Sentient Puddle

Well it’s happened, but not in a way I expected. Turned out that Steve Gibson had decided several weeks ago that Gareth Southgate was no longer the person to bring success (or at least, not failure) to Middlesbrough Football Club. Something most Boro supporters felt for a while. The nature of it was surprising, given that it was immediately after a win against Derby which kept us up there in the fight to go back up to the Premier League. Kind of proves the “football is a funny old game” cliche really, but it’s a welcome change. There’s enough decent soccer teams in the Championship to make this a difficult season to go straight back up, and nothing can be taken for granted. I think Gordon Strachan is a good choice, someone who has had experience with Manchester United and Celtic, and certainly isn’t going to look a football gifts horse in the mouth in a return to management, as he never really proved himself when he managed in England previously.
Should be interesting times ahead anyway. Up the Boro!

So, we finally got a decent result. 2 nil win away at Reading has got to be good news. It’s quite strange, as the mood around the Boro was so bad you’d think that we were in the relegation places, rather than than the top four. Is that because we’ve got unrealistic expectationsthat we should win every single game because we’re in an inferior league do you think? That’s what Gareth Southgate reckons, and is now claiming that the players would rather play away from home because of the pressure and the stick that they get at home. Nice move Gareth, blame the fans for our poor performances, instead of looking where the faults really lie, i.e. the manager and the team.

Alienating the fans further is just one of the things that Southgate seems to be getting better at. He needs to take a long look at himself and his team, because the reason that the fans are reacting how they are when things are not going well is because they have absolutely no faith in the manager, his team selection, tactics and transfer policy. So naturally we panic when we lose at home, or throw away a two goal lead, because we know that there is nothing the manager can do about it, because he has no tactical acumen, and never, ever blames the players. If we had a manager we felt could turn things around when the going got tough then it would be different, but we don’t. We saw that last season as we slipped to the inevitable relegation. Inevitable because it was clear that Southgate couldn’t do anything about it.

It’s times like that that you need to stand tall, and take the blame. Instead Southgate resolutely refuses to give his players the reprimand they deserve, so creating the impression with the fans that he is not the manager to turn things around if needs be. Signings like Caleb Folan don’t give any confidence either. Especially as he’s got injured and we don’t seem to have sent him back to Hull, which is what you normally do in that situation. What that suggests is that we’ve effectively already signed him permanently. Which further suggests that the club itself has no confidence that it will return to the Premier League anyday soon, because whatever he is, Caleb Folan is not a Premiership player. He may  have height, and we do need a taller player to play off our other strikers, but being tall is not enough in itself.

Still, we got the three points, and with West Brom and Newcastle dropping two points each, it keeps us in touch. Typical Boro though eh?

I have three brothers. All of them younger than me. The first one down from me is about 6 feet tall. The youngest is about 6 feet one inch tall. The one in between is, how shall I say, not as tall. Not sure why, these things just happen. Like the youngest brother is ginger, but none of the rest of us are. Randomness, that’s all it is. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with having ginger hair, just as I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with not having great height. Just because someone is taller than you, doesn’t make them any better as a person.

Now, just as my ginger brother has never said anything about changing the colour of his hair, my shorter brother has never expressed any desire for a height increase. Is this because he doesn’t want to get taller, or because he doesn’t think it’s possible? I assumed that it wouldn’t be possible myself, until I started coming across websites that give advice on how to increase height naturally which have tips and suggestions on the topic. Apparently it is possible, so there you go. Specific diets get mentioned, as do various exercises.

Now what do we think? I was contemplating running an experiment you see. I’m currently about 5 foot 10 inches (maybe five foot eleven).  How about I take some of the advice on how to gain height and follow the tips and advice, and see if I get any taller. I wonder how long it takes. Perhaps I could be over eight feet tall when I’m done. Not sure that I really want to be that tall. Before I get started I might look to see if there are any websites out there that tell you how to get shorter, so that I can reverse things if I get too big.

I like reading. I mean, I like reading books, newspapers, the odd magazine. It’s one of those activities that you think is going to get usurped by some technological development, like a direct feed into your brain from your new iPod or something, but reassuringly still remains the same. No matter how many Sunday magazine supplement adverts they have with new ideas to help you turn the page of your book, or hold it for you so that your hands are free to do something else (what type of book are you reading?!), it’s great to just sit down and read as much or as little of your reading material as you like.

You can read in silence, or you can have the radio or music on in the background. It’s something you can do  in the bath, or on a train (although not both at the same time annoyingly, unless it’s a very posh train). You really can drift away from whatever reality you live in for  a period of time. Perhaps when you’re really into a book, that’s what hypnosis is like. Sometimes I like a trashy crime thriller, and I really didn’t have myself down as that type of person. It was a guilty pleasure, but now I don’t even feel that guilty.

How great is a book that you can read more than once? You know what’s happening, what’s going to happen, but you still stumble across something that you missed the first time, or remembered differently. And how good is it to be pleasantly surprised at a book that you expected little of, but actually meant a great deal?

