Catching up with technology

Before I was even out of bed this morning, the nice man from Sky installed Sky Plus for us. I could have lived without it but when Johnny gets a notion in his head, nothing stops him. It is very clever though, I can't deny it. As it works off a hard drive, you can now record as many programmes as you like on the satellite channels, although only two if they are scheduled at the same time. However, you can still watch another Sky channel whilst recording another. You can also pause a programme and rewind it up to 60 minutes. Very handy if you fall asleep. Al, you should get it!! :-)

Spurs 3 Southend 1

FA Cup 4th Round. This was the second time in five weeks that the Spurs drew a cup tie with my local town Southend. The first was in the Carling Cup on 20th December when Spurs played pretty poorly and only managed to scrape a 1-0 win in extra time when Defoe scored from a cross, which was considered a contentious off-side.

I suppose it's a bit weird travelling up to Tottenham as a home supporter when the opposition is your home town, but for me, there's no compromise as I've been a Spurs fan for 28 years now and will be until the day I die.

Today, Martin Jol changed the team a fair bit, mainly due to our mid-week game against Arsenal in the Carling Cup semi-final which ended 2-2 despite us going 2 up in the first half. This was the debut for new signing Ricardo Rocha playing at centre back.

Considering the hard work we made of beating them last time, you' d think it would spark a more professional performance wouldn't you? Well, although there were moments of good football and steaming runs through the Southend midfield, there were also times when it looked like a circus - not all Tottenham's fault however - the referee Rob Stiles more than contributed and made some bizarre decisions that left the fans all riled up.




In front of a crowd of 33,406 (surprisingly lots of empty seats), Robbie Keane opened the scoring in a first half with a deflected goal that should really have yielded more. Jermaine Jenas marked his return to the side after injury with a goal that was the very least his performance deserved. Freddy Eastwood did halve the deficit for a short time after scoring a penalty - which, from where we were sitting, looked like a bad decision. However, watching the replay on Match of the Day, the ball did come off Ghali's arm. Mido settled the outcome on 75 minutes. The star of the show (and not first the first time) was Aaron Lennon, whose crosse

Roll on May!

As soon as I received the news that my cousin Matt and his girlfriend Suzie were coming over to visit from Australia, we decided that there needed to be another Eurotrip. Last time when he was over on his own in 2003, we travelled to Rome for 2 days. This was renamed the 'Johnny Tripod Tours' following a hilarious incident involving my John (of course) when he imitated a tour guide holding aloft a flag for the tourists to follow, but instead he used a miniature tripod with a serviette attached. That in itself wasn't funny but when a Japanese tourist started following John down an alleyway, we were all crying with laughter - and so was the waiter who was attending to our al fresco table!! (see blurry pic taken by said waiter). :-)

Anyway, to get back to this year....we decided on Prague for our next destination. I've heard so many people say how lovely the city is so hopefully it'll live up to expectations. The flight has been booked for 29th May, returning on 1st June. That should be plenty of time to explore everything without rushing. Just surfing the net now for a decent and fairly cheap place to stay in the centre of the city.

I'm so looking forward to my cuz coming over and meeting his girlfriend for the first time. They will be here for three weeks and John and I have two of those weeks off work so we'll have plenty of time to spend together. YAY! One of my other cousins Sarah is also getting married at the end of May so something else to look forward to. Just stressing at the prospect of trying to find an outfit!

My Sunday

Ever since I first saw the trailers for the film 'The Pursuit of Happyness', I wanted to see it. So I dragged Johnny out of the house this afternoon along to the Odeon to watch it - well it's better than turning to veg in the armchair, although it's still a sitting down activity! I knew the film would be my cuppa tea; I just love dramas based on true stories. It's far more entertaining to watch something that is true or at least believable (although Johnny would disagree with some of the crap he watches!).

The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith and his real life son (who incidentally is a complete natural), is based on the life of Chris Gardner. He is a bright and talented but struggles to make ends meet and finds himself and his five-year-old son evicted from their San Francisco apartment with nowhere to go. When Gardner lands an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm, he and his son endure many hardships, including living in shelters, in pursuit of his dream of a better life for the two of them.

