The Hodge Blog

I had nothing much to write about for the Sunday Reading today, so I decided to use the Wikipedia Random Article Link to try and find one. I decided it had to be an article I knew something about, not just one I’d heard of. During my 17 refreshes I went through these that I knew nothing about…Until I happened on 18 which is a Who compilation album, in which I knew many of the songs. Would you have got there before me, or how many does it take you???

Happy reading about stuff I know nothing about

1. Cynthia Makris
2. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga
3. W. H. Britton
4. Corner of the Earth
5. CBL & Associates Properties
6. Georgia High School Association
7. Call Me Francis Tucket
8. Ahmad Salim
9. 1948 Vuelta a España
10. Burqa, Nablus
11. 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Nanci Griffith
12. CodeSynthesis XSD/e
13. Waltz Across America
14. Empress Xiao Kang
15. Oscar Wendt
16. Eerste Nederlandse Pop Encyclopedie
17. Cambridge Carnival International
18. Who’s Better, Who’s Best

It appears that Beanie has lost 21lbs AND another tape. The former has been brought about with pilates, a running machine and personal trainer. The latter by carelessness. Where will it stop?

When Gordon Brown appeared at an emergency EU summit on Monday, the Prime Minister’s weight loss was seized on by Nicolas Sarkozy, who took pleasure in drawing it to the attention of fellow European leaders. A summer of jogging and long walks in Suffolk had clearly done the Prime Minister good, allowing Sarah Brown to boast on the trip to China about her husband’s weight loss. While he was on holiday in Southwold, he hired a personal trainer, Millie Dobie, for £50 an hour. She would arrive before breakfast and take him on a brisk run through woods and fields, while police bodyguards jogged along behind. He was clearly a more rounded politician before this regime . Back at No 10 he “regularly” uses a running machine, according to his spokesman. But Downing Street denies he has had any makeover. They emphasise, for instance, that he does not have a new tailor – he still mainly wears suits from Gieves & Hawkes.

In deference to my relatives, colleagues and friends in the US, and there are many, in fact more than are happy to drink with me than I have here it seems I am now getting very pee’d off with the US election. We are up to our necks in water, the Government is a mess, we are slipping, some say, into recession and all we seem to care about on the news is the cost of ‘The Hockey Mom’s’ new glasses. Come on, I now know more about Him, Him, Him and Her than I do about most things here. Why is it taking you so long and sooooooo much money. Wake up, go out, vote and come home, why drag it out over 2 years and $/billions? Right, that got that off.

England managed to scrape a win last night 2-0 against the ‘pub side’ that is Andorra. There were mixed results for the other home Nations, although Andy Murray is doing OK in the tennis, while Amir Khan came very unstuck in the boxing, knocked out in the first round.

Went out yesterday to get the Holiday medicines. I’m normally a pretty good traveller, but not having been to India before, I find if you have it, it’s like insurance, you seldom need it. Mosquito repellant, bit and sting relief, antiseptic wash, anti-histamine, indigestion and the essential diarrhoea tablets and re-hydration stuff…lovely.

It is actually ages since I had a lone wander around Eastleigh and sat and had a coffee and watched the World go by, in my currently spinning World, it was a nice calm.

 On this day in history and last year…

Weather = It’s a little better, but NOT much!

Mood meter = It’s still the weekend after all, even if it’s a wash-out!

Here are this week’s 10 things from the news you may not have known. It’s a pretty poor selection this week, but my favourite, if you’ve seen the size of him is No.7…gently does it Geoff!

1. E-mail addresses beginning with with “A”, “M” or “S” get more spam than those starting with “Q” or “Z”.
More details

2. Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie lived off the proceeds of cocaine while in exile in South America.
More details

3. Ping-pong was originally called ping-pong, not whiff-whaff, as London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, publicly claimed at the Beijing Olympics.
More details (the Times)

4. Urban gulls produce three times as many eggs as their coastal counterparts.
More details

5. One of the scientists involved in developing the £5bn Large Hadron Collider at Cern in Switzerland, was the keyboardist with the chart-topping group D-Ream.
More details (the Independent)

6. Water is naturally present in aviation fuel.
More details

7. Former World’s Strongest Man, Geoff Capes, is an avid budgerigar keeper - owning more than 300 of the birds.
More details (Daily Mail)

8. The man who designed the iconic Rolling Stones lips logo, was paid just £50 for the job… although he received a £200 bonus.
More details

9. Indie music fans are not, in general, gentle sorts but heavy metal fans are.
More details

10. You can dive from 35ft into 12in of water - and only suffer bruising (with a lot of training).
More details

<rant>

I make no apology for starting with a rant today and many of you will guess what it’s about…Joey Barton. Forget the farce of his prison sentence for an unprovoked attack at New Year, which was unnecessarily shortened. This was a separate attack, for which he has a further suspended sentence hanging over him when he attacked and left playing colleague Ousmane Dabo looking “Like The Elephant Man”, in a scuffle on the training ground.

