Movember: Day 30: Mover and Out

30 motastic days are now up. The picture above is the last of my moustache in all its dubious glory.


Moing, mowing....A tribute to Charlie Chaplin (a style also adopted by some other less talented fella).


...gone. The first time in 30 days my face has been clean-shaven. I feel naked without my mouzer.

Thanks to all who have donated and helped me raise almost £500 for prostate cancer research. It's not too late to donate, just follow this link.

Movember: Day 26

And now the end is near....just four more days of moustacheness to go before I can shave it off.

Please support prostate cancer research by sponsoring my disturbing moustache here.

Season 2010/2011: Match 9: Montrose v Whitehill Welfare

Montrose got back to winning ways yesterday with a 3-1 win over East of Scotland League side Whitehill Welfare.

The result wasn't anywhere as comfortable as the scoreline suggests, Montrose competing against 10 men from the 38th minute onwards and scoring two of their goals from the penalty spot.

It was a fast-paced game, but Montrose seemed to lack composure throughout, resorting to long punts up the pitch when their numerical advantage should have given them licence to pass the ball around and dictate the pace.

The home side were a goal down inside eight minutes, Daniele Giordano having a rush of blood to the head. The goalkeeper made a mess of a clearance, sending it straight to an unmarked midfielder on the edge of the box and watching helplessly as the ball was sent straight back over his head and into the empty net.

The goal was against the run of play, but Montrose struggled to come back from it. They evantually scored an equaliser when Tosh netted from the spot after he had been tripped in the box by Alan Cornet.

It was deja vu for Whitehill in the 38th minute when Tosh again scored from the spot, this time after Cornet had picked up his second yellow card for handball.

Playing against 10 men, Montrose should have dominated the second half, but it took them until the 75th minute to find the third goal that killed off this Scottish Cup Third Round tie, Gordon Pope volleying home from a Ross McCord corner.

All in all, it was a deserved win that was reached in a more roundabout fashion than was necessary. A couple of injury worries as well, Hugh Davidson again limping off injured in the first half and Giordano swapped for Sandy Wood 15 minutes from the end.

But we're into the Fourth round. Let's hope the draw brings Rangers to Links Park.

Man of the Match: A fast-paced match suited some of Montrose's more attack-minded players, including Aaron Sinclair, Martin Boyle (given a much-deserved starting place) and Paul Tosh. Stephen McNally was also a constant creative hub. But Ross McCord was at the heart of all of Montrose's attacking moves, and was unlucky not to score himself. The youngster is really growing in confidence and should have a good future ahead of him.

Movember: Day 20

At Eric's request - a Movember update. Please support prostate cancer research by sponsoring my facial hair growth at the Movember website.

Genius or Madness?

In this case - 75-year-old William Lyttle has been digging tunnels underneath his Hackney house for 40-odd years - I think the correct term is madness....

Movember: Day 11

Day 11 - at least it looks like I'm TRYING to grow a moustache now....

....please support prostate cancer research by sponsoring my pathetic moustache at the Movember website.

Egghead

If any of you odd denizens of the Blogosphere have nothing better to do tomorrow evening (Thursday November 11), you can see my televisual debut on BBC2 at 6pm, when the episode of Eggheads my colleagues and I filmed in January will be broadcast.

Read Or Dead Redemption

A brief overview of what I've been reading over the past few weeks:

 

New Moon - Stephenie Meyer
I thought that the second instalment of the Twilight saga was better than the first, with a greater range of characters and better development of the existing cast. Two down, two to go....

 

The Rum Diary - Hunter S. Thompson
Autobiographical novel of a young American journalist who moves to Puerto Rico for a life of work, rum, sex and brushes with the law. An early example of the grandfather of Gonzo at his best.

 

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
The first novel of the Millennium trilogy. A wide-ranging novel of industrial espionage, a decades-old murder mystery case and a whole raft of misfits from the Swedish criminal classes. Almost worth the hype and enough to keep me hooked for the two sequels.

 

Moab Is My Washpot - Stephen Fry
Autobiography covering the first 20 years of Britain's favourite Oxbridge-educated, gay ex-convict TV presenter. Fry has no hesitation in exploring his many flaws, prime amongst them appearing to be kleptomania. An excellent read containing both humour and pathos.

 

Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer
The third part of the Twilight quadrilogy and my favourite so far. Much faster-paced than its two prequels, more action and less of Bella's previously incessant pining after Edward. Certain parts actually made me laugh out loud, but I'm not entirely sure they were meant to.

 

Hitman: My Real Life In The Cartoon World Of Professional Wrestling - Bret "The Hitman" Hart
Fantastic look at the real lives behind the curtain in the World of the WWF/WWE. It would be a cliche to say it was a "no holds barred" account of possibly the world's greatest wrestler's life, but Hart is quick to expose the faults of, amongst others, Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior. Humour, anger, despair and revenge all appear in a great read.

