Lessons Learned

Natasha Wisdom - Natasha Schmisdom!

2008-09-09T12:11:00.000Z

Matt Berry vs Adult Swim - Save The Workers!

2008-05-07T12:31:00.002Z

Check out this fantastic online campaign for Adult Swim UK! I love Matt Berry, he makes me laugh so much in this video!
To view the campaign go to www.savetheworkers.org

The Ruins

2008-03-10T10:02:00.002Z

Ok so I am not a massive fan of teen horror flicks, but this one has really grabbed my interest after receiving this fantastic viral...

I won't spoil it for you but the premises is that a guy got some plant thing stuck under the skin in his arm whilst visiting Mexico. He is trying to grow it out of his body, and the page you land on is his live broadcast to his fans who want to see how it is coming along.

Take a look here...

The Ruins

Breaking Bad - Walt's Wisdom

2008-01-24T15:38:00.000Z

Dunno if any of you have seen this yet but it is great fun and I highly recommend you check it out.

Created to mark the launch of the new show Breaking Bad on AMC earlier this week, this promotion uses Bryan Cranston (formerly of Malcolm in the Middle). The idea is you fill in your friends details and they receive a personalized video from Walt the lead character telling you to live your life the way you want to.

Check it out here..

Pam Ann - Come Fly With Me

2007-11-01T11:33:00.000Z

Pam Ann the popular air hostess to the stars has released her latest DVD and I found this trailer on You Tube... cracking stuff!

BBC Seven Ages of Rock

2007-05-30T13:19:00.000Z

For all you fans of Rock, there is a great show on the BBC at the moment aptly titled the Seven Ages of Rock.

The first episode concentrated on the birth of Rock from the blues and Jimi Hendrix.
The second Episode was all about Arty rock such as Bowie, Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd.

I have really enjoyed this series so far, but am a little dispondant that not much has been made of the impact of Led Zepplin yet...

Anyway, here's a clip for ya...

New Google Personalised Homepages

2007-05-07T13:52:00.000Z

If you, like me rely on your Google homepage for your news feeds and other information, you may have panicked slightly the other day when seeing that all your information was lost.

This caused a torrent of abuse on the Google message boards, and with no prior warning or explanaition from Google many people were disheartened, and could have left the service to join one of the many competitors out there.

Google thankfully restored everything hours later with a new iGoogle logo (iPhone, Apple???) and new content.

You can now personalise your homepage with a background. At the moment this is limited to a few different landscapes, which can be customised further to fit your sunrise and sunset times. The sun will then rise and set accordingly to your local times.

Whilst this only seems like a novelty, it appears that Google are slowly moving this service out of Beta, and this can only mean that more and more functionality will be added in the near future.

This can not explain why Google didn't see fit that they should explain what going to happen before they temporarily suspended all activity. This hopefully is not a reflection of the path that this great company is heading down. Think Microsoft and their impersonal coorporate image. Google beware... but carry on!

Dark Days

2007-05-03T07:56:00.000Z

Well it finally happened.
I don't to go into too much ranting detail about this, but it is a sad sad time for Leeds United.
I just hope we can keep our heads above water, and plug away next season. We should bounce straight back up.
In the mean time, here's a lovely video to remind us all why we love Leeds so much.

Eric Cantona

2007-04-23T08:47:00.000Z

Born: May 24, 1966
Nationality: French
Position: Forward
Main Clubs: Marseilles, Leeds United, Manchester United

Eric Cantona is a French former footballer of the late 1980s and 1990s. He ended his professional footballing career at Manchester United where he won four Premiership titles in five years, including two League and FA Cup "doubles". Cantona is often regarded as having played a major talismanic role in the revival of Manchester United as a footballing powerhouse and he enjoys iconic status at the club. In 2001 he was voted their player of the century, and to this day United fans refer to him as "The King".

The most obvious negative to Cantona's game was a tendancy to lose control and kick, stamp, punch or even fly kick his opponents...

