Are you local?

Every day I tend to pick up the local rag, the Yorkshire Evening Post. As the name suggests, it's a paper that's available every morning, and has lots of news of things to do with Yorkshire, except stuff in Bradford, Halifax, Hull, York, Scarborough, Doncaster, Sheffield, Huddersfield or anywhere not within spitting distance of Leeds.

Inside, you've got the typical local type things that you'd expect. You've got the day's burning headline, usually featuring some pie-in-the-sky rumour about some multi-million development that might be coming to the city, you've got the typical "ahhhhhhh" story, the pointless space fillers and more local sport that you can shake a stick at.
You've also, bunged somewhere in the middle, got the letters page, which is always cause for some amusement.
You usually get the village idiot or the local snob moaning about how such and such is the end of all civilisation as we know it, how all the roads shouldn't be resurfaced and how we should all have to drive around on dirt tracks so that the bi-centenary roadworks don't cause traffic jams and how breast-feeding in public is the root of all evil.

At the moment though, I've been engrossed in the current drama that is the smelly bus drivers.
Basically, the paper ran a story of the 'pointless space filer' catagory saying that a survey found that buses stink. Now we all know that buses stink in the colloquial sense, but this survey focused more on the litteral term of stink, reffering to the unsavoury odour of Leeds' bus drivers.
The day after, the paper must have been absolutly inundated with a letter agreeing completly with the surveys findings and how the smell of the bloke sat in the front cab was the very breason why he doesn't use public transport, much preffering to drive his Mercedes to work. Two days after, around three more letters, two from bus drivers completly denying the charges put before them and then, another day later, a helpful reader give her advice on how people could stay B.O free by simply using anti-persperant and washing their shirts. A sort of public service if you will.

It's over a week and a half since the story ran and the letters are probably still flooding in. I sometimes question why I buy the paper, seeing as there isn't that much 'news' of interest, but the comedy value sometimes is unrivaled!

I may have to slit my wrists this Summer.

That's right. This summer could well be my last. I may well just lose the will to live altogether although, to be honest, I don't know how I've made it through Summer for the past seven years.


Yes, those delightful people at Channel Four have decided to inflict yet another dose of 'Big Brother' on the unsuspecting British public.
This year though, we're told it'll be different with Big Brother being "more twisted than ever." OK, ignoring the fact that Endemol's marketing guru's have being using the very same phrase for the past six years, how could Big Brother be more twisted?
Well for starters, there's only one bedroom and one bathroom, both of which are surrounded by glass walls. Let's face it, we all know what they've been trying to get the housemates to do, so it's good of them to be honest about it!
Next I see that the house will be 'inside-out' with grass in the kitchen and carpet in the garden. Sounds "wacky", or even "zaney".

But of course, there has to be the annual 'original' idea, something that's never been thought of before. Apparently, this year, they're putting a series of golden tickets in chocolate bars to decide the final contestant. Genius! Who'd've thought it! I bet the Endemol marketing team were burning the midnight oil thinking of that one (or rummaging through their kid's DVD collection).

Of course, I'm not the only person who can't stand the prospect of Big Brother, my younger brother also hates it.

So turn on the TV, unplug the phone, tell the neighbours not to pop round and prepare to see this years batch of dellinquants in their search for fame and fortune.

The World is Coming to an End!

On Monday, on a rare Bank Holiday off, me and the gang headed over to the wrong side of the Pennines yet again to see the Rhinos take on the Warrington Wolves at the shiny, new Halliwell Jones Stadium, a ground famed for it's '2-pint pots'.

It had to be said, we were fairly confident. Warrington are the sort of side that can beat the very best on their day, but can also lose to the very worse. But anyway, Leeds were on decentish form, the dry weather would help our running game and the Wolves were without last season's marketing stunt, Andrew Johns.