 

Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer
And we're done. A monster of a final instalment in the Twilight 'saga' brought most of the plotlines to a close, although I was a bit disappointed that it ended with a democratic stand-down rather than all-out supernatural warfare. Hopefully Meyer will leave it there....

 

On The Road - Jack Kerouac
I failed to see what all the fuss is about while reading the defining novel of the beat generation. To be honest, I found On The Road pretty dull, and wasn't inspired by either Sal Paradise or Dean Moriarty. A disappointment.

 

Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

The third journey onto the Discworld, and much better than its predecessor The Light Fantastic. It was good to have a change of focus from Rincewind, the star of the first two books. Thoroughly enjoyable.

 

Movember: Day Eight

Not quite up to Graeme Souness standards just yet....

Season 2010/2011: Match 8: Montrose v Albion Rovers

There are some matches that defy all superlatives, about which it would be possible to wax lyrical for innumerable blog posts.

And there are others, like yesterday's Montrose vs Albion Rovers encounter, that are so forgettable that it's almost possible to actually forget you're at the football while you're watching them.

Yesterday's game was crap, and not just because Montrose slipped to their first defeat in seven games.

Albion scored twice in the first half, both times with the Montrose defence posted missing. The first was from former Montrose striker John Gemmell and the second from Robert Love.

Montrose had the best of the first half hour but couldn't put the ball into the net, then let their concentration slip in the closing 15 minutes of the first half.

They were better in a boring second half but struggled to create chances. The players can have no complaints as yet again they only looked like chasing the game after going behind.

I think I can understand Steven Tweed's rationale behind always starting Martin Boyle on the bench - the young lad has pace to burn and this becomes even more apparent when he's introduced as a second half substitute as others are flagging. But he always looks the most lively player when he comes on, and I think it's about time he was given a chance from the start against the....ahem...."less mobile" Paul Tosh.

Man of the Match: A poor collective performance and no really outstanding candidates. Ross McCord was involved in most of the things Montrose tried to do right, so I'll go with the wee ginger midfielder.

Celtic: Best Fans In The World

There are no depths too low for "The Greatest Fans In The World".

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Movember: Day Five

Five days without shaving my upper lip and we're beginning to see some progress.

Not progress in the "straight out of a 1970s porn movie" way, but more like a 14-year-old boy trying to get served in an off licence.

Please support my pathetic facial hair-growing efforts by sponsoring me here - all money raised goes to prostate cancer research.

The Death Of Print

I studied journalism at university, and between shorthand classes and tutorials on how to write quality news copy, we had numerous discussions over our four-year course debating the future of print journalism.

 

Broadly speaking, there were two camps - those who felt that print's days were numbered, and those who felt that so long as newspapers were cheap and disposable, they would remain a relevant medium.

 

Generally, I'm in the second group - newsprint's disposablity is its major draw. If you accidentally leave a newspaper on a train, get it soaked in a rain shower or drop it in the bath, you might be disappointed, but it's not the end of the world. You've lost something worth between 20p and £2.

 

Drop your Kindle in the bath or leave it on the train and, not only are you an idiot, but you're a few hundred quid worse off.

 

All of which is a very long preamble to this blog piece predicting a timeline for the global death of newspapers.

 

Ross Dawson expects the UK to be a newspaper-free zone by 2019.

 

Nine more years of print journalism? I don't see it.

 

Particularly at a local level, newspapers provide a vital service that hasn't yet been replicated online. While the majority of the population might have internet access, online news platforms don't yet have the same penetration that newspapers do. And people remain loathe to pay for online content.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the revolution will be over before I turn 40. The publishing company I work for now provides very few printed products, having moved largely to online delivery or electronic documents. But we're in a high-value niche market where clients are geared towards such methods.

 

I believe that newspapers will be around for another few decades at least.

 

Perhaps most importantly of all - you can't wrap your chips in an iPad and you can't dry out wet shoes with a rolled-up Kindle.

Movember: Day One

I don't often post extreme close-up pictures of myself here, but this one has a purpose.

It proves that I'm clean shaven today for the start of Movember.

For the whole of November I'll be growing a moustache to support prostate cancer research.

Prostate cancer kills one man every hour in the UK alone. So I'd be extremely grateful if you could support my fundraising efforts by donating whatever you can at:

https://www.movember.com/uk/donate/your-details/member_id/524824/

I'll be posting regular photographic updates on here so you can keep track of my facial hair. As I've got the fresh face of a teenage boy, the results may be somewhere between comical and spectacular.

Friday Ten - The 10 Most Played Songs On My iPod

1. Some Velvet Morning - Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - 19 plays

2. Straight Outta Compton - Nina Gordon - 15 plays

3. Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash - 14 plays

4. Israelites - Desmond Dekker - 13 plays

5. What Have You Gone and Done? - The Cooper Temple Clause - 12 plays

6. Here It Comes - Doves - 12 plays

7. Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley - 12 plays

8. Here Come The Girls - Ernie K. Doe - 12 plays

9. Anything Goes - AC/DC - 11 plays

10. Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Beyonce - 11 plays

The Bible II: Messiah

Seeing as how religion has popped up on this far-flung outpost of the worldwide interweb over the past few days, let's keep it going with Five Things You Won't Believe Aren't In The Bible, courtesy of Cracked.com.

