Warner Park, Eyemouth

Eyemouth United take on Tynecastle FC in the Image Printers East of Scotland Qualifying Cup 1st round. United prevailed 4-3 after extra time.

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT)

Could they not have had a competition in conjunction with The Guardian or something to give it a bit more of a memorable name? Unless it's a double bluff, and the name is going to be delivered deadpan in a Peter Cook-esque type fashion at the Christening. Mind you, I don't think telescopes get Christened, so I doubt it. 

Lucy Beale's Predicament is Nonsense. Sort it Out

Observation about Ian Beale running off to have a nervous breakdown and leaving Lucy home alone to look after Bobby and run several businesses and stuff...

For the past week writers have been letting the viewers know that Lucy is running out of money to feed her and her half brother (who I think has been played by the same actor for the last 10 years, despite the fact he's still meant to be about three, and has yet to utter more than three words in any one scene) because of course she's a teenager/student (or whatever she was before Beale-O ran off on a post-Mandy mental flip out) and doesn't have ready access to cash - to the point where she's even had to sell Bobby's toys to the sons of David Essex* to scrape together some money for Fig Newtons. Fair enough likes, we geddit. Not every kid has a brother called Buzz whose shelving unit you can merely shimmy up in search of a spot of quantitative easing.

And yet at the same Lucy has been clearly shown to be running two bustling eateries when not worrying about where she's going to get the money from to feed her and her little bro!  Argggghhhhh! Ah say ah say ah say Eastenders writers - after building her up to be such a selfish scheming cow, shirley she'd have the gumption to take a few kopeks out the Kaff till to pay for Bobby's breakie?

* Oh yeah! Where the bloody hell did he ever go? I really hate it when they sign up these once-famous half-names who get moody steamy ident ads played all over the place and then scarper off after three months. How the hell did they write that one into the script? Must have missed that one. "Alright boys, do you like it here in Walford even though you'd never been here before I brought you here last week? Well that's good because I'm going to open up an antique shop and then disappear."

In fairness, he's probably rushed off to Charlie's sick bed. Ask any Eastenders writer what Charlie's illness is, they'd probably stutter, vomit, then cry uncontrollably.

Pray for the Wanderers

Due to a combination of bloodlines and cruel freaks of nature, I have been a Bolton Wanderers fan since childbirth.

It's certainly been a roller coaster ride, with much of that ride spent plummeting through Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom tunnels at 90mph. Vertically. Downwards. I'm not even old enough to appreciate the great Sherpa Van trophy win of '88.

And to compound matters, today is the day I will witness Bolton be relegated from the Premier League. 

To stay up, we need to beat dowdy, middle-of-the-road, nothing-to-play-for Stoke, and that's something I just can't consider for a minute; any Bolton fan worth his or her salt knows not to ever give more than a tenth of a second of their life over to optimism when it comes to The Wanderers.

We will lose today. Or we'll throw away a two goal lead to draw. Or we'll cruise to victory only for QPR to score two goals in injury time to beat Man CIty.

We're going down. Pray for us.

Newbattle Complex, Easthouses

Easthouses Lily MW host Duns fc in their final match of the East of Scotland 1st division season 2011/12. Duns won the match 4-0.

Stadio Delle Recreation Park

Ormiston, East Lothian, EH35 191.

Ormiston FC take on Peebles Rovers in an East of Scotland 1st division match. Ormiston run out 3-2 winners.

Lettuce ponder this

At work today I had to do some research into what speed snails could travel at. (You've probably heard me talk about how important my work is).

It caused me to come across this article from 2010.

Sidney crowned world's fastest snail"Ready, steady, slow!" 

- Sidney the snail stormed to victory at the World Snail Racing Championship in Norfolk. He beat off stiff competition over the 13-inch course to win a silver tankard stuffed with lettuce.
The event at Congham near King's Lynn has been running for nearly 40 years, and although there are a number of imitations it's the only recognised World Championship. 
This year's winner belongs to 62-year-old Claire Lawrence, from Litcham in Norfolk, and crossed the line in three minutes 41 seconds.
"I'm shell shocked my mum has won, as it's the first time she has entered," her son Harry Lawrence told Rex.
"She selected Sidney a couple of days ago and she has been training him in our garden and feeding him on a diet of rocket salad."
The world record stands at two minutes and was set by a snail called Archie in 1995. Unfortunately this year's windy conditions meant times were much slower than usual.