It looked even better when Leeds took a 6-0 lead after 8 minutes through a Lee Smith try. So, you could imagine our suprise when Leeds completely fell apart from then on, going on to lose 44-16 to a very impressive Wolves side.
It was the Rhinos worst defeat for 2 years when we lost 56-10 to St Helens. That result was put down to just 'a bad day at the office' and to be honest, it was just that. Leeds went on to win the Championship that year and thrash St Helens 70-0 in the rematch.

So the stewards enquiry began on the ride home and continued on the Rhinos fan site 'southstander.com' with many proclaiming that this was the end of the Rhinos as we know it, some with the 'I told you so' attitude and others contemplating slitting their own wrists.

But before these 'supporters' contemplate hanging themselves from the South Stand rafters, it's important to take stock of the situation on Monday afternoon.
Firstly, shit happens. Sometimes bad things happen and you have 'one of those days', 'bad day at the office', call it what you will. Passes were dropped and things just didn't work - big deal.
Secondly, Warrington were good, in fact, they were very good. Their offloads stuck, their pack drove well and their kicking game was excuted to perfection, keeping Leeds pinned inside their own 20m for much of the game. There arn't many teams that could have lived with them on that form.

Call me a 'one club supporting belivist' (despite the fact I support more than one club) if you will, but Monday's result is hardly the end of the world. One result is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Leeds are still sitting in 2nd place in the table, safely in a play-off place and therefore, still have a chance of making the Grand Final. Whilst we're at it, we're still in the Challenge Cup and with a home tie against National League opposition, our place in the quarter finals is practically booked.
On top of that, Leeds are currently the most sucessful club off the field, with a brand spanking new East Stand almost ready (obviously not built by Multiplex), a new North Stand on the way not to mention a likely operating profit, something that few, if any Super League clubs can boast.

Keep on smiling people!

Would You Like a Bus with That?

I've always said that buses were rubbish. They're expensive, smelly and never there when you want one but they're always trundling along a 12mph when it's infront of me, not parking in the layby and holding the traffic and bullying it's way into the right lane. Buses are shit, end of.

So, you could imagine the suprise of a few bakery workers in Leeds City Centre this morning when, whilst minding their own business, a bus charges it's way through their front window.
Presumably, the Infirmary Street branch of Ainsley's doesn't have a drive-thru, so no doubt questions are being asked as to why one of those odd-looking bendy buses is currently parked on top of a cornish pasty and tray of rice crispie buns.
Luckly I'll point out, nobody was seriously hurt, although there are unconfirmed reports of a dismembered gingerbread men undergoing intensive care - i'll keep you posted on that one.

First Group, the people who allegedly run the bus "service" in Leeds, and incidently already have a position on my "Bastards List", say they are investigating the incident and I suggest they get Alistair Darling to help out. Whilst he's at it, he could also investigate if this would have happend if the vehicle in question would have raced towards the delicious vanilla slice had it been attached to two parrallel rails. You know the sort, a bit like tram rails, almost 'Super' tram rails if you will.........

On another incident today I drew the conclusion that train's are no better.
Instead of driving for the upcoming Rhinos game in Warrington, we decided to let the train take the strain (a decision that was not, I repeat not influenced by the fact that Warrington sell beer in 2 pint pots). So, a few days ago I headed to the National Rail website where, after entering my details, I was presented with a plethora of different prices, all of which were for what I thought was the exact same journey. Anyway, I somehow worked out a cost of £14.

After discussion with the lads (who were in no way looking forward to the prospect of a 2 pot pint), we opted to pre-book it. So, onto the interweb thing this morning to discover that the £14 option is now non-existant. Instead I was presented with an even more baffling array of prices raning from £16.10 to £42.30. "F**k this" we decided, and off to book on the club coach.

I still don't get it. Please can I just have a site that says "From 'HERE' to 'HERE' costs £'THIS MUCH'". I don't really care for a "Super-saver-first class-apex-cheapday-return-TPE" ticket. Just give me one price, that an idiot like me can understand.

Now I know why I was so eager to learn to drive!

Daytime TV Sucks!