Roberto Baggio

2007-04-23T08:32:00.000Z

Born: 18th February 1967
Nationality: Italian
Position: Forward
Clubs: Fiorentina, Juventus, AC Milan, Bologna, Inter Milan, Brecsia

Roberto Baggio, among the most technically gifted and popular players in the world throughout the 1990s. He played for the Italian national team in three World Cups, and is the only Italian player ever to score in three World Cups. He was the best Italian player of the 1994 FIFA World Cup, carrying his team to the final, and losing the trophy to Brazil on penalties. He won both the European Footballer of the Year (Ballon d'Or) and the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 1993.

Did you know that Baggio, formerly a Catholic, has converted to Buddhism. He is a member of the Soka Gakkai International Buddhist Organization.

Paolo Maldini

2007-04-23T08:19:00.000Z

Born: 26th June 1968
Nationality: Italian
Position: Defender
Clubs: AC Milan

Maldini is widely regarded as the best defender of his era and one of the greatest defenders of all time, maybe only excelled by Franz Beckenbauer. He is well known for his influential captaincy, ice-cool temperament, well timed attacking runs, outstanding headers, his outstanding ability to play with both feet and flawless defending. Approaching 40 years of age, he is still playing at the very highest level, which is confirmed by his inclusion in the FIFPro World XI in 2005, his nomination to the UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 most valuable defender title, second place in Golden Foot nominations in 2005, and a top-ten finish in the voting for the 2005 FIFA World Player of the Year.

Did you know that Maldini has had AC Milan designate the number 3 for his son Christian who was born in 1996? Christian has already been signed for the AC Milan Youth Club. If Christian doesn't make it though the number 3 shirt will never be worn again for Milan.

Ronaldo

2007-04-20T16:41:00.000Z

Born: September 22, 1976
Nationality: Brazilian
Position: Forward
Main Clubs: PSV, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, AC Milan

Joint with Zidane on three FIFA World Player of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2002), and widely regarded as one of the greatest ever, Ronaldo is the all time top goalscorer in World Cup history. Not a bad start?
He is quick, strong and skillful. The scorer of many goals, some extravagant, some efficient, but he always scores.

Greatest moment: Defying the critics and becoming the top World Cup Goal Scorer in the 2006 World Cup.

His main weakness has come from his personal problems and the effect they have had on the pitch, although it is fair to say that since a serious knee injury he sustained at Barcelona, he has never been the same. What a shame.

Rivaldo

2007-04-20T16:16:00.000Z

Born: April 19th 1972
Nationality: Brazil
Position: Forward
Main Clubs: Palmeiras, Deportivo De La Coruna, FC Barcelona, AC Milan, Cruzeiro EC, Olympiacos CFP

Named by Pelé as one of the 125 Greatest Living Footballers at a FIFA Awards Ceremony in 2004, is not a bad accolade for anyone. One of the best left foots in the business and a master of the extravagant overheard kick, Rivaldo was the darling of the Nou Camp faithful before the days of Ronaldinho and Messi.

Greatest Moment: Overhead kick to finalise his hat-trick against Valencia for Barcelona.

He has been criticised in the past for being a very selfish player, however my main gripe with him is his reliance on his left peg...

Thierry Henry

2007-04-20T14:53:00.000Z

Born: 17 August 1977
Nationality: French
Position: Forward
Clubs: Monaco, Juventus, Arsenal

Blessed with blistering pace, athletic physique and great temperament Thierry Henry is one of the most stylish, feared and complete footballers in recent times. He terrorises Premiere League and European defenses with speed and skills, that sometimes are almost un-defendable.
In recognition of his abilities, Henry has, among others, been nominated twice for the FIFA World Player of the Year,and has twice received the Barclays Premiership player of the season award. He is today regarded by many as one of the best footballers in the world.

Classic moment: Well, my favourite is the flick, spin and volley goal against Manchester United...

The only area of his game that is notoriously weak is his heading, however most of us would let him have one chink in his armor, after all he is human.... I think.

