Hoppo's Blog

I was faced with a dilemma last night, watch the opening show of this year's Big Brother or watching 'The Apprentice'. After some thought I decided that I didn't want to spend my summer watching people making toast and breaking wind so I bowed to the inevitable and opted to watch 'The Apprentice'. I'm glad I did as it was a vintage episode. The applicants must have known they were in for a rough ride when Sir Alan described their combined efforts as 'toot'. This week's task involved selecting products and then selling them live on a TV shopping channel. One viewer called Edward Devonshire complained about the quality of the presenting. I suspect that 'Edward Devonshire' is the pen name of Nick Hewer. Somehow, Naomi ended up being fired. If Simon were a cat he'd only have 8 lives now. My original prediction of the last 4 being Naomi, Jadine, Lohit and Simon looks more flawed by the week. Next week's episode (in which the remaining applicants are interviewed by Sir Alan's henchmen) looks brilliant. One exchange in the preview caught my eye....

A new cartoon strip has been added to the Perry Bible Fellowship website. I really like these cartoons....some of the humour can be a bit 'edgy' but they generally elicit 'big laughs'. Weel worth a look if you have the time......http://www.pbfcomics.com/

My blog has suffered a famine over the weekend. Think of this day-by-day account of the weekend as Bob Geldof......

Saturday - I reverted to bachelor mode this weekend as Gillian was away visiting her mother in North Wales. "While the cat's away the mice will play"......not in my case, I spent the majority of the weekend tackling domestic chores. MFI finished re-fitting our bedroom on Friday so I spent Friday evening and a good part of Saturday morning getting the room into a habitable state. Thankfully I had Aggers and the Test Match Special team for company. I mowed the lawn in the afternoon before relaxing in front of the TV in the evening. I watched an adaptation of Jerome K. Jerome's 'Three Men in a Boat' that I had recorded earlier in the week. Very amusing....I'm now tempted to read the book. The title of this book was part of the inspiration for the name of my Fantasy Cricket team....3 Men in a Pedalo.

Sunday - Gillian's journey home from Bangor on Sunday was disrupted by engineering works so I travelled over to Leamington Spa in the afternoon to meet her and save her a journey in and out of London. Sunday evening saw the finale of season 3 of 'Lost'. There are only a handful of programs that I make a point of watching each week. 'Lost' is one of them, as is 'The Apprentice'. Repeats of 'Lovejoy' on UK Gold do not feature on the list. The good news is that the season finale was a cracker. The bad news is that I now have to wait until early 2008 for season 4 to start. Grrr. I'm tempted to buy seasons 1 and 2 on DVD to keep me in the loop until then. On the fantasy cricket front, Tony bagged his 4th duck of the week......at this rate the RSPB will be after him.

Monday - Textbook bank holiday......plenty of rain and a visit to Homebase. We have recently had a broadband line installed at home which makes it much easier for us to work at home. We are both planning to work from home one day a week from now on. Because of this we decided to buy a proper office chair for the study. I may also invest in a grey suit, white cat and a map of the world to complete the Blofeld look. Podcasts are my latest hobby......I make a habit of downloading the BBC's weekly podcast for 'The Apprentice' and Sky's weekly podcast for 'Lost'. The Test Match Special podcasts are also at home on my iPod. Today I downloaded and listened to the latest 'Lost' podcast presented by Iain Lee. Big laughs.

I've been told that Leon's 30th birthday was honoured with a hat party on Saturday. No summary of the past weekend would be complete without a nod to the brilliant hat that Stewart crafted for the occasion. Take a bow, Mr. Craig......

Met Dave and Stewart (not Dave Stewart) in London last night for some shandy action. Both were on good form and Dave announed that he is to become a father in September......good work, fella!! Topics of discussion included Fantasy Cricket (naturally......I was in a good mood after David Hussey had smashed 275 for my team earlier in the day) and the use of disabled toilets. I was grumbling at the number of 'able bodied' women who use the disabled toilets at work. By coincidence, Scott emailed Stewart and I today to tell us that, having made use of one of the disabled toilets at Pfizer, he was greeted on his way out by a women in a wheelchair. Apparently if looks could kill then the next time Stewart and I play snooker we'd be playing for the Scott Lattimer memorial trophy.

Worked from home today as the MFI fitter has been putting the final touches to our new bedroom. I'd previously thought that I wouldn't have the discipline to work at home but at 7am I found myself logging on. I'm enjoying programming whilst listening to Test Match Special......may have to make working from home a habit.