In part 2 of my 'Bored through Easter' series, I put daytime TV under the microscope.
The title statement will, to most of you, come as no suprise. But for those of you that like soap operas, you'll now be yelling obscentites at the computer screen as I have dared to criticise that poorly produced, sesationalistic, exploitative, lowest common denominator garbage that you hold so dear to your hearts. Or at least you would, I you could muster the intelligence to be able to put down your copy of 'The Sun' and log on to the internet.

Daytime TV is rubbish to the 'n'th degree. You just have to look at Trisha first thing in the morning to see how bad it gets:
"Hi my name's Trisha and welcome to the show. Today's guests are people who have been beaten up in pubs. Now, here are some people who beat people up in pubs. Lets have a debate."

It gets no better after that. First Phillip Schofield comes on looking like the Silver Surfer with that hairdo of his whilst on the BBC, they're showing the 14th antique-hunting or house-buying programme of the morning.

Then, the lowest of the low - Loose Women. All the sexism you can cram into one, handy, pocket-sized hour long block. If that programme had a load of builders on, talking about which pop star had the nicest knockers, it's be taken off the air in a flash. But when it's women talking about how men are all stupid bastards, it's OK. That's because it's only women dumb enough to buy into this shit. In fact, I imagine about half the dole-sponging population are all jumping up infront of the screen shouting "You go girl!".

That said, by saying that 'daytime TV sucks', I'm not telling the whole story. In fact, most TV sucks. The prosecution brings the following evidence:

• Coronation Street, poorly produced sensationalistic tripe.
• Eastenders: See above
• Emmerdale: Does nothing to dispell the Lancashire myth that Yorkshire people are inbred, infact, it supports it!
• Crossroads: It was crap the first time, that's why it got cancelled. What posessed you to bring it back?

The prosecution rests.

What a Day!

It's the Easter break from Uni, and I should probably be doing some work. But I'm not OK? I'm bored senseless trying to get Halifax Town up the leagues on Football Manager and mucking about on the net.
In fact, I've wasted a good few minutes mucking about on Wikipedia typing in various random randomness.
I've evengone and got inspiration from here and tried typing in my Birthday and I came up with some fairly interesting stuff, some of which I knew and most which I didn't.


So, on that day:

People who were born:

• Mary Queen of Scots (1542)
• Sammy Davis Junior - American Actor (1925)
• Kim Basinger - American Actress (1953)
• Sinead O'Connor - Irish Singer (1966)
• Michael Essien - Ghanian Footballer who plays for Chelsea (1982)
• Amir Khan - British boxer (1986)

People who died:

• Liselotte von der Pfalz, Duchess of Orléans and sister-in-law of King Louis XIV of France (1722)
• George Boole - The man who annoyed thousands of GCSE and A-Level maths students by inventing algebra (1864)
  
• King Oscar of Sweden (1907)
• Sarit Dhanarajata, Prime Minister of Thailand (1963)
• John Lennon - Singer & Songwriter from the Beetles (1980)

Things of mild interest that happened:

• After Pearl Habour, the US, China and Netherlands declare War on Japan (1941)
• Gas vans are first used a means of execution during the holocaust (1941)
• The computer mouse is invented (1968)
• The Eagles release the album 'Hotel California' (1976)
• The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine sign an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (1991)

Wow! That's one busy day and on another possitve note, I've probably wasted a good 15mins!

Look out for more bored ramblings during the next two weeks!

The View from the Bar "Bastards List"

Over the years, I've been compilling what I've reffered to as a "Bastards List". This is a list of all the people or organisations that have irritated me, annoyed me, inconvienienced me or basically, people who have pissed me off.
I now feel that it's time to publish the said list but a warning to you all out there: Just because I'm publishing it now, doesn't mean you are safe! I'll be adding to this, as well as give it a prime place in this blog, so don't let your guard down for a second!

Michael's "Bastard" list:

• West Yorkshire Safety Camera Partnership: For existing.

