I Need a New Duvet Cover
Not for my bed I hasten to add, but for my spare guest room. As most of the guests will be couples, wouldn’t it be a good idea to get a proper Ipswich Town duvet cover for that bed!
New Year Football is Going to be Fun
Over the last twodays, I have watched two of the best televised matches from the Premier League, that I’ve seen in a long time. On Sunday, Spurs beat Aston Villa at Villa Park by 2-1, playing with ten men for a lot of the match and scoring two of the best goals I’ve seen this season. Not to be outdone, their arch-rivals, Arsenal, took Chelsea apart by 3-1 last night.
Could the Premier League title be going to North London? Remember as I said here, the year ends in one.
And then there is the small matters of Ipswich’s two cup ties; the two-legged one against Arsenal in the Carling Cup and the Third Round of the FA Cup against Chelsea.
I don’t hold out much hope in the Carling Cup for Ipswich, but who knows what will happen at Stamford Bridge, when a demoralised Chelski face a fresh Ipswich side, who’ve haven’t played since the heart warming Leicester match.
The FA Cup is getting to be a great leveller, especially when mollycoddled millionaires come up against supposedly inferior, but more enthusiastic players, who want to prove they deserve their day in the limelight.
We live in interesting times.
Solving the Problem of Watching Sky or ITV Pictures and Getting Radio 5 Sound
As you may know from this blog, I’m allergic to two things; gluten and adverts. I don’t like having to continually switch whilst watching sport on Sky or ITV to BBC Radio 5, to avoid the annoying adverts and get a continuous commentary. In many cases too, the ITV coverage is not up to scratch and vital parts like goals are missed. To be fair to Sky, there’s nothing wrong with their coverage in general, it’s just the adverts, often for products that contain gluten. So they are a double irritant.
Virgin cable gets around this problem in some ways, because it has a Back button, so you can constantly use it to flip between, your preferred video and audio channels.
For Christmas I was given a pair of wireless headphones by Sennheiser, that plug into the headphone socket of a television or radio and give a good sound quality within range.
So I have plugged them into my Roberts DAB radio for good Radio 5 sound and just put the television on the corresponding video channel.
There are some other advantages.
- I can get good commentary all over my house and even in the road outside.
- The range also solves the tea and toilet break problems, as never do I have to miss any of the action. This works well with sport, but you’d probably need to pause the television for a break, whilst watching a serious drama.
- I’d also be interested to know to, how serious music lovers would find the quality of the sound through the headphones.
- I now adjust the volume on the headphones, so that if say I was watching something very loud, then I’m the only one gets the loud noise.
- Obviously, if you are watching with someone else, you just unplug the headphones and watch normally.
It strikes me that various families would find different ways to use one or more of these devices to avoid problems amongst themselves or with the neighbours.
To be fair, I know that the headphones are a good deal cheaper, than the cost of using a solicitor to fight an ASBO caused by a loud television. And not everybody likes Abba!
But whatever, they made a very good Christmas present for me!
Going Back to Bed as a Happy Bunny
It’s now approaching 4:30 and I’ve just watched an interesting ninety minutes of cricket as Australia decided to give England a lot of catching practice and became all out for just 98 runs.
So I’ve just made myself a LemSip and after I’ve drunk that and listened to the news, I’ll go back to bed and see if I can get back to sleep again. I suppose though I did get about six hours sleep overnight.
The LemSip is an odd flavour; Wild Berry and Hot Orange. If I need to buy some more, I’ll buy the traditional.
Hopefully, it will be alright when I get up in the morning, but England did look a bit collapsible in the last Test and I’ve got Ipswich today, tubes permitting. Town will have to try to play as well as they did in the snow eight days ago.
Do I Have a Claim under the Disability Rights Act?
Ipswich Town are playing at home on Boxing Day, but unfortunately there are no trains between London and Ipswich, so I will be unable to go.
If I could drive, it would not be a problem, but because of the stroke, I now no longer have a driving licence, or a car available for that matter. So am I being discrimanated against, especially as I’ve paid for the match with my season ticket?
I can’t even listen to the match on local radio, as I would have done in Suffolk!
I’ve also checked the Supporters Club web site and no-one runs a coach from London.
Another Game in the Snow
After yesterday’s entertaining but cold match at Ipswich yesterday, I’m reminded of another Ipswich game in the snow.
It was probably in about 1962 or so and I supported Spurs at the time, although my parents had a house in Felixstowe and the next door neighbour used to give me a lift to Portman Road.
