Sunday Evening Snippets

Every so often I stumble across something….either a random fact or something like a piece of technology. I love picking up little bits of useful information which can help either answer troublesome questions or something that can help make life easier or more efficient. I’ve got 4 on my list that I will share and I reckon at least one of them will hopefully intrigue or interest you.

Theta 360

The latest cool toy that photography folk are playing with. It’s basically a camera that has a ball on and takes a full 360 pic. There’s no issues with cramming everybody into the picture or the person taking it missing out. It will take anybody and everybody!

Telephone Preference Service

The amount of pest calls these days is insane. If you’re receiving loads of calls about PPI and double window sales, sign up here: (www.tpsonline.org.uk). It won’t fix the issue immediately but it should vastly reduce the number of calls you receive over time.

Roaming wifi dongles

We’re talking internet here….nothing crude! I’ve used these guys (https://www.tepwireless.com/) a couple of times in the States and it is genius. They mail it to you a few days before you travel, you can connect to the dongle with five devices and off you go! Now the likelihood most places you will stay have wifi these days, but it’s great to use in the car, airport, or anywhere else. Trust me…it is way cheaper than roaming charges!

Stormy names

Anybody noticed how storms hitting the UK these days have random names attached to them like they do in the States? Not sure particularly how I feel about it….it feels like any bit of bad weather gets a name these days! However, just in case you’re interested, here’s the full list of names in this round and how they will apply them in alphabetical order. Abigail, Barney, Clodagh, Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude, Henry, Imogen, Jake, Katie, Lawrence, Mary, Nigel, Orla, Phil, Rhonda, Steve, Tegan, Vernon and Wendy

My Random Manifesto

I’m going to get called on it so I may as well admit that sleep is not overrated. I’ve tried my best to improve in that department, and I’m getting there. Despite the shadows under the eyes, I’ve made a conscious effort to improve in 2015, and I’ll keep that going in 2016 too. Heck, even my fav German told me the very same last time we hung out and I never thought I’d hear that!

So I’ll compromise with you. Yes you! In return for me getting earlier nights, how about we add an extra day in the week? Or how would you feel if there were 26 hours in the day rather than 24? The logic sounds genius…….it would take a little longer between birthdays at the very least. But fundamentally, you’d feel the same, and age the same.

Well let’s be a little more creative and switch the working week up if we only have 7 days and 24 hours to play with. If I was Prime Minister, President or King (God help you us all), I’d be advocating a 4 and 3 formation. For once, I ain’t rambling about NFL defensive formations, I’m promoting the 3-day weekend. We work an extra 2 hours Monday to Thursday, and then that Friday feeling ramps up a notch knowing the weekend has actually started the evening before and not at 5pm on Friday.

An alternative to my logic is almost the exact opposite in fact. That Mon-Fri remains but the working day is cut to 6 hours. This is being applied in Sweden (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34677949) and I can see the logic behind it. Think about it – you go to school for around 13, 16 or 17 years in my case, and you have regular breaks during the day. Milk at 10.45am, Lunch at 12.30pm and then afternoon break at 2.15pm. It actually gets worse when you go to university and have 15-20 hours of lectures per week and numerous breaks during each day. Then, all of sudden, you step into the world of work, and they expect you to have an hour at lunch, but work solidly without a pause for four hours non-stop. I’ll argue there’s not a human around that was built to concentrate 100% for four hours non-stop. How unreasonable! Sounds like a good reason to start smoking to me. Alternatively, cut the hours and lunch down, and I’ll say productivity would increase massively (although as with every rule, it probably depends on the person).

So there you have it, my manifesto. The manifesto is all about just loving and enjoying life. If you’re reading this, you’re vaguely communicated to the outside world (and granted, slightly strange, related to me, or stalking me) so you’ll have heard all about Paris on Friday night. Sleep may not be overrated, but if you’re wasting time or being inefficient on some trivial matter, or not fully making the most of life, that’s as stark a reminder as there ever is, to just bloody go for it. Refining the way you work or spend some of your hours is a start!

November Musings

Where has this year gone? I know we say that every year but this more than most has absolutely flown. To be put it into context, 2014 didn’t go fast. In fact, it dragged like you wouldn’t believe, but never a truer word spoken......time flies when you’re having fun.

So, with only 49 days left until Christmas (I googled that btw), it is time to get back into some blogging. And some serious blogging at that. Kicking things off, as usual, with some random sporting thoughts. And as always, don’t be shy in sharing your thoughts and opinions.

When I first felt obliged to write this blog, it was after reading an excerpt from Sir Alex Ferguson’s book Leading in which he named the Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Cristiano Ronaldo as the only world class players he managed. Plenty was made about David Beckham not being mentioned in the list or Roy Keane. Becks’ reply was typical him – ‘I wasn’t world class’. You can debate him as a world class player all day long, but there’s no doubting he’s a world class operator. Personally, I would rate Beckham over Cantona myself.