• Sony: For putting bespoke parts on their products and making my job harder as I have to explain to their customers why I can't get them a new part for their fucking camcorder.
  

• Kwik-Fit: £300 for a Cat converter? It's a Citroen, not a frigging Bentley! I'll go to Motosave instead.
  

• Leeds City Council: They know why.
  

• Royal Mail: For being useless.

• Parcel Force: For being part of Royal Mail.
  

• DHL: See Royal Mail. Oh, and for leaving £300 worth of electrical goods unattended on the front door step.
  

• Trinity & All Saints College: Incompetance personified.
  

• The Labour Party: "Education, Education, Education." = Tuition fees, top-up fees and deliberate A-Level grade fixing.

• The Highways Agency: Oh, I know, lets dig another hole in the road!
  

• Alistair Darling: Supertram, or lack of it.

• Cat owners
  

• Amber Taxi's: For leaving me waiting in the freezing cold in Headingley from 12:15am till 1:45am.

• First Buses: Apparently, they run buses in Leeds.

• First Trains: Apparently, they run trains.

• Middle Lane Drivers: Move to the left, arsehole!
  

• BMW: For making the 3-series

• Endemol: The makers of Big Brother.

• Northern Rail: Because the train didn't turn up when it should have done.

• National Rail: For telling me that the above train did turn up, even though it didn't.
  

One rule for one.......

On a lazy day off, I'd decided to head down to the local pool hall with a mate of mine. As I arrived, he'd just parked his car so I slotted in just behind him, completely minding my own business.

Anyway, I went to the front for a quick bite, when I saw the dreaded yellow sticket on the windscreen.
I ran out to the car to find I'd recieved a fine for that most heinous of crimes, 'parking on a single yellow line on a minor road between the hours of 8:30am and 6:30pm'.
Now I don't dispute the fine. As pathetic and as 'stealth tax on the motorist' as it might be, I was parked in somewhere I probably shouldn't have been and, due to a slight lapse, My mate and I are now £30 each lighter and the council has a little extra to spend at its next staff do. In fact, there were a few cars on that stretch. They've probably raked in about £150 in less than 3 minutes. Good work if you can get it.

However, to my suprise, whilst the council are all too quick to enforce these laws, they're even quicker to break them.
The very same traffic warden who was happily dishing out the tickets, also happened to be the owner of this 'ere vehicle:


Now, said parking attendant wasn't too happy at me innocently taking photographs of a vehicle that took my interests and he was even unhappier when I pointed out that I held the copyright to those photos to use them how I please, even if that was to point out Leeds City Council as the crooks that they are.
That last sentence might sound a bit harsh, and very much like a pissed off mototrist venting their anger, so it's probably worth backing that statement up further.
This employee happened to be working for the same organisation that last year painted double yellow lines UNDERNEATH a parked car, before then handing out a ticket. They've also been more than known for 'looking out for each other', with strong rumours that the Lord Mayor of Leeds had his ticket cancelled, despite parking where he shouldn't have.

He then sheepishly pointed to a sticker that he claimed gave him 'special dispensation' to blatently flout the regulations of the Road Traffic Act. On what grounds he 'earnt' that special dispensation I don't know, or on what grounds he was using it, but never mind.

So, Leeds City Council don't want to stick to the laws of the land, but they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks if you copied their example. Seems fair enough so I've just got one more parting guesture for those hypocrytics at LCC.....

Are Delivery Drivers Psychic?

The other day I was stuck inside for god knows how long whilst waiting for those clowns at DHL to deliver a new mobile phone.
You know the drill, you get an e-mail saying that you're package will be delivered on Tuesday, between the hours of 8:30pm and 6:00pm, meaning that you have to be up by 8:30 and wait until 6:00pm in the vain hope that a bright yellow van will pull up outside your front door.
The thing is, you HAVE to stay in the house because if you go out, even for just 2 minutes, you'll return to find a card on your doormat with the words "You wern't in when we called."

