A visit to Londinium

I gave football a break for this weekend and headed to London for a few days away with my fiancée. I've been to London before when I was a kid and over the last year I've been there a handful of times on business. I've never really explored the place properly though or done the whole tourist trail so we decided to give it a go this time round.

First up was a bit of retail therapy around covent garden. There was a cool David & Goliath shop in the Market Hall that we liked and picked up a couple of tops and t-shirts. The slogan on the t-shirt I bought is on the left.

Friday night brought a trip to the West End for the mandatory West Musical in London. We went to see Fame the Musical and it was honestly really good. Sure, the couple of bottles of wine we had beforehand helped get us in street dancing mood but it was honestly a good show. Bit thin on plot but that helped the show hammer along at an enjoyable pace without having to worry about any of those annoying character development sub-plots. My fiancée is a big fan of the original gritty life-on-the-streets-in-leg-warmers-and-matching-headband-movie but she still really enjoyed the stage show despite its watered down content.

Saturday was more retail therapy on Regent Street, Oxford Street and Picadilly Circus. We really enjoyed just exploring the city ourselves and getting used to using the tube to nip about the place. Saturday was also to be the day we went to Madam Tussauds but we got a fright when we turned up and the queue went right up the street. Luckily there was a guy called Leroy walking the line with a handheld ticket dispenser. It cost a quid extra each (bringing the price up to £25 each) but it meant we could skip the line and go straight in. Really enjoyed the waxworks. I always been a bit skeptical when I've seen any news items in the paper or on the telly where some celeb has got themselves a waxwork coz I reckoned they looked a bit rubbish. After visiting the place though I've have to admit to changing my tune. It was really impressive (despite some of the other visitors being absolutely manic!!) and the new Chamber Live was really succeeding in scaring the crap out of people. There was snot and tears in abundance.

Sunday was rained out so we decided to take in a bit of culture and visit the Tate Modern. I'm not an art enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination but it was fun to potter about and talk about the pictures we like, cynically slag of the ones we thought were rubbish and snigger like schoolkids at the more suggestive ones. It was nice to get to see a few Picasso and Andy Warhol pictures up close and that famously simple Piet Mondrian was there too. The narratives they have on the wall beside the pictures are a really good little insight into what each painting is about.

So I got this far without mentioning the football and that is really a credit to how good a weekend we had because not only did Liverpool knock Manchester United out of the FA Cup but Celtic romped home to an 8-1 win over Dunfermline with......I needed to sit down when I heard this.......Neil Lennon getting on the scoresheet. The week ahead looks good for footie fixtures with Arsenal vs. Madrid, Chelsea vs. Barcelona, Benfica vs. Liverpool and Rangers vs. Villareal all coming up on Tuesday & Wednesday. It must be a killer for Man U fans to be out of the running for winning anything for a second season :)

Quorn: The other white meat

Thursday's sandwiches will mostly be made of quorn. Thank you.

As Healthy Eating 2006 (tm) continues, Quorn has been invited into our house. What is Quorn? Well I asked myself the same question when the strange yet familiar looking meat products greeted me in the fridge emblazoned with the Quorn logo. Well a bit of online research revealed Quorn is just the brand name for a load of meat substitutes based on a Mycroprotein ingredient. Mycroprotein is a low fat, low calorie fungus, next dor neighbour to the brother in law of the cousin of your commoner garden mushroom. I wonder if they are any relation to Magic Mushrooms?

Despite my reservations I gave a few of the products a try and they were actually pretty nice. The bolognese mince was a bit rubbish but the chicken burgers and the sausages were surprisingly tasty (I even cooked 'em on the George Foreman for extra healthyness).

So go on, try a Skewered Hot n Sweet Quorn Peppered Steak dish today. You never know you might like it OR at the very least you'll get off your face on Magic Mycroproteins.

Offside Rule for Chicks

In honour of valentines day just passed I thought I'd blog something that my fiancée told me(steady!) . We were chatting away like a good couple should and she reckoned she knew what the offside rule was. Not one to disbelieve her, I told her I'm sure she did but I think she took that as a challenge and said she'd give me her definition and I could tell her whether she was right or wrong. Her (brilliant!!) definition is below so you can judge for yourself.

Imagine I was in a shop and there's a girl at the till ahead of me. Now I really
want to get to the till because there is the most beautiful pair of shoes that I have to buy. The girl in front doesn't have a purse so she can't buy them but she's waiting for her friend to arrive. I don't have my purse either so I can't go in front of her as I'm in no better a position to buy the shoes. So I call to my friend who is back browsing in the shop and tell her to pass me my purse. Once she throws it to me I can then skip ahead of the girl in front as I am now well within my shopping rights to go ahead and by those shoes.

It helps to remember the following
shop = football pitch
till = goal+goalkeeper
girl at till= last defender
buy a pair of shoes = score a goal
purse = football
friend who throws purse = teammate passing
My Fiancée = Amazing

Apparently there was an email sent around explaining the offside rule for women using the analogy above. hmmmm... the women folk are learning our secrets!!

Overall a good weekend

Sometimes the weekend arrives and in all the anxiety to make full use of it nothing really happens. The weekend just passed was not one of those weekends. I think the secret is doing something on friday night. That way when Saturday rolls around you already feel fully immersed in the weekend.

This friday we had another poker night and I'd like to think everyone enjoyed themselves. We played single table tournaments where a £5 buy-in got you 2000 chips, blinds started at 25/50 and went up every 10 minutes. With only the 5 of us playing, the games were played out to a conclusion fairly rapidly and those knocked out early could relax and play a bit of XBOX while they were waiting.

