Propaganda Press

For the first time in a while I've not received a copy of the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle.  Their campaign against the council tax funded H&F News seems to have died down recently but there could be good news ahead.

The government are looking to tighten the rules on council publications.  Hopefully 'by the end of the summer' we'll have some positive news.

In the meantime fingers crossed for the delivery of a Chronicle next week.  I've got a big soft spot for the Chronicle series.  The Hounslow Borough (or Middlesex if you prefer) edition kept me up to date (give or take a few days for delivery!) with Bees news at Uni before the Internet was awash with official and unofficial websites.

Drip, Drip, Drip

Did anyone else in W12 have no water yesterday?  Got home from work at around 18:00 looking forward to a shower before going to spanish but the taps weren't playing ball.

On BBC London last night they said the powercut in the TW Postcode Area (although the rest of the family live in TW7 and they still had electricity) had an impact on the Hampton treatment water works.

Still, when I got home from from spanish, and after a bit of pipe rattling and water spluttering, normal service was resumed.

Sarah was none the wiser.  She rolled in at 23:15 and passed out on the bed!  Hiccc, hiccc, hicccccup!

I Love Bush

I've just stumbled across this YouTube video, nice :)

Elephant Stone

As expected Sarah’s day at the races turned out to be a boozy affair so she was in no fit state to join me for the Parkrun. I decided to take my camera with me because during the week I’d talked myself into going elephant spotting after the run.

Having just missed out on a PB last week by 10 seconds (is 10 seconds just missing out?!?) I made an effort to try and beat it this week. The start was a bit of a disaster. Plenty of us we still strolling across the grass to the start when suddenly everyone else was pegging from the line!

I don’t wear a watch so the only way I can tell if I’ve done a decent run is how I feel at the end. I felt pretty much similar to last week in that I was pretty knackered so I thought I’d done OK in my quest for a PB.

I don’t wait around so once I’d had my barcode scanned I headed off to unlock my bike for the ride to work so that I could print out a map showing where to find the elephants.

When the weather in nice the ride to and from Richmond Park is a really nice one. OK it’s mostly on busy west London roads but there are some decent views along the way. One of these is from Chiswick Bridge so I decided to stop there and take a couple of photos. OK, OK, I really wanted a photo of the Griffin Park floodlights!

As I was slowing down I noticed that tell tale hissing sound from my back tyre. Yep, a puncture! I don’t carry a pump and repair kit because the cycle to and from work is only ten minutes each way so if I get a puncture I just walk it home.

So there I am, hot, sweaty and well annoyed with the prospect of a 45-minute walk back to W12. All I could think was that even in the close season being a Brentford fan causes misery! I was too pissed off to even bother to take any photos.

I made it home at about half ten and repaired the puncture. As it turned out it was the day for punctures because the new couple in Flat C were outside mending theirs as well.  Sarah was still wallowing in bed so I had some cereal, a shower and then got ready to head out on the bike to find those elephants.

After a quick pit-stop at work to get the map I was on my way. First stop was Kensington Gore and from there I went down to the Natural History and V&A museums.

Then on to (bear with me here!) Sloane Square, Kings Road, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Orange Square, Fulham Road, Harrods, Knightsbridge Green, Hyde Park Corner, a couple of sites in Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Old Quebec Street, Park Lane, The Dorchester, The Hilton Park Lane, High Street Kensington, Notting Hill Gate and finally Holland Park.

I was a bit apprehensive taking the first few photos but I soon got past that and had a really enjoyable afternoon cycling around west London. I hadn’t taken much notice of the parade until last week but I met loads of people making their way round London trying to collect the full set. A bit like Panini stickers I suppose. I need to pop into Westfield and bag another four. Be a bit silly not to seeing as it’s only a three minute walk away!

The parade is only on for another couple of weeks so it’ll be good going for to get even half the collection. Still, they are all in one place the weekend of 26th June so that’ll make it a bit easier :)

I’ve uploaded all the photos to Flickr and as it turns out so have a hell of a lot of other people!

A few beers in Chiswick with Chris in the evening capped a pretty decent day.  On Monday I checked my time and WOO HOO I'd managed a PB.  This time it was a case of 'only just'...one glorious second...turns out my 13th run wasn't an unlucky one :)

Dispersal of Fortune!

There's a new dispersal zone in the Bush and lucky old Lime Grove gets to be included!

Groups of two of more people can be removed from the zone with an esclation in the punishmetns should they fail to do so. Full story here.

It's good to see LBHF taking some action and I wonder what affect this will have on the groups of wasted men and women I regularly see roaming the streets of W12.

The Limegrove Hostel is pretty much opposite the flat and Lime Grove residents see a marked increase in activity around there during the summer months.  This dispersal zone will hopefully reduce the disruption.

There is a Lime Grove Neighbourhood Watch meeting next Wednesday at the College.  I'm sure this will be a hot topic of conversation.

16th June Neighbourhood Watch Meeting

The agenda is:

- Burglaries
- Fly-tipping
- Anti social behaviour
- Limegrive Hostel update
- A.O.B

Video! Video! VIDEO!

Across the pond there is a big debate raging about the use of video replay in sport.