How the hell do they do it? Every single time! Yet when you stay in, it's only until 5:59pm that you get a knock at the front door.
Someone needs to look into this. I think that there's much more to DHL drivers than meets the eye.

Proper Football still exists!

As you’ve probably gathered, I’m a big Rugby fan. It’s the best sport in the world and I absolutely love it.

I’ve always been a fan but also, in my misguided youth, I used to be a keen follower of football and, in particular the English Premiership.

I’m now not much older and not much wiser, but I just don’t watch the Premiership anymore and on Tuesday night, I remembered why. OK, part of it was because Leeds United when tit’s up, but an even bigger part of it was because has just become crap.

Tuesday saw the Unibond League Cup Final in which local boys Farsley Celtic took on Stocksbridge Park Steels.
Me and a mate through we’d go along to see what all the fuss was about and it made for a good excuse to get a few drinks in.

So, we meet up at six, walk into Farsley and make for our first port of call, the Fleece. A swift one in there and it’s onto the ground. And then, the first reason why I don’t go to pro football games anymore was right there infront of me, the price. Getting into the ground set us back £7:00, as opposed to your typical Premiership game, which can easily cost £30 more than that. The other bonus was that you could pay cash on the turnstile, none of this mucking about with namby-pamby pre-purchased RFID smart cards. Just hand other your cash, and get a get a cheery thanks from the bloke behind the counter, who was obviously happy that he’d been filmed by the local news crew who were wandering around.

So anyway, we get through the turnstile and head for a pint in the clubhouse, which again, is something that you couldn’t do at Old Trafford or Elland Road. Instead of having a decent, fairly priced pint in friendly surroundings is something is but a distant dream at pro games but here, it was the norm – even to us ‘bandwagon jumpers’ who were just there for the final.

We leave the clubhouse just as the teams walk out, grab a burger from the van parked outside tha main stand and take our place on the terrace – yes terrace (none of this sitting down rubbish for us) - and the game gets underway.

It was a decent game aswell with two proper teams. None of these prima-donna foreign superstars who are more bothered about their hair-do. Just honest working blokes who aren’t frightened to get a good kicking and a centre half built like a heavyweight boxer. We even got a good laugh from the PA announcer when a sub came on. Evidently the team sheet he'd been given wasn't the best so he basically had to announce "coming on, number 12............................ some player!"

The whole game was a refreshing change from that shite I’m currently paying Sky £30 a month for. There was none of the predictability, none of the cheating, none of the diving or none of the whinging that is blighting our ‘flagship’ league, nor was there any of the police or segregation that you get in the pro ranks, just proper football.

After Farsley had won the match, the fans were invited onto the ‘hallowed turf’ for the presentation. After that was done, it was back to the clubhouse for re-fuelling, where we stayed till about 11:30 before heading back home.

All in all, a good night out, we’d not spent much and we’d got a good game and a few drinks out of it. Why people fall sucker to the Premiership marketing machine I’ll never know, more fool them I suppose.

Yes tutor, we've spent lots of time in the pub.

Tomorrow I've got a presentation to give in my 'Sociological Apsects of Sport and Leisure' module.
Basically, it's to update the tutor on the progress of our coursework, which happens to be an observational research project into 'sport in a social setting' (or something along those lines).

After toying with a few ideas, my group have plumped for a study into the role and emergance of sports themed bars. Basically we're trying to find out who uses them and what they do.
To do that, we have to spend our time in pubs and bars - that's it!

So, tomorrow moring, I've got to stand up and say how many times in the last two weeks I've been to the pub!

Who says University students are just lazy, dossing wasters who do mickey mouse courses and spend all their time in the pub?......




Wait a minute.....

Who's the Fool?

My gaffer at work takes a fair bit of stick in this blog, and this post is no exception.

