Friday 30 November 2007

This made me chuckle




This made me laugh as it shows the up and down fate of Luton and shows the highs in League 1 to the lows in League 4.

Saturday 24 November 2007

An update

Well the last few days have been busy and so it is time for an update.

Last weekend I spent looking after Scott and Lisa's cats as they were at a wedding which was cool. They are rescue cats and wary of new people especially men but sat just outside of arms reach and watched me. Then they lost interest and started playing with a toy and they were pouncing on each other. Lisa was trying to talk me into getting a cat and I agreed I would get one but it would live at her house, be looked after by her etc. Scott on the other hand was less impressed by the idea however. Also at last the dreadful Kate Garroway got voted of Strictly Come Dancing. Think of all the excellent performances you never saw as she kept mucking up instead.

Tuesday was a parents evening for Yr7 and Yr10 students in my form and was also a colossal waste of time. I had a number of appointments around 3.30 and then one at 5.30 so I was hanging around for about two hours so I could say nice things to a parent who I am in phone contact with every other week. They also travelled 15 miles for a 5 minute appointment which goes against the Ecoschool initiative that the school is running. The big gap did give me an opportunity to put together an application for a job teaching in the US. The British Schools of America have schools in Boston, Washington, Chicago, Houston and Charlotte, The letter was a masterpiece of jargonism and teacher speak and I have to thank Lisa and Richard for their proof reading and suggestions. I think it should get me an interview but as they are small schools they may not need a geographer.

Wednesday was the football and the poor result that eliminates England from the European Championship before they even get to the final section. This seems to happen every 15 years or so and caused a great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Everyone looks for something to blame and the role of foreign players in the Premier League seems to be the favourite excuse currently but I think if the English players are good enough they will be in the top teams. There are also plenty of good young players coming through. I think the issue is more the number of games that are played and the subsequent number of injuries. The team was missing all of its first choice defenders (Neville, Terry, Ferdinand and Cole) as well as the best two attackers (Rooney and Owen). There are also a number of back up players not available. So I think that there needs to be a reduction in the number of teams in the league to help. The only country in Europe that has the same sized league is Spain and they perpetually underachieve as well. The league won't suffer in quality much as the bottom two teams are usually rubbish. Less league teams means less gate money so the team owners will never go for it but we can but hope. The only good thing is they may bring back the Home Nations Championship where England, Wales, Scotland, Northen Ireland and the Republic of Ireland all play each other. Some of the Croatian players said they were put at ease by the singer of the National Anthem who sang 'Mila kura si planina' rather than 'Mila kuda si planina' and as I think you know this is 'My dear, my penis is a mountain'and not 'You know my dear how we love your mountains'.

At the same time Luton became thew worst run team in the league. The previous chairman and board made illegal payments to agents attracting players to Luton except they got relegated so the players they attracted weren't of a sufficiently good standard. Financial impropriety can lead to relegation which Luton may escape as they have already gone down. They risked the future of the club for a total of £160 000, about two weeks wages for a top player in the Premier League. With the chairman standing down the club had no financial backing and went into receivership. This costs us 10 points and puts us bottom of the league. At least the squad are strong enough to get us out of the relegation zone (starting with a win today). Lets hope adversity pulls the team together and not split it apart.

Then on Friday I caused myself an issue thanks to doing the right thing again. A student brought in a copy of Jordan's autobiography (well we are encouraging reading; next we will try and improve the quality of what they are reading) complete with pictures of her nude modelling days. I confiscated the book and she gets into a right strop and was disruptive and irritating. No doubt I will have her parents on the phone unable to see the bigger picture, defending their child to the hilt despite the fact she was in the wrong. I explained to her it was not suitable for a school environment and I would post it home but somehow this is not acceptable and this puts me in the wrong.

Also on Friday the student from UEA was observed by the UEA tutor. She did herself proud and it was a good lesson but she was nervous and went through all of her activities really quickly and got to the end of the plan with about 15 minutes to go. Credit to her she was able to keep it going but I imagine those were the longest 15 minutes of her life as she is running the class with one half of her brain whilst thinking up new activities with the other half.

Last night was the Humanities curry which was very tasty followed by some bar billiards. Tomorrow, korfball to look forward to.

Wednesday 14 November 2007

Guns

I am strongly in favour of gun control and despite the constitutional issues find it funny that US have not enacted stronger restrictions after the number of school shootings they have. One issue is that accidents can always occur and this link kind of proves my case.

Sunday 11 November 2007

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I hate losing korfball matches especially when we never really have a chance of winning so I wrote to the organising committee to try and get the issues sorted out

Dear Sir/Madam

The second division of the current league is rapidly descending into farce. Norwich City have played 5 league games and I believe that players form higher team have played down in four of these matches. In the first match a player currently playing at Highbury in the National League was playing in the Second Division and in the most recent game against Stingers 2 the two first team players contributed 8 goals of the 10 scored. It feels that the rule is being broken deliberately and I rarely see anyone playing up from their third team

I realise this is not against the rules but certainly against the spirit of the rules and especailly when the players that are playing down are the best in the club as occurred when Dan played for Stingers 2. The current situation is very disheartening for new players and is reducing my enjoyment of playing and having played for 10 years I am know seriously considering whether to continue.

I propose the following rules for inclusion next season

Players can only play down if there are less than 6 players (the minimum need for a legal match)

or

2 players can play down but cannot score

or

the number of players playing down is reduced to 1

or

written evidence of why players cannot play is submitted and a real injury has to occur before subs are allowed on.

I hope that issue is raised at your next meeting and the current farce is ended.

Hope to hear from you soon

Guy Mortimer Norwich City 3

Sunday 4 November 2007

Congratulations

Congratulations to Kat and Andy on their engagement that they announced this morning.

Bonfire Night

On Saturday was the third annual allotment Bonfire Night where we went to Aaron and Clare's allotment has a fire, some fire works and a few beers. This year someone else had had the same idea and there was another party at the other end. They decided to put all of the wood they had collected on to the fire straight away rather than feed it on through time so they had a large and rather spectacular blaze. So much so that it attracted the local fire brigade who had been called out by someone and they came to check. They checked on us at the same time but ours was under control. Overall an excellent night but next year with Aaron and Clare on their world tour its future is in doubt.

Thursday 1 November 2007

Garden

So I had this dude come and fix the fence as the posts were rotten and getting them out of the concrete they were in needed specialist equipment and also concrete the lawn as it was so wet and shady it never grew. The result of the fence is excellent but he went a bit far with the concrete and took out one of the flower planters I made! In there was a budlea that was a present from Kat's mum and clematis so I am going to need to get some large pots to make up for the big bare space and next time be more specific on work that I need doing. I will post a picture when I get home in the light.