White Hart Lane was covered in snow and it was snowing hard on possibly Boxing Day in 1962 and after a virtuoso display by Jimmy Greaves, Ipswich lost 5-0.
The referee was Denis Howell, who was a Labour MP and not liked by the crowd. We all thought that he got his just desserts, served very cold.
You don’t have to be mad to support Ipswich, but it helps!
On Friday, I bought my train ticket to go to see Ipswich play Leicester at Portman Road, so if I had decided not to go because of the weather it would have cost me £23.55. I could afford that and knew that as I walked along the Ball’s Pond Road to Dalston Kingsland station, the weather didn’t look at all promising.
- Snow in the Ball’s Pond Road
I did get as far as the cash-point on the corner, but immediately returned home and then went to a pub where I had some lunch and some cider.
At about two, I thought that I’d go as snow often makes for good entertainment. So I retraced my steps to the station, bought a paper and then found that the station was closed. So I had to taske the alternative route, via Dalston Junction, Whitechapel and Mile End, where I got the Central Line for Stratford, to get the fast train to Ipswich.
The Olympic stadium looked good in the snow.
- Olympic Stadium in the Snow
But at least the Olympics are in August not the winter!
I actually fell asleep on the train to Ipswich, but that had nothing to do with missing the first twelve minutes or so of the match. The move has been tiring and I just needed the sleep. I completely missed the first goal and only heard the roar of the crowd as the second went in.
I just managed to see the third through the snow, but as most of the action for that goal happened just in front of me.
The second half was much of the same, as 16,728 souls peered through the snow.
Football in the Snow
But all thanks go to the referee, who resisted all efforts by the Leicester players to abandon the match. And of course to the ground staff, who kept the game going.
I had a wait at the station for a train back to London, but when it arrived it was new, warm and comfortable and arrived at its destination without gaining any more delays. It was then a tube to Liverpool Street and a taxi from the station to home. The only bad information I received on the journey home was from the charming policewoman at Liverpool Street, who said that the taxis weren’t running. But they were.
Interestingly, her colleague was in a uniform which said Politie, so he could have been Dutch. Are we that short of police these days that we have to borrow them from other countries? I made a mistake in not taking a picture.
But I suppose, when Ipswich fans talk over a drink in a few years time, I will be able so say “I was there!”
Isn’t life wonderful.
Bet of the Month
Ipswich is a close town and rumours get around quickly.
The football team has been terible recently and it is not the team I saw at Middlesbrough or Sheffield United.
So what has gone wrong?
I’ve heard several theories and although, I have my own, I’m keeping it quiet.
But let’s assume Roy Keane doesn’t last the week! Ipswich is an honourable man, and Marcus Evans, the owner, doesn’t seem to be a man to act in haste.
So what would happen if a new manager came in. There are after all some good candidates tending their gardens or walking the dog at the moment. There are a lot of good players at Ipswich Town and they probably need rearranging and remotivating more than anything else. So a good man-manager, like Bobby Robson or Alf Ramsey should have no problem creating a team, without too much trouble. The team is almost a bit like a car with contaminated fuel. And then there are the njured players, who should return soon.
So how about two bets if Keane goes; beat Chelsea in the FA Cup and make the playoffs. The odds for the latter are only five-to-one now, so perhaps the professionals have already helped themselves.
Spammer Responsible for a third of all Spam in Court
I like this story from The Register. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
A Russian who allegedly at one time ran a network of compromised machines responsible for a third of global spam appeared in federal court in Wisconsin on Friday to deny the charges.
Oleg Y Nikolaenko, 23, a resident of Moscow, faces charges that he forged email spam messages in violation of the US CAN-SPAM Act, following his arrest in Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel last month.
Prosecutors allege that the Russian was responsible for pumping out a staggering 10 billion spam messages per day, touting penis pills and counterfeit goods using the infamous Mega-D botnet network.
I wonder how many spam e-mails we’re going to see from Russia selling tickets, hotels and flights to the World Cup in 2018? Probably none, as Putin has given Sepp Blatter his word!
Who Are West Brom’s Sponsor?
I’m just watching West Brom play Newcastle and their sponsor appears to be 247 999, arranged in two rows of three digits. Looking closely, you can just see 0800 in smaller numbers above them.
I thought it was probably some new on-line gambling company and it was only when I checked that I found it was the free phone number for Homeserve, who as far as I know are a perfectly legitimate company.
The Anonymous Widower 