Abnormal service will be resumed

I noticed yesterday that it's been a while since I've been here. I've no idea why. Perhaps I need to be a bit more interesting?










Last Friday we had a family trip down to the Leeds Grand Theatre to see Blood Brothers and had an extremely enjoyable night.

I was the only one of the four to have never seen Willy Russell's musical. My parents had seen it before and my younger brother was taken to the show on a school trip to London but for me, it was a completely new experience.

The performance itself was excellent with a cast including Z-listers such as Anthony Costa, once of Blue fame.

Apart from that...erm.... lets see.....

The pilot light on the central heating won't stay on........ erm........ I managed to find somewhere that sells ping-pong balls...... and erm......... I've book the annual trip to France (with a stop-off in Barcelona) to see the Leeds Rhinos play the Catalan Dragons in Perpignan - but that escapade will be covered another day.

It's official.....

The dark overlords have spoken, its the end of November and Christmas is now officially here.





Those Coca-Cola adverts, the official start of Christmas, are now playing ad finitum on television and commercial radio.

For the next five weeks, it will be nothing but illuminated trucks, constant renditions of "holidays are coming...holidays are coming....." and even longer dentist waiting times as thousands of children sit in the chair with rotted teeth from drinking excessive brown fizzy water.

But I'm not going to let it get me down this time. It's the first Christmas in six years where I aren't working in retail and I've even got the unusual experience of being able to book holiday in December.

This year is going to be better, I just need to avoid ITV, which is no bad thing in itself....

How hard is it to buy a ping-pong ball?

Seriously, how hard can it be to find a very simple, very common piece of sporting equipment in one of biggest cities in the UK and one that prides itself on a thriving retail industry?







In the office we are fortunate enough to enjoy the use of a ping-pong table.

I know at this point many of you will be reading with disgust. "A ping-pong table at work? You want to get 'yer hands dirty in a a real job and do a proper day's work" I hear you cry, and you'd be right but right now, I'm enjoying my job of manipulating Google search results and enjoying the title of the world's worst semi-professional ping-pong player.

The latter point was further demonstrated this afternoon when the sixth and last remaining ping-pong ball from this latest pack was sent flying down Wellington Street after being smashed out of an open sixth-floor window and, as far as I am aware, is still rolling along the gutter towards Kirkstall.

So because of that indiscretion, I was sent in search of a fresh batch of balls or I would incur the wrath of fellow players....I mean workers.

Now in the UK, you have a problem because if you want a piece of sports equipment, you can't go to a sports shop - at least not a city centre high-street sports shop.

For instance, you wouldn't go into a sports shop and ask for a snooker cue because
a) The 14-year-old staff member wouldn't know what a snooker cue is, and
b) a snooker cue isn't the latest chav-brand hoodie that UK sports shops specialise in.

In fact, one particular sports chain specialise in the cheap crappy chav-orientated merchandise more than others that it won national recognition over the success of it's audience targeted product range. (In fact, I've mentioned this before)

It also earned the distinction of being named the worst of the 50 biggest UK high-street retailers in the UK by consumer magazine Which? Needless to say, they couldn't provide me with a simple piece of equipment.

There's also another option in Leeds. The chav-wear emporium on the Headrow which has been "closing down tomorrow and everything must go - right now" for the past four years. This, if anything, was an even more hellish experience and if I happened to be a government employee investigation Disability Discrimination Act compliance, I'd take great pleasure in closing down said establishment.

They also, were unable to perform the function that the sign above their door claims to serve.

So, the sports shops couldn't provide me with a simple piece of spots equipment. Thankfully, a catalogue shop that doesn't specialise in sports equipment could.

It's no wonder that internet shopping has boomed.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank.....

You may have noticed my profile box on the left hand side, the one with the really good-looking photo in it and you may also have noticed the line "award-winning film maker".


The film in question happens to be one I made back in 2005 as part of an AVCE Media Studies module which required students to produce a short film or video production.