Football had it’s chance to send a message yesterday to all the players who believe they are above the law as they strut around like film stars, doing what they like, when they like. They had the chance to ban him for life or ban him for a while and give him a big fine.

Instead, they copped out and gave him a six match ban and fined him £25,000. Now lets take that in perspective.

1. He will be back playing in the week after I return from Holiday
2. He earns £65,000 per week. That is the same as a person on UK average wage (£30,450pa) paying £221.21! Hardly life changing

Lets compare that with the erstwhile, enigmatic footballer, Frenchman, Eric Cantona.

On 25th January 1995, he was sent off and, some would say provoked, but let’s say un-provoked, attacked on his way out a supporter with a flying kung-fu kick. The supporter, Matthew Simmons, ‘joined in’ and was unhurt.

Manchester United suspended him for the remainder of the season, (3 months) which the FA (the same body in the Barton case) increased by a further 9 months and fined him £10,000, still no big deal, but probably a week or two’s wages at that time. (Equivalent to ‘average man’ paying £1,171.15)

Someone tell me, what is the difference, apart from the sentence? I would say, if anything, Barton’s was worse. Football’s gone mad!

NEW POLL

</rant>

Couldn’t find any drink partners for last night, so as a real change, I stopped in. Not sure what I’d have been like if I had gone out, as I was obviously whacked as I dozed in the chair from about 7pm and finally gave up and went to bed at 10pm! That’s unheard of.

I think I probably need to advertise for some other drinking buddies as they are becoming far too unreliable.

Got soaked going to and coming from work yesterday. I suppose it was inevitable with a forecast that just read “Heavy Rain”. I was unlucky coming home as it was dry, in the air and on the ground as I left work, but about 30 paces in, the heavens opened and I got drenched!

Proud to say, that ‘Big brother’ finished last night and I watched none. What a total waste of time that programme is. Can anyone tell me what it provides in the way of entertainment? Fortunately, this series, which seems to have run for about 3 years was the least watched ever and will hopefully consign it to the Channel 4 version of Room 101.

Football in the top two divisions is off this week while England start their World Cup qualification campaign for Africa 2010. It is against the part-timers of Andorra, who we should beat about 10-0, but this is England!

Lastly, on the sport front, the Beijing Paralympics start today. Expect another great showing from Team GB’s athletes over the next two weeks, anything much less than 2nd in the table would be a disappointment.

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = It’s a little brighter, but not that bright!

Mood meter = It’s the weekend…why not?

In two separate sales yesterday, pop ‘memorabilia’ went on sale. In London it was Jimi Hendix’s burned guitar, the Beatles original recording contract and Elvis’s only surviving fingerprints on a gun permit, amongst others, while in New York, the British V&A museum bought the iconic ‘tongue’ logo that has been with the Rolling Stones since early in their careers. It is a great story where the guy was paid £50 to do it, but later got a further £200. That was ‘upped’ yesterday to $92,500 (£51,375). Nice work if you can get it. (Wonder if I should be paying to have it on this blog?)

It is very dark this morning and definitely a case of “Smile it could be worse, so I smiled and it got worse”. We are apparently in for a huge weather weekend with absolute deluges hitting everywhere barring Scotland.

Like a small kid counting sleeps before some exciting event like Christmas or Birthdays, I had decided when Don (my boss) went we would have 3 weeks to go before our Holiday, well he goes this morning, so that exciting milestone is here. (It’s actually 3 weeks on Sunday, but I count it to finishing work )

Now, I have a couple of apologies to make as it my rush and bluster to get everything ‘done for Don’, I missed a Blakeley Birthday and that of mate Richard Pymm. It doesn’t matter too much to those people as they are probably not reading, but I know Emma’s M.I.L, Barbara will, as Emma, Rick’s new wife, celebrated her Birthday yesterday. Sorry for missing it Emma/Rick/Barbara and apologies to Allison too for missing Richard’s. To make up for it, we have a picture of each today. Richard is the one on the right, Emma is centre of the one on the left with the white frock on. Happy belated Birthday both of you.

So, back on the train this morning which will get me some exercise, either walking or swimming, it’s not definite which at the minute.

As suspected Kevin Keegan gave up on Newcastle yesterday and becomes the second premier league managerial casualty of the season which is only 3 weeks in, honestly, it’s getting to ridiculous proportions. The foreign money and foreign players are now demanding foreign Managers and ’sporting directors’, who will quietly go about their jobs without ‘interfering’ and let the foreigners run it. I can see more casualties on this front during the season, but I think also it is spelling the death of ‘English’ football as we know it. Honestly, I am actually glad we are a division lower where there is less money and we are playing honest football, with honest owners, honest managers and honest players (on the whole). It’s the English way. The next casualty will likely be Mark Hughes, the Manchester City Manager who is a ’solid’ Welshman, of great principal, who was assured by their new Middle Eastern owners yesterday that he had “Total control over football matters”. Anything owners or Chairmen say on that front, read the reverse. He certainly knew nothing about the Robinho deal, although I suspect he was not complaining. That was just a ’spite’ deal to show Chelsea they were no longer the richest club in the World! 2,000 season tickets for the club were sold yesterday alone…I wonder if that made Nick Blakeley renew his???