 

Including the fantastic comment (from more than 1,500 the last time I looked):

 

Old testament is the first manuscript documenting the actions of the "One God", and the accounts of those who followed and worshipped it.

New testament is what happens when a bunch of people get together and think to themselves "How can we make a sequel, and make it even more awesome and fire-and-brimstoney than the original?"

 

But the greatest fuck-up is when a ruling body decides to get these works of fiction all together, and join them into a single volume (written by different authors) who clearly can't agree on so very many things....

Imagine if Peter Jackson wanted to make a Lord of the Rings II, The Ring Strikes Back!!! And to do this, he got people from the internet to write parts of the script. Every person got to write ten pages, and could have no contact with the other people writing the rest of the script. The resulting mess (would probably be a box office smash...) would be the equivalent of the New Testament.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Issue Politics

More US politics today - Jimmy McMillan of The Rent Is Too Damn High Party....

Why America Disturbs Me

I've posted on several occasions in the past that my favourite place in the world is New York. Given the time and money to do so, I would happily spend years exploring the USA from coast to coast, and I sincerely hope that I get the opportunity to drive across the country before I die.

 

Despite this love of America, certain aspects of it really disturb me. Lead amongst these is the fact that large numbers of US citizens will decide which candidate to vote for in the next presidential election based on which candidate they think is least likely to be the Antichrist.

 

I may be wrong, but I'm assuming that the vast majority of these voters will be those not voting for the black Democrat with the "muslimy-sounding name".

 

Putting the whole world's safety in the balance based on a collection of fairy tales cobbled together over the past 2,000 years....perfectly rational....

Season 2010/2011: Match 7: Montrose v Arbroath

It was deceptively sunny when I left Dungroanin' this afternoon bound for Links Park. I should have known better, as the ground is one of the coldest places on Earth.

Today's match was the second of the season against the smelly fish smokers from Arbroath, Montrose having skelped their visitors 3-0 back in August.

There was little danger of a repeat of that scoreline today, and the match was a scrappy, dirty affair. Arbroath's Josh Falkingham was booked in the first half for a wild lunge at Fraser Milligan after the returning Montrose player clashed with him near the edge of the home box.

Falkingham didn't see out the whole of the match, picking up a second yellow in the second half for attempting to win a penalty by diving in the box.

Stupidity isn't hard to find in the Arbroath ranks, and David Dimalta was also booked for diving nine minutes later.

Although Montrose didn't rattle in three goals this week, they could have scored a few if they'd kept their heads. The goal they did score was well taken, Paul Tosh flicking a Ross McCord corner down in front of goal for Aaron Sinclair to slide in and toe poke across the line.

Arbroath's equaliser came 13 minutes into the second half. Referee Bobby Madden waved play on despite Montrose's protestations that Tosh had been fouled on the edge of the Arbroath box. A long clearance found former Montrose man Steven Doris unmarked, and he lashed an unstoppable shot across new Montrose keeper Daniele Giordano and into the far corner.

It was unfortunate for Giordano, who otherwise had little to do on his debut. The young Italian is on loan from Celtic and seemed confident enough in a worryingly laid back manner.

McCord had a couple of good chances to win the match for Montrose, slamming a shot high over the crossbar when found unmarked in the box from a corner, and sending a free kick over the bar from the edge of the box in the second half.

Tosh had several chances, but none of them was as clear cut as McCord's two, the veteran striker sending several half volleys zipping past the posts, typically from tight angles.

But the best chance of the match fell to Martin Boyle. Confusion between Alan Rattray and Stuart Malcolm allowed the nippy youngster to tear through the middle and find himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper. He lacked composure though and Hill was able to make a fairly comfortable save from his low shot.

So Montrose have it all to do again at Gayfield. I don't fancy their chances much, as I suspect Arbroath may be too much for them on a cold autumn evening on the North Sea beach. We can but hope....

Man of the Match: No really outstanding candidates in Montrose colours. Sinclair reacted well to take his goal but was otherwise fairly quiet. Tosh on a better day might have scored a hat trick. Daryl Nicol gets my vote this week for a tireless performance up front against an occasionally brutal Arbroath defence.

Friday Ten - The Ten Coldest Places On Earth

1. Aberdeen

 

2. Montrose

 

3. Antarctica

 

4. Any game of professional football anywhere in the world

 

5. All Scottish beaches

 

6. All points in Scotland more than three metres above sea level

 

7. Actually, just Scotland in general

 

8. Melbourne in winter

 

9. The North Pole

 

10. Siberia