October had a sad note in the passing of Howard Kendall, Everton’s greatest ever manager. I became an Evertonian because of him and the superb team he assembled in the mid-eighties. That midfield of Trevor Steven, Peter Reid, Paul Bracewell and Kevin Sheedy stands out to me as one of the most balanced midfields ever, and I have something of a random fetish for superbly balanced midfields. Others that stand out? The Leeds midfield from the early nineties of Strachan, Batty, McAllister, Speed. The Valencia midfield of 99-00 of Mendieta, Farinos, Gerard and Kily Gonzalez. Individually, you wouldn’t say any of them were world class, but as a unit constructed by canny managers, they formed a world class team, and credit to those managers – Kendall, Wilkinson and Cuper. RIP Howard.

It has been said that I like to attend one or two decent sporting events in my time. I can’t deny it. One sporting event which may not be that high profile but I would love to attend is the Invictus Games. They held it in London last year and the next one is planned for Florida next year and Australia in 2018. Fair play to Prince Harry for spearheading the campaign for it. Of course, it’s an easy win in terms of PR, but you never get the feeling that he is doing it for that reason. It’s on my ‘to do’ list!

Jose, Jose, Jose. I’m fascinated to see how this all plays out with him, but I felt it back when there was the special Eva Carneiro bust-up, it may be difficult for him to turn this one around. He really does not help himself. I suspect that incident more than the results, are the reason for him losing this dressing room.

On the Chelsea subject, little has been made of Juventus this season, but they too have endured a miserable start to the season, and their fall has arguably been greater given the fact they reached the Champions League final last season. They sit 10^th after scraping a late winner against local rivals Torino last weekend and their form is far from impressive. Chelsea are not the only big team to be struggling this season.

Speaking of under-performing stars, Sidney Crosby has had a ‘shocking’ start to the season with just 6 points in 12 games and 4 of those came in one game. Just how Cristiano Ronaldo had a dry spell for some 6-7 games without a goal at the start of the season, it happens. We’ve just been spoiled by their brilliance for so long, that these barren spells hit the headlines, but it’s only really about selling newspapers and creating some drama. Nothing to see here.

Going back to the Premier League, I am fully expecting a league win for Man City this year. United are still some way off from really challenging, while Arsenal will have sufficient slip ups for them to drop away. City on the other hand, have so much firepower and so many options, it is hard to see them slipping up as much as the others. They may still be a striker short, but I fully expect them to push on, and they may even go further in the Champions League this season than in recent years.

Now that I’m back in blogging mode, there’ll be the usual predictions blog at the turn of the year!

Bend It Like Bazza

There’s a million and one adjectives I would use to describe myself. I’m not shy….there’s plenty of good ones mixed in with the negatives ones. I’ll admit I’m massively weak at X, just as I’ll say I’m pretty good at Y. In fact, I’d rarely say it, unless I’m as comfortable as can be with you, but I consider myself to be a ruthless and objective self-assessor. I won’t punish or praise myself for too long, and I’ll move on. Of all the positive or negative adjectives I could possibly use about myself, I would not use naïve as being one of them.

Very little surprises me in life. Professionally, I’ve seen plenty and there’s little that shocks or stuns me, so being naïve about X, Y and Z hardly ever happens. Are sporting events at the highest level fixed? I have little doubt. The sport that you love and adore? I’ll say somewhere, somehow, it is fixed. It may be drugs, it may be match-fixing….could be anything. Waking up as a young pup in 1988 to the news that Ben Johnson was doping in Seoul just about ruined me. The worst you can imagine, I expect it and I’m rarely surprised.

So, let’s rewind to Junior Bobby. This boy was brought up on a certain old crooner that sang ballad after ballad on any of my lengthier road trips. Holidays weren’t too common back in the day and Auntie Joan and Uncle George used to ease the burden on my folks and take me and my stinky sister (it was World Sibling Day not so long ago and that is my tribute H – you’d be disappointed if any different!) to Primrose Valley for an awesome caravan stay. I loved them. The highlight of the road trips was the music and the singing to the one and only Barry Manilow.

Growing up, I’d frequently get stick for my appreciation for Bazza and that is fair. At all the various stages of my life, Barry and Bon Jovi have been ever-presents. Totally different artists, not everybody’s cup of tea, but that’s ok. In terms of my passion for the pair, I’d categorise Bon Jovi for the music and Barry more for the words. Many a time I’d listen carefully to the words of a Barry tune and just be fascinated at what a life he must have led. So much sentiment, so much charm, so much feeling. Not that it bloody worked for me with the women, but I always enjoyed the words as much as the music.

Fast forward to three weeks ago, when I’m googling ‘Barry Manilow tour’ to find out if he’s coming back to the UK and I can wangle some tickets for my mum. To my surprise, Old Bazza has only gotten married to his manager Garry Kief. Turns out, the entire family always thought he was gay, but I literally had zero inkling at all! I guess I was completely side-tracked by the beautiful words and crafted songs written about women to ever really give it any thought over the years.

Not that anything changes – my love for Barry will indeed be eternal. I may revisit various songs just to see if I did actually miss any clues in there of course. The biggest thing springing to my mind is the fact that it’s obviously been hidden (from me any way!) until his career is coming close to an end and he is 71 years-old. That’s sad to me, but I hope it’s not stopped him from having a bit of fun!

Maybe I have a naïve side after all.