always been, wait for other people to make the move.

Annoying this is, you can do a search by postcode, ie, who's single and local, and I dont know where the hell these people drink and/or socialise - if I did, I dont think I would be single. However, thats also assuming that they would be interested in such a shambles like myself.

U11 Colts - Match Day #1

You may or may not be aware that I've taken up the management of Leamington Brakes U11 Colts. This is the first season that I've done any type of football management, and also the first time the lads have played 11aside. An interesting combination.

The Colts were the only team playing away from home today against Coundon Cockerels with a 1.30 kick off. This is the first season that the U11 Colts have played 11 aside, and indeed the first time myself, Pete and JJ have been involved in training and coaching kids.

Following the destruction of the one and only friendly that the colts were involved with (9-1 against emscott colts) we played a 5-3-2 formation, with Dan Dyson, David Fairbairn and Matthew Robertson in the centre of defence. Left and Right back were the twins (Gabriel and Isaac Saxton-Knight). Running midfield were Rory Barber (Cpt), Harry Gane and Aidan Bradbury, while Charlie Smith and Wilf Dove played up front and supported by the midfield. Richard "the stopper" Cure was ever present between the sticks.

Playing for the first time on a full sized pitch didnt phase the lads as the back 5 kept strong throughout the first half, with the Brakes going into the first half with a commanding effort with around 3 close chances and the opposition hardly getting a sniff on target. Making subs in the 2nd half (including Julian Loscombe, Nilun Dubay, Zack Wilkins and Thomas Henderson) the Brakes were playing into the sun, however after a number of counter attacks, the lads broke through the Cockerels defence, and Bradbury taking in a strong shot on target and the keeping making a hash of it.

The remaining of the game was 50-50 with it looking like the Brakes were about to get a good away 3 points. However, disaster struck with 2 minutes left and the Cockerels itching through our defence and putting it inches wide of Richard who had a blinding game. Refreshing to see a referee (who was their assistant) having a good game - and being awarded full marks by Leamington Brakes FC.

Final Score :-
Coundon Cockerels 1 - Brakes U11 (Colts) 1 (0-0 HT)

MOM :-
Rory Barber

Summary :-
60 minutes of 120% commitment from the lads and more importantly, playing as a Team.

Man Stroking Cock

Man stroking his cock :- does what it says on the tin

The Magic Number?

Not happy with getting tickets for the Kooks this year, I found that the Magic Numbers were also touring the UK - and playing in Brum at the end of Nov. After doing a quick round of who's in and who's out, I ordered 4 tickets for myself, Andy, Nomes and the lyrical shamster, Bellis. This is something I've been looking forward too for a while, and a band that I certainly watch out for new tracks on itunes and on t'internet. Hopefully they'll play some new material on the tour, and give us the chance to purchase some fantastic stylish tshirts.

4 - the magic number?

Wot No Posting - Update I

After returning from Bali, I had a long weekend up in Newcastle, mainly to see the folks and sister, after all I hadnt been up since breaking my ankle all those months ago. Another reason was Abigail's Christening (Een and Sarah's new baby) back in my home down of Winlaton, and I'd arranged to take Philippa, as she cant drive yet - dur.

Normally when I go up, its all stressful and pressured, I think mainly because I dont go up that often, then I spend the whole time running around, trying to keep everyone happy, but not this time - it was pretty relaxed. I think it was due to still being in Holiday mode, but hey, it was still 5 oC cooler than in Leamington. One thing that didnt change, was my mum harping on about how me and Philippa are perfect for each other and oh, "blah blah blah".

I picked up Philippa as arranged and she looked stunning, she normally does, but this was drop dead stunning. The christening was nice, as far as churches go, and Abigail didnt cry at the ceremony, which is always nice. I bumped into Harry (Een's dad) at the party afterwards, where he harped on about me and Pippa getting it together, then Pippa decided to rate ties in order of niceness, mine coming bottom. I came to the conclusion, doesnt matter what it was, regardless if she does like me like that, I'd always rank bottom - but such as life you know.

We'd arrange to go watch Newcastle play Villareal that afternoon, then go for some beers and relax, however, when we got back to Pip's place, ordered a Pizza, she decided to go for a Powernap and I had to wake her when the football was about to start on channel5. We had a couple of beers, and decided that maybe we should just stay in and watch a movie instead - which we done.

A good long weekend, might actually go back up vr shortly.

