It’s Very Lonely Today
Today would have been our forty-second wedding anniversary. I shall probably see no-one all day except for the postman and the lady who delivers the papers.
I wonder what C would be thinking. She always said that she would hate to be alone and wanted to die first. This was partly because she said she hated her own company, but I suspect she’d be coping with the loneliness better than I am.
Today, there is nothing to do, as it’s not going to be the best weather and I have no driver. And there is no public transport! I simply refuse to take a taxi just to get somewhere, where there are some people!
If I did have some transport, I’d go to Colchester to see England Under-21 play Lithuania. At least there is the football and cricket on the television this evening!
But then, life gets better in the next day or so, as I’m spending a couple of days in London and then it’s off to Portsmouth to see Ipswch play!
Why Not a Wayne Rooney Foundation Scam?
Now that footballers earn a lot of money, I’m surprised some of our friends in the 419 scam business haven’t been creating things like the Wayne Rooney Foundation, which chooses to give people at random large amounts of money. After all, judging by the recent press reports, he might actually be stupid enough to do something like this off his own bat! Some would argue, he should after his abismal performance in South Africa!
Perhaps because something like this hasn’t turned up, it just shows that the scammers are even more stupid, than your average footballer.
Do Blackburn Rovers Want This Man as an Owner?
The BBC has been doing some investigating into the prospective new owner of Blackburn Rovers Football Club.
This an except from the report.
Records show Ahsan Ali Syed has failed to pay a county court judgement of £61,500. Other debts include £7,800 in unpaid rent and nearly £1,000 in unpaid council tax.
Mr Ali is also listed as director of two UK companies which were dissolved for non-compliance.
We mustn’t let dodgy characters ruin our national game, by being able to buy clubs. I’m going to Portsmouth next week, where they know all about people who live on a different planet.
Where Was the Live Text?
I like to view the live text as a match is progressing, especially when you have the crap ITV commentary. But it wasn’t there today! Or at least I couldn’t find it!
The FA’s Bad Timing
When England played their qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup, I saw two; Belarus away and Kazakhstan at home.
I shall not be going to the Bulgaria match tonight despite tickets still being available and the fact that I would have liked to. The match kicks off at 8:00, which means it will be very difficult for me to get home, unless I left the match early! I would not be able to get to Liverpool Street in time for a train , that would allow me to get a taxi.
Tickets are still available! so I wonder how many others fans are not going, as they will have transport problems after the game, either through distance, health like me, or perhaps bcause they have would like to take their kids.
And then to cap it all, the match is on that awful medium for football; ITV. I might have the pictures on, but I will be listening to the excellent commentary on BBC Radio 5.
This football fan is seriously pissed off!
According to the BBC this morning, the late start is a UEFA idea to appease the big clubs. But then I suspect that the old farts running that so-called organisation, aren’t real fans and don’t have the transport problems or other responsibilities, that many of us have!
The Isle of Wight, Great Yarmouth, Hastings and Morecambe
I am going to Portsmouth to see Ipswich on the 11th of this month to see Ipswich play. I thought that I might take the ferry and see the Isle of wight. but after reading Bronwen Maddox’s article in The Times today, I don’t think I’ll bother.
She says that the Isle is rather run down and virtually cut off from the rest of the UK, just like the other towns in the heading of this post. All places share higher unemployment than the rest of the country and have a run-down feel.
She says that the solution to the Isle of Wight’s problem is a bridge, just as all the other towns could do with transport connections to the rest of the UK to attract industry, jobs and tourists. I know the route to Yarmouth well and is it not only sib-standard, but very dangerous. upgrade it or perhaps the railway that runs alongside it and you might improve one of the worse unemployment blackspots in Southern England. I also drove to Hastings once. Never again!
These are the infrastructure projects that we must start. I even suspect that some might even be financed by the reduction in benefits, when the jobs are created.
An Expensive way to keep the Bench Warm!
I had to laugh on Match of the Day last night, when the camera cut to all the expensive players that Manchester City have bought sitting quietly on the bench. They looked as bored as sin. I suppose I would if I was paid all that money and didn’t make the team.
But at least the right result happened as Sunderland won.
Don’t you just love it, when mega-rich people make a complete fool of themselves! I suppose though that it all redistributes the money, especially when your Italian striker crashes his £120,000 car.
Portsmouth on September the 11th
This will be my next match following Ipswich Town.
It might also need a bit of planning to get round the various ticketing regulations on the trains.
The easiest way would be to turn up at Whittlesford and buy a return ticket for Fratton, which is the nearest station to the ground. But this might be a problem as the ticket office there was unmanned yesterday and the automatic machine had been positioned so that the morning sunlight made it difficult to read.
Badly-Sited Ticket Machine at Whittlesford
These people were certainly having problems, so buying a ticket or collecting it from there might be a problem. I suppose I could get my ticket posted to my home.
So I think that I might take the train from Dullingham and go via Cambridge and King’s Cross, as I can buy a ticket from the conductor on the train. King’s Cross to Waterloo is also easier on the Underground than Tottenham Hale to Waterloo.
But the problem is that I can’t get a taxi at Dullingham, but I can pre-book one at Whittlesford.
But there is an additional complication. I want to have lunch with a friend at Micheldever, which is on the line to Fratton. So my journrey will actually be in three legs; Whittlesford to Micheldever, Micheldever to Fratton and Fratton to Whittlesford. It used to be that if you broke a journey and then continued on a later train in the same direction, that you could do this on the same ticket. I suspect this is now off the menu.
What is needed is a simple multiple ticket web site, where I enter the trains I want to travel on and then they post them to my house or I pick them up reliably at the first station.
I suspect that because of regulations though, I’ll need to buy a Whittlesford-Fratton return and buy an extra single ticket to get from Micheldever to Fratton.
And people think I’m getting paranoid!
Since I wrote that, I’ve found another problem. Not all trains to Fratton start from Waterloo and those of those that do not all go through Michedever, but the booking sites don’t seem to say which. It’s all very complicated. The Internet is supposed to make things simple not more difficult. Perhaps it would be easier to turn up and go at Waterloo and buy the tickets there. But that would mean I would have to leave earlier in the morning!
Ipswich Sitting Pretty
There is an old phrase about pride before a fall, so can Ipswich be proud that they are third in the nPower Championship, bearing in mind that they have to play the two teams above them; QPR and Cardiff City in their next two home games after Portsmouth away.
So we can all enjoy the league position, whilst we sit out the next few days of the International break.
New Readers
I was given a write-up in the Ipswich Town program today and some people who visit, may have been directed from the program.
Don’t take anything I say too seriously, as underneath it all I try to amuse and inform. Remember too, I have other interests outside Ipswich Town, like art, architecture, engineering and trains. I also feel that one of the ways we’re going to get this country out of the mess it’s in, is by appreciating what we’ve got here in these Isles and enjoying it. Who would have thought that a visit to Middlesbrough or Crewe could be so enjoyable. But they genuinely were and I shall be visiting other places in the next few months, that might be equally unpromising. Hopefully, they’ll be equally enjoyable, even if Town don’t win or the trip has nothing to do with football.
The next trips will be Portsmouth and Scunthorpe.
Feel free to post comments. I reserve the right to remove those that are not constructive!
The Anonymous Widower 