Have now developed a grey/white circle in the lower right portion of my beard. I’m trying hard to grow one to match on the other side, but it isn’t working yet. Maybe watching Lewis Hamilton trying to win the F1 world title next weekend could help?
Category: diary
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That goal reminds me of a warm safe place where as a child I’d hide
Last night, having been left to my own devices, I settled in for a night of watching Darlington play Bradford live on Sky Sports. I shamefully have not watched my old team play a full game of football for, errrm, a very long time.
When I lived in Darlington, I went to my fair share of games, including a memorable season in the mid-eighties where I saw every home game bar one. Darlington v Middlesborough in the FA Cup. I’d been to the first game at Ayresome Park, and there had been a lot of trouble, a hail of bottles, fights throughout, familiar fodder to most fans who went to games at that time when things got violent. So I was banned from going to the replay by my mum. A shocking decision at the time. However I was only about 12 or so (and in that different age, far off in time, was used to going to games on my own or with a few mates, and getting the bus there and back without any problems whatsoever). It pains me to say it, but she was right on two counts. Firstly it was worse than the first game, pitched battles and a few large pitch invasions, not the sort of stuff that normally happened at Feethams. Secondly, and far worse, someone I knew from school was run over and killed on the way to the game himself, and I would probably have been on a bus going past where it happened. Don’t know how I would have dealt with seeing that, it was bad enough just hearing about it.
*deep sigh*. Anyways, I think that was the last full season I saw. Halfway through the next we moved down South to St. Albans, and I followed almost a full season of St.Albans City games. Terrible, terrible football. I think pretty clearly that was the point I started to lose my passion for football somewhat.
I still enjoy watching it. I just don’t follow it as closely as I did. I’ll watch a few full games a season, watch Soccer AM, watch more of tournaments like the World Cup, or England games, that sort of thing. It just doesn’t matter as much as it did though, I don’t have the same attachment to it now I can’t watch my team.
So the opportunity to watch Darlington again was one I did take eagerly. Darlington are looking bright and playing reasonably good football for their division this season, from the looks of it. However they just couldn’t capitalise on anything. As time went on and it crept towards the eightieth minute, a familiar feeling of resignation crept over me. Then we scored. Then they scored within 21 seconds. That feeling of resignation was far stronger now. This is how I used to feel watching Darlington in the flesh. Many hopes, many dreams, rarely to be realised.
That year we played Middlesborough was the one decent cup run I ever witnessed. Failure, or just a lack of overall achievement, was what any wise fan expected. Fans who follow the Liverpools, the Chelseas, the Man Utds, especially younger fans, just can’t know the feeling that scoring a single goal at the right time can muster, that brief feeling of rising above it all, of fleeting glory to be savoured, rather than expected.
And so right at the death of last night’s game, Franz Burgmeier headed in the winner for Darlington. Once more I got that glorious feeling of expectation being surpassed. A primordial sensation of local pride for a town I’ve long since left behind. It took me back somewhat. All in all, an excellent evening’s entertainment.
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Definitely going more grey
There is a sheen to my hair today I couldn’t quite place. On further inspection, it appears to be a undercurrent of grey throughout my hair. My plan to go utterly grey is bang on target.
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How not to interview
Media Monkey: Hardeep Singh Kohli terminates BBC radio interview | Media | guardian.co.uk
Les Ross manages to make Alan Partridge look like Jeremy Paxman.
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It has been a long time since…
Is there much to explain? Not a lot really, just been busy, and not that inclined to write on here. In the meantime, since I was writing in much detail, I’ve been to France, I’m in London, and I’ll soon be going to Cardiff for trips. Just chugging along nicely really. Have been doing some geek writing instead of updating here, think it is about time I did a little more back here.
Oh, one new thing, have started getting grey hair. Very excited about this, reckon I can rock the silver fox look soon. Early days yet, but definitely got some in my sidies, and plenty in my beard. Getting there, I feel.
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I keep tripping over
my feng-shui books
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Have become a Mac User
and found I rather like it.
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Bundling up your Social Networking
Okay, you’re a member of several Social Networks now. There is probably one you use a lot, likely the one you started with, but you haven’t done much with the others. What if you could post messages or updates to several of them at once? This is where ping.fm comes in. Presently supporting Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr and Twitter, and soon to add support for Myspace and Bebo, this is a simple web-based app that will allow you to post to all of these networks at once. Nice and simple to set up, and it does what it promises fine. It’s still in a private beta at the moment, but let me know if you want to try it, I have a code that may (or indeed may not) still work for signup.
You can also bundle up what you’ve been doing at the other end too. Friendfeed will gather together feeds of your activities on several social networks, blogs, photo sites, Youtube, Last.fm and several other places, and offer them all up as a single feed (this is mine). You can also add all your friends, and follow their feeds too. I personally find that last element a little intrusive, as you can do that without asking. You can do so and choose to keep it private, but for now I won’t do either for anyone that hasn’t tracked me down and added me in Friendfeed.
There has been a little surge of these bundling services, taking the API or feeds of several different sites, and offering them up as a whole new site. Both definitely offer something to the user, and I’m using both daily now. I do wonder though if they strip away some of the individual features of different sites to fit what all of them have. I am sure there will be several more such ideas coming in the next few months though.
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The 2008 Bloggies winners are announced
Is it that time of year again? It is. The results of the 2008 Bloggies have been announced. I follow such things, so I’m quite interested in who has won, but I would suggest this is a great place to look at some blogs you may not know about or have read before. If this is the case, you may also be interested in this article from a few days ago on the Guardian site of the 50 most powerful blogs in the world.
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Racing Stripes
I finally got my main birthday pressie from Mrsfb today (took a while to sort out what I wanted, and getting hold of it). A proper Scalextric set 🙂 I have properly regressed (or as mrsfb put it, “That’s the start of your mid-life crisis, I presume”). I’m rather happy. Just as I remember it, but a little easier to set up and take apart, and gives you less of an impression it is about to blow up in smoke than the set I had when I was a kid did.
The picture above is of the car my brother in law bought me for said birthday, and is a copy of the car Alonso drove to failure last year. Beautifully modeled, in fact I’m taking care with it as I don’t want to mash it into a bookcase and spoil it. I probably should put the trackside barriers up next time, but then again, I like the frisson of danger of not having them up. Old Skool.