The Sun Dream Team

How come I thought it would be a good idea to join several work colleagues in a mini-league in The Sun's Dream Team fantasy football game? My sole purpose seems to be to prop up the table. I even thought I had a reasonable team:

Goalkeeper
Hislop (Portsmouth, £3.0m)

Defence
Cygan (Arsenal, £2.5m)
G Johnson (Chelsea, £3.5m)
O'Brien (Newcastle, £3.0m)
O'Shea (Scum Utd, £4.5m)

Midfield
Makelele (Chelsea, £3.0m)
Vieira (Arsenal, £4.5m)
Milner (Newcastle, £3.0m)
Bentley (Norwich, £2.5m)

Strikers
Cisse (Liverpool, £6.0m)
A Smith (Scum Utd, £4.5m)

Points: 239
Position overall in league: 395333 (out of 473980).

Mini League:

1 beefys balls up (Colin) 389
2 greenus dickus (Richard) 352
3 shandy boys (Stephen) 351
4 Muckus Duckus (John) 342
5 dickus duet (Richard) 341
6 The Blue Army rides again (Tony) 328
7 Profs Wonderboys (Mike) 312
8 Palace No Hopers (Mike) 310
9 Still no trophy (Stewart) 306
10 Daves Duds (Dave) 290
11 What no trophy (Stewart) 289
12 no way no way (Colin) 253
13 Carrow Boys (Jonathan) 239

Not only am I being beaten, I am being thrashed. I'm even dragging the whole mini league down (average points 355, position 3762 out of 13216).

I'm not sure how the average works out, especially as only two sides in the mini league have got above average sides!

Ho hum, at least the Heineken Cup starts tonight - decent sport for once!

Multipurpose Shops

This rant is inspired by Anna's observation of pink fluffy pigs in Elvis suits being found in Boots the Chemist. Why are our major shops all turning into shopping centres, spreading their talents rather than concentrating on the service that they are good at. For example, Boots are good at being a chemist. They sell drugs, 'preparations', cameras and accessories, perfumes, cosmetics, etc. All of those items have a good link to chemistry and thus to chemists. Why do they feel the need to go into poor quality Christmas presents, music, holidays, insurance and all the other peripheral areas - the selection and service of these non-core areas is always poor.

Tesco is an even better example. They are a food store. I go to Tesco to buy food. To be fair, I would go to Sainsbury or Waitrose by choice, but Tesco is local and rather better that the Co-op or (the gone but not lamented in Didcot) Key Markets / Gateway / Somerfield. However, the store has a finite floor area which they give over to food, household goods and alcohol. In Didcot, this remains the case, whereas in Abingdon they have a slightly larger store which is full of televisions, clothes, microwaves, music, gardening supplies, and anything else before you get to the food. All it means that is that instead of offering a good service and selection of food, they reduce that choice and try and sell us other cheap rubbish while we are out shopping. If I want a television, I will go to a proper television store where I can talk to someone who has a modicum of intelligence and knows what they are talking about. Indeed, I would go across the road to the excellent Contact in Abingdon (but certainly not Comet or Dixons - I don't want to be served by a spotty oik).***

To put it simply, Tesco are branching out into too many areas, taking business away from the specialists, thus reducing choice and the ability to make informed decisions, while detracting from their core business. Eventually, they will sell absolutely everything and there will be no other shops left.

I'm beginning to think that the May Day protestors campaiging against the rise of the Corporation may just have a point.

I guess you can read all of the above for Marks and Spencers as well, but too much has been written on that sorry saga anyway.

*** that reminds me of the time I bought Sky from Dixons as it was on one of their never-ending deals to increase the subscriber numbers. I was all ready to pay when the oik asked if I wanted to take out the insurance. I said "no", and completely blew him away. He had no clue about how to deal with a customer who didn't give the right answers. After failing to persuade me that I needed to spend £80 insuring a £20 piece of equipment, he had to get his supervisor to tell him which was the "no" button on the till. I think I did ask him "which part of no do you not understand?" but he was far too traumatised by then. So now I avoid Dixons. I also avoid Halfords as I don't believe they know anything about bikes - much the same reason.

I would also never buy anything from PC World, even if they did sell any decent computers (I currently want either a 20" iBook or a brand new G5 iMac).

The Colours

(c) The Men They Couldn't Hang

I am a member of the council of the naval mutiny
And no traitor to my conscience having done my sworn duty
These are my last words before the scaffold and I charge you all to hear
How a wretched British sailor became a citizen mutineer
Pressed into service to carry powder I was loyal to the crack of the whip
If I starved on the streets of Bristol, I starved worse on a British ship
Red is the colour of the new republic
Blue is the colour of the sea
White is the colour of my innocence
Not surrender to your mercy
I was woken from my misery by the words of Thomas Payne
On my barren soil they fell like the sweetest drops of rain
Red is the colour of the new republic
Blue is the colour of the sea
While is the colour of my innocence
Not surrender to your mercy
So in the spring of the year we took the fleet
Every cask and cannon and compass sheet
And we flew a Jacobean flag to give us heart
While Pitt stood helpless we were waiting for Bonaparte
Red is the colour of the new republic
Blue is the colour of the sea
White is the colour of my innocence
Not surrender to your mercy
All you soldiers, all you sailors, all you labourers of the land
All you beggars, all you builders, all you come here to watch me hang
To the masters we are the rabble, we are the 'swinish multitude'
But we can re-arrange the colours of the red and the white and the blue
Red is the colour of the new republic
Blue is the colour of the sea
White is the colour of my innocence
Not surrender to your mercy
Red is the colour of the new republic
Blue is the colour of the sea
White is the colour of my innocence
Not surrender to your mercy

Turning Right

Why is, when you waiting to turn right off a main road across a queue of traffic, it is the last car in the queue who flashes to let you across? It works out as being of no benefit whatsoever to you as you would be able to cross the road after the last car anyway. But no, they insist you pull out in front of them, and then grimace at you if you hold them up for a microsecond more than they had bargained for.