I got myself nicely p1ssed which was great until I had to get up the next morning at 8 to catch a train to Kilmarnock for football. We lost 5-3 and to be honest I must have been still a bit drunk coz I only remember snatches of it. Still I set up 2 goals out of Sharkey's hat-trick so I was pleased with how I played. I'd also won 2 of the poker games on friday so I was up a nice bit of cash too.

Very please with the football results this weekend. Firstly Middlesborough trample all over Chelsea and then Liverpool win and pick up a few points on them too. Then Hearts lose to Aberdeen despite going ahead early in the game. Finally, the game we were all waiting for this weekend: The Bhoys beat Rangers in Ibrox. Zurawski took his only chance to win the game 1-0 and it was a solid if often subdued performance by the Celts. Roy Keane was immense and was definitly man of the match. I couldn't stop laughing after the game when the Setanta sports reporter was talking to Roy Keane and asked him if we was surprised to be picked for the starting line up.

Keane just looked at the guy like he was some kind of moron and answered 'No'.

A late night finger crossing session

I'm heading to the game on wednesday night so here's hoping its good 'un. With all his recent chopping and changing, I haven't a clue what team Strachan is going to pick so considering my guess is as good as anyone's here's what I think the lineup is gonna be

Boruc

Wilson Big Mick Varga Wallace

Naka Lennon Keano Stan

Hartson Zurawski

I know he's far less effective when he's on the wing but, Petrov hasn't been very effective anywhere on the pitch the last few games and as controversial as it is to play him out wide I don't think Gordo has the cohonas to drop him completely. Zurawski is definitely on form at the moment so I think he'll get the nod ahead of Maloney and Hartson will start as the big man up front with the sell-jerseys-in-Ireland's-capital-marketing-ploy that is Dion Dublin action as his understudy. Its probably too much too hope for that Keano and Lennon play in the middle of the park together but I think it could really help to solidify a leaky defence with Naka and Stan doing the running going forward. Didier Agathe will be selling hot dogs and grumbling to himself.

On a seperate note, McGeady looks like a twat modelling the latest range in the superstore, although to his credit he doesn't look very happy about it.

FOAM FINGERS IN THE AIR!!!

1 Litre of Banana Milkshake.

Check!

1 Can of Tennents Lager.

Check!

2 Tangerines.

Check!

1 Ham and Cheese sandwich on Multigrain Batch* bread.

Check!

Its Superbowl XL time and I'm ready for a bit of late night TV watching. I'm a big American Football fan and although I don't tend to watch it too often during I do like the superbowl. Yes, its massive amounts of over-the-top hype but its entertaining over-the-top-hype and thats the best kind. I watched Pittsburgh play a match at Croke Park in Dublin around 1997 so I think they'll be my pick for tonight.

*I like saying 'batch'. Its the way people from the North of Ireland say bitch and profanity in foreign accents is ALWAYS funny.

Bureaucracy and the Beast

As part of my new year get super fit plan I've revived my 11 a-side football career and played 3 games in just over a week. Subsequently I fell asleep at 10 O'Clock for the first time in about 2 years last night. Another part of my get fit plan was to join a gym so me and jonny decided to join the Strathclyde University gym. Its only a £120 for the year from february so that seemed like a good price for a fairly well equipped facility. Little did I know that the discounted price takes into account the horrenduous University red-tape that you have to endure before they let you join. It went something along these lines:

We popped into the gym reception with our 2 printed out forms, 4 passport photos and £120 in cold hard currency. The VERY friendly (note: that's sarcasm) eldery tracksuited woman behind the counter informed us that we can't give her money but instead must go pay the University's cash office our £120 and then return brandishing our receipts. Not the most convenient methods of payment but if thems the rules then we decided to play along.

After 10 minutes of aimless wandering around Strathclyde's campus (and if anyone know's the college this involves walking up and down 45 degree hills) we asked a traffic warden if he could help us. This guy, seriously, nearly had a nose bleed trying to dig the requested info from his brain. No, I'm not messing, he closed his eyes and scrunched up his face and everything and then eventually came up with some directions. I was a bit scared to be honest but in all credit to him, his directions were spot on.

Our troubles didn't end their though. Try as we might to give the woman in the cash office our £120 she just wasn't having it. "You need to a number" she kept repeating. What number? From who? Why? The "From who" was apparently the accounts office but the nature of this number was never revealed. We strolled up to the adjoining accounts office, explained our need for a mystical number and low and behold they woman behind the counter was quite happy with this request and headed off to fetch us one! Whether this number was spewn forth from a positronic ticker tape machine or sent from the devil and transcibed onto a goat we'll never know but the woman did appear ten minutes later with ..........A NUMBER!!!

Armed with the number of power we were now able to easily give the University a combined £250. Our reward for handing over such fabulous wealth? A pink receipt the size of car door! This receipt was the gateway to gym freedom so we quickly ran to present it to the tracksuited troll at the gym reception.

You might have thought that was the end of the story but the woman was unable to process our applications at that time so we were sent away empty handed. I say empty handed but I do have a large pink receipt that is now doubling as a coffee table and has become a real fixture in the living room.

Oh yeah.....Celtic won 2-1 tonight...CIS Cup Final here we come!! (after Saturday's 3-3 draw tonights game was far from a foregone conclusion)