It's just brilliant. Firstly, and probably leastly, for the puns, whether intended or not. "I'm shell-shocked?" Did Harry actually say this? Was he planning to turn his flimsy connection to Sidney into some sort of platform for his comedic talents? Or was it genuinely inadvertent?

Then there's Sidney's award. A tankard (because a bowl or something would just be insulting) stuffed with lettuce (because of course a tankard alone would be of little value to a snail).

Then the training regime, and the apparent belief that two days on rocket salad made Sidney the snail he is today (or at least, then. He's probably been done in by a starling by now). Does Harry (you'll have picked up already that I have my suspicions about this Harry character) really think we can be led in to believing the logic that changing an animal's typical diet slightly (but not radically) for a fraction of its lifespan (starlings permitting) causes an animal to have heightened powers? It's a bit like (I've built myself up for a super-funny analogy here and I'm going to fail epically)......

The best bit though is learning that wind conditions greatly affect the performance of even rocket salad-eating snaiils. And that there are people who've studied whether they do or not. 

BREAKING NEWS...before I finish this, think I've just found the best taglines ever... the first result googling 'fastest snail 2011' comes up with a link to another snail racing event with the description:

FIRST it was worm charming and now it's snail racing...it can only mean one thing - The Prestatyn Flower Show                

When will £1 shops become £2 shops?

There must come a point in time where inflation dictates that pound shops will cease to exist, because they can't buy enough stuff at a stock price of less than a pound to make it a viable concern.

It will take a while yet I guess.A long while now I think of it. The first Poundland opened in 1990 (according to wikipedia - I don't store that as my dinner party ice breaker or anything) when a pound, in today's money, was worth £1.70.

Advances in manufacturing technology, market forces and all that jazz will have enabled them to, say, sell four rolls of sticky tape for £1 just as they did in 1990, but we will surely reach a point in the future where it becomes impossible to sell at that price, and still make a profit. Of course you'd start by taking rolls of tape out of the packet, so that you end up selling just one roll for £1. Your manufacturer is also cutting costs in order to meet your pricing demands, so the product also becomes less

Now this is nothing new of course, it's happening now and has always happened - random example being the shrinking Mars Bar.

But, while it's not going to matter to us in 25 years time if we're paying double for a Mars Bar so long as we're getting paid double, when every single conceivable product costs more than £1 wholesale, Poundland is going to have to change its name.

But to what? Twopoundland? Onepoundfiftyland? They can just adopt a generic bargain shoppish type name of course, but that's exactly my point. They will be forced to lose the power of the pound slogan, like Dime Stores died the death for the same reason. But Amercians still have the Dollar to fall back on as a well known monetary term. But after the pound goes, what are we left with?

*two months later...why didn't I post this? It's got everything - sex, violence, murder, a link to the Daily Mail. Let's do it...*

The Sven Tapes

Before old age struck me down, I had a friend called Sven who - particularly in the early hours of Saturday night when slightly squiffy - would phone up late night LBC radio phone-ins trying, for some reason, to emulate Sven of Swiss Cottage, who was a friend of the late Peter Cook in the 1980s.

The Sven I knew never gave his location as Swiss Cottage (fearing someone might think him trying to impersonate Cook's friend Sven). Once he was "of Pimlico, but not in Pimlico" because, at time of calling, he was resident in Edinburgh cat-sitting (this was in fact an eleborate storyline Sven deployed to try and explain the otherwise inexplicable Scottish lilt to his broad Norwegian accent).

For reasons we can only put down to gross professionalism on the part of the producer, Sven never got through to Clive Bull, who hosted Mr Cook's friend many a night 20 something years ago. But my Sven found solace, nay, an even better ear in the form of Bill Buckley, whose slot proceeded Mr Bull's, and who was good enough to engage in Svennish conversation ranging from Nina Simone to lorne sausage to Sven's estranged wife Jutta, now a professional boxer living in the US.

