Buckle Up for the Finish of La Grande Boucle

Ever since it's 1986 debut on Channel 4 I've been obsessed with the Tour de France.

Robert Millar, Shaun Kelly and Stephen Roche were taking the fight to the European cycling elite while Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen provided the commentary and insight into 190 riders on a  3,000km journey around France.

The original opening theme to the C4 highlights programme is a classic and instantly takes me back to July evenings lying on the sofa watching the best cyclists in the world battle each other across vast and varied French landscapes.























My favourite stages are those that take the peloton over the Alps and Pyrenees.  Tough mountain stages often prove cruicial and basically it's simple, if you can't climb, you can't win the Tour!

Today is the second rest day of the 2010 edition.  Alberto Contador is 8 seconds ahead of Andy Schleck with tomorrow likely to be the defining day of this years race.

As usual we've been treated to a compelling three weeks and thankfully nobody has been thrown out for doping...yet!  There was controversy on Monday when Schleck, who at that time was wearing the yellow jersey, sufferered a 'mechanical' on the final climb of the day.  Contador took advantage of this to ride away and turn a 31 second deficit into the eight second advantage he currently holds.

Like in football when an opposition player is injured you kick the ball out, in cycling there is an etiquette that says you don't attack the yellow jersey if they have a problem.  Opinion is split as to whether 'Bert did anything wrong but he's apologised to Schleck and has even posted this video on YouTube:



For what it's worth I can't see anything wrong with what happend on the Port de Bales.  The Tour is a race and there are plenty of instances of riders taking advantage of a rivals misfortune.  In fact earlier in the race, on Stage 3, Schleck gained time on Contador when his brother, Fränk, crashed and held up the Peloton.

Whatever people's opinion of what happened on Monday, one thing is agreed, Stage 17 is going to be one hell of a Pyrenean battle to the 2,115 metre mountain-top finish of the Col du Tourmalet.

Birthdays, Beers and Brentford Beaten...

...actually, make that thrashed!

A 5-0 defeat is never good and it's even worse when it comes against (at one point at least) one of our major rivals.

Last night was the first friendly of the season and Fulham came down to GP.  To be honest the result, although dissapointing, didn't really matter.  Having been postponed last pre-season, the match was Kevin O'Connor's testimonial and a celebration of his 11 years as a Bee.

A very decent crowd of 4,136 came down to GP and gave Kev a night, erm, to remember!  I met Gabs inside the ground and we took up our usual sport on the Ealing Road terrace.  There were plenty of familiar faces in the crowd and

It was my first friendly for a fair few seasons and I won't be going to another one in a hurry.  The main reason for going was to show support for one of my favourite ever Brentford players, and after 11 'interesting' years in the red and white stripes I thought my £12 contribution to his testimonial fund was money well spent.

As frequently happens, Gabs and I spent most of the 70 minutes (yes we left early, when the fifth went in!) we were in the ground catching up.  One of the worst things about growing up, actually I've not down that yet, lets say growing older and having responsibilities, is that you don't get to see your mates as much.  Brentford games are the main occasions we Bees supporting buddies get to chew the fat.  I'm looking forward to seeing Londra at GP when the season kicks-off.  He's just had his first kid, a boy, no name yet.  CONGRATULATIONS PAUL AND LYNDA :)

Fingers crossed the Bees' pre-season will get better.  Next up are Tonbridge Angels away on Saturday and then Wycombe (and their gaggle of ex-Bees) at GP next Tuesday.  I'll be at GP on 14th August for our first home League game of the 2010/11 season.  I'm on holiday for the first game, Carlisle away.  OK, OK, I wasn't going to schlep up to Brunton Park anyway!  We won 3-1 up there on the first day of last season, here's hoping for more of the same.

Away from football, although I do need to blog about the World Cup and my bloody post about video technology at some point, Sarah turned 27 on Tuesday.

Over the weekend I baked her traditional birthday cake.  Nothing too flash, a Victoria Sponge, but I think I've got it nailed on now :)  I have to give some credit to mum, Ruth, Mrs Malcolm because I used her homemade raspberry jam in the filling which as expected lived up to her Delia Smith-esque cookery reputation, amongst us Malcolms anyway!

Being creatures of habit we went for a meal at Maggie Jones's.  I first went there with work many years ago and it's one of my favourite restaurants in London.  The food is amazing and the house red comes in a magnum and you pay for what you drink which is usually the whole bottle for us two greedy gits.  We go there most birthdays so we'll most likely be back there in September :)

Last Thursday work put on the annual 'Profits Party', in fact I was nicely oiled this time last week!  It's basically a celebration of the previous financial year which with the parent company being American, ends on 30th June.

For the previous couple of years we've had the party in the atrium at work.  Redundancies, and the general downturn didn't warrant a big celebration but with things picking up in CACI-world this year the venue was Aqua Nueva.