As most of you may well know, April 1st is commonly known as 'April Fools Day' and is a day where all the local idiots come out and act like even bigger twats than normal, right until 12:00 midday.
You know the sort of tricks that are pulled on this day; clingfilm on the toilet seat, sending the work experience kid for a long stand, changing all the clocks in the office, fake coffee spills, that sort of thing. Even the media get in on the fun, with those not very hilarious fake stories designed to trick the stupid, ignorant and Sun reader into thinking that the world is about to collapse or that global supplies of paper clips are at an all time low.

So anyway, my boss. In his constant efforts to try and "get down with the homies" and "connect with the yoof", he tries his own April Fools joke. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it involved going home early. Needless to say, we were three steps ahead of him and his outragiously unfunny jape fell flat on it's arse.
But rather than just get on with it, I was now public enemy No1 for my part in foiling his devious plan to make himself look clever. He then needed reminding that trying to pull such a prank on that very day, completly destroys the little credibility he already has.

So anyway, that's me in the bad books for another few weeks (untill my sales figures come through and he starts being nice to me again), heres to another 364 days (well, 362 seeing as I was late writing this) of just normal idiocy, rather than the special kind we get on the first day of April.

Cup Fever is Here!

It's back on the cup trail for the Leeds Rhinos again as the forth round of the Powergen Challenge Cup gets underway.
This year, Leeds will hope to go one better than last years runners-up place and travel to Leigh for a 'should-win' game on their first step on the road to wherever.
I say wherever, it should be the road to Wembley but seeing as, once again, London has proved how shit it is, it probably won't be played 'under the arch'. Instead, it'll probably be at Twickenham, but who knows. At the moment it may aswell be the road to Amarillo.
Depending on which way you look at it, Leeds either do well, or badly in the cup. Good from the point of view that, bar twice, we've got to at least the semi-finals in the last ten years and got to the final six times from the last 12 years. However, Leeds have done badly in the sense that the last time they won the thing was 1999 and the last time before that was 1978! Still, I have the obligatory, annual "funny feeling about this year".

My 'second' team Bramley got knocked out some time ago, probably because they're concentrating on the league ;) but they do have a tasty tie with the Lakers in the Northern Rail Cup. Not Kobe Bryant's Lakers, the Lakers of Doncaster - not quite as exotic is it?

After that, Leeds travel to Hull to play the team that beat us in last years cup final then it's the big one, the Yorkshire derby - Leeds Rhinos vs Bradford Bulls, the team that beat Leeds in last years Grand Final. Is their a pattern here?

It's supposed to be summer isn't it?

This weekend saw the official start of British Summer Time. Last night we had to sacrifice an hour in bed in return for lighter evenings and better weather.
So I feel short changed, because I haven't got the nicer weather, I haven't got the lighter evenings and I'm getting tired from sleep deprivation.
British Summer Time 2006 has started badly, almost as badly as Wigan started the Super League season.
On Friday, I managed a free blag to Odsal to see how badly Wigan actually were as they took on Bradford, well that was the plan anyway.

The truth was, I saw very little. That's not because I was drunk or not paying attention, but because of the thickest fog I can ever remember.
Imagine a Bond film, just before the villan makes a getaway and sets off a smoke bomb so that everyone is blinded whilst he sneaks out undetected, it wasn't far off that.



To make matters worse, Odsal has a speedway track around it, meaning that, at best, you are at least ten meters from the pitch and if you're an away fan, at least double that - and thats if you manage to get to the front.
One Wigan try wasn't noticed by their fans until the it was announced by the PA announcer and the other, a full length run, wasn't seen until the player with the ball emerged from the fog about 10m away from the try line.
Still, it made for a funny night with chants of "We can't see a f**king thing". One thing is for sure, nobody noticed the famed 'Wigan Walk'.

BST continued it's poor form on Saturday today by absolutly peeing it down in the afternoon. The feat was repeated today, just as I finished work.

I thought global warming was supposed to stop this kind of weather? If this form carries on, I might try and bag some more 5p flights to Perpignan.

Car sharing - it's the future!

