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A new start...
Thanks for all your advice. I think I'll probably go for Wordpress. I signed up for Typepad's free trial and whilst there are a lot of features, it's probably not worth forking out every month for.
Watch this space anyway, a shiny new blog will appear soon!
Yet another Blog Hiatus...
...Which is almost entirely down to having devote more time to my job (heaven forbid!).
I'm thinking about changing platforms too as 20six seems to be getting worse every week. There's no point moaning about it though, as I knew they were going to make changes within a few weeks of starting this. It seems that as well as all the technical glitches, all the blogs have fallen off the face of the earth. It might be a bit vain, but I was really chuffed to see so many people finding the site through Google by typing in the names of the pubs or restaurants I'd reviewed - now it's almost invisible. Blogger would seem the obvious choice, but there are one or two other options which look interesting. Any ideas/recommendations?
I think I'll wait until we get our laptop at home though, so there'll at least be some hope of me updating it regularly and it'll be much easier to post photos. I'm quite ignorant about a few things though, and am a bit confused about the whole wi-fi internet thing. We haven't got a BT landline at home. If we get wireless internet, do we still need a landline put in?
I thought I'd ask the dumb question here in the hope of avoiding embarrassment at the shop later. Any advice/tips about the best way to get online at home?
Welcome back, Pat
The most exciting 0-0 draw of all time on Wednesday shone brightly in a wet and gloomy week. Unfortunately, the football gods meant I had to miss out on being at the game, as it was my Dad’s turn. He got to witness something very special the other night, one of Arsenal’s truly great performances in Europe. Some people have tried to take the credit away from us because we don't have any English players and Real aren't the force they once were, which smacks of sour grapes to me. Most fans care more about their club than their country and I'm sure that most Gooners wouldn't disagree with Wenger's statement that Arsenal '...represent a football club which is about values and not about passports'.
Actually winning the trophy still feels like a long way away as we've been given an extremely tough draw with Juventus and our old friend Patrick Vieira. I always felt we'd be seeing him again soon. Like Chelsea, Juve are dominating domestically, but only scraped through to the quarter finals thanks to a howler by Werder Bremen's unlucky keeper, Tim Wiese. It will be strange to see Vieira back at Highbury playing for the opposition, but I hope he gets a good reception. He was with us for nine years and for at least seven of those, he was absolutely magnificent. Some Gooners may find it hard to forgive the annual transfer soap operas with Real and the indifferent form and attitude he displayed in his last couple of seasons (including the unbeaten one). He should still be remembered as one of our greatest ever players, who along with Bergkamp and Henry was one of the main catalysts for our success in the last decade.
Anyway, it's back to the league this weekend, where we face Liverpool on Sunday. I'll be going for what may be my second or third from last visit to Highbury. I just hope it isn't an anti-climax after Wednesday's heroics. For the first time in years, I'll be praying for a Chelsea win tomorrow. If Spurs do manage to beat them for the first time in something like 17 years, they'll surely believe they can go on and cement the last European Place. Although if we do go onto win the Champions League we'll qualify at their expense anyway, as a maximum of four teams from each country are allowed to go through. Wouldn’t that be sweet?
Blog neglect and Impressions of Italy
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything and I’m beginning to feel guilty. I’ve managed a fairly steady output of 3 or 4 entries a week in the last few months and 8 days without a single line seems like an eternity. The main reasons for this neglect are:
a) I was in Italy for 4 days without going near a computer
b) Work has been ridiculously busy since I got back.
c) We still don't have a computer at home - something which should be remedied next month hopefully
Coming back to a soggy London on Tuesday was depressing and going to work even worse. I have escaped the basement today though and moved upstairs where I have the luxury of a window facing railway arches and scaffolding. It’s only a small room, to be shared with one of our temps, but it’ll be good to have some natural light, even if it’s in exchange for relative isolation.ffice
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Italy was good. It was more of a change of scenery than a holiday as the main reason we were there was to visit my girlfriend’s relatives. I was a bit nervous, but they soon made me feel part of the family and the Italian came out without too many gaffes. The worst one was offering to make lunch and saying that I needed ‘butchered’ instead of minced meat to make burgers. Not really in the same league as the time when, as an awkward teenager on an exchange, I asked some girls if they had any ‘carta igenica’ (toilet roll), when I meant ‘fazzoletto’ (tissue).