I’m not having a good day.

Squash

The results of all squash matches played between myself and Dan

21-Oct-03 Dan won 4 - 1
28-Oct-03 Dan won 3 - 2
04-Nov-03 Jonathan won 2 - 4
11-Nov-03 Match drawn 3 - 3
18-Nov-03 Dan won 4 - 2
25-Nov-03 Jonathan won 2 - 3
02-Dec-03 Dan won 4 - 2
09-Dec-03 Dan won 4 - 3*
16-Dec-03 Jonathan won 1 - 6
23-Dec-03 Dan won 3 - 2 (Game 4: 0-9)
29-Dec-03 Jonathan won 2 - 3 (Game 3: 0-9)
06-Jan-04 Jonathan won 2 - 3
26-Jan-04 Match drawn 2 - 2
02-Feb-04 Dan won 3 - 2
09-Feb-04 Jonathan won 1 - 2
16-Feb-04 Dan won 4 - 2 (1-9;9-5;9-5;9-6;2-9;6-2)
21-Feb-04 Dan won 3 - 2 (10-8; 6-9; 9-5; 8-10; 9-7)
24-Feb-04 Match drawn 2 - 2
05-Mar-04 Dan won 3 - 2 (0-9; 8-10; 10-8; 9-4; 9-2)
08-Apr-04 Jonathan won 2 - 4 (11-13;2-9;3-9;8-10;9-3;10-8)
18-Apr-04 Dan won 3 - 2
25-Apr-04 Jonathan won 3 - 4*
02-May-04 Jonathan won 0 - 4 (9-7;10-8;9-5;9-3)
02-May-04 Jonathan won 2 - 3 (0-9;9-0;10-8;5-9;10-8)
09-May-04 Jonathan won 1 - 3
20-May-04 Dan won 3 - 1 (9-5; 9-7; 10-8; 3-9)
23-May-04 Jonathan won 2 - 4 (7-9;9-7;7-9;9-5;9-7;9-7)
03-Oct-04 Jonathan won 1 - 3 (8-10;12-10;5-9;4-6)

* won in tiebreak game after being tied at 3 – 3

Overall score: Jonathan 13 Dan 12 Drawn 3
Overall score in points: Dan 27.5 - 30
Overall score in games: Dan 69 - 76

Full spreadsheet and graphical representations available on request. Note that this is actually pretty poor considering the amount of alcohol that oozes out of Dan's pores whenever we play (and he still beats me...).

Developing Didcot

I've just posted this as a comment on Anna's blog but thought I'd repeat it here.

A lot of the roads in Didcot only got completed by the developers at the last moment when they were desparate for the contracts to build the next swathe of soulless boxes on the next expansion. The fact that completion of the roads, traffic calming measures (which still don't exist) and shops was in their original contracts was irrelevant. Interestingly, Oxfordshire County Council "lost" the original agreements.

Also, planning permission was almost granted for one of the largest grain silos in Europe to the north of Didcot. When residents in Ladygrove complained, the argument was that as Didcot was already "damaged" (OCC's words) by the Power Station and railway they could virtually build whatever they liked around Didcot.

The council have just started looking at the traffic calming on Mersey Way (the road that leads through the centre of Ladygrove. However, their "consultation" was to post a letter to residents of Cow Lane and the two streets that run directly off this, a total of about 30 houses. The measures will affect a few thousand households! There is no Ladygrove Resident's Association, but there are plenty of noticeboards, a newsletter and other means of communication.

The measures themselves do not really go far enough. For example, there are a series of humped crossings where footpaths cross roads. According to OCC, these represent right of way to the pedestrian, However, they are not Zebra crossings nor are they marked as such. The result is that neither car drivers nor pedestrians are clear over who has the right of way! All we would ask for is a little thought to go into these matters...

Petrovskiy Zamok

Petrovskiy Zamok are a Moscow football team, playing this season in the fourth level, North West Division in the Russian League. Their complete results for the season are as follows:

May 15 Baltika-2 7-0 Petrovskiy Zamok
May 22 Petrovskiy Zamok 0-12 Garant-Sport
May 29 SDYUSHOR Zenit 15-0 Petrovskiy Zamok
Jun 05 Petrovskiy Zamok 0-23 Lokomotiv SP
Jun 20 SevMash 8-0 Petrovskiy Zamok
Jun 26 Petrovskiy Zamok 0-26 Discovery *
Jul 03 Priozyorsk 11-0 Petrovskiy Zamok
Jul 11 Avangard SP 23-0 Petrovskiy Zamok
Jul 18 Petrovskiy Zamok 1-22 Luki SKIF
Jul 24 Petrovskiy Zamok 0-25 Baltika-2
Jul 31 Garant-Sport 25-0 Petrovskiy Zamok
Aug 15 Petrovskiy Zamok 0-29 SDYUSHOR Zenit
Aug 29 Petrovskiy Zamok 0-9 SevMash
Sep 04 Discovery 15-0 Petrovskiy Zamok
Sep 11 Petrovskiy Zamok 0-28 Priozyorsk
Sep 19 Petrovskiy Zamok 0-20 Avangard SP
Sep 08 Luki SKIF 15-0 Petrovskiy Zamok

* P.Zamok were able to field only 9 players against Discovery

Overall record for the season:
Played 18
Won 0
Drawn 0
Lost 18
Goals For 1
Goals Against 331
Position 10th (last)

I have no idea who their lone goalscorer was on Jul 18 against Luki, but it was probably an own goal...