You might remember some time ago, I mentioned how Leeds got screwed over on a Supertram scheme that would have saved the city from complete gridlock. If you don't, I'll give you the gist.

Leeds is a big city, with lots of people. Unfortunately, we don't have a public transport system (well, we do, but not that you'd notice). Leeds tried to get a transport system, and was told we could have one. But then London decided that it wanted a really big party in 2012, so transport secretary Alistair Darling told Leeds to forget about a Supertram, and think about buying some more buses instead.

Well today, Mr Darling came back up North to face the wrath of the loiners. He'd very proudly announced that he'd turn one of the busiest stretches of motorway in the country into a "high occupancy lane".
Basically, what that means is that unless you have two or more people in your car, driving between Bradford and Leeds will soon become a living hell.

He spoke this morning of reducing the number of bottlenecks on our roads which cause the congestion problems that we end up with and his idea new involved making even more bottlenecks. Essentially he plans on shutting off a one mile stretch of the M62 to anyone with just one person in their car which by his logic, would mean that we’d all save around 8 minutes on our journeys. Why it’s only a one mile stretch you’d have to ask him, but basically he’s spending £2.5m on a bit of white paint.
Mr Darling was, for some reason, particularly proud of his new ill-thought out idea but after all, our Alistair is a strange character. Firstly, he has the most silver hair you have ever seen yet, despite this, his eyebrows look like two slugs that have been stuck to his forehead. They are unbelievably black.
Secondly, for some inexplicable reason, he thought it’d be a good idea to put a bus lane on the M4, despite the fact that no buses use the M4.

Alistair Darling seriously pissed off Leeds City Council over the whole Supertram debacle. So it seems more than a co-incidence that whilst Darling was boasting about how good 2+ lanes are and how they’re the solution to all of lives problems, Leeds City Council came out and admitted that the high occupancy lane we already have in the city isn’t working at all. In fact, it’s completely useless.

I’ll raise a glass to the Council worker who released that statement. It might not get us the Supertram, but it’ll show Darling up for an even bigger idiot than he already is.

Lets get physical

In the age of ‘keep fit’ and healthy living, I’ve decided to try and beat the bulge and get rid of the beer gut.
I spent a lot of time boozing whilst in Perpignan watching Leeds Rhinos tonk Les Catalans and I doubt that it’s done much for my physique.

So, in my fight against the flab, I headed on down to my local gym at Pudsey.
I’ve been a member for a while, but hardly been and I can tell why.

My muscles are killing. In fact, I’ve probably gone through about four tubes of deep heat just so that I can type this blog entry.
Anyway, I had a decent workout on the treadmills, bikes, that sort of thing but it’s the weights that have probably knackered me out, even though I wasn’t lifting that much.

That said, I’m going to stick it out. I even considered becoming a fully paid up member for £20 a month on the basis that if I paid up front, in true Yorkshire fashion, I’d try and get my moneys worth.
I’ve not gone completely mad though. I’ve not raced out and bought those videos by Davina McCall or Mr Motivator that tell me how to do super aerobic, cardiovascular somersaults in my own front room. That would be going too far!

En Français!

The Engage Super League is up and running. My team Leeds have got off to a decent start, with 3 wins from 4 despite not looking their best, but it's early days yet.
Last Friday's game at home to Castleford was a strange game, as it didn't happen. Despite being a summer sport, the match had to be moved to Sunday because of a frozen pitch.
This weekend sees our eagerly awaited European leg of the Rhinos tour 2006, with a trip to Perpignan, France to take on the French new-boys Les Catalans Dragons.
Tomorrow afternoon we hit the A1 towards Stansted and it's chocks-away for the South of France!
It seems that I;ve got everything packed; clothes, passport, tickets, documents but I just know that I'll get to the airport and found I've left something behind.

