London, Leicester But No Lovely Ladies

I set off for London with my parents on Friday morning ready to collect my prize and have my photo taken but without Phil as he couldn't get time off work. Somehow, he managed to get time off and met us at Leeds Station. We arrived in London about lunchtime and were instructed to take the Underground from Kings Cross to Baker Street. This was quite new for me as i've not been to London since I was 10 excluding my quick trip last month. The reporter, photographer, and my family went to Regents Park and had our pictures taken. I'll put the photos on here when I have time to fiddle about with the coding and stuff and transferring the phos on the computer. To my relief there were no Page 3 girls present but it did attract quite a bit of attention. The article can be viewed here but for how long I don't know.

On Saturday I went to Leicester with Rob to the Walkers Stadium to watch the Conference Play-Off Final between Halifax and Hereford. Halifax led twice and probably deserved victory but seemed to be downhearted after an extra tie disallowed goal and went on to lose 3-2 after extra time. Rob scatched his car on a pillar trying to get out of the car park. He also set an unofficial world speed record for a Ford Ka of 109 mph.

As I am enjoying my fifteen minutes of fame at the moment, so is my blog with over 100 visitors last week for the first time. Keep reading folks!

Capital City

In a sudden twist in events, I'm off down to London to collect my prize - cheque not chickens! I'll make my 2nd national press appearance in Saturday's The Sun newspaper. How exciting. So exciting in fact i'm lost for words so i'll keep this one short.

The Miser

So now I have to decide what to spend it on. As is becoming recent tradition after the chicken hatching post I turned to Aesop for inspiration. Cars were not commonplace in 600BC though so instead I took inspiration of how not to spend my money in the story of The Miser:-

A MISER sold all that he had and bought a lump of gold, which he buried in a hole in the ground by the side of an old wall and went to look at daily. One of his workmen observed his frequent visits to the spot and decided to watch his movements. He soon
discovered the secret of the hidden treasure, and digging down, came to the lump of gold, and stole it. The Miser, on his next visit, found the hole empty and began to tear his hair and to make loud lamentations. A neighbour, seeing him overcome with
grief and learning the cause, said, "Pray do not grieve so; but go and take a stone, and place it in the hole, and fancy that the gold is still lying there. It will do you quite the same service; for when the gold was there, you had it not, as you did
not make the slightest use of it." !Aesop

And the moral of the story is - The true value of money is not in its possession but in its use. Very appropriate I feel

It's Official!

After Kolo Toure failed to score 10 times against Barcelona tonight, it's now official that I have won the £125,000 forst prize in The Sun Dream Team 2005/2006. I am, naturally, delighted and happy with my 15 minutes of fame but I don't think I could take the presure of the England manager's job. Bring on the World Cup and get well soon Wayne Rooney!

75 New Chickens!

The final 75 will be called Anton after The Dream Team reporter felt Anton Ferdinand was worth a 7/10 rating. I'm not arguing!

40 New Chickens

I can now count 40 more chickens which hatched today. I'll be calling them all Stevie G which in real life would be confusing but is ok for my little story. This is of course after Steven Gerrard who scored two equalisers including a last minute one to send the FA Cup Final into extra time. He also scored in the penalty shoot-out which Liverpool won.

The remaining 75 chickens fate will be discovered tomorrow as things became a lot tighter at the top of Dream Team today. I was pictured alongside Wayne Rooney in The Sun today with the headline, "I'M GLAD ROO BROKE FOOT." This twisted my commetns which were well stated below and I'd like to wish Mr Rooney a full and speedy recovery. More about my piece in the paper another time. It's time for my final sleepless night for a while now.

Fame

I'm gonna live forever, but I don't think learning to fly would be possible with my dodgy eyesight and I ain't jumping off any piers!

Anyway to the point. A photographer representing The Sun is coming to work tomorrow to take a picture of me to put in Saturday's paper. This is due to my Dream Team Fantasy Football position of course. Text or e-mail me if you want to sign in as me and work out what needs to happen in order to win. It's all down to Saturday now. I'm off to make myself look hot!

Oh Town won tonight too which is good. 1-0 after the first leg v Barnsley - 2nd leg on Monday at the Pharm.

Chicken Hatching Update

So continuing in my efforts to not count my chickens before they hatch where £1000 = 1 chick (can't be born a chicken can it?). There are currently 10 little chicks running aroundwaiting for company. 40 egg have cracked and are nearly opened but as yet remain unhatched and as for the other 75 I am just sitting on the eggs in the nest (nest egg) hoping they hatch in around a week.

In english now and my lead is 7 points over 2nd, 11 over 3rd and 55 over 4th. It's been a good season for me whatever the outcome really!

A Drinking Lesson

I went for a Student Societymeal on Thursday night at Bradleys which was good. I did discover that mixing a few (maybe five) glasses of wine with two Smirnoff Ices and then champagne is not good and makes me quite ill. I'm sure it was just the champagne that did it. I went to Halifax with Rob on Friday night but took it slowly and there was not much interesting to report there.

Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

As I am close to glory in Fantasy Football I have said this to many people who think I have it won and those who aren't so sure have been quick to point this out to me.

This is defined as "Don’t assume that you’ll get the things you want until you have them" on this site and thanks to this site, it originates from Aesop's fable "The Milkmaid and Her Pail."