Inside it's a typical, large West End bar with a few different rooms but what sets this place apart, especially for a geeky west Londoner, is the roof terrace.  It's always exciting for me, probably a bit too much so, when I get to see London from a new viewpoint and I was more than happy to geek it up with my camera...before too many colleagues arrived anyway ;)

The party was winding down by 01:00 so I took myself off home.  I walked it back which took about an hour.  The journey was uneventful for the most part but I did walk past a couple going at it over one of the street cabinets just after Queensway tube station.  They must have heard my footsteps because by the time I reached them the bloke was hurriedly pulling up his jeans and the knickers of his lucky lady friend. 

Just another ordinary night in London!

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.

As Rakim and DJ Premier Once Said, It's Been A Long Time!

Well it’s been a while, so long in fact that we’ve had a change of government and the domestic football season is in it’s final throes.

Looking out of the window here is looks as though summer may finally be on its way arriving.  At home the woolly sheep has been taken off the bed, washed and put away until…next week probably!

So, apart from the election, I’ll only get depressed if I talk about that, what been happening since the last update?

The Bees’ season ended on 8th May with draw number 20.  This time Hartlepool came to TW8 and took home the point that kept them up and sent Gillingham down.  What rotten luck for the Gills!  Did I mention they went down on goal difference, no, well they did.

There is still plenty of football being played however.  The Football League Play-Offs are in full swing and are providing their usual end of season excitement.

In the Championship Cardiff City and Blackpool have made it to Wembley while last night Millwall comfortably beat Huddersfield Town 2-0 in the their second leg and will face Swindon Town who beat Charlton Athletic 5-4, <> on penalties on Monday.

The League Two finalists will be decided tonight and tomorrow.  Rotherham United take a 1-0 lead into their second leg at home to Aldershot Town while tomorrow Dagenham and Redbridge play Morecambe having smashed them 6-0 in the first leg.  Sadly the antics of union boss Bob Crow made more headlines.  Shame we can’t send him cockle picking tomorrow night!

Away from football Sarah and I went to Ireland for a long weekend on 22nd April.  We got really lucky because that Thursday was the first day of resumed UK flights, great timing :)

It was my first trip to Ireland since 1989 and considering I have a fair amount of family there it’s pretty shameful that I’d not been over before.  Sarah hadn’t been over for around 15 years so we were both well overdue.

We had hired a car at Dublin Airport and buzzed up to County Louth via the relatively new M1 motorway.  We stayed in a dodgy B&B and spent most of the time with her family in and around Castlebellingham and Blackrock.

Sarah’s grandma was born in Castlebellingham so there was a lot of catching up with cousins and extended family.  We did a bit of touring around in the car but I’m not one for enjoying a drive just for the sake of it so we never ventured too far!

We headed back to Dublin on the Saturday evening, handed back the car and took the bus into the city centre.  The hotel was right on O’Connell Street, handy (to say the least) for getting around the city.

After dumping our bags we went out for a couple of pints, here and here and then went to find the place Sarah had in mind for dinner.  After a stroll around which took us past Trinity College and up to St. Stephen’s Green we got to the restaurant only to find they had stopped serving.  Sarah wasn’t too pleased but a little further down the road we came across the Marco Pierre White Steakhouse & Grill, which, of course was very much to her liking!  I have to say, it was a cracking dinner.

 
On Sunday we both had a superb Irish breakfast (with a brownie and vanilla ice cream for afters!) at Gruel and did the tourist thing   After having our end of tour pint of Guinness we met up with my cousin Bríd and her youngest Edward.  They live in Blanchardstown and took us to a lovely restaurant for a bite to eat.  Edward recommended the steak, music to our ears.  It came served on a hot slab of slate so you can cook the meat to your preference.  DE-LIC-IOUS.

On the way back to the hotel Ed drove us past the pub where notorious Dublin gangster Eamon Dunne had been shot two nights before.  Even the Lonely Planet couldn’t detail this new stop on the tourist trail!

It would have been rude not to go out for a couple of evening pints so we duly obliged.  As it turned out our couple of days/nights in Dublin coincided with the NFL and NHL finals (no not more US sports!) meaning that there were a lot of people sporting various county colours and states of intoxication.  It was good to see that people who are well past needing one last drink get served as easily in Ireland as they do in the UK.  Shame on the US and Australia for being sensible ;)

On the Monday we went back to Gruel (once Sarah finds somewhere she likes nowhere else gets a look in!) for the same breakfast and brownie combo before heading to the airport for the flight to Heathrow.

No delays on the way home and we even flew over GP on the way in which never fails to excite.  We got pretty lucky with our flights judging by the on-going travel disruption that the Eyjafjallajökull volcano is causing.

