Football

December So Far…

| Richard

Well November ended on a high: whilst up in Norfolk for the weekend, I took Amy – Jack baled out at the last moment – to see London Grammar play the Open in Norwich and very good they were too (as expected).

Hannah Reid of London Grammar at the Open, Norwich
Hannah Reid of London Grammar at the Open, Norwich
London Grammar at the Open, Norwich
London Grammar at the Open, Norwich

I was also impressed in particular by one of the support acts: Josh Record, who may or may not use my suggestion of “Geoff” for the title of their presently unnamed track. Or not.

Josh Record at the Open, Norwich
Josh Record at the Open, Norwich

Tuesday of the following week and I was back off to Canada; Toronto this time to speak at a major exhibition (people actually had to pay to see me speaking). This time, it was a morning flight so I arrived at lunchtime EDT . Straight from the Airport via our offices to check the venue out for the following day, then off to the hotel to do a quick shower and change and back out for the evening: dinner at the Toronto Maple Leafs where their top player, Phil Kessel, celebrated his career 200th goal after scoring against the San Jose Sharks. Very enjoyable evening.

Toronto Maple Leafs v San Jose Sharks
Toronto Maple Leafs v San Jose Sharks

Wednesday and it was up early for breakfast and meeting colleagues before heading down to the convention centre to do my thing. A quick drink afterwards – bought for me by an ex-pat British lawyer (I didn’t have time to get her name) – then off to the airport for the red-eye to Heathrow.

Friday I had the day off: I was heading down to Gloucester for the PurplePort social. Great fun with lots of drink and chat: Katra was memorable for touching my face all evening looking for (non-existent) plastic surgery scars and Ali was memorable for not falling out of her corset despite all odds!

After breakfast, I headed back to London … via Bourton-on-the-Water where I lived when I was a little boy and we’d come back to the UK from Malta. I’d been taught our address parrot-fashion as we all do with our kids, so I popped it in to Waze on my iPhone and headed there. It was still as I remembered it, bar the houses that had been built behind the bungalow. Off into the village centre which was as I remembered it for a coffee and a walk around.

Fosse View
Fosse View
Selfie in Bourton
Selfie in Bourton

More of the same the following week – another seminar to give in London – and then the following week was fabulous, starting with the Placebo gig at Brixton on Monday 16th with GT. Really, really good they were too and it was nice to see GT after a few weeks.

Placebo at the O2 Academy, Brixton
Placebo at the O2 Academy, Brixton
Placebo at the O2 Academy, Brixton
Placebo at the O2 Academy, Brixton

Later that week, in Crawley at a Client’s, I dropped the RX-8 off at the nearby dealer to see if they could sort out the headlight washers: hitting a pheasant at {cough} MPH had split and lost the thick hose that feeds the headlight washers. They have had to order-in the hose which will be a massive £380 fitted! Expensive car, this one. Then back on Thursday evening for the company Christmas Dinner Cruise along the Thames, during which I gave a younger colleague a pep-talk about his forthcoming new baby and how he shouldn’t envy my lifestyle. He didn’t go home that night, apparently. So much for mentoring…

Friday I had the afternoon off as a friend, NT, was coming to stay at mine for the weekend. I picked her up from the railway station and we stopped off at London Bridge to pick up my car from the office where I’d left it overnight. As it was a lovely day, I took her up the Shard – fnarr! – before heading home. A lovely steak at Gaucho that evening. Saturday she wanted to do some shopping for her kids so we went up to Camden; tapas and t-shirts. Saturday and it was off to Le Pont de la Tour for dinner from their tasting menu. Excellent nosh.

NT at Tower Bridge
NT at Tower Bridge

Then into the Christmas Week: Christmas Eve was peculiar as due to the storms that hit the UK, I was one of the first into the office and it remained that way until mid-morning when just a few made it in. Drinks and snacks at the pub and then home. Christmas Day and I’d been invited to GT’s for what was a lovely Christmas Dinner including her fabulous Cheesy Chestnut Roast. Feeling bloated, I headed home to an early night before heading up to Norfolk for Boxing Day and the first of two defeats this week for Norwich City.

New Year’s Eve beckons now – after a shoot I have planned tomorrow with Marlyn Lindsay – and my plans include a possible NYE at Slimelight. I did wonder about grabbing a last-minute flight to Moscow to see the New Year in with Manuel and Angelo (friends from Route 66) but flights are stupidly expensive for what would be a one-night stay!

Qatar 2022 World Cup

| Richard

…or why football is utter bollocks.

There’s a bit of a hoo-ha about holding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar at the moment.

It seems that people have just realised that with the World Cup taking place in the summer months (North of the Equator, anyway), it might be a little warm in the desert at that time. Nothing like forward thinking … and this is nothing like forward thinking (or any thinking at all, come to think of it).

