What I Had Intended to Do Yesterday!
In an earlier post, I said how disappointed I was with Coventry yesterday.
To be fair to the city, I think I should say what I had intended to do and talk about some of it.
When I got my fixture list, I saw that Ipswich Town were playing there on New Year’s Day, so I made a mental note that if I had moved to London by then, I would go and visit the cathedral, as it is a mystical place, where I could contemplate the recent deaths of my wife and son. I thought too, that I might sample a good curry before the match and perhaps visit an art gallery or a museum.
The day had started well, with just the minor distraction of being unable to buy my copy of The Times at Euston, after a twenty minute bus ride from the Balls Pond Road, just round the corner from where I live.
The train left London dead on time and all the way to Coventry, I had two seats side-by-side in Standard Class all to myself. My only complaint would be that the seat back tables are a bit difficult for me to balance a magazine on, but then that isn’t serious and as I was paying just over £10 each way, it was good value and comfortable.
Arriving in Coventry, we were still on time and as I don’t know the city well, I decided to look for a map or some form of tourist information. Perhaps, I should have gone elsewhere or perhaps come on a different day, as I couldn’t fmind anything. I almost felt that I’d come to Coventry on the wrong day for the match, as the place was totally closed. Even the WH Smith’s was closed, so I couldn’t get my paper.
outside of the station, the forecourt was equally dead with no buses or taxis. Eventually, I found a helpful Coventrian, who pointed me to a rather scruffy underpass and bridge that led towards the city centre. It wasn’t the best marked walk, but I got there passing perhaps half-a-dozen people on the way. Comparing this to the busy Upper Street, the bus had taken me through on the way to Euston, just reinforced my fears that Coventry was in fact shut and I should make my way home as soon as possible to watch other football on Sky.
There was few people about, as I walked up past a few smark banks and endless dreary stores, which seemed to be mainly amusement arcades or pawn shops.
The cathedral is surrounded by a few mediaeval steeets and I did find a Pizza Express, where I decided to have a salad Nicoise for lunch, as time was now running short and I hadn’t seen an Indian restaurant, let alone one that looked to be decent. The salad was acceptable, but the waitress got it delivered with bread sticks, so I sent it back. Although she talked and behaved like one of Catherine Tate‘s creations, I put it all down to bad training, so it wasn’t her fault.
I then walked to the cathedrals and like the rest of the city they were deserted. Perhaps, not a bad thing really, as I was able to pay my respects to both my wife and son and those who died in Coventry’s Blitz in almost absolute silence.
After the visit I walked towards the bus station and found a Sainsburys, where I was finally able to buy my copy of The Times. But was Sainsbury’s busy? No! Of course not. Perhaps, evrybody was sleeping off last night’s excesses, but it was now after two.
It was now getting to be like one of those series, where everybody has died from some sort of bug and there is no-one left. Now that I’d got the paper, I actually checked that Ipswich were playing in the city, but couldn’t find the fixture list.
The bus station was totally deserted except for a few Coventry fans looking for transport to the Ricoh. But there was none, until two kind Coventry fans suggested they give me a lift.
Surely, Coventry City shouldn’t have been selling tickets, as they did to these fans, without making sure that the transport was in place.
Travelling to the Ricoh at Coventry
Radio 5 this morning, is headlining a story that there is a bug in the iPhone. What do they think? I’ve been writing software for nearly 50 years and if you show me a man, who says he’s got a bug-free program, I’ll show you a liar.
To tell my story of yesterday, I send an e-mail entitled “Fix the iPhone, How About Fixing Coventry First”
I went to Coventry to see Ipswich play. As I can’t drive because of my strokes, I took the excellent train from Euston. However, there were no buses running from the city centre to the Ricoh Arena. Coventry was like a morgue too, with few restaurants and shops busy. In the end two kind Coventry fans took me to the stadium, but the taxi back cost more than my lunch and almost as much as a one way ticket on the train. No wonder a only a small crowd turned up to the match.
Surely, if cities like Coventry want to attract visitors, they should put in public transport that works. I suspect though that they’re all still in bed, as the Christmas iPhones don’t work.
I tweeted the whole journey on my elderly Nokia 6310i, that has no bugs and an alarm that works.
After I’ve posted this, I’ll be sending copies to disinterested parties, who don’t care. I don’t anymore, as I won’t go to Coventry again to see football, without a cast-iron guarantee that buses are running to the Arena from the Station.
Tweeting My Way South
On the two trips to south London, I used my trusty Nokia 6310i to send messages to Twitter.
In both trips I got a story going; the first about how I’d borrowed the landlord’s dog from the pub next door for protection and in the second about travelling with an attack cat, who got rather agitated in Catford.
Today, I’ll be tweeting my way north, as I’m off to Coventry to see Ipswich Town play.
If you want to follow me, my Twitter ID is VagueShot.
The Cap That Cheers
In most of my travels, I wear an Ipswich Town woolly hat, with the horse badge on the front. In the weather, we’ve been having lately, some form of head-gear has been essential.
But in a city, with many other clubs, has it even been a liability?
In fact quite the reverse and it has been accepted with warmth, in a city with lots of major clubs. One Spurs supporter on a Victoria Line train even said. “Don’t worry about the hat. We’ve never had any issues with Ipswich. Best of luck to you.”
That was typical! But then to many football supporters, the game and the chat about it, is bigger than any individual club, even if they want their club to win at all times.
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.
The Anonymous Widower 