17th October 2005
Hi all,
Quite a busy time for yours truly over the past week. I'll try to summarise as best as I possibly can.
Firstly I should apologise for the turgid reading that was last week's thought. I don't apologise for the subject matter, but perhaps I should have written it on the Tuesday when I could have applied some perspective to events.
Furthermore I realised when I drove down South on business on Thursday that I could have gone in a whole different direction with the thought. What I should have done was write a "The Atlanta Braves according to Delta Goodrem" thought. With song titles like "Born To Try" (the young Braves players), "Innocent Eyes" (Jeff Francoeur), "My Big Mistake" (Adam LaRoche's stomach flu induced baserunning blunder) and "Predictable" (how the season ended, again!) I can definitely count this as an opportunity missed.
Enough of that though, before I become depressed and lose even more of my readership. As I mentioned I was down South on business this week, worryingly only waking up an hour away from my destination when I put No Doubt's greatest hits on in the car. Of course that isn't a problem unless you happened to be on the M6/M61/M60/M62 with me at any point. Incidentally is it government policy that if a motorway number begins with a 6 it must have roadworks every five miles or so? It certainly seemed that way last Thursday.
The purpose of my visit was to be present for a conference relating to my job. Of course I took the opportunity to mix business with pleasure, popping away at night to see my friend Chris at his home in Manchester. It was at this point of the evening that the M60 plummeted down my list of favourite motorways, almost equalling the M8 in the frustration stakes. First of all the roadworks on the M60 stretched further than on any other road I had been on, keeping my speed at a pedestrian 50mph. Secondly showing directions as "S", "E", "N" and "W" when your geographical knowledge of Manchester isn't great doesn't help either.
(I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the RAC route planner for not including motorway junction numbers in some of their instructions, thus eliminating the ability to count down junctions to your exit and making their instructions as useful as a chocolate teapot.)
In spite of the M60 I finally made it to Chris's house, whereupon I met his girlfriend Donna before we talked about babies briefly (Chris became a Dad in May). After I had recounted my tales of the previous night's parenting class (major highlight to follow) we switched gears and in typical male fashion proceeded to talk about anything and everything that wasn't particularly important. Lots of memories from our Uni days but a lot of talk about the present and the future. As per usual for my meeting up with an old friend we chatted away as if we saw each other on a regular basis, I don't think it is something you lose with anyone you really get on with.
The story which really made Chris laugh (along with everyone else I've told about it) was from the first parenting class Lorraine and I went to. For the first hour of the evening we were with a physio who took us through a few exercises which the Mums-to-be would find useful. In the middle of this she took a moment to ask if any of the guys present played football. Four out of five of us put our hands up. Any injuries? At this point I could totally see where this was going and decided to keep quiet (I've been lucky anyway, no battle scars really to speak about). Unfortunately the guy to the left of me decided to say, "I've been kicked in the shins a few times." Yep, that's really comparable to giving birth to a child! Another blow for my wife's "Men don't know what we go through" campaign.
Being fair to the physio she didn't condemn the comment, and actually winced when the next contribution was from a guy who had torn his cruciate ligament on two separate occasions.
One other amusing note from the evening. One staff member at our local hospital was splitting the sets of partners up into two groups when we arrived. While waiting for everyone to turn up she told us that her son plays football for a team and has to wear a uniform when arriving at games. She preferred this to his French Connection t-shirts. Only she didn't she French Connection, she used the initialised version. And she didn't get them in the right order either. Very amusing faux pas (hope you followed all of that).
A few other points from the past week:
- For my work conference I was in a hotel overnight. The hotel had locked the front door by the time I got back from visiting Chris and I was in room 101. You couldn't make it up. (Actually it makes for a good joke but being fair it was a pretty nice hotel.)
- Bird Flu has come to Europe and my Mother and Mother-in-law have swapped roles, with my Mum phoning up and virtually insisting I get a flu shot. I'd sooner wear a Brighton shirt than get a flu jab, they're a complete waste of time in my opinion.
- I really enjoyed last Saturday's instalment of "Ant and Dec's Gameshow Marathon" as they celebrated "Play Your Cards Right". However I did find Patsy Kensit's claim of the audience's participation being "The maddest thing I've ever seen!" to be a bit hollow. She was married to Liam Gallagher for crying out loud! Besides that the show ticked just about every box, the only shame was that no-one fixed the cards at any point so that someone would end up with a pair. Because you get nothing for a pair... (I heard that!).
Have a good week (another Palace win against Brighton will do the job)!
Tony
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