Now I thought I’d read somewhere that to counter this potential issue, the stadium designs included some clever technology to air condition the stadia to reduce temperatures down to a more acceptable level for the footballers and spectators.

So what’s their gripe?

I mean we all know that footballers are a bunch of wusses when compared to, say motorbike racers. The former are off for weeks for minor injuries whereas the latter tend to just get it plated, sewn up and given painkillers so they can race the next week, or indeed they just race with the bones broken.

But then for the MotoGP, the bike racers simply raced at night when it was less hot.

FIFA don’t know what to do: they can’t postpone the World Cup until the winter months as that would play havoc with domestic championships and upset UEFA in terms of European competitions too.

So maybe it wasn’t such a good call to go to Qatar. But now they have chosen that location, maybe it’s time to tell the players to “man up, bitch!”

Qatar 2022 World Cup

| Richard

…or why football is utter bollocks.

There’s a bit of a hoo-ha about holding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar at the moment.

It seems that people have just realised that with the World Cup taking place in the summer months (North of the Equator, anyway), it might be a little warm in the desert at that time. Nothing like forward thinking … and this is nothing like forward thinking (or any thinking at all, come to think of it).

Now I thought I’d read somewhere that to counter this potential issue, the stadium designs included some clever technology to air condition the stadia to reduce temperatures down to a more acceptable level for the footballers and spectators.

So what’s their gripe?

I mean we all know that footballers are a bunch of wusses when compared to, say motorbike racers. The former are off for weeks for minor injuries whereas the latter tend to just get it plated, sewn up and given painkillers so they can race the next week, or indeed they just race with the bones broken.

But then for the MotoGP, the bike racers simply raced at night when it was less hot.

FIFA don’t know what to do: they can’t postpone the World Cup until the winter months as that would play havoc with domestic championships and upset UEFA in terms of European competitions too.

So maybe it wasn’t such a good call to go to Qatar. But now they have chosen that location, maybe it’s time to tell the players to “man up, bitch!”

The Trouble With Marathon Runners…

| Richard

…is that they’re utterly barking mad!

It was the first of two Bank Holiday weekends in May. Saturday morning saw me driving up to Norfolk to collect Jack and take him to Nando’s Riverside before the Norwich City match against Aston Villa … which we lost, helping Chris Hughton’s masterplan to dominate the Championship next season rather than staying up in the Premier League.

A tasty post-match Chinese and then on to my hotel in Norwich for a late night.

Sunday morning should have seen me running a medium distance – 6-8 miles around Norwich – but I’d managed to pull my calf muscle yet again earlier in the week. Damnit! Less than 150 days until the Berlin Marathon as well. So I had a little lie-in instead and a light breakfast before heading off in the glorious sunshine to fetch Jack to head back into Norwich for more shopping and eating (Wagamama) before I headed back down to London to change and grab my running gear before heading off to GT’s for the evening and a lovely veggie meal.

No doubt reeking of garlic, we headed off early on Bank Holiday Monday up to Milton Keynes for GT to run in the MK Marathon; her tenth.

Yes, after the Paris Marathon when GT had got so close – again! – to her 4:00:00 barrier, one of her running mates had suggested she should get paced around in a sub-4 hour run and he happened to know the guy who’d be doing just that at Milton Keynes. So the die was cast. I’d suggested that I would drive GT there and back as usual, but with nothing to do otherwise, I entered the Superhero Fun Run and bought a Batman costume from eBay.

And so it was that on a very warm, sunny day, GT lined up for the marathon in her running gear and I lined up for mine dressed as Batman and dosed up on Ibuprofen for the extremely painful calf muscle. They held us on the start line for a while in the sun so as you can imagine it was a tad sweaty inside a black rubberised hood, bodysuit and cape! Plus my Garmin kept switching out of training mode, so when we finally got away, it took me a while to be able to start logging the run.

There’s something wonderful about running along making bat signs and having crowds cheering you on as well as high-fiving other Batmen on the return loop! And so it was that I became first Superhero back despite the muscle going again. I was so pleased to cross the finish line that I forgot to switch the Garmin off until after I’d received my medal. Ah well.

So some photos, then…

Milton Keynes Superhero Fun Run

If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be…

| Richard

So after spending a great few days on Corralejo chilling out in my hotel and spending the evenings drinking and listening to live acoustic rock music with friends in the Rock Island Bar, it was back to normality with work for a couple of days before I headed up to Cleethorpes on the Sunday.

The view from my balcony
The view from my balcony
Coffee time
Coffee time

The plan had been to head up to Cleethorpes to drop off some old Court papers and some crap the ex-girlfriend had sent me with her parents but the ex found out about my plans – she reads my Tweets and this blog to stalk keep up to date with what I’m doing – and threatened to stop them from seeing the one remaining daughter she hasn’t thrown out if they saw me. Nice, eh? Mind you, as it turned out, that was just as well because an accident on the A17 delayed my getting there until later and I had plans to meet up with some old friends for a lovely meal out in town as their treat. Great to catch up with them and to have a load of laughs about Stuff.