Milan is not a typical Italian city and probably has more in common with Munich than Rome. As an industrial and financial powerhouse, it has little of the romance or chaos associated with the rest of the country. Business parks and dreary suburbs surround the city centre, which, aside from the magnificent Duomo, is elegant without being beautiful. The trains run on time and you don’t take your life into your hands crossing the road. Somehow, it seems too efficient to be Italian.
The election campaign is in full swing at the moment and posters with Berlusconi's airbrushed face appear on every other billboard. Not content with owning half the country he has to govern it too. Even worse are the partners in his coalition. The Alleanza Nazionale, is an extreme right wing party with an aggressive anti-immigration policy. Their leader, Gianfranco Fini is the country’s foreign hating Foreign Minister and Deputy PM. Also sharing power, is the Lega Nord party led by the irascible Umberto Bossi. They blame Italy’s impoverished South for all the country’s woes and would like to form a new country called Padania. How can they claim to represent the electorate’s interests when they plainly despise half of it? There’s so much to love about Italy, but also so much to despair about.
Nearly there...
As usual, the week before going on leave has meant rushing around trying to clear a ridiculous amount of work. It always seems to be like this - it feels like every little job becomes hugely important and if it doesn't get done the whole place is going to fall down. It won't of course, but it's hard to go away unless all the loose ends are tied up or the stuff you come back to will be even worse. One of the things I've spent most of my time on was organising a programme of training for doctors across the region. Having made dozens of phonecalls, negotiated several dates and calculated all the costs, I find out today that the whole project has been pulled due to 'financial pressures'...Now I've just had to tell everyone that it's been cancelled - what a monumental waste of time. That's the NHS for you. Anyway, I can go on holiday with a clear conscience, even if all the work was in vain. We're off to Milan tomorrow for a few days, which I'm really looking forward to. As well as seeing my girlfriend's family, we're also hoping to watch Milan at the San Siro on Saturday night and sample some Milanese night life. It's been three years since my last visit to Italy, which is too long. When I first started writing this blog a few months ago, it was one of the things I agonised about. It used to be a big part of my life, but I've lost touch with it in recent years. It might seem strange at first, and there'll probably be the odd hesitation when I start speaking the language , but after a while I'm sure it will start to flow again. I hope so anyway, or I might look very silly in front of the in-laws. Have a good weekend everyone.
Nutrition and Nightmares
Food and nutrition were the dominant themes running through the TV schedules last night. Sandwiched in between Masterchef and Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was the last episode of You are what you eat presented by the odious 'Dr' Gillian McKeith. Bearing more than a passing resemblance to Sloth from the Goonies with a blonde wig, she claims to be an authority on clinical nutrition. In fact, McKeith obtained her PhD from a non accredited American university and has never published any proper scientifically evaluated research. Her methods have been rubbished by the scientific community, where many see her as a dangerous quack.
For those of you not familiar with the programme, every episode sees McKeith work with a morbidly obese person, forcing them to live a healthier lifestyle by improving their diet and by doing more exercise. Honourable enough you might think, but after a few minutes of watching her in action you begin to realise that her most effective weapon is humiliation. She does everything short of calling her subjects 'fat pigs' and usually begins by screwing up her pinched face and screaming 'You should be ashamed of yourself' before launching into a tirade of faux-scientic gibberish. She also has a particularly nasty way of stripping away dignity - by prodding around the contents of her subject's bowels. Last night saw McKeith take her fetish for human excrement to a new level, by examining a whole family's output and presenting the findings in a jolly gameshow format. It was a veritable poo extravaganza. Funnily enough, she never gives any examples of her own, no doubt perfectly formed little packages. The victims usually lose lots of weight and cut out the junk food, but you wonder if this has more to do with being utterly degraded than good nutritional advice.
Thankfully, Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was much easier to digest. Last night, Gordon went to the Sandgate Hotel in Kent to help revive yet another ailing restaurant's fortunes. Among the Sandgate's many failures were over elaborate food, too many managers, an unnecessary Japanese restaurant and staff propping up the bar and business by spending £2000 a month on booze. In many ways, this was a fairly standard episode - Gordon does an appraisal of the food and service; tells the owners and staff a few home truths and completely turns it around the by simplifying the menu, cutting out a few shoddy practices and encouraging everyone to work as a team. Ramsay's great talent is making everything look so simple, with both his cooking and his business acumen. The swearing and the sarcasm grate from time to time, but on the whole he is inspiring and much more watchable than his fellow celebrity chefs. We could have done with him in our kitchen last night as we endured a few nightmares of our own. Despite producing a number of adventurous meals in the last six months, we completely failed to come up with a decent pancake.