Now before the Daily Mail reading contingent points it out, I know already. Media is one of those 'doss' subjects that is devaluing A-Levels and instead of messing around with a television camera, I should have been doing more worthwhile subjects like physics, maths and Latin or something like that but that's not the point.

Said film was a spoof-documentary about a group of young filmmakers, like us and how, long story short, it all goes belly up. If you've got the time, you can even watch it on the BBC website although be warned, the producer sent the wrong copy to the Beeb - one without a section of voice over - idiot.

Anyway, the right copy was thankfully sent to the a panel of judges First Light National Film Awards which included Stephen Fry and Sir Ian McKellen who were that impressed that they decided to award it the Best Comedy Award for 2005. Impressive eh? The only downside is that I couldn't make it down to the fancy London shin-dig.

So anyway, that led onto my Journalism course (yes I know...doss subject....dumbing down education...blah blah blah) at University (well, actually, Leeds Trinity & All Saints College but it does say University of Leeds on my degree) which, aside from actual journalism, involved a considerable amount of media and film work.

And so again, we went film-making, I got my degree and left it at that.

Six months after leaving and six months into job that has nothing to do with films, I stumble in to what is inevitably a pile of bills on the doormat as well as various Christmas gifts (yes I know, shame on me).

To my surprise, one wasn't a bill at all. In fact, it was a letter from the college informing me that one of my films has won the "Michael McNally Prize".

Now I have no idea who Michael McNally is or what his prize is, but I will happily accept his £100 cheque and the chance to call myself a two-time award winning filmmaker!

The road to ruin

Several months ago, some bright spark decided that he wanted to buy a football club. The only downside to his clever scheme was that he didn't quite have the cash needed to get started, so he called in some help.








Pretty quickly, MyFootballClub.co.uk was born. All that was needed was for 50,000 people to stump-up £35 for a controlling interest in a then unnamed football club. The only clue was a set of criteria for which the eventual club would meet.

A vote ran between members to pick their preferred take-over target, with Leeds United the number one choice. Unfortunately, they failed one of the key criteria which was to have "no or manageable debt", even if most of it is located in an unknown tax-haven on the British Virgin Isles.

Today, after attracting the required number, the website confirmed an agreement to purchase Blue Square Premier side Ebbsfleet United, with the site members now taking a 51% stake in the club, subject to the finer points being sorted out.

In essence, a supporters membership scheme is a good idea. It works in various sports at various levels across Europe. My local amateur rugby league team Bramley Buffaloes has one, so does FC Barcelona. They can be a very good way of running a football club.

But this scheme, unfortunately, is doomed to disaster.

Unlike your typical membership scheme, where supporters / members get to vote on internal issues, this scheme is asking for something a bit more.

They are wanting a say in team selection, transfer dealings, team tactics - virtually everything you can think of.

I can see it now - scores of fans squabbling over what formation to play in their Tuesday night match at Aldershot or which 35-year-old+ League Two player to sign in the transfer window. It truly is a case of the lunatics taking over the asylum and at this level of football, where the knowledge will be minimal at best, it's practically suicidal.

I've worked in a professional sports club. (I have to keep that quiet, for I'm a supporter of their main rivals!) and one of the first thing you learn is that as a supporter, you know nothing about how sports clubs actually run. Most supporters only see what happens on that big green thing every Saturday afternoon and nothing more. Fans always think they know what to do, very rarely is that the case and Australian rugby league coach Wayne Bennett summed it up: "If you start listening to the fans, it's not long before you're sitting with them".

You could argue that Bradford City are finding that out the hard way. After being relegated last year, the club chairman was looking to bring the 'feel-good factor' back to Valley Parade.

Along with cut-price season tickets, the chairman appointed the fans choice as the new manager and former players Stuart McCall and Wayne Jacobs were installed as the new management team. Today, one of the pre-season favourites sit in 19th in League Two, with just four wins from 15.