'Patty, a farmer's daughter, is daydreaming as she walks to town with a pail of milk balanced on her head. Her thoughts: "The milk in this pail will provide me with cream, which I will make into butter, which I will sell in the market, and buy a dozen eggs, which will hatch into chickens, which will lay more eggs, and soon I shall have a large poultry yard. I'll sell some of the fowls and buy myself a handsome new gown and go to the fair, and when the young fellows try to make love to me, I'll toss my head and pass them by." At that moment, Patty tossed her head and lost the pailful of milk. Her mother admonished, "Do not count your chickens before they are hatched."'

Literally, it refers to the fact that in any group of chicken eggs, some are not likely to be born. A foolish farmer would think "There are ten eggs there, so I can expect to have ten chickens running around." According to the adage, though, a more realistic farmer would wait until they were actually hatched and adjust his farming plans based on how many were born. If any fail to hatch, the foolish farmer is caught off guard. The realistic farmer already expects to adjust, so he is much better off. (
link)

I would say I can now assume I have got what I wanted which was to win the league at work. I would also say i'm now well past the pail stage as I am quite certain I will have won enough to buy myself a new shirt (gown) to go to the bar (fair) in. Luckily I am yet to have young fellows trying to make love to me. Sadly I there have been no offers from young ladies yet so maybe that's the appropriate stage of the fable.

Literally, where £1000 = 1 egg, I have 125 eggs of which I'm 95% certain that 10 have hatched successfully. 40 eggs are close to hatching while the other 75 will hatch or die after the cup final. Foolish accountant I am not and therefore I have not made any concrete spending plans because I know not to count my chickens before they hatch!

End Of 2005/6 Season Part 1

Wayne Rooney got injured on Saturday which was great for my Dream Team Fantasy Football team but not so good for England's World Cup hopes. I got a few funny looks as I checked the score at the interval of the snooker exclaiming "Yes! Rooney is a doubt for the World Cup" with Wood replying "You've won it!"

Bradford Park Avenue, Wakefield & Emley, and Scarborough all got relegated which is sad but it could all change due to various clubs going out of business etc. Huddersfield and Halifax will play in the play-offs and hopefully both get promoted. My ex favourite non-league club Rushden & Diamonds got relegated back to the non-league, Swindon are the first ex-Premiership side to be relegated to the 4th tier (League 2 aka Division 4) and Birmingham, West Brom and Sunderland are down from the Premiership which Chelsea won convincingly.

Why Do Kicks Happen? Uneven Cushions Solved

Bit of a geeky post i'm afraid.

The uneven cushions issue is easy to explain. They are not uneven! It was shown that chalk reacts with the cushion and gives the ball an extra bounce therefore making it go off the cushion at a faster speed than when it hit the cushion.

The mystery of kicks appears to have finally been resolved by a man named Bob Ledger. He investigated the problem at Leeds University where it was found that the balls pick up a chemical (acetone I think he said) and when they are charged with this and hit another ball, it causes one or both of them to jump ie a kick. Now the root of the problem has been discovered he is meeting with the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) to discuss not using this chemical in the making of cloths which I suggest must be possible as kicks did not occur 20 years ago so now it should be possible to entirely eradicate them from the game.

888.com World Snooker Championship 2006

I'm just going to do a one part review this year. Nigel Bond beat Stephen Hendry on a respotted black and Mark Selby beat John Higgins in the shocks of the first round. Ryan Day had a good chance of beating Ronnie O'Sullivan in the second round but miscued and lost 13-9. Rob and I went to see eight frames of Matthew Stevens and Ken Doherty which were ok but nothing spectacular yet this was the 2nd best 2nd round match. Doherty missed the black completely to end the session in humourous fashion. He went on to take the match 13-8.

Mark Williams lost 13-11 to O'Sullivan in the quarter finals which also saw defending champion Shaun Murphy get beaten by Peter Ebdon. Wood's mum's friend got some free tickets from Highland Spring Water where she works and we saw the final session of the Ebdon v Fu semi final. It started 15-9 to Ebdon but Fu played well to bring it level. Ebdon then led only to be pegged back again and then Ebdon took the final frame in a very tense and exciting session of snooker. Earlier that morning O'Sullivan lost all eight frames to Graeme Dott and eventually lost 17-11.

In his interview after the game Dott was asked what the public could expect from the final. His reply was something like, "Well we are both determined and gritty players so it will probably be very boring!" He was spot on. I got bored watching on TV so tuned in online while playing poker. This meant playing poker a lot but profit was made so that's all good. The final was the longest ever and included the longest ever frame at The Crucible. Dott went into the last session 15-7 up and despite an Ebdon comeback, won 18-14 in the latest ever finish at 12:53am. Therefore i'm tired now.

On the whole the championship was low in quality and while some players were bemoaning the drop in prize money, surely the quality shown this year was not worthy of the prize money of previous years. The number of century breaks was the lowest since the mid 90s, and the quality of the final must have been a real turn off for many part time fans. It's no wonder the sport struggles to find sponsors and at this rate I predict a bleak few years ahead. However with many young players on the verge of greatness it's only a matter of time before the glory days will be restored. The good things to come out of the championship are in my next post.