SE16 Knees Up and Prawn Sandwiches

Usually four-day working weeks follow a simple rule, that they fly by.  It hasn't been the case this time round though.  The week seems to have dragged, dragged and, yep you've guessed it, dragged!

I was shattered on Tuesday.  I went to the gym in the Village for the regular Tuesday evening boxing class and usually I hang around for a bit afterwards.  This week I headed straight for the exit and headed home ready to hit the sack!

Looking back, the Bank Holiday weekend was pretty hectic.  On Friday I watched the Bees secure a much-deserved point in the 1-1 at Millwall and when I got home Sarah's mum and dad had arrived from Bury.  That makes it sound like they arrived unexpectedly, they didn't.

It's often tricky trying to entertain people but this weekend there was a lot to do...

On Saturday we went and watched the boat race.  I'd never been tempted to watch the race 'live', even though it's been on my doorstep since forever, but it was nice to be able to have something within easy reach to go to with Sarah's parents.

We took up a position on the south side of Hammersmith Bridge watched the Isis v Goldie boats go by and then main race.  It seemed like a lot of fuss for a fleeting glance of the crews.  In fact the most interesting part for me was seeing the unexpectedly large waves that the supporting boats create soak the Pims drinking Rahs sat on the river bank.

In the evening we went to The Real Greek in Marylebone.  Sarah had been to one before and bemoaned the small portion sizes but I thought it was a pretty good spread.  Sarah's mum had exchanged Clubcard vouchers for reward tokens.  Every £10 worth of Clubcard vouchers can be exchanged for £40 worth of reward tokens so it's a pretty, make that very, good deal.

The main event of the weekend was my parents meeting Sarah's for the first time.  We've been going out for 4 years so it was about time they met.  It's got people wondering if this means there is a proposal on the way, no need to worry just yet Sarah!!  The meeting of worlds went well with no major or even minor dramas.  My sister didn't show me up too much which was a bonus!!

On Monday we all got suited and booted and headed for tea at the Ritz.  Sarah bought her mum and dad tea for two a while back so we decided to jump on the bandwagon and go with them.  Very nice it was too but it should be at 38 quid a pop!!

After we got back from the Ritz I was quickly back in the real world.  I headed off to GP for the snooze fest that was Brentford 0 Exeter City 0.  Zzzzzzzz!

A Dove In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Bush

Many moons ago a few of us from work went to watch Mock the Week being filmed at Television Centre.  I'd been on another all day InSite mission so by the time I turned up they were all inside waiting to be called.

I took my audience number, found the others and had to hope that I'd be called in to join the audience, my number was a lot higher than most of theirs.  Sadly I didn't get called but neither did Andy so we decided to go for a couple of beers in Vesbar.

As we were leaving we walked past a queue of people who wanted to be added to the BBC/SRO audiences database with first option to a later series.  Neither Andy or I were bothered about this so we headed straight past them.  As we got to the door the rather camp bloke who had been ushering people here, there and everywhere asked why we were leaving.  We told him we didn't want to be added to the list but he obviously took a shine to me!  He was adamant that he wanted to take my E-mail and promised NOT to send me photos of his willy!  The queue of people, but especially, Andy loved that!

The upshot of this was that last week the I received an E-mail about joining the audience for a new series of Channel 4's Evo Music Rooms, and it turns out that that doves will be playing live.

I'm pretty sure you didn't need the whole back story but it's written now so it's staying!

SB (and most other people) will testify that I'm an unashamed doves geek so I'm pretty excited about Thursday night.  It'll tide me over nicely until I drag SB to another doves gig at the old Commercial Road Troxy cinema in May.

Surely they have to play Andalucía.  It's the only new track on disc one of their soon to be released greatest hits album The Places Between and will any b-sides get an airing?  Jimi, Jez, Andy (and Martin), Darker, just for me, pleeeease!

Let Them Eat Cake

I bought SB a cake tin for Christmas (really pushed the boat out didn't I!) and she finally got round to using it yesterday!

She'd seen it on an episode of Nigella's Christmas Kitchen and it seemed to strike a chord.  So much so that even I couldn't miss this open goal!  It was a bugger to find until I cracked the name, bundt pan, not cake tin!

SB will do anyting to put off the Uni work she has to complete over the next few weeks so after moaning about the clocks going forward, having breakfast and watching a bit of TV she decided to make a cake.  She'd not made one since this little beauty a couple of months ago:

MMMMM, yum :)

So down came the tin, pan, whatever, and soon after (don't worry everyone, I did help) it was full of lemon and orange cake mix:

Then 45 minutes later it was done:

One peak lemon, one peak orange, and so on, and a few minutes later we settled down with a cup of tea and helped ourselves to half a peak of each.

Gourmet ou Gourmand?

After a couple of beers in the Village after work on Friday I met up with SB on Threadneedle Street at 19:20.