Starting to stiffen up a bit today after the net session on Monday. My bowling was a bit wayward at first before I settled into a good rhythm and sent down a number of medium pace missiles. My batting was okay though I struggled a bit against the faster bowlers. Should really start to do a bit more exercise, I'm guessing my appearances in the GSK snooker league don't count.
 
Just settling down to watch this week's episode of 'The Apprentice'. My fave moment of the series is still Rory's clash with Tre......"I am your boss, I am YOUR boss". Brilliant, worth the license fee on its own. I would have liked Rory to stay in for a bit longer as he made great viewing. Tony and I both feel that Nick and Margaret should be awarded their own series in which they solve village crimes. There is a gap in the market since the demise of Shaw Taylor's iconic series 'Police 5'.

Tonight's episode involves the Cutty Sark and Tre as project manager......I hope the task doesn't involve a pack of swan vestas.

Had the day off work today as MFI were starting work on re-fitting our bedroom. The fitter has made good progress but wasn't impressed by our Earl Grey tea....."Sorry mate, I couldn't drink it". A productive morning saw me visit Tesco, get my hair cut (much needed....when I awoke this morning there was enough hair on my head to cover 12 small children) and stock up on nuts and seeds for the bird table. I may live to regret the latter as by late afternoon there were no less than three squirrels circling the garden. A photo of one of them bothering our new ground feeder is attached below. 

I'm travelling into Cambridge soon for my first net session of the new season. As I write I am dreaming of playing cover drives like Michael Vaughan. In reality I'll probably struggle to get to sleep tonight having played like Frankie Vaughan. 

Over the last few months I have learnt the art of cooking a roast meal. Today I rustled up a meal of roast chicken for Gillian and I (see below for before/after photos). Signed up for our church cricket team this morning and am hoping to attend a pre-season net session tomorrow evening. Fingers crossed that the communal box has been freshly scrubbed for the new season.

My Fantasy Cricket team were on fire today....hoping to be leading the pack when the scores are updated on Tuesday. Hmmm, Bisto....

Gillian and I spent the day at Lords today watching England take on the West Indies. Having caught a train from Great Chesterford we then took on the Victoria and Circle lines before arriving at Lords in time for start of play. The weather stayed dry, the West Indies scored at well over 3 an over and Monty Panesar was on good form....all in all a good day's play. The photos below were taken during the course of the day.

There is a game of cricket taking place in Great Chesterford tomorrow in honour of the village vicar who, I believe, is due to retire in the summer. I'm assuming that it will be considered bad form to 'sledge' the vicar.

Tony sent me a link to a great website today. Basically, the website allows you to create an image of yourself in Lego. The image below is my attempt to re-create how I look during the working week. My manager took me aside the other day....apparently the lightsaber was causing 'tension' amongst my colleagues.

I'll be watching the final episode in the 4th series of 'Peep Show' tonight. This is one of my fave shows, last week's episode was a classic...."A yard of ale, a foot of wine....". Big laughs. Imagine going into a bar and ordering a foot of wine? What next, a metre of Babycham?

Finally got around to uploading a photo of myself. The one you will see on my profile page was taken on Christmas Day 2006. From memory, I think I was looking at a DVD at the time. Probably the 3rd series of 'Peep Show'. Probably not the 3rd series of 'Brush Strokes'.

Travelled to work by train today which gave me a chance to catch up on the various sections of the paper that I didn't have time to read at the weekend. An amusing incident at Harlow station reminded me of a scene in the last Alan Partridge series. A schoolboy was trying to catch the attention of a chum who was walking ahead of him. He did so by repeatedly shouting out his name. His chum's name was Dan....

Spent last night watching 'The Apprentice' and quaffing a nice bottle of red. SAS (Sir Alan Sugar) was on good form. It was only a matter of time before Gazal got fired but I felt she was a bit unlucky to go based on last night's task. My prediction for the final 4 is Simon, Jadine, Naomi and Lohit. Discuss (25 marks).

Hoping to have a photo of me added to my profile soon. In the mean time a photo of Bungle from TV's 'Rainbow' will have to suffice.

Bungle vs. The Hoff....a tough call.

For many people the sound of birdsong or the sight of new life in the garden will herald the start of spring. For me and my cricket obsessive chums spring is not upon us until the start of the Telegraph Fantasy Cricket campaign.

I am currently in 8th place (out of 10) with 716 points. Grrrr....