I would highly recommend this film, and would give it 9 out of 10.
It left me with tears welling up and a lump in my throat. GO SEE IT! Oh and by the way, there IS a reason for the mis-spelling of happyness!

After the flicks, it was on to my parents' house for one of my Dad's legendary curry nights. Dave, Tina and the kids were there too. YUMMY yummy in my tummy! It's just a shame at times like this that I don't eat meat, coz I'm limited to the veggie curry that Dad makes especially for me. There was time afterwards to have a few games on the Nintendo Wii and whoever wasn't playing, entertained Kasey and little Ronnie, who by the way, is getting more cute by the day. He has curls just like Dave used to have when he was young - he despised it though! Ronnie makes such funny faces - he has everyone cracking up. Not surprising really - he comes from a bonkers family! He says a few words (sort of) like CAAA for cat & BER for ball and DANDA for Grandad. However, he is totally unsure of John and gets quite scared of him - no reason for it (most of the time) but he has been known to make Ronnie cry on several occasions!

Thought(s) of the week

New Year's resolutions - I never make 'em coz I know that I'm too lazy to keep them up. However, it constantly plays on my mind that I need to exercise. Only an extremely unmotivated person could have a gym in their own house and yet not use it! The recommendation is just half an hour of exercise three times a week. So what is my problem? I MUST get out of my armchair and do something about it.

Celebrity Big Brother racism claims - just a tad OTT I feel! Effigies being burnt in India, the PM discussing it in the House of Commons. Good grief! Whilst I think Jade Goody was totally out of order, all we witnessed was two personalities clashing badly, rudeness, lack of respect and perhaps bullying.

January blues - I hate this month so much. It's so depressing; not that Christmas was really great and I'm feeling an anti-climax, but it's the fact that the weather has been dismal, it's still dark in the morning and summer seems a long way off. I think we should cancel January and February and hibernate instead!

Spurs 2 Newcastle one more :-(

Seems like Spurs still have their Christmas hangover....home games were an almost dead cert 3 points before the holiday season but seems like they're back to struggling. However, they certainly didn't deserve to lose today after dominating the game from start to finish and having tons of goal chances. But two lapses in concentration and one moment of brilliance from Martins cost them the game.

The match got off to a fantastic start with shot after shot from Spurs in the first 10 minutes, which finally paid off in the 13th minute when Jermain Defoe (pictured) slotted home from Steed Malbranque's cross. Only 2 minutes later though, Newcastle equalised from an acute angle, totally against the run of play.
Spurs regained the lead in the 2nd half after 53 minutes when Berbatov drove the ball downwards which bounced up over Given's head. On 71 minutes, Obafemi Martins, with little obvious danger, picked up the ball around the edge of the area and with less that half a yard of space, rattling the ball high past Paul Robinson. There was worse to follow when Nicky Butt stormed into the area a minute later and shot across Robinson and into the net. Stunned silence fell over the Lane, with the exception of the corner which housed the away supporters. Despite three substitutions, Spurs failed to get back into the game although close to the end, Defoe struck the crossbar.



It's not very often my boys lose when I go to the game; this is the first time this season. Needless to say I'm gutted, especially as they played good football for the majority of the game.

My baby is back home

Yes, it's the continuing saga of my cat Poppy. After the postponement of her op before Christmas, she went into the vet on 3rd January to firstly be put on a drip and to have her thyroid removed the day after. On the day of the op, I came home early from work as I was feeling really lousy - a repeat of the virus I had at the end of November which lingered for almost 3 weeks. I was about to ring the vet to see how Poppy had got on when John told me that they had already rung that morning. They made a big boo-boo and accidentally fed her so they couldn't go ahead with the op due to the anaesthetic. I was so angry. You'd think they'd have a note on the cage saying 'nil by mouth' wouldn't you?!! Poor little girl having to stay in a cage for a day longer than she had to.