My suspicions are that most of the people who have actually signed up to this scheme don't realise what actually goes on away from the playing field, thinking instead that running a football club is just a big version of a Football Manager PC game. The situation that you have now is that instead of having a fully qualified and experienced football coach making the on-field decisions, you've now got a bunch of strangers who's only achievement between them is that they managed to win the Premier League with Mansfield Town on their PC and that one of them came top of the Fantasy Football League last April in the Sun newspaper.

I do feel sorry for Ebbsfleet. I saw them when they arrived (25 minutes late) to claim a 1-1 draw at Farsley Celtic in the BlueSQ Premier this season and whilst they were no superstars by any stretch, they were a decent side.

I hope this comes off for them and there's no doubt that the publicity will but the club in the spotlight. There is also of course, the argument that such a scheme is taking the game away from the money men and back to the fans, which is a valid one. There is however, a very good reason why 'fans' tend not to be the money men behind a football club and as sad as it may be, I can only see this ending in tears.

The biggest mistake of my life

I've made a dreadful mistake today, for I have left my iPod at the office.













On it's own, that wouldn't sound like much of a problem. Surely the worst that happens is that instead of listening to my music of choice on the train to work tomorrow morning, I'll just have to listen to the excuses of Northern Rail as to why my train is delayed again, but nobody has been hurt, nobody has died, it's just an insignificant error that nobody will care about.

Oh no, for the contents of said iPod are cause for concern.

I can sleep safe in the knowledge that my bright red iPod (like the one in the picture) would have been like the forbidden fruit to my work colleagues as it sat there on top of my paper stacker and those who had stopped after 5:30 will have definitely been thumbing through the, shall we say, "eclectic" library. You know the big red button that they always tell you not to push yet proves too irresistible? Well this was the big red iPod equivalent.

I don't have a "bad" taste in music, quite a good one in fact but I do have an uncanny knack of going to crappy, cheesy nightclubs, coming home with hangover already brewing and kebab / curry in hand and heading straight to iTunes to download whatever tracks are still ringing in my ears. My local pub also has 'golden oldies' on Sunday, so it's a bit of a double whammy really.

I won't go through what's on it (I'm pretty sure my colleagues have already uploaded my library to as many social bookmarking sites as possible) but me thinks that I'll have some serious explaining to do tomorrow morning.

Bonfire Night

You can probably tell from the constant banging in the air, a distinct smell and the fact that your dog is cowering in the corner, but tonight is Bonfire Night.




It's not a day that particularly appeals to yours truly. I personally don't see the excitement in spending money on cheaply made, expensively sold boxes of fireworks and burning effigies of Catholics, but each to their own.

I especially don't get excited by doing those things when, if I felt it, I could walk around the corner to find that Leeds City Council have gone to the time and expense on my behalf, but that's not the point.

My younger brother wanted to invite his girlfriend round, and what better excuse than to light explosives in the back-yard? It was something to do and as long as it didn't cost me anything, I wasn't bothered.

So anyway, tonight comes and we've got food, beer and fireworks ready to be enjoyed in their respective ways.

In order to feel important, I assigned myself the job of setting things on fire in the garden. I did this because:
a) It gave me something to do other than get cold and
b) There was no way that I would allow my brother to have any responsibility over over-the-counter explosives.

So anyway, we spend a good hour or so working our way through the respective boxes, ooooh-ing and ahhhhhh-ing at the various patterns of chemical reactions and retreated inside for beer.

So now, I'm typing this wondering what to do next. It's currently half-time in a turgid game between Manchester City and Sunderland on Sultana TV so I may decide to re-watch last night's brilliant Top Gear.

I watched it last night after taping said episode due to my attendance at the Farsley Celtic vs York City clash last night, also televised on Sultana Sports - and I even managed to spot myself in the crowd. Not a disastrous performance from Farsley, who were caught out by a better team whilst chasing an equalliser and despite the harsh 4-1 defeat, there's bigger games to come - not least the relegation six-pointer at home to Altrincham.