Robbed

I watched the highlights of last nights Villa game a few hours ago and I can't see how we lost.

City had less good chances than Villa and we had a perfectly good goal disallowed.

I was glad to see D O'L has finally changed the formation to something a bit more sensible.

I think putting Mellberg in with the two kids is a wise decision but if he does decide to drop one it would have to be Ridgewell from what I've seen. He's got potential but you can see that he's really felt the pressure he's been put under this season.

I have to disagree with the Sky commentator about Baros not deserving to get subbed off. He may have had the ball more than Angel and Milner but he squandered it every time whereas the other two both created some good chances. In fact most of the chances Baros had were created by them... with the exception of the Barry chance which he really should have put away.

D O'L certainly seems to have decided that he has to play Angel as (and I've been saying this for a while now) all the other strikers are too similar. He can't expect things to happen overnight as he'll be sluggish to say the least having barely played all season but even so I saw him provide some excellent flick-ons with his head and his feet. I know I'm a big fan of his so I'm hardly the best person to give an objective opinion but he'll stand more of a chance of scoring/providing if he's playing than if he's on the bench.

Congrats to Darius for scoring a well taken goal on his return to Villa Park. I don't bear a grudge for him leaving, it's not as if he stabbed us in the back like Dwight Yorke did.
Why isn't he or Marlon Harewood being talked about for the England squad?
Both have been excellent all season. James Beattie has had a sudden turn in form (He's gone from utter shit to above average) and everyone is talking about him going to Germany. Unless Harewood is illegible for nationality reasons or similar then he should get the nod ahead of him - he does everything he does only better.

First Day

It took me 66 minutes to walk roughly four miles up and down steep hills. Not a bad first effort if I say so myself. That's now the benchmark. I can't ever go any slower than that.

I've got to put it into perspective though, the marathon route will be 6.5 times the distance that I walked today.

I'm going to see how good my recovery is for tomorrow. At the moment the only problem I seem to have had was a sore left shin within the first mile. It didn't get any worse though and I felt fine walking around the office.

The plan is to walk it again on Tuesday and Thursday of next week. Then I'll start doing a bit of light jogging around the park. I should be jogging to work for one day of the week by the end of May but I won't push too hard for that target.

I do have a cricket match on Tuesday evening though but given how I'm feeling right now, I should be fine. In fact I can see that the main problem I'm going to have is fitting in this training at times that won't infringe on my other commitments: I'll be playing cricket for two teams this season (1 evening team and 1 Saturday team) and I have a driving test at the end of May to prepare for.

All said and done though, I'm feeling better now than I did this time last night.

Early Days

Just been on the London Marathon website to look at entry for 2007.

As I feared there is a danger that I won't get a place on it but as I can't even apply until August and won't find out until December, I guess I'll have to train with the mindset that I am going.

I realised that if I want to do this I will need need to raise money for a charity. Sponsorship won't be an issue as I will sponsor myself the required amount if necessary. However it does leave me wondering as to which charity I should run for, after all I'm not really running for anyone but myself.

I've already decided that the charity will have to meet the following three criteria:

1) The charity is for the UK.
I'm not a closet racist or anything but I do feel that far too often British money is given to foreign causes that wouldn't exist if that country was run properly. E.g. It's tragic that India has so many 'Railway Children' but Mumbai has (according to my father-in-law who's stopped off there on business) the highest concentration of millionaires in the world. If India is wanting to compete with the UK economically then it can sort out its own messes. The charity doesn't have to be completely free of overseas projects but it has to set out to help people in this country as much as those abroad.

2) The charity does not advertise on television or have sales staff pestering you on the high street.
If you can afford to advertise on TV then you're little more than a company that recycles its profits and you certainly don't need my money. I want money to go towards a cause not a marketing budget. Too many charities have become corporate monsters. I particularly hate it when you're confronted on the high street by someone with a bib on. They aren't helping the charity out of the goodness of their own heart, they're getting paid - usually quite a lot.

3) The charity must potentially benefit anyone.
I don't agree with charities that are only for people of a particular gender, age, race or financial status. The charity must exist to help anyone that needs it. For example anyone could fall on hard times and become homeless. Anyone could contract a terminal illness etc. Few people would benefit from a new sports facility in a 'deprived' area and I don't believe in focussing purely on one disease(e.g. Breast Cancer), no form of terminal illness is worse than another no matter how many people it affects.

Putting the three together it looks like a Hospice or Air Ambulance is the most likely to be the benefactor but if anyone reading this has a suggestion that fits the above criteria I would like to hear about it... The RNLI doesn't advertise on the telly does it?