Anyway, she had the op yesterday and when I spoke to the vet, she said that there were a few complications when her blood pressure dropped and some blood vessels had bled and this was probably due to the size of the thyroid - it is usually about the size of a pea but hers was as large as a walnut! Pop was kept in that night as expected and I've just brought her home today (3pm) after paying the £400 bill. She immediately had half a bowl of food which is good, and she's purring and lively. She has to go back for a check up Tuesday evening. I'm really not looking forward to shoving her into the box again - poor thing.

Kylie: a true showgirl

Last night, John and I went to Wembley Arena to see Kylie in concert. This was a continuation of the Showgirl Homecoming Tour which she tragically had to postpone in 2005 when she discovered she had breast cancer.

We decided to drive there as John had arranged with his colleagues at the Wembley depot to park in their carpark, which is literally a few hundred yards away from the arena. Handy eh? See it's who you know not what you know! This saved us dosh and time - actually we arrived far too early really and had to hang around for a couple of hours. The time on the ticket said a 7:30 start so we found our seats a good 10 minutes beforehand. We were in scetion N3 which was to the side of the stage was fairly high up. It was clear that it wasn't going to start that early as half the arena was still empty. I guess they tell you that to get bums on seats well before the show starts.





































So, it was approximately 8:15 when the lights dimmed and the excitement and anticipation of Kylie's emergence circled around the arena. Of course, it was a dramatic entrance, coming up through the floor at the back of the stage, all glammed up in feathers. The welcome she was given was electrifying and Kylie just stood there taking it all in. It was actually really emotional, and I could feel the tears welling up. I know she's not the only person in the world to suffer from cancer, but to see her come through it so bravely and with such dignity, and to then carry on with the tour, is truly the makings of an incredible woman. I admire her greatly.

The show kicked off with 'Better The Devil You Know' which instantly got the crowd up dancing
and clapping their hands. She covered pretty much most of her hits over the years with a few unknowns (to me) thrown in. I particularly enjoyed her version of 'The Locomotion' which was performed in a jazzy 'Chicago' style. After the interval, she emerged from the ceiling sitting on a half moon and sang 'Somewhere over the rainbow' which also made me emotional (that song always does).

It was amazing how many costume changes she made; it must have been about eight. Each time, Kylie would disappear down one of the three holes in the stage floor and then re-emerge as a different character. When it was time for 'Especially For You' I was so hoping that Jason Donovan would walk onto the stage but sadly it wasn't to be. Instead, she got the audience to sing Jason's lines.

The complete schedule went as follows:

ACT ONE: HOMECOMING. Theme of a chorus line.

Showgirl Overture
Better the devil you know
In your eyes
White diamond
On a night like this

ACT TWO: EVERYTHING TABOO. Theme of a London nightclub, late 1980s.

Shocked
What do I have to do
Spinning around

ACT THREE: SAMSARA. Theme of the dawn of time.

Confide in me
Cowboy style
Too far

ACT FOUR: Athletica. Theme of a boxing gym in Hollywood, late 1950s.

Red blooded woman
Slow
Kids

ACT FIVE: DREAMS. Theme of the moon over Broadway, late 1930s.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Come into my world
Chocolate
I believe in you
Dreams (impossible princess)

ACT SIX: Pop Paridiso. Theme of movie stars and pin-ups.

Burning up/Vogue
Locomotion
I should be so lucky
Hand on your heart

ACT SEVEN: DANCE OF THE CYBERMEN. Theme of the age of steel, the far future.

Can't get you out of my head
Light years

ENCORE:

Especially for you
Got be to certain (at the request of a fan)
Love at first sight

I always like to see how artists interact with the audience. Right near the start, I think Kylie had a couple of marriage proposals and declarations of love, to which she giggled and put her hand over her mouth (see pic). She had a good chat with some of the kids near the stage at the end which was really sweet. She does seem like a very warm-hearted person.

It was a fabulously enjoyable concert, one I would highly recommend. Despite having a cold, I found the energy to wiggle my hips and clap my hands all night. Thanks Kylie for a great night. You are a true showgirl!