This mercifully short slip is the only snippet from the Pimlico vaults which can even start to be described as an inadvertent one liner on the part of Sven:-

http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/103594/Sven_ 

This one meanwhile is, quite frankly, even more a waste of your time, but at least explains how discussion of lorne sausage (with haggis in the centre!) once snuck into a radio chat show on LBC radio

http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/103593/The_Sven_Files

Don't panic...

...Everything's completely under control...

Start hand: Sun Jan 22 18:42:49 GMT 2012

Table: Table #36 [210199790] (NO_LIMIT TEXAS_HOLDEM 100/200, ante: 20, Chips)

User: iamthejomo

Button: seat 3

Players in round: 9

Seat 1: sapuncho (1245)

Seat 3: raumar (1195)

Seat 4: khkg (9140)

Seat 5: luckysisco6 (6895)

Seat 6: genrich73rus (1430)

Seat 7: iamthejomo (4710)

Seat 8: PToruam (15620)

Seat 9: mazz. (8635)

Seat 10: Sarovskii (10130)

khkg posts ante 20

luckysisco6 posts ante 20

genrich73rus posts ante 20

iamthejomo posts ante 20

PToruam posts ante 20

mazz. posts ante 20

Sarovskii posts ante 20

sapuncho posts ante 20

raumar posts ante 20

khkg posts small blind (100)

luckysisco6 posts big blind (200)

---

Dealing pocket cards

Dealing to iamthejomo: [Ad, 7s]

genrich73rus folds

iamthejomo calls 200

PToruam raises 600 to 600

mazz. folds

Sarovskii folds

sapuncho folds

raumar folds

khkg calls 500

luckysisco6 calls 400

iamthejomo calls 400

--- Dealing flop [Qc, Ah, 2c]

khkg bets 8520 [all in]

luckysisco6 folds

iamthejomo calls 4090 [all in]

PToruam folds

--- Dealing turn [Th]

--- Dealing river [9c]

---

Summary:

Main pot: 10760 won by iamthejomo (10760)

Rake taken: $0

Seat 1: sapuncho (1225), net: -20

Seat 3: raumar (1175), net: -20

Seat 4: khkg (4430), net: -4710, [Ks, Td] (PAIR TEN)

Seat 5: luckysisco6 (6275), net: -620

Seat 6: genrich73rus (1410), net: -20

Seat 7: iamthejomo (10760), net: +6050, [Ad, 7s] (PAIR ACE)

Seat 8: PToruam (15000), net: -620

Seat 9: mazz. (8615), net: -20

Seat 10: Sarovskii (10110), net: -20

***** End of hand T5-210199790-40 *****

Sadly Mr khkg completely and utterly lost the plot moments later.  Not that I'm complaining. I'm so bad at this malarky I ned all the help I can get!

Start hand: Sun Jan 22 18:44:44 GMT 2012

Table: Table #36 [210199790] (NO_LIMIT TEXAS_HOLDEM 100/200, ante: 20, Chips)

User: iamthejomo

Button: seat 5

Players in round: 10

Seat 1: sapuncho (1205)

Seat 2: marginson_bg (2415)

Seat 3: raumar (1155)

Seat 4: khkg (5310)

Seat 5: luckysisco6 (6155)

Seat 6: genrich73rus (1190)

Seat 7: iamthejomo (10740)

Seat 8: PToruam (14980)

Seat 9: mazz. (8595)

Seat 10: Sarovskii (9690)

genrich73rus posts ante 20

iamthejomo posts ante 20

PToruam posts ante 20

mazz. posts ante 20

Sarovskii posts ante 20

sapuncho posts ante 20

marginson_bg posts ante 20

raumar posts ante 20

khkg posts ante 20

luckysisco6 posts ante 20

genrich73rus posts small blind (100)

iamthejomo posts big blind (200)

---

Dealing pocket cards

Dealing to iamthejomo: [2d, Ad]