Ronaldinho

2007-04-20T08:16:00.000Z

Born: March 21st 1980
Nationality: Brazilian
Position: Attacking Midfield/Forward
Clubs: Gremio, PSG, Barcelona

Powerful, strong, quick, imaginative, but most of all, skillful, Ronaldinho rose to fame playing for PSG, before becoming one of the Barcelona superstars of recent times.
Among his many achievements and accolades, Ronaldinho has been awarded the FIFA World Player of the Year award twice (2004, 2005), as well as the European Footballer of the Year award and the FIFPro World Player of the Year award twice (2005, 2006).

He is still only 27 years old, which gives him plenty of time to achieve even more... scary.

One thing holding him back is his inability to transfer his incredible club performances to the Brazilian national team.

Zinedine Zidane

2007-04-20T07:51:00.000Z

Born: 23rd June 972
Nationality: French
Position: Midfield
Clubs: Real Madrid, Juventus, Cannes and Bordeaux

Mercurial, midfield maestro. For a relatively tall man he played with unbelievable balance and grace it really was a joy to watch. He was never blessed with pace, but what he lacked in speed he made up with in pure skill. He was nominated as FIFA Footballer of the Year a record three times.

Memorable moment: The Champions League 2001 Final. The volleyed goal for Madrid, against Bayer Leverkusen.

Like a lot of footballing talents, he lived on the edge of a bad temper, which famously boiled over in his last ever game for France, against Italy in the World Cup Final.

Greatest Modern Footballer

2007-04-20T07:48:00.000Z

As you may have noticed I have set up a poll located in my sidebar. The question is, who is the greatest modern day footballer. I have chosen a few of the big names, but feel free to add your favourites in the comments to this post.

What I want to do is over the next few days write a little post about each player just to refresh everyone, so keep on coming back to see the latest addition...

Macaroni Cheese

2007-04-19T10:36:00.000Z

I am starting a quest. This is really important to me. My family and friends may laugh. I don't care.

I grew up on Macaroni Cheese when I was younger. I have very, very high expectations of it. I have been through various recipes and methods, but never found the One.

The recipe I use at the moment is pretty simple and revolves around cheddar and your basic white sauce, but I like to add a bit of mustard and depending on how flush I feel, a bit of ham, bacon or tomatoes.

I usually sprinkle with some breadcrumbs and some more cheddar to give it that crunchy cheesy topping.

My problem, however, is that I know this can be beaten. Easily. A friend of mine went to New York recently and ordered Macaroni and Cheese in a nice restaurant. He said it was amazing, and I am so jealous. I also look enviously in cook books at glamorous versions such as Jamie Oliver's. This one includes anchovies or artichokes or something like that. Either way it is a bit over the top.

So, back to my quest. A quest for cheese delight. Can anyone out there help me find a truley great macaroni cheese recipe? ANYONE!!??

I don't like cricket...

2007-04-18T08:19:00.000Z

I don't love it really either, but as I get older it is certainly something that I enjoy more and more. A bit like rugby really.

My Grandad was a big cricket man. I think he played for Yorkshire once, but not too sure on that one. One of my fondest memories of him, before he passed away, was him teaching me the proper way to hold a cricket bat. That is the sort of thing that stays with you for the rest of your life. Obviously being a Yorkshireman, it does mean that I am pretty aware of cricket, and like most, I also had to play during the summer term at my school.

So with the cricket World Cup now getting to the crunch stages I am following the competition with one eye. The other is admittedly focused purely on the end of the football season for now!! I admit, to all you non cricket playing nations it must look like one of the most boring events on the sporting calendar, but if you give it a chance it can get stuck in your conscience without you knowing about it.

I watched England try to bowl out South Africa last night, after obtaining a pretty useless 154 in their innings. What a shambles!! I guess it reflects the current sporting problems that this country is going through. Is it just hype, or do we have players capable of winning a major trophy in any sport? Think of football, athletics, and even our rugby team these days are missing something.

What needs to be done to get us on the same level as the Ausltralians, Americans and Brazilians? Is it our infrastructure, or national mentality? Do our press hype our sportsmen and women up so much that they are doomed to fold under pressure? Do we suffer from being a relatively small nation compared to the big hitters or is that simply an excuse?