Monday saw an impromptu diversion to Covent Garden on my way home for more Christmas Shopping for GT and my daughter (some killer heels for GT that were a leeetle more expensive than I thought but hey, she’s worth it) and then home.

The Tuesday night found GT and I going to KOKO Camden to watch Fear Factory‘s gig. Sadly this was disappointing. They mentioned they were 7 weeks into their tour and it had clearly taken its toll on the lead singer’s vocal chords as he was unable to sing in tune or make much noise for higher notes.

KOKO London
KOKO London
Fear Factory at KOKO Camden
Fear Factory at KOKO Camden

Wednesday and it was another gig: this time it was the Prodigy at the O2 Brixton Academy. We hadn’t realised when we booked the tickets that this was a late show, with the Prodigy not coming on until after midnight and finishing at 1.30am! On a school night! Oops! So GT and I had a meal and a mooch around and then went in to watch the support artists around 11.30pm and then waited for the Prodigy to come on and do a blinding set. They can still definitely do their thing.

We left shortly after and I got home around 3.00am which was just as well as a taxi was booked to collect me at 6.45am to take me to St. Pancras International for a trip over to Paris to see a Client. Back that evening, arriving around 8.45pm which was just as well as I needed to be nearby at our works Christmas do at a Comedy Club. Lots of laughs – why do I always get picked on by the headliners? Same as the Burlesque Shows – and they’d saved me my dinner which was nice.  We got thrown out around 1.30am and we grabbed some taxis to get us home.

Friday and it was time for dinner in Epsom with GT and some friends and to see Indian Elvis in action!

Indian Elvis
Indian Elvis

The food at the Cinnamon Spice is really excellent and we enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine with a great meal before heading home.

More shopping over the weekend and a lovely lunch out in Kingston at Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant. Recommended.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day saw drinks with friends at their pub and a lovely meal cooked by GT – part carnivorous for me and part vegetarian (and delicious) – with some of the contents of the Fortnum & Mason hamper I’d been given.

Boxing Day and I was off to Norfolk to see my kids and to watch Norwich City (mainly in the rain and doing OK against a strong Chelsea team).

Today was mainly spent driving: back from Norfolk via Diss to buy Amy a replacement Ka after hers got written off; then on to my Mum’s for lunch and presents; then to Egham to get Amy home and off to work.

Phew!

The Thing About Weekends…

| Richard

… is that they’re always over too quickly.

Having come back from Venice, we were out a couple of nights later for the Fields of the Nephilim gig at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Great gig it was too plus we had Vietnamese food beforehand at the nearby Westfield shopping centre. And then the weekend.

As it was GT’s birthday a few days afterwards, I popped out to the Apple Store whilst I was up in Norwich seeing Norwich City beat Stoke and bought her a MacBook Pro to replace her ageing laptop, which I set up for her the following weekend … when we weren’t spending Sunday messing around the countryside paintballing!

Epic weekend. Especially singling out the Competitive Dads – what is with Surrey? – for slaughter!

Meanwhile at BlueCo, I was up to Glasgow training a Client which I decided to do with my replacement iPad. That still leaves me with my old iPad at home which Jack suggested I give him. And GT didn’t help by asking why I needed two and pointing out that I could always buy myself another one later.

Another gig the day after – Seether at the Electric Ballroom up at Camden – which was quite different from the Neph one due to the demographic of the audience, shall we say…

Jack led me astray after a great weekend this weekend – Manchester United getting beaten by City! – and gradually wore me down into saying yes he probably could have my old iPad and yes I probably should order myself an iPad mini. So I did. Two weeks’ delivery but somehow that translates in Cupertino to delivery on 10 December. After I go to Fuerteventura, when I was hoping to use it on the flights. Ho hum.

Bit of a weird time at the moment. A colleague and friend at work died the week before last with a heart attack. I’d guess he was early to mid-50s? Scary stuff, especially as he was into mountain-biking and wasn’t unhealthy. And last week an old and dear friend died from MND.

Makes you re-evaluate your life and think about those who mean the most to you.

39 Matches a Year

| Richard

Oh those poor dears! It seems that the plan for Premier League teams to play an additional football match abroad every year is meeting with opposition as it might lead to player burn-out, or more injuries, etc.

Oh dear! Yes, how dare anyone suggest that those poor, down-trodden, underpaid loves should play 39 football matches in one year! What with that and all that training they do, there’d be no time for them to party and go shopping or anything.

I am so glad I only work 250+ full days a year instead…