PToruam folds

mazz. folds

Sarovskii calls 200

sapuncho folds

marginson_bg folds

raumar folds

khkg calls 200

luckysisco6 folds

genrich73rus folds

iamthejomo checks

--- Dealing flop [Tc, 8c, Jd]

iamthejomo checks

Sarovskii checks

khkg checks

--- Dealing turn [3d]

iamthejomo checks

Sarovskii checks

khkg checks

--- Dealing river [Qd]

iamthejomo bets 200

Sarovskii folds

khkg raises 5090 to 5090 [all in]

iamthejomo calls 4890

---

Summary:

Main pot: 11080 won by iamthejomo (11080)

Rake taken: $0

Seat 1: sapuncho (1185), net: -20

Seat 2: marginson_bg (2395), net: -20

Seat 3: raumar (1135), net: -20

Seat 4: khkg (0), net: -5310, [6d, Ks] (HIGH_CARD KING)

Seat 5: luckysisco6 (6135), net: -20

Seat 6: genrich73rus (1070), net: -120

Seat 7: iamthejomo (16510), net: +5770, [2d, Ad] (FLUSH ACE)

Seat 8: PToruam (14960), net: -20

Seat 9: mazz. (8575), net: -20

Seat 10: Sarovskii (9470), net: -220

***** End of hand T5-210199790-42 *****

Havens Alive

Immense stuff, absolutely immense.

Thank you driver

Why do people say this to bus drivers? You don't say 'thank you pilot' or 'thank you dentist' or 'thank you bra fitter'. Why bus drivers?

Stop it immediately.

The world needs to sit up and start discussing the real issues facing mankind

And so, in an act that will probably be counted as the greatest achievement in my life(no genuinely, it probably will) I have started that discussion >>> World's Most Important Theological Debate Here

Could we really see a translucent snooker ball in our lifetime?

The Works

I have decided I'm going to make a start on my novel today, henceforth to be referred to as 'the works'.

It's taken barely a couple of years to come up with the title, Wilde, Sex and Murder at the Blue Cock Hotel, and a few weeks ago I came up with as good an opening hook as my tiny mind is ever likely to muster. All that's left now is the tiny little task of writing the actual thing.

I've clearly missed this being a New Year's resolution, but seeing that yesterday marked T minus 200 days to the Olympics (super hooray and and all that stuff) it seemed as good as any point to set myself a clear aim: write 500 words a day in order to reach my 100k.Obviously now there's only 199 days to go, but I'm hopeful of making that lost 2.5 words per day up over the next 199 (I'm not really - in fact I don't think I'll even get 500 words done this evening).

Right, I've opened Microsoft Word. It's how all the greats began...

Ed Miliband Gaffe

O is miles away from A on the keyboard. Just an observation.

Here's another observation:-

Failed First Footer

Those of you who know me will often wonder I'm sure how I got this way. The following little nugget may shed some light.

I went to buy some shoes on Sunday. Picked up a pair that were in the sales off the shelf.

First shoe had a label on the sole saying 11 (UK) 46 (EUR) L. That'll do me I thought. I'm a size 11. Don't really need to know the European size to be honest, and it's plainly a large shoe, but you go for it with your wide variety of size descriptions if you like Jimmy.

Then I picked up the other shoe. This one said 11 (UK) 46 (EUR) R. This confused me a bit, I must admit. If they're both a size 11 (both a size 46 indeed), how can one be deemed large and the other only regular?

Possibly something to do with the breadth of the shoe, I hypothesised. So I tried them on. Both felt the same to me, so I thought bugger it, I'll just get them anyway.

It took just under 48 hours to dawn what the L and R actually stood for.

Happy New Year...

...and all that jazz.

People keep complaining that I often fall off the edge of the world. Not literally, but in the sense that I'm never heard from for weeks, nay months on end.

So I am starting a blog in order to let you know where I am and/or what I'm doing.

I aim to update at least once every three or four months, so checking this together with my twit account - http://www.twitter.com/dasjomo - you should all know whether or not I'm alive to within a six week timeframe.

Have a great 2012. And don't go backing Prosecco in the 1.55 at Ayr today - it might just win.

Jomo x