Is it a good thing....?

Some of you may know that I am having a nightmare of a time with my wireless network at home. There is some kind of incompatibility issue between the ADSL router and my desktop PC, and possibly with my son’s PC as well, and the internet connection keeps dropping. When I just use the slaptop, it seems to work OK. When my PC is taken out of the loop, the connection is pretty stable, although the router needs to be reset maybe once a day. This is, of course, better than every ten or fifteen mongoosing minutes.

Anyway, the thing that I’m not sure is good (thus giving rise to the title of this blog) is the promise made to me by e-mail today by those nice people at Tiscali to upgrade my broadband to 1Mb – free!!!! Hurrah! Now my internet connection will be able to drop even faster. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts.

Fields of Gold.....?

Reading other people's blog about Eddie Calvert has caused me to plunge gently into a warm furry cocoon of nostalgia. When I was very much younger - I heard that, Omally! - I remember listening to Two-Way Family Favourites (presented by Jean Metcalfe and Cliff Michelmore) and Children's Favourites with Uncle Mac (he always used to say “Hello Children Everywhere” at the beginning of his programme) on an old valvified humming wireless (it had ‘Hilversum’ on the dial) with my Mum. One of the records they used to play regularly was Eddie Calvert's 'O Mein Papa'. I've never forgotten it. That, and “Sparky’s Magic Piano”, of course, which used to scare the pants off me – ooh! perhaps that’s what Henry’s been listening to! There’s no such thing as a talking piano, Henners, put ‘em back on! I think I can remember the signature tunes as well. Two-Way Family Favourites went (in 4/4 time): Da da da da da daaa{orchestral linky stuff}da da da da da da da da daaaaa{breath}da da da da da daaaa etc. etc. Children’s Favourites was more upbeat (still 4/4 but a handful more crotchets to the minute): Brrrum da da da brum da da da diddle um dum dum dee dee da,{repeat}, deee daa deee daa dee diddlum doo da day{repeat}and so on. You can almost hear them, can’t you? I wrote this when I was in a similar mood a couple of years ago: Do you remember, when you were young, The summers were always sunny? If you kissed your girl-friend, you kept your tongue And sixpence was serious money. Long before SEGA and Super Nintendo Were giving our kids addled brains, You’d not heard of karate, jiu-jitsu or kendo And water and coal drove the trains*. The Corona man came on Saturday morns, The coalman was close behind, Dusty and jet-black from head-lice to corns And he never seemed to mind. “Rag-bone, rag-bone!” We’d run to the gate And gape at the horse and cart; Piles of clothes, here a sink, there a grate, As if lives had been torn apart. Cigarette cards that were pegged to the spokes Made an engine for any old bike; No-one had heard of ethnic jokes And a tick meant ‘correct’, not ‘Nike’. You were allowed to have a golliwog, A race issue was who had run faster; There were tons more fields to run with your dog, Being picked last to play was disaster. You could only catch colds from the opposite sex, When you got home from school, Mum was there; Doctor Who was the greatest for special effects And it was safe to go to the fair. Two feet of snow was a dream come true And ‘gay’ meant full of joy; There was newspaper hanging in Gran’s outside loo, Memories time can’t destroy. *Which were always on time

He arrived

A sense of relief akin to that which Mafeking must have experienced all those years ago – on the 18th May 1900, to be precise - permeated my workspace earlier today when an orange Messenger conversation thingummy started flashing on my taskbar. Actually, that report of relief status is almost as much of an understatement as the entry in a soldier's diary at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942 when he wrote: "Got up. Had breakfast. Beat Rommel."

Matt had arrived in Houston and was not yet married to a 7-foot paedophile with three testicles. Yay!

I have seen and spoken to him via the wondrous wizardry of the world-wide wotsit – hey! the alliteration was not deliberate, just a lucky bonus! He is OK and, although in Houston, appears not to have a problem.

MMM and ScottJ – thank you for your help last night.

Beautiful game? Pish!

It is official – Premiership football is sh*t. Well, it has stunk for some time actually but I’ve just not mentioned it. And I never thought I would ever feel so strongly about it. And I don’t care about starting sentences with a preposition. If a man (or a naked blonde lady) with a loaded gun – said to me: “If you ever watch another Premiership or England match, either in the flesh or on TV, I will be forced to shoot you in the head and what is left of your addled brains will be splattered over the general area surrounding wherever we may be standing at the time”, I would say “Hey! You’re the man (or the naked lady)! I got no problem with that!” And I would never watch another game. And I wouldn’t care less. Seriously! (I cancelled my Sky Sports subscription ages ago – greedy bastards). And I still don’t care about those prepositiony things.

Participants in the ‘sport’ (I can’t bring myself to call them players, because that suggests some kind of team ethic), with a few exceptions – particularly in the Premiership – are either actors, cheats, whingers, spoilt brats, yobs, thugs, or got-rich-quick-get-paid-whether-they’re-there-or-not-don’t-give-a-tossers, who don’t deserve the obscene amounts of money their idiot clubs pay them – I ask you! for doing something that thousands of ordinary honest men do on Saturdays and Sundays for love! It’s a shame that people still pay to go and watch – it cost me £60 plus burger and chips for two to see Saints play Manchester City earlier this year. What a load of bolloc*s! Never again!

Phew! That’s better! I'm off to Brighton.