On a slightly different note I've discovered that tomorrows walk will be nearer 4 miles than 3. It'll be up and down steep hills too so if I make it to work within my 90 minute target I'll be well chuffed.

Motivation

The last few days have given me all the motivation I require to start getting fit:

Thursday

At the last cricket nets of the season I was given the ominous task of batting first. When I was at University and my self confidence was still relatively low, this would have been great as I just wanted to get it out of the way. However something has changed in the last couple of years, my mental attitude has change dramatically and I've become something of a perfectionist (Yes believe me I was as surprised as anyone). So needless to say I was somewhat disappointed with the way I played the first few deliveries. Because I hadn't bowled beforehand, I was far too stiff and struggled to get my feet moving. More than anything else I was finding it difficult to get my weight behind the shot (something I have plenty of). On the plus side, this warning has come just in time so I'll make sure when the season starts next Tuesday that I limber up in my pads.
There was a time when the best aspect of my game was my fielding but in my current physical state, I'd say it's my worst.

Friday

The wife and I decided to pop around to the in-laws after I finished work. Unfortunately we didn't get to stay long as I had another bout of hypoglycemia (sugar low) and I wasn't even in a state to drive the car home (via a takeaway to pick up stodge, the one-stop cure for hypoglycemia). The frequency of my spells of hypoglycemia is the highest it has ever been, if I don't take action soon I'll be a diabetic.

Saturday

I had a nice invigorating walk to my new team's cricket ground to help patch up the wicket for the start of the season. The council had put drainage wholes all over the pitch but hadn't bothered to stop at the wicket - to be honest with you I can't blame them, I couldn't spot it from the rest of the field. I'm still aching now from being knelt down for 2 hours putting clay and grass seed into index finger size holes. I did point out to one of the younger lads that it would be useful practice for him later in his adolesence.
The wife and I then went to Exeter to have a night out with friends of ours who live there. I have to say the atmosphere is a bit more relaxed compared to the 'beer factories' of Plymouth - I wasn't called a cunt once! Later in the evening the inevitable happened and I took to the dancefloor. However I was out of breath far too easily. Normally I can jump through '500 Miles' by 'The Proclaimers' and still have energy to spare for the next song but I was breathing for dear life this time.

Sunday

Noticing how skinny my friends were as they crawled around the house made me realise how bad I was. I watched the highlights of the marathon too, there was a time when I could have run it as fast as James Cracknall did (A little over 3 hours - 6.5 minutes per mile). Sadly those days are a distant memory but I got myself from flab to fit once before so I don't see why I can't do it again. Admittedly I don't have the motivation of joining the Marines as I'm now too old but I'm sure I can think of something else to drive me on.

Monday

There was a bit of a misunderstanding at work where I thought someone made fun of my size by saying I was the fattest person in our centre. It turned out that they were making the joke about someone else (who wasn't fat and so that was the joke). Nevertheless it made me feel like I was back in school again. By the time I'd got home I'd already decided that I was going to walk into work on Wednesday (It's three miles - I'm certain this is the most unfit I have ever been so if I tried to run it, it might kill me) but watching 'Run for Glory' on BBC1 was the icing on the cake. If they can do it then so can I.

So this is it, I want to run next years London Marathon. Don't know if I'll be able to as I can imagine it is always over-subscribed but I'm going to start training for it regardless. There's another marathon at Tresco (Scilly Isles) on the same day so if I can't get into the London one then I'll do that instead. Whatsmore I have a cream suit in my wardrobe that I haven't fitted into in years - at the moment I can't even fit into my bloater clothes, my jeans were tight around my waste today. I want to be able to wear that suit to work and maybe take my wife out to a nice restaurant in it.

As I've said above I've gone from flab to fab before. This time the mission is more like Johnny Vegas to Johnny Depp. I have at least four stone to loose, possibly more. It's not really about the weight though, it's about not being able to put my arms down flat because of the excess fat around my chest. It's about struggling to find a pair of jeans in my size because clothes retailers assume that all tall people are skinny.

I'm going to work on the exercise first and then on the diet, as you can feel the benefits of exercise much earlier on so you're more likely to stick with it. Naturally I'll have to stop going to the chippy over the road though. I'll keep you posted.

Yet more planning bollocks

It's just got to the point where I'm not even surprised to see this in the news.