Keep on running :: Nike +

I purhcased a ipod nano before I went away on vacation in Bali, and a couple of days later, Apple and Nike released a joint partnership called Nike+. Effectively, its a small device that slides into the base of the ipod nano, the same slot that you dock with your PC, which communicates wirelessly to a small device which slips into the bottom of your Nike+ trainer. The device itself is pretty cheap, at 15 quid, however the expense comes when you have to buy the trainers, which to be fair, I've been after a new pair for a while, so its a small excuse, isnt it ?

I also purchase a Nike+ top, which has an embedded little pocket on the arm that houses your ipod nano, and also includes cable holes, so you're not running around and also strangling yourself at the time.

To calibrate the device, I popped my trainers on and wandered into town a couple of weeks ago, managing about 400metres, however today, managed around 2.18 miles. How do I know this ? Well, when you dock your ipod into the PC, it automatically updates the runs up to T'interweb via iTunes, giving you graphical view of when you slowed down, when you speeded up and updates every mile (or Km if you're metric).

Nike+ :: faster than me, obviously.

The Nike+ application also allows you to setup goals, mine is to run 10 miles in 8 weeks (of which I've done 2.1 miles so far) and it also allows you to challenge other Nike+ users within the same area or same age or same sex.

The Leaderboard function gives you a list of people (per week, per month, or ever) which allows you to drill down per sex, per geo, per age. Currently, out of everyone, I'm 10125th, and in the UK, 786th, and finally, in the UK, between the age of 30 and 39 and male, I'm 268th - impressive.

Cor Blimey Guvnor

Strange that my life gets, lastnight just tipped it off nicely with a cherry. I got invited to play 5aside football with a couple of friends, and after 3 months out of injury and being away on vacation for 2.bit weeks - I thought perhaps it was a good idea to get fit once again. After arriving at the pitch, someone nudged me and said that no other than Ian Beale from Eastenders would be turning up. Of course, I laughed, then sure enough, he turned up, warmed up and was on the opposite team to me!

"Alright me ol' china!?" - Ian Beale, yesterday

Obviously being star struck, I managed to sandwich him between myself and one of his players on my first touch ... it felt good to be back. Adam Woodyatt, who plays Ian, managed to score a couple and put his team well in front, however up to the whistle, we managed to get a couple goals back to make it something like 5-3.

Not making excuses, because I thought I done alright lastnight, and the fact it was hot, and we played for 90 minutes, rather than the 60, I managed to come away without breaking anything - although I think my little finger is out of joint thanks to our celeb friend when I was in goal.

Duff Man - oh yeah!

Well, I'm back from Bali, and within 90 minutes of returning to British soil, I discovered that Newcastle United had signed Damian Duff from Chelsea for 5 million quid. Fantastic news. Hopefully getting to the Villareal game next week with Miss Pippa to check him out and any new signings if we're lucky.

Things that go wrong for me #23

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by docwharton.

Bad Karma!

Good! Not winking now, oh Boo Hoo Hoo! *

"I miss my best friend Wayne!" - A Cry baby (yesterday) - centre

Fake Tiltshift

I was reading FNM a while back and noticed some guy had taken a number of photographs, and manipulated it so much that it looked they were minature models. With joining flickr, you get to see different types of photography and of course it inspires you to get involved, try different things and learn something new. I had a chat to John about it and he give me a couple of FAQ websites on how to do it, and was even so kind to provide a suggested item of free software that can recreate the perception.

I've never classed myself as an arty type person, I leave this up to the likes of John, Rich and of course, World respected Andy Palin. So I was quite suprised how good it appeared once you understood what the application was trying to do, what to highlight and what to bring into focus.

Bruge - not really that small

The original photo from the above was taken 4 years ago in Bruge, knowing what the buildings looked like anyhow, it was quite nice applying this technique to the photograph and make it appear to be a mininature town.

Ice formations around a fountain.

Not happy with just taking buildings and streets, I've attempted to apply it to objects too with strange but effective results.

The rest of my fake tiltshift online folder can be seen at :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/docwharton/sets/72157594178594772/

Gaffer - to you!

The meeting I had up at the football club was all a little hush hush, not many people knew what was going on, and even I only knew the basics. I got up there in decent time, said hello to the people I already knew, got introduced to those who I didnt. Thats what I like about the club, its all very friendly, all very family so if you dont know who you're dealing with, someone will introduce you anyhow.

