Mail Order Bride...

Today has been somewhat perfect. The weather is great- but not too hot. I have a car with a sunroof and a Michael Jackson tape that works. I had a curry… for lunch, and oh so much more.

I went to meet my friend Ben (http://benleaman.blogspot.com/) for a spot of lunchtime fun and goodness at the offices of the Crown Church, a few miles up the road, and something I’ve been waiting on for an age (or so it seems) turned up. We fought over who should open and claim it, but when Ben threatened to pull out the People’s Elbow, there was only going to be one winner…

Ben is clearly excited (and exhausted after fighting me off) about the parcel…

The tension mounts…

What now….??

That’s MY mail order wife!


She even does your work for you, and speaks to both sets of in-laws, AND she’s not even out of the box yet!

I can’t believe Ben beat me to her… it’s going to take a good few years to get one as good as this again…

Cats Alive...

This is just funny! I didn't know things this ugly existed!

Just Watch In Awe...

That's How I Feel...

I love international cricket- I can easily watch and follow a test series in all its glory, something that my wife cannot understand- although scarcely does the opportunity arise to do this since Skysports bought the viewing rights!

This last Test takes the biscuit though.

It was a 5 match series (called a Test match) against a West Indies side who hasn’t beaten us (England) for almost a decade. One match is 5 days long- each team bat’s and field’s twice- and thus the test is a total of 25 days long over a period of 2 months!

England suffered an embarrassing collapse in the first match and went 1-0 down. Since then- and this is the part that Liz and most American’s I’ve spoken to just can’t comprehend- every 5 day match has ended in a draw. You play for 5 whole days, and you draw a game! No winner. So England played for 25 days, and ended up losing 1-0.

The logic in that escapes me sometimes.

Give me 4 goals against Real Madrid in 90 minutes any day of the week.

The Worlds Best…

A week ago I asked Elizabeth if we could watch the Champions League matches this week for date night. I am so so glad that I did!!!

For those who are unaware, the Champions League is a soccer tournament which features the best teams from across Europe and culminates in a knock out tournament from the last/ best 16 teams onwards- usually the best teams from Spain, Italy and England dominating. Last season, the semi-finals featured 3 English teams and a Spanish.

In the build up to the match yesterday, I was so pumped it was crazy. The game was Liverpool v Real Madrid- the second leg of a 2 leg game, Liverpool won in Madrid 1-0 to give them the upper hand. I was explaining to Elizabeth how Madrid were the best team in the history of club soccer, having won this tournament 9 times (in comparison Man Utd have won it 3 times) and how they’ve won the Spanish League 31 times. I gave her full player analysis of all 22 men on the field at the start, as well as providing well timed statistics for individual when needs must.

The pre-instated excitement turned out not to be a lot of hyperbole. Liverpool shot out of the blocks, with my current favourite player, Fernando Torres, producing an exhilarating display- turning the once world’s best defender and player inside out on a number of occasions, and using his frightening pace to terrify defenders.

Liverpool ran out easy winners 4-0 with Torres scoring one against his old rivals (he used to play for another Madrid team who are bitter rivals with Real), Gerrard getting 2 goals and an unlikely hero in Dossena getting the 4th goal for Liverpool. 5-0 on aggregate- a real thumping of Real.

It was one of those nights which I will remember for a long time, not least because my wife was by my side the whole time, taking in all the action, when the understated Liverpool crushed “the greatest club in history”

Stiff Bored....

It’s one of those days in the office where I don’t really have anything to do just yet- and have nothing “outside of work” that needs doing. I’ve read up on all of the sports I could possibly do, while doing a task for a colleague that took about 3 minutes to complete, and everything else that I want to do just isn’t that subtle!

I don’t mind it that much, as Chris and Sarah are both stuck on £20 millionish jobs and are in meetings all the time, and Dan has so little to do himself that he doesn’t really want to give me anything that might mean he’s bored stiff later on. The problem comes in that on days like this, I get more drained than if I’m facing a totally jam packed day. I leave feeling totally drained as opposed to totally pumped if I were hard at work all day! More than that… it means I can’t go home and moan about being tired from doing nothing while my wife has been working hard all day. Conundrum!

Things I’m doing to past the time:
· A pretty lame blog
· Toilet breaks
· Reading up on how Spurs smashed ‘Boro 4-0 last night
· Looking on the Apple website for the genius bar
· Helping my Elizabeth with Word issues
· Trying to look busy by first typing this in an email on Outlook
· Drinking Ice Tea
· Looking forward to dinner
· Thinking about how much butt I will be kicking on Jumpers for Goalposts 2 in an hour

Man of man, my wife is going to have some fun hearing about my day over dinner!!

Obsessions Part 2- Jumpers…

Obsession 2, the one that I actively seek out, makes my lunchtimes fly by. It’s called jumpers for goalposts 2. It’s a game about soccer. It’s amazing.

The name springs from the fact that soccer can be played anywhere, as long as you have a football, 2 jumpers, or sweaters, can be laid down to make a goal and bob’s your uncle. You start off playing in your back garden and have to do a few shooting challenges, this then progresses to playing in a youth team and then being signed by a professional outfit. You score goals; you get girlfriends, buy houses and cars, and then gamble all of your wages to get that little bit further in life.

I spend my lunchtimes playing this with my cup-a-soup and rice cakes… and I’m getting pretty good. This last lunchtime I finished top of league 2…..




And then my team could not afford to keep me, so I was relegated back down to a team back in the same league…



All that hard labour for nothing (I hope the pictures aren’t too blurry).

At least lunchtimes will never be the same again!

Obsessions Part One- Sex on Fire…

Recently I’ve been obsessed with a few things, one of them I’m actively trying to escape, the other I’m in hot pursuit of.

2 Kings of Leon songs are just the bee’s knee’s right now- Use Somebody and Sex on Fire (risqué!)- and due to not having their album, I’m generally listening to them on youtube. Liz mentioned to me that it’s an obsession of mine, so I’m making the effort to avoid them. The problem occurs in that every morning on the way to work, during a lovely spring drive with my windows down, one of the 2 will come on and it will invariably be pumped up and shouted along to.

There’s no getting rid of them. But I don’t care. I love them.

P.S. If enough people complain about the title- I’ll change it. I love a bit of controversy!