I remember when the National Trust were on 'Spotlight' last year trying to promote the scheme. It's very rare that any kind of development is proposed that will actually benefit wildlife but naturally the N.I.M.B.Y.'s had to strike again saying it would ruin an area of 'Outstanding Natural Beauty'.

The fact that it would turn the area into something unique and of national significance is beside the point, it's what it looks like that counts.

No-one seems to care when land is reclaimed from rivers so why can't this be allowed. More importantly why should the intentions of someone that owns some land be anyone else's business?

Next thing you know, farmers will have to put in planning permission to have a cornfield turned into a grazing field because it'll change colour.

Does this mean that every time someone has a flood, they can get done for not having planning permission for their new water feature?

So to recap some recent planning decisions in the south west:

You can't build houses anywhere (not even in a residential area)
You can't build any kind of green power facility (but nuclear seems to be ok)
You can't build a nature reserve next to a river for river wildlife
You can't demolish a derelict building that hasn't been used for 30 years because it is 'listed' - meaning some prat with a clipboard thought it looked nice/old so it has to be kept regardless of its historic value. Shakespeare's birthplace is of historic value, an old ambulance bay is not.

You can build as many new casinos or nightclubs as you want in the Plymouth area, regardless of how many other casinos or nightclubs are already struggling for business.
You can knock down a car park and build a Travelodge in its place (with no parking facilities)
You can fill in subways and bulldoze roundabouts and install pedestrian crossings and traffic lights in their place*. Despite creating immense road congestion (rename it 'traffic calming measures' to make it sound better)

* I should clarify that it wasn't deemed sensible (by planners) to combine the traffic lights with the pedestrian crossings, like you tend to see everywhere else. Plymouth city centre now has four pedestrian crossings and a seperate set of traffic lights covering approximately 200 metres of road. In a seperate location, a rather nice subway (yes there are some nice subways) that was tiled with illustrations of Plymouth's history has been filled in and replaced with a pedestrian crossing. The road was too wide for a standard crossing so they've had to create a bottleneck to enable the pedestrians to cross. This has also significantly increased road congestion. There are now rumours that Plymouth City Council plan to introduce a congestion charge to help combat this.

Columbian Villa

I for 'Juan' was glad to see Angel starting with Baros last night, even if we did loose.

I could be mistaken (and I'm sure Dave will correct me if I am) but I think that's the first time Angel and Baros have started together in the Premiership.

As I've said before Baros, Phillips and Moore are all very similar players. The only player that can hold up the ball is Angel.

Even though Villa had reclaimed the lead by the time he came on in the Birmingham City game, they still hadn't settled down. Not only does he keep the ball well but he has better defensive qualities.
Without him there is too much urgency in Villa's attack and as a result the ball spends too much time in our own final third because it can't stay up in the opposition's instead.

The most successful attacking partnerships in the premiership have one striker with blistering pace and a slower striker that offers either more aerial dominance or (in the case of Bergkamp) exceptional skills.

Without Angel, Villa are often one dimensional and easy to defend against. They'd better get used to this though because after the season he's just had, I can't see him wanting to stay for another.

On a positive note I was truly thrilled that we beat City. I didn't think it would happen after the lack lustre performance the week before, especially given that Birmingham were in better form than West Brom.

If City and West Brom both go down, Aston Villa will be the only midlands club in the Premiership since it started nearly 14 years ago.

We've shared with Coventry City, Nottingham Forest, Leicester City, Derby County, West Bromwich Albion, Birmingham City and Wolverhampton Wanderers but I can't recall a season when we've gone it alone. Am I wrong?

Whatsmore, if Forest win the League 1 Playoff, there would be 8 midlands based clubs in the Championship. That's a third of that division.

No shit

Congratulations to the University of Leuven for proving what most of us already knew.

In their follow up experiments they intend to study the toilet habits of Grizzly Bears and the theological preferences of the Pope.

I suppose this is what you have to expect from a town that is the home of Stella Artois.

I don't want to sound like a broken record...

... But you've gotta laugh when you see this.

Do those houses still have their hosepipe ban then?

Judgement Day Part I

Big day for the Villa boys then, I'm somewhat concerned as further injury and suspension means that Cahill will be starting at the back for the first time.

I'm sure the lad has potential and all that but in an ideal world you would not have either him or Ridgewell in such a crucial game. The criminal lack of investment during the January transfer window has created this problem, you cannot rely on two players (Mellberg and Delaney) to stay injury free for the entire back 9 of the season.

