Tomorrow!

I'm quite excited at moving but you wouldn't believe the work that needs doing inside.

Have you seen Grace since she left the Big Brother house? Every time she appears on TV she gets gingerer and gingerer. I'm not talking about her hair of course, I'm talking about her skin. In the house I thought she looked a bit lush, now she looks like some freaky woman.

What is it with the obsession amongst white people to change the colour of their skin?

(At this point I should issue a disclaimer to say that I have no prejudices against any ethnic grouping. My idea of beauty in a human being transcends all natural skin types. Nor do I have any prejudice against ginger haired people - they deserve our love too)

I have asked girls why they want to get a tan and the feeble reply usually involves the expression 'to look healthy'. Girls (and boys) looking ginger does not constitute looking healthy. To me the word 'tan' is associated with 'fake' or 'wrinkles'.

Did you know that the England Footballers Wives entourage have a team of 'tan consultants' with them in Germany? It's true, I swear it, I heard it on Terry Wogan.

Call me shallow and vindictive if you want but the sight of £17 million pounds worth of Newcastle Utd mercenary crawling off the side of the pitch had my 51% giggling.

My 49% isn't that bothered anyway because Owen hasn't contributed much to the England cause since that night in Berlin.

I do enjoy a bit of karaoke now and again and I have been told that I'm a canny singer. But I'm a realist and I know that I'm not good enough to cut the mustard as a professional. Nor do I have any talents (that I know of) as a musician.

Up until I discovered Scrabble, my favourite book in the world was The Guiness Book of Hit Singles. I used to get every edition and would spend many contented hours flicking through from song to act to statistic to photograph. I've always been quite obsessed with chart music - up until about 3 years ago that is, when sadly I started getting old and stopped enjoying Radio 1 after Mark & Lard were sacked. www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/radcliffe/audio_archive.shtml

It had always been a dream of mine to get a mention in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles but my best plan had been to write begging letters to some famous bands asking them if I could play triangle or something on one of their singles. I realised that that was a pretty lame plan so didn't bother to implement it. Mind you, I was pretty gutted when some years later an ugly bloke managed to have a string of hits with his band by singing crap vocals and playing the tamborine. www.handbag.com/galleries/gallery/Gossip/Celebrity_Lives/gossip_hotheads/MemberID=3/

This bugger had nicked my gig. Hey ho.

But now I have a new plan and it involves tagging along on the coat-tails of a popular group, one member of which I knew personally before he was famous. I'm thinking that maybe, as their sucessful chart career begins to ebb (in many years from now), they might think that a few lines of publicity might be generated from allowing a sad, aging statistician to sing backing vocals on their next hit.

Good plan? Who is this famous band I hear you ask?

Well, if you live in the Hertford area you might have guessed that I speak of none other than Hertfordshire's no 1 band The Runners
www.myspace.com/therunnersband

They are not famous countrywide just yet but you can expect their first single to hit the charts very soon. If you live in the South East then check out a gig near you. You'll find that they are a great live act with a massive local following.

Not only that but you can save £3.16 by visiting their myspace site (address above) and downloading 4 tracks for free that will in due course cost you 79p each from Itunes.

I can't make my mind up whether Every Day Every Night or Havin' Fun is my favourite. Let me know what you think.

In an earlier post I suggested the the people os Newent weren't the friendliest in the world and the best things about the town were the roads out (and www.marinades.co.uk). Well I was running along one of these roads in the sweltering heat this afternoon, heading towards the village of Clifford's Mesne when I came across two wearly travellers taking a break at the side of the road. I wished them a good afternoon as I puffed past and the girl said "you're brave", in response I pointed one finger at my head said "thick!". They laughed politely and I carried on up the hill.

I reached Clifford's Mesne and turned back towards home thinking how nice it would be to have a drink of water. Ditchwater would have done cos I was well parched and well knackered. On my way back, the same girl I'd exchanged pleasantries with about 15 minutes earlier, appeared, almost mirage-like, out of a house with a bottle of water for me as her partner watched on from inside the house. They had got a lift home and had waited for me passing to carry out this act of kindness.

My faith in humanity in the Newent area is now restored. I wonder if I can find an opportunity to carry out an unprovoked act of friendliness and thereby restore balance to the universe.

This time last week I felt like the only Englishman not wanting England to win the World Cup. This week I feel like the only one who thinks they can.

Two games two wins, what's wrong with that? They're not playing mugs out there you know. Paraguay beat Brazil in qualifying and T&T saw last night's game as the most important in their footballing history.

And all this has happened without any of the English team playing particularly well. Just watch them go when they get into the groove.

One of the best sights in football is seeing Newcastle fans cry after their latest so-near-yet-so-far. One of the worst sights in football is a tattooed skinhead lager swilling union jack shorts wearing England fan in a far off land, not neccessarily being destructive, just being there instead of being safely tucked up in his borstal.

Being 49% English, I do have a part of me that wants England to win the World Cup. But the other 51% (plus a good bit of the 49% too) fears for the over the top celebrations, the media hype and the seemingly inevitable drunken rampages that will follow.

On the other hand, it would be worse if England didn't win; I know of one fellow in Diss who was a completely nice guy with not a hint of violence about him, who somehow found himself throwing stones at a pub where Portuguese migrant workers were watching their team knock England out of the Euros. He was later found guilty of the offence and was sacked from his job. The transformation from hard working nice bloke to football hooligan was dramatic. How on earth do people get whipped up into such a frenzy?

I blame the media.

