When the going gets tough/yay English football!

the tough watch a video of a cat falling asleep. Nevermind dreamweaver8, exams, revision, not being motivated to do any of them, just imagine you own this cat. If only we all had one.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3573852431733156394&pl=true

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Kudos tonight to Middlesborough, who for the second time in 3 weeks, had to score 4 goals in a European match to win, and did. English teams to make a clean sweep of the footballing trophies?

Arsenal to win the Champions League? Hmmm. Unlikely since they're playing Barca, by far and away the best team in Europe this last year, though it's just the sort of arrogant thing the bastards would do:
Lehman: "Oh look we won the Champions League, how the hell did we do that?" Henry: "Nevermind, we're clearly amazing, but I'm off to Barca anyway".

'Boro to win the UEFA Cup? Well it's an easier task than Arsenal's. Sevilla are no mugs though, and are easily the best side Boro will have had to play since Roma. Can't see them pulling three unlikely wins off in a row.

England to win the World Cup? The 'best chance since 1966' brigade are so right. England have a world class squad through the whole team. On our day, we could beat Brazil, Argentina, Germany. On an off day, we could lose to Paraguay. If we avoid Germany in the first knock-out round, I think we could overcome anyone else at any stage until the final, and who knows then.

And post-world cup, a new foreign coach era! Luiz Felipe Scolari is all but appointed into the role of England Manager fron August 1st. It seems to have divided opinion however, but it's a clueless divide to me. Scolari is clearly qualified for an international job - he's been in the final of the most recent World Cups and European Championships - and compared to the English candidates (today I even heard bloody Steve Bruce as an option) he's a different class. Out of the three main English contenders, only one (Sam Allardyce) is managing a club in the top half of the English premier league. (If you include Pearce, that's 1/4). None of the English contenders have had overwhelming club success: Curbishley has enjoyed another below average season with Charlton for about the 8th season running, McLaren's Middlesborough have been slumming it in the lower mid table, and have reached a clup competition final for just the second time in 9 years, and this season, Bolton's wheels are drastically falling off at the crucial time. There isn't an English manager with the track record to say 'I can win England trophies'. So to Scolari, welcome.

Overall though, it's been a superb season for English football. Chelsea have won the league, Man U have won the (mickey mouse) Carling Cup, Liverpool or West Ham are going to win the FA Cup, and some new faces will be in Europe next year (from Tottenham, Blackburn, Bolton, Newcastle, West Ham). If both our teams could take the European cups to have 5 different English teams with trophies, I'd take that.

Too long...

Ridiculously, this is my first post for three weeks. Now, obviously, back at Uni, internet access is constant, I have finally got round to setting aside an hour or so to post a blog, as usual by running into the early hours of the morning with a 9am start to get up for.

The main reason I haven't blogged for a while is two words which, incidentally, have been the reason I haven't done a lot of things: "Bloody Marketing". Literally spent the last 2 weeks fof Easter holidays doing it during the day time, and was still finishing it a day before. As a result, professional writing suffered. Badly.

Anyway, blogging as citizen journalism, or a hobby, or a nerdy thing, whatever, has come up within Uni a couple of times, especially about the content and use of blogs. Are they democratic? Is everyone writing and no one reading? What should they be for?

The reason why I attempt not to fill my blog up with drivel is because I would feel hard done by if I made the effort to read someone's blog and was faced with such a sorry excuse for writing. It isn't personal content I'm against, it's irrelevant personal content. Posts like "he looked my way today. we had a moment. yes i cant believe it seth noticed me today at last!" that are just, I don't know, ngngngngngng. There's no other way to describe it. I suppose if I could summarise it into one sentence, it would be 'blogs shouldn't be a platform for glorifying idle chit chat". Anything I put in about myself, I at least try to make it relevant to the people who I think are reading this. Failing that, at least humorous. At least, if you're going to talk only about yourself, make it INTERESTING for other people, that's all I ask! If you write blogs for yourself, why make it public? Expecting people to care what you've got to say is self-indulgent enough without expecting them to care about your pointless 'dirty laundry'.

However, I do think that blogging is very important because the internet is going to be at the forefront or a central mode of technological communication for the forseeable future. Why wouldn't it be? The internet provides the link between people to absolutely anything and everything. So in my opinion, blogging, the local journalism of the internet public sphere, shouldn't be remarkable for its collective lack of interest to anyone outside of the author, nor for a complete lack of grammar and spelling. Ha ha ha!

Easter break...

It speaks volumes that in this Easter break so far, this is only the second time I've had time to update the blog. A nice three week break from University, after a demanding term has been almost as busy so far.

First week I spent writing and re-writing my CV and numerous covering letters, getting addresses and posting them off. Am now thinking that failing to gain 6 weeks work experience equals failing the course is a little harsh. And then this week, I've spent about 4 hours a day so far doing reading for Marketing. 4 hours....a day....reading. There's no way I'm even going to be able to start writing it this week! Partly because I'm going to Norwich this weekend for a wedding. I might just use a few of Vince Vaughan and Owen Wilson's tips though while I'm there....

Also, while I'm having a moan, I have no money, no paid work, and I want to go out approximately three times next week. People to see, people to...see.

But I got a new phone yesterday, a lovely Sony Ericsson W800i. It's so pretty! And does loads of things apparently, but the important thing is I got it free. Getting new stuff to play with is GREAT, no matter how old you are.