Personally if I were O'Leary I would consider a formation change. I'd play five in the middle with only three at the back. By playing McCann, Davis and Djemba-Djemba in the midfield (alongside Hendrie and Moore), the defense would be better protected than having a flat back four with two kids in the middle of it.

O'Leary has come into a lot of flack in the last few weeks. Personally I think most of it is somewhat unfair. As I've already said the main reason Villa are in the shit is because Doug wouldn't get another centreback in on loan. We'd already sent Erike back-er to Leeds so surely the wages we weren't paying him could have gone to a much needed centre-half? Even O'Leary had said in an interview before the transfer window opened:

"It doesn't take a genius to see that I need a centreback"

But I did say that most of the flack is unfair. Some of his signings have been questionable to say the least.

I recognise that Patrik Berger is an incredibly skillful player but he's one of the most injury prone players in the Premiership. I said at the start of the season that you would not get a full season out of him and it has been worse than I feared.

There is no doubting that Kevin Phillips is a great asset to the club in terms of his goal scoring abilities but again, he spends a lot of time in the treatment room.

I won't criticise the purchase of Wilfred Bouma as he's given JLloyd the kick up the arse he needs and next season (if there is a next season) I'm positive he'll be making a much larger contribution.

Djemba-Djemba ? - I think that says it all.

And whats more, what about the players he seems to have lost?

De-la Cruz was probably our most consistent player last season and now he's rarely even on the bench (Obviously not at the moment as we have a further injury crisis on top of our long standing injury crisis)

Angel doesn't get called on until the game is well and truly lost and seems to be rock bottom in the pecking order. I know that he doesn't have the pace of the other players but he and Phillips are different to the rest of them in that they have a brain.

Delaney has probably played his last game for Villa. Without a doubt one of the best value signings made by Villa since Graham Taylor bought a Man Utd reject from Crewe in the 80's. He wouldn't have been picked ahead of Hughes if O'Leary had everyone fit despite being the much better player... I'm not overly impressed with Hughes either, Villa have sold better right-backs in the last ten years. The one playing against us today for example.

But back to the game in hand, quite simply if we don't win then we're well and truly in the shit. West Brom have the worst form of the three below Villa and failure to beat them would give Birmingham further fuel to feed off next Sunday.

I said last season that the side that would stay up would be West Brom because they had the best form coming into the run in. This time round they have the worst and are closely followed by Villa. If we don't win today, the panic button will have been well and truly pressed.

N.I.M.B.Y. watch

Unsurprisingly enough, the power plant was rejected at the planning stage.

Spotlight interviewed many of those at the meeting, they were nearly all elderly.

Personally I think they should all have their power cut off.

The main objection they had was that the plant was too big.
23mw is not big enough as far as I'm concerned. A local who spoke in favour of the plant pointed out that it was almost enough to supply the whole of the Torridge region of Devon with electricity. The local in question was a from a minority background (i.e. he was a young person).

I bet these locals do all their shopping at a supermarket. My brother lives next to an enormous supermarket distribution centre that has hundreds of artic lorries coming and going each day (one on average every 5 minutes). He lives on a brand new housing estate that was completed before construction began on the RDC. No roads have been built or expanded to improve the local infrastructure. Why is that allowed but a carbon neutral power station is not?

On a similar note, my mother-in-law informed me that a school has closed in an upmarket area of Plymouth where she lives but that developers had been refused planning permission to build housing. The area in question is a purely residential area.

In the USA you have planning zones. If you have a plot within a residential zone and you wish to build a house then you will definately get permission. If you wanted to build a factory however, you would not as you would be required to have land in the industrial zone.

I'm all in favour of preserving the countryside but in doing so you have to be able to build everywhere else instead.

Whatsmore if green energy projects keep getting rejected for purely cosmetic reasons, there will soon be an energy shortfall and the only solution will be to build nuclear power stations.
These HAVE to be built in a location near water (e.g. on the coast or by an estuary) so they will almost certainly ruin areas of outstanding natural beauty - the only ugly estuaries I know of are the ones that are populated (Mersey, Thames, Severn etc.). There is no way a nuclear power station will be built near any substantial settlement so it'll end up somewhere pretty by default.

I (like many in my age group) am aware that there is no 'perfect' energy solution but if I want to continue using electrical equipment then I must accept that sacrifices have to be made. Why are others, especially the elderly so short-sighted? (I'm not talking about eye-sight).

How many people objected to Gaswork towers? Coal fired power stations? Coal mines? Motor cars? The first motorways? Supermarkets?

It seems somewhat ironic that the generation that created most of the mess is the same one that won't let us clean it all up.