Wedding Website

We have a wedding website! :)

...well, a holding page, for now!

Willpower

It's a wonderful thing, willpower. The ability to stop yourself doing stuff that you enjoy because you know you shouldn't. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any.

No... I'm not going to admit to having had a massive relapse into smoking. Nor have I developed a drink habit. Instead, my downfall is home-made cakes and pastries of the type sold by the quaint little village shops here in Bakewell in the beautiful Peak District. See, in my bid to get more organised, I seem to have got myself into a weird sort of mental agreement with myself whereby if I forget to make my lunch for the day, I have to then go and buy far too much lunch at one of these lovely places. Today, for example, I didn't pack myself a lunch so, instead of just buying a light salad and perhaps a piece of fruit, I felt it only right that I buy a (deliciously) massive ham salad sandwich loaded with (scrumptious) full-fat home-made coleslaw, accompanied by a (delightful) ham and cheese pastry thing and, just to top it all off, a massive brick of (gorgeous) lemon shortbread.

Now, I hasten to add, all of this stuff (which I bought from a rather excellent sandwich shop the delights of which I have not sampled before) was absolutely gorgeous...but now here I am, full, bloated, lethargic and wondering why, oh why, I just couldn't say no.

Crack cocaine? Life-ruining and treachorous.
Heroin? The scurge of modern society.
Crystal Meth? Dangerously addictive and evil.

But what, I ask, is the government doing about home-made chocolate brownies and lemon drizzle cake?

FA Crap

Was it the awful playing surface at our shiny new national stadium, with the grass cut several millimetres too long for a football pitch and which after 45 minutes had started to look like a very expensive cow-field? Was it all a tactical master-stroke by 'The Special One', aiming to quench the fire and pace of the oppostion? Or was it just two groups of 11 men tired, jaded and not really that bothered after 60+ matches each in a season?

Whatever the reason, Saturday's FA Cup Final was one of the worst games of football in recent memory, particularly the first 45 minutes which was genuinely surreal, with both sides just knocking the ball about in a fashion usually reserved for the last game of a group stage in a tournament where both teams just need a draw to go through.

Now, I'm sure if we had won my attitude may be somewhat different, but as it stands I cannot come to any other conclusion. It was a dire affair... slow, tepid, dispassionate, with poor passing, no flair. no ambition and no displays of skill or pace on display. These are the two best teams in the country and two of the best in Europe, yet we saw very little worth watching in two hours, save for Chelsea's one coherent move which led to the one and only goal of the game after 116 minutes of diabolical drudgery.
My love for football remains undying, but with games like this, it makes you question why you invest so much time, effort and raw emotion into this sport that can let you down and hurt you so often.

:(

Bollocks Story #1

There was this cat -- a ginger one of smaller-than-average size -- that went by the name of Horatio that was very good indeed in the mathematical discipline of calculus*.

During the mid 90's, this cat went on a U.K. tour, playing mainly at provincial theatres, doing these extraordinarily complex equations on stage, as a kind of performance art. The audiences started off poor, but slowly built to a respectable size; the profits started to mount and things began to look quite good indeed. In 1998, he appeared on two late-night television shows (both on Channel 4).

In the spring of 1999 he was offered a book deal and teamed up with a ghost writer who had previously written a number of celebrity 'autobiographies', mainly for Premiership footballers. The book, Horatio decided, would be called "The Sum of All Things".

Unfortunately, soon after work began on the book, Horatio developed a rare infection of the paws and died. His book was never completed and his story has, until now, never been told.




*Horatio never wrote anything down owing to the fact that he had no opposable thumbs. Thankfully though he was fluent in English, speaking with what some thought was an accent from the Swindon area, although the cat was born and raised in the Wirral.

Seeing Wed

Yet again it's been ages since I've blogged. I sicken myself. I am a low-down, filthy, worthless, vile, disgraceful excuse for a blogger. I apologise to my many readers for any disappointment caused. If I were taken outside and given a severe beating by a gang of rowdy BMF* activists then I could blame no-one but myself. I am, dear readers, truly, truly sorry.