I was twenty minutes late but considering I didn't leave the bar inside the 'gated community' until 18:40, I made it from Earl's Court to Bank via Holborn in pretty good time.

We headed straight into the restaurant and were shown to a nice table for two.  There were four or five tables already occupied but over the course of the meal the place filled up and by the end of the meal it was pretty much full.

The restaurant is on the ground floor of the old London Stock Exchange with the entrance on the passage way between the redesigned LSE building and DTZ's 125 Old Broad Street office.  Handy for lunches when you're in the City eh SB!


Rather than describe the interior, here is a photo from the website:

On the walls there is a poem by Jean de la Fontaine called Le Corbeau et le Renard, the Crow and the Fox.  The crow has a cheese in its beak which the fox wants so the fox flatters the crow who goes to speak, well crow I suppose, and drops the cheese.  SB was quite impressed when I said it's like someone saying that your phone is nice, you letting them have a look at it and then them running off with it!  (Over-)proud iPhone owners beware!

Whenever we go to France we HAVE to bring back some Rillettes de Mans, shredded pork that is made into a paste, similar to pâté.  It was on the menu so it was no surprise when SB chose this for her starter.  I had a sausage salad from the specials board.

For the main we both had a 10oz steak, (gourmand?!?) with SB having a dark chocolate slice and me a rhubarb and custard cup for desert.  Pretty good value for £52 I think :)

We didn't go to Abacus.  Instead we headed back to the Bush and had a pint in The Green.  Not one of the most salubrious boozers in W12 but it serves a decent pint of Kronenbourg and doesn't have twats on the door (or inside) like the 'tarted up boozer' across the road.

Grubs Up!

I'd not been to the City for well over a year and like buses two, in this instance visits, have come at once.

Yesterday morning I was at a client site by Southwark Bridge installing an update to the GIS system they take from us here at CACI Towers and tonight I'm off to the new Brasserire Blanc that is opening up on Threadneedle Street.

SB works for DTZ who have an office on Old Broad Street, next to latest addition to the Raymond Blanc empire, and a couple of weeks ago she received an E-mail giving staff the opportunity to have a sneak peak of the new place and get 50% off the total bill.  RESULT :)

Might see if SB wants to pop into Abacus after the meal to see what the City's most celebrated meat market is up to.  It made for pretty interesting viewing last time I was in there with Gabs and Londra ;)

Failing that I might be able to taunt a few of the eastenders who will surely be heading down to TW8 tomorrow afternoon watch Leyton Orient pit their wits against the Bees.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

The loan transfer window closes today we've added two players to the team.

Lewis Grabban has signed from Millwall but the big news is that Pim has signed until the end of the season AND we have agreed a fee with Ipswich for a permanent transfer.

Lets hope that personal terms can be agreed once the curtain is drawn on the 2009/10 season.

The Joy Of Six

So then, Colchester!

Before last night we'd only scored ten goals away from home so we go and score three!  Not only that but we went two up in 17 minutes before managing to surrender the lead before half time!

After the break we went 3-2 up but were again pegged back and the match finished 3-3.

Bees blogger David Hunt had an eventful night.  He scored the opener from the edge of the penalty box and then scored an own goal.

We would have taken a point before the game but having had a two-goal lead there is a twinge of disappointment.  Still, we’re up to 13th and have two games in hand on most of the teams around us.  Poor Carlisle and Yeovil, we’ve got three games in hand on them ;)

Bees Edge It At Edgeley

The Bees are in action again tonight.  Their third away game in 8 days takes them to Colchester to face a team battling to secure a play-off place.

At the weekend the lads got back to winning ways at Stockport County.  The pitch was nothing like what can be seen on the left as a brief look though these pictures will show.  Harsh winter + rugby union on a football pitch equals the perfect argument for a plastic pitch!

Since beating Gillingham on 6th February we've only managed three draws in five games so it was good to get another three points tucked away.  Four more wins and we should be safe I reckon.

Can't see us getting one tonight though!  Colchester have won 13 and drawn two of ther 17 home games so getting a point there tonight will be a decent result.  Still, here's hoping.

Back for Good?

After a couple of weeks off it's good to see the Chronicle back through my letter box.

No idea why the paper went AWOL for couple of weeks, and seeing as the same thing happend last month, I wonder whether April will fair any better.

Here's hoping!

Pims O'Clock?

The word on the street, well, here, here and here is that the Bees are going to re-sign Ipwsich defender Pim Balkestein on loan with a view to a permanent move when the transfer window opens again at the end of the season.
Before he was recalled to Ipswich at the end of December Pim played 8 games for us and played a big part in the upturn in results.
 
It has also been reported that Toumani Diagouraga will be released by Peterborough in the summer.  He's been quality in midfiled since joining us on loan, another one close to the top of Andy Scott's chopping list I hope.