Anyhow, the reason I was there, was they were discussing the junior squad that they were putting out this season, turns out that after speaking to a couple of people about getting involved, that they were looking for a manager and a number of coaches. I've always wanted to do football managent, even got to the level where I was looking at how to do coaching badges. Anyways, I'd been asked if I wanted to get involved in football management with an Under 11's squad, and the talk I had with the Junior board was very positive, appears everyone is in the right direction - and they sold it to me.

We had a little handover from the guy who was currently covering the kids, as he was moving on to a new position, so got a couple of names and ideas, and got asked to attend a training session on Wednesday evening. All very sudden, but all very exciting - so much so I'm pondering creating a new blog for my experience - what do you reckon ?

Driving me to .. er drive!

I've got a meeting at the football club tomorrow, and with the ankle healing up quite nicely, I thought its good time to give that old driving malarky a quick whizz, mainly because the car has been sat in the same place for the last 8 weeks.

I wanted to make sure that the car could actually move, just incase the battery had given up on keeping the slidy doors locked - but hey, it worked well, I had a drive around the block and managed to park it nicely outside my place overnight. Today driving, tomorrow the world!

Driving me to shop!

Today has been planned for a while, shopping in Brum for the holiday - including clothes, technology and accessories. FHM were running a promotion where if you take a voucher you get 20% off - which isnt to shabby really - only thing is it ruined a nice photo Nikki Sanderson on the other side.

After lastnight we were a little knackered and hungover, but we stuck with it - including the heat and we managed to get into the city at a decent time, and started with Selfridges straight away, going out seperate ways, armed with our phones incase we got lost or bored. I headed straight to Ted Baker - spent a fortune in about 5 minutes, while in the same time frame - Debbie spent a small fraction.

I picked up an ipod nano to take away, its so small, you just think its going to break, but its actually fantastic. I didnt want to take my big 40Gb ipod away with me - incase it gets smashed - mainly because it has all my photos and ALL my music, some of which isnt stored anywhere else. Thats my reasoning anyhow, and I'm sticking to it - it does look smart tho.

After approx 5 hours, we got the O'Neills surf shop where we placed the voucher on the desk and the nice Oz guy was helpful to both of us - giving us hints and tips in Bali. As we spent over a certain amount, I also recieved a free surfing lesson which is worth around 80 quid - and 2 1/2 hours in total - just in cornwall. Its valid til december - so you never know - might be a laugh for a long weekend away.

All in all, an exhausting day, but enjoyable. Given a couple more hours, think I could have spent SO much more - so probably wise that we headed home.

Driving me to drink!

John headed off to the magical mystical world that is called Wales for a stagweekend, leaving Debbie to lead me astray once more. We'd promised to have an early night as we'd planned to pop up to the Bullring in Brum to do some holiday clothes shopping.

Once we both mentioned cripsy duck, we had the taste on the tip of our tongues, so it was decided, we'd pop to the home of the sugary god to have a bit of chinese related food. We were going to ask MC to come out, as super gary was away with Mr John, however MC was warned to stay away from good people like us, incase she led us astray.

Once we'd finished our lovely food, we popped down to the Well to watch the 2nd half of a world cup game, and bump into some friendly faces. It was also the Leamington Peace festival, so of course, it was an excuse for everyone within a 25 mile radius to a) not wash for 3 days b) to pull out their hippy clothes from 20 years ago and c) talk about the NHS problems that are faced thanks to the government.

We bumped into a couple of Debbie's students (none of which offered to buy her a drink) who appeared to have social problems, one looking like a serial killer (and gets called that by his mates), one who has tourettes and then finally, one that looks like Chico from the X-Factor. Of course, I had to remind them of this fact - shouting "ITS CHICO TIME" and moving my arms like a clock in front of him.

Fun had by all... shopping tomorrow!

keep on running ...

Today marked the 8th week that I broke my ankle - so what better way to celebrate it, by going out for a small jog / walk. Well thats what the intention was at the start, however it turned out to be a mini marathon. Trying to get myself fit for the holidays is going to be hard, but with eating sensibly (chips and fish fingers in the oven as we speak) and regular exercise (shopping in brum on saturday) I'm sure I can trim up. After a quick text convo with Debbie about if herself and John were out for exercise, I said I would do around a minute jog, then walk, and turn around and let them catch up when they went for a jog. Debbie explained what they would be doing, which involved a warm up walk to the bridge near the asda turn off, then jog to the "grate". On top of that, it was a walk for an extra minute, then jog back to the bridge again - cooling down with a 5 minute walk once again.