Right, so, anyway... on with the post.

First off... I'm getting married! :) I can hardly believe it myself as it all seems a bit surreal, but it's for absolutely for real. I popped the question to my lovely lady in Venice a couple of weeks back and (thank Christ) she instantly said yes! The real 'fun'** part starts now: finding venues, arranging dates, working out a budget (and, my God, these things are expensive nowadays aren't they?!) and so on... All part of the rich tapestry of life, I guess. First on the list of things to sort out is a venue... it's going OK-ish, but trying to find somewhere that's a viable travelling distance for all guests, is smart, classy and tasteful, has plenty of space for our number, and is also affordable is proving to be no mean feat.

At least half this decision-making stress would be removed were we actually religious in which case hours and hours of internet searches for a suitable Civil Ceremony venue would be completely unnecessaryand there'd be only one place to be getting married... Still, neither of us is actually religious, so it's a-Googling we go, trawling through lists of hotels, manor houses, country clubs and the like trying to find the perfect spot.

Adding to the difficulty is that oh-so-useful but oh-so-troublesome website TripAdvisor, which I feverishly refer to whenever trying to find a good hotel for a business trip, but which also curses me with other people's (sometimes negative opinions) about the possible venues for the most important day of my life. End result: we find a perfectly-suitable looking venue, only for me to start getting itchy when I see that someone only gave it 1 out of 5 on TripAdvisor in 2004 because they had a fall-out with the restaurant manager!

Anyway, our search continues and this weekend we start actually looking around some places. Perhaps, just perhaps, we'll fall in love with the first venue and the job, as they say, will be a good 'un.

I just don't think it'll be quite that simple, some how...!

Anyway, enough of the negativity already!! I'm absolutely ecstatic about the whole thing really and it's all extremely exciting (and I'm the bloke, so I can only imagine how much Esther is thinking about it!). I'm sure there'll be plenty more to talk about in coming weeks and months, so get ready to join me on an interactive journey through wedding organisation!***





* Blog More Frequently
** read: 'extremely stressful'
*** if/when I can actually be bothered to write in the blog

Tactical McClarity... The Result

Nah... didn't think so.

I was right. We suck.

Tactical McClarity

Steve McClaren, the FA's plan B, the England manager nobody ever wanted took part in a press conference this week, prior to England's friendly with Europe's other great underachievers Spain.

McClaren was asked by the reporters about Wayne Rooney's fitness for the match, after taking a knock on Sunday, followed by some questions about his squad selection and the 'system' for this game. It's impressive just how much nonsensical double-talk one man can give. The question was whether Gareth Barry (of Aston Villa) had missed out on a place, and who would play left back and left midfield.

Just look at this ...

Reporter: At left back you've got Phil Neville, was Gareth Barry [of ASton Villa, who has been on excellent form this season for Aston Villa, playing primarily at left midfield, occasionally at left back] close to being picked?

SM: Yes, yes he was close. But if I want to play players in an international game -- Gareth's not played for a while -- I want them to play in the position he plays for his club, where he's most comfortable, and [for Gareth Barry] that is left side midfield, so I've decided instead to play Phil Neville [at left back, although Neville has played more games for Everton as a defensive midfielder, which is the position he was actually bought to fill in the first place, and has been less than electric while playing at left-back for the first half of this season].

Reporter: So Frank [Lampard, who always plays as a central attacking midfielder for Chelsea and England] is going to play left side midfield for you, is he?

SM: (flashes an uncomfortable grin). Yeah that's right. It's, erm, I want -- I'm trying to be a bit, erm, it's an opportunity to try something and to expand upon what we did in the Holland game, obviously different personnel, so we're trying things, we're looking at different personnel, different players, and we're aiming for, er, a good performance, really.


Bollocks, Steve. Just bollocks. Why don't you just admit the truth, which is something more along the lines of this...


Reporter: So Gareth Barry misses out on the team then?

SM: Yes, Phil Neville has been better at defensive midfield for Everton, but I know he's played left-back for England before, so I thought he was the safe option, which is what I like.