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = Oh dear, it’s going to be bad!

Mood meter = Just 21 more ’sleeps’

Another viewing on the house yesterday. It was a little frustrating, (for Jo anyhow) as, despite numerous different contact technologies, mobile, home and work phones, home and work email, they always ring Jo’s mobile only, which is on ‘3′. (Need I say more), so, on the way to work yesterday, she gets a voicemail from them, from the day before, requesting a viewing at 1pm that day! Jo managed to get it changed to 4pm, but that gives her just 1 hour to clean the ‘pits’ that are the kids rooms and the rest of the house. She managed it and we think the viewing happened, we will see when we get the feedback today.

After last week’s Tesco grammatical ‘hiccup’ from Tesco, I was interested to read 20 more that annoy readers. Unfortunately, still no one mentioning “Bits and pieces of rain”, must try and get something going.

As the UK supposedly slips toward recession the Bank of England meets today to decide whether interest rates should be cut or stay. I suspect they will vote for them staying. I could fix it in one fell swoop. Get rid of Beanie. He has not a clue and will be told so when he goes in front of the Scottish CBI today. There is certainly unrest growing, the sooner the better. We may escape financial difficulty if we had the opportunity to ‘refresh’ the Government, surely he sees that?

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = It’s going to be another ‘rough’ couple of days. What a summer!

Mood meter = Got Don here and it’s great to show-off the business.

At the weekend I posted as part of the week’s 10 things, a link about ‘Averages’. in fact this was the fourth in a series of articles, exploding the myths of surveys, etc by Michael Blastland

Having now read them all, I will in future, be very cautious with any surveys, particularly when the surveyor has any vested interest, or if it’s done by the Government.

The links are below in  order…

The Survey Say…

The Myth Of Counting

Putting Percentages In Context

Just What Is Average?

Just Because?

So kids, if you’re starting school this week at age five, you’ll be there until you’re seventeen. It’s a ruling that went passed me, but for the first time since 1964 (enacted 1972), when it was raised to sixteen, it has been hiked by a year to try and retain our competitiveness.

On the football front, Saints player BWP (Bradley Wright-Phillips) had the charges against him for theft dropped. He had always claimed his innocence and there was no sign of him (unlike Nathan Dyer), fumbling through handbags on the video, however, the if the player, funded by £250,000 from Coca-Cola could be stolen by someone, that would be good. Either that, or his dad wants to tell him to buck his ideas up and try realising he should work at his ‘gift’ of a job (and stay onside!). I still say he should be on a charge of being in Portsmouth, but that is another thing. Other strange happenings are around Kevin Keegan who everyone thought had been sacked, but both parties say that is not the case. Mark my words, you can be sure it will happen.

BDM, Steve Parker has informed me that by accident I have a new reader in his Father, John. Steve was helping fix his Internet connection and the first URL that came to mind when testing was this blog. Since then John has read daily, welcome along John.

Be busy the next couple of days as Don, our benefactor arrives at work to give it the once over, doubt it’ll be too onerous as he is really supportive, so it’ll be fun showing him over some of the stuff we’re doing and planning.

Put together the trail we will cut in India at the end of the month (exciting, I can now say this month!) on Live Maps. You can view the route here. The pins are in order with just the name and days on them. Later I may use this to do a kind of travelogue or at least post some other details. Watch this space.

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = Much of a muchness, cool and just sunny

Mood meter = Today I will be passed the mid point and nearer holiday!

Google has announced another new product to rival something from Microsoft, this time it’s the Internet browser. They will be calling theirs ‘Chrome’, but like all other stuff from Google, it will be a beta! What is it with them not launching anything as a released product? Could it be that they can always claim it a beta if something goes wrong, rather than being sued? Or is it they don’t need to support it? Whatever, it seems very strange.

Google is launching an open source web browser to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The browser is designed to be lightweight and fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.

Called Chrome, it will launch as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.

“We realised… we needed to completely rethink the browser,” said Google’s Sundar Pichai in a blog post.

The new browser will help Google take advantage of developments it is pushing online in rich web applications that are challenging traditional desktop programs.

Google has a suite of web apps, such as Documents, Picasa and Maps which offer functionality that is beginning to replace offline software.

“What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build,” Mr Pichai, VP Product Management, wrote.

The launch of a beta version of Chrome on Tuesday will be Google’s latest assault on Microsoft’s dominance of the PC business. The firm’s Internet Explorer program dominates the browser landscape, with 80% of the market.