Sounds simple, so I started to walk and when they turned their backs and said they were off for a jog, I thought bugger it, lets jog - and I did - infact it was more comfortable than walking, a minute passed and I continued, next thing I knew, I got to the grate which apparently is around 2Km from our house - not bad going for 8 weeks of no exercise. John and Debbie continued for a minute around the corner, and I headed back, walking/limping a little - then when John caught me up, I thought I'd wait til Debbie turned up and jog slowly back with her - although a couple of stops and starts - managed to get back home without breaking anything or my heart leaping outof my body.

Hopefully this has eased my foot up a little more without putting too much pressure on the ankle - but we'll find out tomorrow/friday on that - although my good leg seems to have pulled/strained a muscle - not good.

In your face ebay bidders!!

A cunning plan, so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a fox! What the hell has this got to do with my world - well you see - with Captain Rich not being too great at the moment, and being away from work, I decided to invite him down for a bit of Deal or No Deal and a sandwich and a sociable tinny while I worked a little more. I found that M&S had a nice deal on where you get one sandwich free if you buy another, and knowing that he's a massive fan of steak sandwiches with onions - thought it would put a smile on his face!

The previous night, I asked Rich if he would put a bid in for some tickets on ebay - and in the mix up, we missed it by about 20 seconds - gutted. I done a further search and there were a couple of sets of tickets on going for the next 24 hours - fantastic. So the plan was, get Rich buttered up, so he would put a bid in for me :o). We were discussing this, and it appears that I live in the 18th century, being an ebay virgin (although I do have a user ID) and dont use online banking. I tell you what, nothing like still using pigs and sheep to barter with - safe and you wont get some chavvy idiot stealing your pin number!

Anyhow, appears that we had 2 minutes left to bid for the Kooks tickets that I was after (sold out in 10 minutes apparently) with with a bit of tinkering, we managed to get a higher bid in and win the tickets - having not put a bid in previously. Sounds to be like a scandal really - you can win anything, as long as you put in a last minute bid which is high enough. After all this online-superinternethighway excitement, I managed to convince Rich that he didnt need this money "electronically" and I would write him a nice cheque.

World Cup Madness

Yesterday saw England kick off their world cup campaign over in Germany and you can feel the pressure cooker of passion start to fill up in England of expectation. It was arranged that we all would meet in the pub around the corner as a massive group, cheer on england and have a couple of beers. This did in fact happen, however, with two mini groups on different floors - which was quite nice, as it give an excuse to walk around and be sociable. We tend to use this pub when there are major footballing championships, mainly due to the number of large screens - nothing to do with the locals - honest. We got there around 12:30 ish, myself, Rich, Nomes and Andy P ended up on the top deck, while Debbie, John, MC, Gary, Tom and Abbi were down in the basement. Two years ago, the top deck was packed, however, this year it didnt seem that busy - we came to the conclusion it was down to being a Saturday, being very hot and people staying at home having a BBQ

Kick off came and went - first half was pretty good, second was pretty poor - with England winning 1-0 if you just came back from space.

After the match, I'd arranged to have a BBQ at my gaff, to say thanks to friends for their support after breaking my ankle, so once the BBQ got hot, food started to cook, beer started to flow. Needless to say, John and Debbie got revenge by being the last people there - which was nice to just chill and relax in quiet. Fortunately, there was no "big bloke falling over on patio" or "nomes drinking half a pint of morgans spiced rum" - just chat, laughter, banter, warmth and booze.

Confessions of a 31 year old - part one

I've just been watching "The Hits" channel on the digi-foofoobox and after a couple of 80s tracks from Spitting Image & Star ship, Sonia came on. Way back when (and pleased my sister doesnt read this t'interwebblogpage) I used to like Sonia, and I thought she was pure talent, thanks to Stock, Aiken and Waterman, and my sister used to take the piss everytime I listened to my records. My sister suggested that I fancied her, and I would blush whenever Sonia was on top of the pops or the such like. With fantastic tracks such as "Listen to your heart", "Better the devil you know" and "You'll never stop me from loving you"

Sonia - Listen to your heart

Needless to say, after all these years, I confess, I fancied Sonia. Reckon she's still out there, somewhere, stunning, single and interested.

Future confessions to follow, maybe...