Anyway, after we get back from a boozy weekend, it's back home for the visit of Salford. This will "hopefully" be my first home game of the season. It would have been Friday's game, but that got postponed at the last minute to Sunday, when I unfortunatly have to be working. Still, I managed to test out my fancy new electronic season ticket.
The weekend after, it's a trip down south to play Harlequins before the Powergen Challenge Cup kicks-off, one of the three competitions that Leeds came second in last year.

So, enjoy your Rugby, and watch out for some (probably drunk) ramblings as soon as I touch down back in blighty on Sunday.

Return of the Corned Beef Tin

It would seem that Princess Foods happen to read this 'ere blog.
Just days after my escapade with the Corned Beef tin, in which I came away with a damaged right thumb, a bruised ego, and one of the most tedious, longest running threads to grace RLFANS, I set out to put the whole trauma behind me.
I ventured into the Horsforth branch of Morrisons and proceeded to the 'tinned meats' section where I would confront my foe.

As I lifted the tin up, I proceeded to look for the key and to my suprise, there wasn't one. But then, to my suprise, on the bottom of the can was a ring-pull.

Brilliant! I will claim this as a victory for "View fron the Bar". No more will the ordinary working man risk finger injuries and bloody worktops in his quest for a corned beef sandwich.

Hat's off to Princess Foods!

Work Appraisals

You have to wonder sometimes if your boss has anything better to do.

Most workplaces have a policy of doing staff appraisals or reviews, but rarely bother doing them.
Last week I had my 3^rd 3-monthly appraisal for just over 4 years service, so we do them more regularly than most.

The boss calls me up, gives me the usual cock-and-bull story about where the firm is going, what plans they have and what my role is in those plans (usually just to shut up and do what they tell me to do). Then he starts asking me questions suggesting he cares about my opinion although I just nod and agree because I just can’t be arsed to strike up a conversation with him. I did hold the record for the longest appraisal a few years ago (31mins) but I couldn’t care less anymore. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible and I think he wanted me out of there as well.
After that he starts marking my performance, out of 5, on this ‘new starters’ sheet. Only with the phase “new starter” crossed out and the phrase “one-to-one review” written on, so I knew he was taking it seriously. After a few 4’s, a couple of 5’s and a 3 (for motivation), he sends me on my way to send the next bored looking sap up to his offices. He looked like he’d run out of pointless busy work to do, so was trying to make his own and in all honesty it wouldn’t have surprised me if he just made paper aeroplanes out of the forms after he’d done.

I really didn’t see the point in the whole escapade, and I’m interested to know how productive he thought that 3 minutes was.

The Lethal Weapon in my kitchen

We're constantly being told that the kitchen is the most dangerous room in the home. Apparently, more accidents happen there than any other room. But all these home safety boffins will ever warn you against is how you shouldn't play with gas hob, run around with knives, drink the chemicals from the cupboard under the sink or perform surgical activity with the turkey carver. What they don't tell you about is the death trap known as the corned beef tin.

Corned beef tins as you may well know, aren’t like normal circular cans that you open with a tin opener, or better yet, a ring-pull. No, the corned beef tin is some sort of prism type cube affair, with a key attached to the side.
Here's where the trouble starts. You wrap the key around this little catch and twist it around the outside of the can, and hey presto, you have your beef. Except it doesn't work like that. What happens instead is that the key usually breaks halfway around leaving you with the dilemma of getting it open.
I posted this dilemma yesterday lunchtime on a popular message board that I often frequent and currently, the post is up to 7 pages and 91 messages of ways in which I could open the said can.
After various methods, I eventually tried to prise open the offending article with a large knife and a slightly smaller knife. Needless to say, it didn't end how I envisaged with a nice corned beef sandwich. Instead it ended in utter bloodshed.
The small knife slipped, my thumb went straight into the edge that had been cut and the kitchen worktop was covered in blood.
I eventually gave up and after rummaging through the fridge, found the same product in a sliced variety.

This was at around 12:30 on Wednesday afternoon. It is now 9:30pm on Thursday and the thumb is still bleeding.
If I was American, I'd already have Princess Food's ass in court!