How we used to use forests of paper!

I'm ploughing through some old paperwork of my football club, Weysiders FC.

It certainly gives you cause to think.

A typical season from mid-90s, say 1996-7 consists of a two inch-folder of paper. In those pre-Internet days, everything was done by paper and phone.

Three seasons:

So all the weekly fixtures, doubling later as weekly results, league tables, committee meeting minutes (from club, league and Surrey County FA) were all on paper. Player lists, signing-on forms, team sheets, club newsletters: all were done on paper.

Players were phoned up to ensure their availability. In fact, I remember one season in the 1980s when the Reserve Team manager (who did a great job) sent a weekly team update and selection notice by post. More paper.

These days, of course, it's nearly all done by e-mail, via th website or social media (https://www.facebook.com/Weysidersfc and https://twitter.com/weysidersfc).

We must have saved a few trees in this move. Also, I'm dispatching about an inch and a half of that two inches per season to the recycling bin.

Save the world!

The Serial Thrillers - When The Sun Goes Down

Ah, what the hell, a bit of shameless self-promotion for my band The Serial Thrillers.

http://www.youtube.com/v/ikPDelF7_-I?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=EcqW4rwFkRxabfox6SlaxA&showinfo=1&autohide=1&feature=share&autoplay=1

Catch us at https://www.facebook.com/TheSerialThillersBand and http://www.lemonrock.com/theserialthrillers

Beautiful Saville Garden on a beautiful day

The Saville Garden is only about seven miles from where we live, but my wife and I have never been there before yesterday.

What a lovely place! Helped, undoubtedly, by a glorious autumn day.

We had a marvellous walk among the autumn colours.

 

As parts of the garden are called Spring, Summer and Winter as well as Autumn, I imagine it's beautiful any time of the year.

You can walk down to Virginia Water in about 10 minutes too. Around Virginia Water might take a bit longer at 4.5 miles - for another day, as we will be back.

Those miles of overnight motorway cones

Roadworks are nobody's best friend, are they?

Recently I've been to events at the O2 and in Leeds which have meant travelling home after midnight. The number of roadworks on our motorways (in these case, M25 and M1) was amazing. Currently there appears to be long-term work on the M25 in Kent, but other mobile roadworks sprout up in the small hours.

Seemingly mile after mile of coned off lanes slow us drivers down to 50mph when all we really want to do is get back home quickly. Finally we see a few workers re-doing some worn out white lines, doing some quick re-surfacing work, or maybe fixing an overhead sign. Then there seems to be another mile of cones as a run-off before we're allowed to accelerate again. A couple of miles further down the road, there's another sign warning us of more roadworks a mile ahead.

But I'm not writing this to complain!

No, I'm going to sing the praises of our overnight motorway workforces, keeping our motorways usable while the traffic is reasonably quiet. It can't be fun for them to be out in the dead of night, dark, cold, probably miles from home themselves.

So let's hear it for our motorway mobile workforce, working at night to make driving easier for us during the day.

The Shard view proves popular

Having worked close to the growing Shard in London for the past five years or so, I have grown (not in quite the same way) to love the building. I think it's an exciting piece of architecture.

I am delighted to read (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20970513) that its viewing platform at 243m (the Shard is 310m high) is proving popular, with its first two days of tickets selling out before it's even open.

Viewing begins on 1 February, with tickets being sold for £24.95 for adults and £18.95 for children. Viewing is from floor 72, which is partly open to the elements. A February start will certainly test the visitors' mettle! Although tickets are bets purchased in advance there will apparently be some available for on-the-day visitors who are happy to walk up those 72 flights.

It should be an amazing view. I must book myself a ticket.

What a year 2012 was!

I know it's been said, many times, many ways, but what a year 2012 was!

Primarily for sport, of course, but then I'm a fan.
And primarily for the Olympics, of course, but then I'm a fan!

Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis, Nicola Adams ...

Bradley Wiggins winning Olympic Gold and the first Brit to win the Tour de France!
Andy Murray winning Olympic Gold and the first Brit in two-and-a half generations to win a tennis Grand Slam.

The London 2012 Paralympics set a new standard that has not even been aspired to before, and will have to be followed in Rio in 2016 (good luck with that!).

Josie Pearson - Paralympic discuss gold medal winner

If your 2012 didn't match up to mine, I wish you a better 2013.

I can't help feeling my 2013 won't quite match my 2012.

Career mother teenagers

I try not to be political in this blog. I actually believe that most politicians mean well, whatever angle they're coming from. Despite my a-political stance, I had to comment on something from the recent oarty conferences.

You may or may not like Chancellor George Osborne (and most vocal people, it seems, do not), but it is surely hard to disagree with one thing he said at the recent Conservative Party Conference.

He said: "How can we justify giving flats to young people who have never worked, when working people twice their age are still living with their parents because they can't afford their first home?"

And how can we?

I know personally two teenage girls who deliberately got themselves pregnant so that, with a baby, they would be on the list (and be given) accommodation and would not have to work.

These girls may not end up having a great life, but they made their choice - based on not wanting to work - and will have to live with the consequences.

But why should they be given accommodation while other hard-working youngsters are striving to make a living for themselves and save anough money to be able to move out of the family home - whether that's to rented accommodation to a property financed by a mortgage?

It makes no sense to me.