I think it is about time we start looking at questions like this seriously if we ever want to dominate any of our national sports.

BBC branded You Tube

2007-04-05T08:26:00.000Z

Many of you may of heard that the BBC recently signed a deal to show clips from TV shows on You Tube and yesterday I stumbled upon this.

As you can see they have set up a profile and been able to edit the html to brand it up in a BBC style.

They are currently showing Dr Who snippets at the moment but I could imagine that this will expand prett quickly to encompass everything that has video clips on their main site now... Sport, News, Documentaries etc.

This whole area of marketing should get pretty interesting over the next few years...

England boring England

2007-03-26T08:14:00.000Z

What a surprise. England struggled against a poor Israel side in a match that was instantly forgettable.

How long are we going to put up with this England team? The only performance we get is from Hargreaves. It was like World Cup 2006 all over again.

I fail to understand how a team with superstars such as Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney cannot breakdown a team such as Israel... We only created a couple of half chances. What a joke.

In the end it doesn't matter if we qualify for the European Championships, because if we do and play like that, believe me, we won't get very far.

England's problem comes from some unknown fear. We have started keeping the ball in defense, and when there is no easy pass into the midfield we knock it long, up to the renowned heading ability of any of our strike force... what is the point. If I was the England manager I would force them to try flicks, step overs, any bit of skill. Try a one two. Try one of those tricks that you do on the training ground but are too afraid to do in a live match.... Man!! Where is Joe Cole when you need him!!

Think back to the glory days of the 5-1 victory against Germany. Remember the flair and panache that we played with. I specifically remember Gerrard beating the German midfield easily with tricks and skill that have long since faded into nothingness. If we lose the ball and they get an opportunity, at least we will concede a goal trying to entertain, and I guarantee, especially against the likes of opposition that we played against on Saturday, we will create more than enough chances to score ourselves.

Plus anything is better than what we have on offer now... zzzzzzzzzz
Wake up England.

England v Israel

2007-03-22T08:57:00.000Z

I have just been reading about Jamie Carragher's modest assesment of himself ahead of England's Euro Qualifier against Israel.

I have to say this season Carragher has been one of the most consistant defenders in the Premiership, if not the world. He is a great leader, good tacker, good decision maker and strong enough to deal with any physical threat. I think the only area he lacks in is pace.

He has come out and said recently that he doesn't mind being down in the pecking order to Terry and Ferdinand as they are both world class players, but I think that is doing him and injustice.

Firstly, if Liverpool had dominated this season, he would be one of the reasons why. He would be talked about just as much as John Terry.

Secondly, Terry has had a rough time of it recently (through no fault of his own). Injuries and fatigue have come at the same time, and he looks like a wounded soldier. If I was lucky enough to be in McClaren's position, I would have one look at Terry and say "Have a rest mate" we have plenty of players that can cover him, like Carragher.

Admitedly Terry is the captain, however I just think it is an unnecessary risk to play someone who has been injured so much recently and played very little. At international level you need your influential players on top form, otherwise that influence can be negative.

Walking + iPod = Stupid

2007-03-20T09:05:00.000Z

One of the pleasures of owning an MP3 player such as an iPod is having all your favourite music available at the touch of a button. Another is listening to this music when you have something laborious to do, like a long train journey, or your daily walk to work.

The latter of these can cause problems. Walking without music is often pretty boring. Walking with music can go one of two ways. I have a lot of Bob Marley and Reggae on my iPod and there is nothing like a nice bouncing beat and soothing vocals to pace myself to.

It's a funny feeling when a good song comes on your headphones whilst walking. You assume that everyone can hear your soundtrack, and therefore automatically realises how cool you are for stepping in time with the beat. You feel like you are in your own little film scene, generally you feel like a character from Resevoir Dogs...

The problem arises when a song starts that is slightly too fast or too slow to walk to. You end up looking like a looney who got his walk straight from the "Ministry of Silly Walks" or other Monty Python sketch. John Cleese springs to mind...