Reporter: So why not play Barry at left midfield, since he's on good form with Aston Villa and your first choice, Joe Cole, is injured?

SM: Well I've told Frank Lampard he can play on the left now and I can't really drop Frank Lampard, now can I? I mean, come on... it's Frank Lampard! He's really good isn't he? And he's famous. And he plays for Chelsea, who are also good.

Reporter: Then why not play Lampard in the middle, which is his natural position?

SM: But then I could have to drop Steven Gerrard... I mean, come on... it's Steven Gerrard!...

etc... etc...

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

I mean, I could be eating my words tomorrow, but somehow I just can't see it... :-(

One United Woes

I love Man United and I always have. And we're going to win the league this year (fingers crossed) which is superb. I'm also hoping they'll get to the first FA Cup Final at the new Wembley stadium, now that it's finally finished... wishful thinking at this early stage, I know, but there's a decent chance that it will happen. If they do get there, I'd love to go... so I thought I'll pull my finger out and actually join the official United fan club, One United. I did this, no bother, and then I saw that One United members could also sign up for extra free content and stuff from the United website. 'Brilliant!', I thought. I'll do that.

What a fucking nightmare. The whole process was so shambolically crap (and I do the whole web/applications/ticketing/football thing for a living, so I know my stuff)... so bad, in fact, that I felt the need to send a massive long email to their website team. It's only right and fair, I thought, that I share it with you. It's actually not funny or entertaining, but it does prove that I don't think that absolutely EVERYTHING Man U do is brilliant :)

So, here it is, verbose...



Hi,

I'm having problems with your e-Membership and would like some help, as well as to offer some feedback.

First, let me point out that I am actually a Project Manager in the Web Application Development industry, working in the ticketing (for football) sector and currently working on a project for Euro2008... so I 'know my apples', so to speak.

I hope this email won't seem belligerent or impolite -- that is not my intention -- however, these problems are very, very frustrating and completely un-necessary. The reasons why, I hope, will become apparent.

Problem 1: I am asked to put in my One United membership number to the E-Membership sign-up form, yet, after that, I have to enter all my personal details again. Why? Every One United membership number is unique, so why doesn't the system just pull back my name and address from the database? There's no security problem, since I had to select a username and password in my original membership sign-up, so why not just ask for membership number, username, password, abnd Bob's your uncle!?

Problem 2: The "address" section of the sign-up form asks just for the first line of my address and my postcode... which leads me to believe it's going to look up my address from a Royal Mail PAF or Address-Point or similar... except no... it doesn't find my address, even though I live in a 1930's semi-detached house, not a new development, that's instantly found on every other website of the same nature.

Problem 3: When I've finally completed all the forms (4 pages) and hit submit, the system tells me that my One United Membership number doesn't exist, even though it does. (I've just joined One United for £27.00) and have my email confirmation.

Problem 4: Rather than the system telling me that it can't find my membership number after "Stage One" of the sign up process (the very, very first step, which is the stage where I have to enter it), it takes me through ALL the forms before failing, after which it takes me back to the start! Why on earth didn't it validate the membership number straight away after stage one?
Problem 5: I have to fill in ALL the forms (again) from scratch, because the system doesn't restore them from the session using cookies or whatever, even though this would be really easy to implement.

Problem 6: (Not related to E-Membership) When signing up for One United membership I enter my Debit Card details, but not a "Start Date", since my card (Maestro) doesn't have a start date... This makes the submission fail, the error message being "Please enter a start date". Now, there's no instructions on the fom saying "If your card doesn't have a start date, please enter January 2007"... The fact that the lack of start date on many cards is ignored by your
system hardly fills me with the greatest sense of faith in other issues such as the security of my card details, etc...

All in all, I would class these kinds of things as "Schoolboy errors" (and this is precisely what I would say to developers working on projects for me), so it's not the kind of thing I would expect to see on the website of the world's greatest football club!
Thanks for your time -- I look forward to your reply.

Regards,

Andy Thelwell