I like computers. I like my Wii, I love Guitar Hero on my Playstation. But I’ve like books since I was a kid, and I like books now. I’m pretty sure they’re going to remain a reassuringly constant pleasure throughout my life. Can’t say that about much now, can you?

I’m getting older. You didn’t notice? Well it’s true. With age, a certain type of awareness of health and beauty issues begins to manifest itself. I don’t think it’s so much vanity, as being aware of your health and your looks. When I was younger, it wasn’t that I didn’t care, it’s just that, well, ok, I didn’t care. It didn’t seem to matter what we did, how much we drank etc, we were ageless and were always going to be in perfect health. Right?

Turns out we may have been a little wide of the mark. Certain things do damage your health, and you start to realise that there perhaps should be things you should do - I used herbal supplements to help me give up smoking for example. I feel a lot better for it, even if very occasionally I miss them! You learn to moderate your lifestyle, rather than giving things up. For some reason I get up earlier in the morning than I ever have done before. What’s that about?

Even the healthiest of Buddhist monk will eventually be impacted by the ravages of time. Even if you’re not vain (and I’m not, honest), then from a health point of view there are things that you realise that you should be doing. Vitamins, for example, are an easy way to help your body and mind along. I know there’s lots of different types for different things, but even just for vitamin C it’s just so easy to take a tablet. If I didn’t, I know I wouldn’t get enough of it (I’m not great on the five a day thing just yet).

Ok, so I may not be beautiful, but at least I’m not falling apart!

Now, here is a topic I know a lot about. Not from a personal point of view, you understand, purely as an attendee at some of the North West’s premier fancy dress parties. Through my attendance at these events, I’ve become somewhat of a sexy ladies fancy dress connoisseur. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, this is salacious in anyway - I am a happily married man after all. It’s just that girls (or ladies) seem to have a lot more fun with their fancy dress options. I’m not saying that I want to dress up as a naughty nurse, but it would be nice to have the option.

The same principle extends to clubbing. There is only so much a man can do i.e. jeans and a nice shirt. How do you make that into sexy clubwear? Undo the top button of your shirt? Whereas the girls (sorry again, or ladies), have all sorts of options that they can go for. At the moment this seems to primarily consist of a short skirt and a skimpy matching top, but it depends on what type of club you go to!

Now I’m not saying that I wear unsightly grey y-fronts, but when it comes to underwear, girls (again sorry, or ladies) even have a better name for it - lingerie. Just the sound of it is more appealing, sexy French, conjuring up images of corsets and bustiers. Just by saying sexy lingerie, women already have the advantage. What can I say - look love, I’ve got some nice new pants? It’s hardly the same is it?

This will probably be the first of many posts about the inequality between men and women. I’m sure you’ll be thrilled!

Now, I am a very happily married man. I had a wonderful wedding day, and wouldn’t want to change a thing. Except, well maybe….. I recently attend the happy event of a couple of friends, who had hired a wedding piper to provide something extra for their happy day. Now it’s not something I had thought of before - we just had my iPod for the “walking down the aisle” bit, and I guess it’s a bit different having a wedding piper in Glasgow as opposed to south of the border. Or is it?

I mean, when you think about it, bagpipes are played all over the world now, whether people have Scottish heritage or not. They certainly add a certain gravitas to an occasion, but not in an overbearingly serious way. Maybe it’s as I’m getting older, but I really like the sound, it’s just not something you hear very often (not where I live anyway!). It definitely makes a difference to organ music, although I didn’t get married in a church, so I didn’t have that anyay.

At the end of my speech as a groom, there was a surprise appearance from Barry White (well, a Barry White impersonator), but that’s not quite bagpipes is it?

Ok, so I’m not likely to get divorced, but part of me thinks it would have been pretty cool to have a wedding piper on my special day.

Just not sure whether my wife would have married me if I’d been wearing a kilt!

Let’s finally get this blog about something and nothing started. It’s been a year, just sat here by itself, with nothing going on at all.

So it’s now going to get gradually filled with worthless articles about random subjects.

Football is a good random topic to start off with. As a Boro fan, it’s also a bit of a touchy subject. Football fans live and die by their team, which is why football souvenirs are so popular. Seriously, you can get pretty much everything you’d ever want, plus an awful lot of stuff that you don’t want as well.

Obviously most of it is aimed kids, mainly boys but with an increasing number of girls getting involved.  As women’s football becomes more popular, so does football merchandise for both male and female. Soccer related bedside lamps, inflatable chairs, badges, hats, flags etc.You wonder how the football clubs even think of the products that they can produce.

Foreign (as in outside of the UK) buyers are big buys of football souvenirs. They tend to limit themselves to the top few clubs, which is why Manchester United gifts are the biggest sellers, as far away as Asia and the Americas. Liverpool, Celtic and Chelsea are also very popular. Occasionally you get a surprise team selling a lot of football merchandise, such as Leeds Utd. Whilst they may once have been a great team, we’re talking a few years ago.

People support different teams for different reasons. Perhaps it’s there families team, maybe it’s the very first team they saw live or on TV. Or  maybe because it’s a football team that just won a cup. But we won’t dwell on glory supporters today.