Sometimes this can play into your hands, say if you are in a rush and a fast pace song comes on, however as a general rule trying to walk in time with your music is something that should only be attempted when no one else is around.

What are your top five songs to walk to? What songs should be avoided at all costs?

Bank Charges

2007-03-19T09:07:00.000Z

If you haven't heard by now, all those charges that your bank make every time you go over your overdraft limit, or if a direct debit is cancelled are now deemed unfair by law.

You are able to claim them back, however it can, as in my case, be a long and drawn out process.

The first thing to do is to ask your bank for your statements for the last 6 years. They can legally charge up to £10 for this service, but don't worry about that.

When you receive them, go through and highlight each charge you have on your account and create a spreadsheet. Keep track of the date the charge was made as this may come in useful later on.

When you have been through it all, add up your total and write a letter to your bank asking for them all back.

Depending on your bank a variety of things may happen now...

They will agree to pay in full
They will offer you half or some of the money, without admitting they are wrong. It is up to you to decide if you should take this pay off.
They will refuse to pay, and may even threaten you.

In my case the second happened. They offered just over half of my total amount in exchange for a waving on my part that I would never do this again.

I refused and went through Money Claim Online
This is a very simple official service where you fill in your details and the reasons for your claim and it does the rest for you. You will have to pay about £120, but this gets added on to the total repayable amount.

The bank will be informed of your action and have a choice to dispute the charge, however if it does it probably will be an empty threat. The banks can't afford to be seen publicly losing one of these cases as it would set a precedent.
Eventually, if you follow the procedure set out on the Money Claim website, the bank will be forced to pay you the money. As in my case.

There are many other useful sites out there that offer some really helpful information. I used http://www.unfair-bank-charges.com/ as it provided template letters and guidance.

Why don't you let me know how your claim has gone?

Strategy Games - Top 5

2007-03-14T11:40:00.000Z

Now I am very partial to a good old fashioned strategy game on my (now broken) PC - gutted as I just bought Railroads too!!

I have always been interested in strategy games, ever since I was a kid. Even board games. Give me a bottle of wine and a game of risk and I will be sulking upstairs when someone wipes me out... just ask my girlfriend!!

But since the early teenage years of my life, from my Amiga 500 to my very first PC (with Turbo button), I have been playing strategy games like Settlers, Civilisation and Transport Tycoon.

It is embarrassing, I mean computer game players still to this day carry the tag of "Nerdy" with them. Maybe less so if you are playing ISS Pro Evolution 6 with your mates on your spanking new X-Box, or Wii Sports with your Granny, but strategy games are a different type of gamer.

Haunched over your PC, making sure that trade routes are established between two fantastical cities. Declaring war on your neighbour, playing what looks like an over elaborate version of a model train set, all these things aren't particularly the sexiest past times in the world I agree.

I can't get enough though, and that is why I am so glad Nintendo are releasing games like Settlers and Theme Park on the DS. These are classics. It makes such a nice change to have games like this on a hand held system. Long journeys will fly by as you build an empire and crush your enemies!!

Anyway, I just thought I would throw this open to the floor. Over the years I have played loads of strategy games but the ones that really got me were...

Settlers 2 - I must have wasted most of my teenage years playing this game... awesome.
Civilisation (Any version) - The latest installment (IV) is fantastic, but the second version was the one that hooked me good and proper.
Meglomania - The glory days of my Megadrive, when life was oh so simple. My mum bought me one of those novelty small ones with 3 pre-installed games for Christmas a couple of years ago. I had a quick go on Meglomania and turned it off for fear of severe addiction.
Sim City 2000 - I remember making excuses to actually go to my cousins house and play on their version, as my PC couldn't run it. I would be there for hours.
Transport Tycoon - How I ever got addicted to this i will never know, but watching the cities grow as you feed them the resources was sooooo satisfying.

Anyway, I have to go balance this post out by doing something cool, like... erm.... where's my PC again???