The World Cup is the biggest tv event. I've been watching them since Mexico 1970 and I've always wanted England to win. Even in the last one where my 51% was supporting Ireland, once Ireland had gone I was hoping England might do it. Although I must say that the distasteful way the English regard the Argentinians is an embarrasment to my 49%. I was also embarrassed by the dive that got England the match winning penalty (is that really any better than knocking it in with your hand?).

As the tournament has approached I've struggled to find a team to get behind. I thought of following Portugal because I've had some nice holidays there and they seem to be nice people. I thought of following Germany because a German victory is what annoys the English more than anything else. In the end, I've decided to plump for.......

....England.

My reasons: well, I look at the England squad and although I ridiculed Sven's choice at first I have to admit that if Rooney can get match fit, with Gerrard perhaps the best player in the world, the difficult to handle Crouch, and a solid back 4 it's just possible England might actually win it. And if Theo Walcot comes off the bench in Berlin to score the winning goal, then I want to be part of it.

Eng - er - land!
Eng - er - land!
Eng - er - land!

I've had a largish bet on Nikki to be evicted tonight. Good odds this time.

It went very well actually. Thanks for asking.

Can't wait for the next one

On my drive home from work I sometimes listen to Drive on 5Live. On a good day it will give me a mixture of news and sport that fits in with my interests. However, sometimes it gets on my nerves a bit when they dumb down to make a news story out of something incredibly trivial. Today for instance, they were talking to their reporter in Stornaway about how the local council were struggling to keep up with the demand for composting bins. At times like that I usually switch stations to Radio 4's PM programme, who take the news a bit more seriously.

For some reason I stuck with 5Live through the composting bins exclusive, only to be disappointed to hear that the next item was interupted to switch over to the sports correspondent who was hanging around a German Hotel to give us a bulletin about the England football team arriving. Now given that England qualified for the World cup several months ago, and the hotel would have been booked for ages, and that if the plane carrying them had crashed it would have been major news, how could the team's arrival in any way be described as 'news'? What on earth could any radio reporter manage to say about a bus turning up at a hotel that would interest even the most brain dead of football fans?

Of course I switched stations to Radio 4 immediately; only to find - yes, you've guessed it, another license fee sponger standing outside the same hotel telling me about the same non story.

I have recently cancelled by direct debit for my television license because I couldn't justify to myself making it easy for the BBC to collect this unfair tax. No doubt I will pay the tax eventually but only after I get some serious hassle from them. And if they're hassling me then at least they won't be hassling some poor single mother to whom £131.50 represents food on the table or new clothes and toys for her children.

Why do I mention single mothers? Because this group of society are most likely to be found at home during the daytime when inspectors call. They are also most likely to be intimidated by the threats that are constantly made by the BBC in their sick advertisements. Meanwhile, rich people enjoy their 28 inch plasmas in every room for the same amount as the poor person's 14 inch portable. The rich are also more likely to make use of things like BBC online and the digital channels.

Each year, criminals are made of people who never did a dishonest thing in their lives but just couldn't afford to pay the most unfair tax in modern history. Do you think that's acceptable?

http://www.tvlicensing.biz/

I need to expand my circle of friends.

I thought that moving back to The West Country would revitalise my social life but after a couple of months I realised that I was playing too much Scrabble. Every time I went out with my mates it was always scrabble, scrabble, scrabble. Several evenings and maybe Sat and Sun every week. I wondered if my friends liked me for myself or just because they wanted to have scrabble with me. So one month ago I announced a 6 month scrabbatical. I decided not to play any scrabble at all except for games I had already committed to.

Since then my social life has really taken off. Not.

We (the missus and I) have invited my former friends to my horrible house for a barbies, but no-one came. Meanwhile, we have waited in vain for someone to suggest we should visit them. This weekend I suggested to my mate that we'd go into the city for a few drinks on Saturday. I researched the bus and train times and was looking forward to it (cos the wife was away this weekend). Then, after having agreed to the idea the night before, I got the message from my mate 30 minutes before my bus was due saying 'some other time'. I wouldn't mind if he had had anything important to do but all he did was go to his local dives as he does every Saturday night to prop the bar up.

Of course I can't expect to click my fingers and expect people to come running but I am feeling like I've been used as a friend because I'm a damn good scrabble partner. Take the scrabble away and I am surplus to requirements. Having said that, I don't want to fall out with them cos we do go back a long way and we've had some great times. And I still have scrabble ambitions. So what I need to do is, at the age of 44 and in a new town, find some other friends and other interests. So to that end....

On Wednesday evening there are a small bunch of colleagues who go for a run. Only 3-4 miles and not at a great pace, but it's nice and sociable. To say it's given me a new lease of life would be overegging it a bit but it's nice to get back into a regular bit of body maintenance after years of only doing a bit now and then. Yesterday I ran a 10km fun run and finished in 64 minutesish. Not very fast but it was a very hot day, the course was undulating and I am a fat bastard. I have also opened up a dialogue with another colleague with regards to playing a regular game of tennis. Maybe we'll start that next week.

The problem is that none of these work based friends live anywhere near me now nor where we're moving to so I am still looking to find some new friends. Preferably ones with cerebral interests. I also need some partnered up friends to share with me wife (nothing kinky you understand).

So if you have any ideas about how to make friends in a new town then maybe you could let me know.

I was convinced Chris Moyles was going to win it. Again, the odds were short.....

Don't ask.

Big Brother:

I was convinced Sezer was going to be evicted tonight but the odds were a bit short. I put £44 on and won £1.67

Those of you who've ever seen me do a presentation will know that it scares me to death. Well that is something I'm going to overcome this year. Next Wednesday I am doing a presentation to a small group of clinicians entitled "Everything You Ever wanted to Know About Statistics (in 30 minutes)".