On Wednesday the Detroit Tigers were playing the Cleveland Indians and a controversial call by first base umpire Jim Joyce cost the Detroit pitcher, Armando Galarraga, the pitcher Holy Grail, a perfect game.

Put simply, a perfect game is one where during the course of nine innings (or more if it goes into extra innings!) no opposition player makes it to first base.  Three outs make an innings so in a nine inning game twenty seven batsmen are retired without making it to base.

Does that make sense, maybe, maybe not!  A detailed explanation here.

Only twenty perfect games have been thrown in Major League history so it's a big deal when it happens. Strangely there have been two perfect games so far in the 2010 season, which has prompted quite a lot of debate about why, when in the past they have been so rare, perfect games are occurring more frequently.

Some commentators are saying that with the steroid scandals and subsequent drug controls, pitchers are now facing batters who aren't, for want of a better phrase, drugged up to the eyeballs.

Others are saying that it is still a random event as opposed to evidence of a changing game.  Whatever the reason, it certainly makes for interesting viewing on ESPN :)

Anyway, back to video evidence.  If baseball used it Armando Galarraga would be the third pitcher in 2010 to achieve a perfect game.  They don’t so he has to make do with a little red Corvette!

In the NHL video evidence is regularly used to review tight goal/no goal calls.  Funnily enough in game three of the Stanley Cup finals, also on Wednesday, goal-line technology was used twice and not so strangely the correct decision was made both times, one good goal given and one no goal not!

There is also a lot of debate about the use of goal-line technology in football and with the start of the World Cup only a week away (WOO HOO!!) the events in America again bring into focus how important it is for sport to embrace the ability to make non-questionable, clear-cut decisions.

There are plenty of recent examples in English football where goal-line technology would have made a difference in games, good goal not given, no goal given.  But the door has been closed by FIFA.

I just hope that FIFA don't rue their decision to categorically rule out its use.  Hopefully there won't be an incident like this…



…even if it does work in England's favour.

There has been quite an end to Wednesday’s events in Detroit.  At the time Jim Joyce was the man who made the worst call in baseball history but on Thursday the often-overlooked sportsmanship of fans and players meant that Jim has quite a moving afternoon at Tiger Field.

He'd already apologised for the blown call and it has been reported that there were quite emotional scenes during the pre-game formalities with Jim and Armando Galarraga shaking hands during the line-up handover.

Humans make mistakes and they often add to the allure of sport. Jim Joyce made a really bad call but has stood up, taken the criticism and apologised for his mistakes.  If referees in England did the same us fans would have a lot more respect for them.

Stuart Attwell take note!

Middle Middle Middle Sex Sex Sex

It's a glorious evening in west London and I'm geeking it up listening to Middlesex take on Sussex at Lords on the BBC London commentary.  It's not looking great at the moment for the Panthers they are 88 for 5 after 15 of their 20 over.

I came home from work expecting to go out for a few beers with Sarah but she's in the kitchen preparing cakes for her team day out at Epsom.  It's the Derby on Saturday so there will be a big crowd tomorrow for the first day of the meeting.  It's also Ladies Day with will make for great viewing with the forecast predicting 26° ;)

Cricket update - Hmmm, 54 runs from 24 balls needed now!

I was looking at a random blog earlier which linked to this blog template site.  I like the simple black theme I picked when I set the blog up but I do sometimes think that it's a bit boring.  There are a few styles I've seen that would look OK I think.  Perhaps I'll experiment with a couple over the next few weeks...

Prolet
Black Grass
Panorama

Maybe I could even create my own.  What I do know is that I'm most likely to stick with what I've got at the moment!

Fruitless Cricket update - 35 from 6 balls to win, lol.  Still, 15 Twenty20 games still to play in the South Group.  Eight wins should see the Panthers through to the quarter finals.

The domestic football season is over at it's countdown to the World Cup now. I've added a countdown widget to the blog, just for fun!

The three teams I wanted to go up via the play-offs duly obliged.  I should have put a bet on! Blackpool will be gracing the Premiership, Millwall the Championship and Dagenham and Redbridge join the Bees in League One. Meanwhile Oxford are back in the Football League having won the Blue Square play-off.

As a Bees fan it gives me hope that we can emulate Blackpool's success (although I'm totally sure I ever want to see GP full of the prawn sarnie brigade) but I'm a bit gutted that four seasons ago we were in the same division and did the double over them!  Still, they had the last laugh that season as we went down and they won the second of their three play-off victories on the way to the top division.

The worst thing about the World Cup is that almost every advert on the TV is jumping on the bandwagon.  There are footballers and footballs everywhere. Surly top of most peoples hit list has to be this little ditty:



AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

The England team arrived in Rustenburg today at what looks like a pretty sweet resort. Hopefully there won't be the WAG circus like in Baden-Baden four years ago.  England have a decent chance and a bit of luck along the way could see us make it past the quarter finals for the first time since Italia '90.  I just can't see past Spain as winners.

I'm off on a lads weekend next Friday.  Six of us are off to Marbella, the retirement home of the aging British gangster.  Hopefully the place will be buzzing next Saturday when England take on the Yanks.  Surely this can't happen again, can it?!?!

Oooh I'm getting excited.  The World Cup with a lads holiday thrown in for the first weekend :)  If anyone is looking for a good World Cup schedlue here is a great Excel version.