Its been a while (again) since I last blogged. I thought that it best that I should put down these few words in case you remove me from your own blog sites or fear that I have been taken of the air for one too many Anti-Russian stories. Since I've started working full time I seem to have less time to write or maybe its just that I'm not getting out as much as I use to and my news worthy stories have dried up.
That being said I haven't simply drowned in a new Rat race.
Work is surprisingly enjoyable. I know that its not meant to be something that you enjoy but so far so good My working day is from 11.00 to 7.00pm, to match up with the UK's 9 - 5 office hours. The company is an Internet bookmakers sports comparison site, at the moments my sports are Gaelic games and TV+Music (X Factor Stuff).
My fledgling football team is slowly developing. When I first started this project I was barley working 15 hours a week and had all the time in the world to sort things out, but since then....well you know.
Over the last couple of weeks we've played and visited three different venues.
Hopefully the current location will become the permanent home pitch.
Sticking to football stories the draw for the World Cup play-offs were announced today and Ireland have drawn France. It could have been worse I suppose, I however was hopping that it could have been the Russians, now that would have beeen a nice and easy victory.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Book Review No. 10
Dunkirk The Men they left behind by Sean Longden
Mention the word “Dunkirk“ and you probably picture an armada of small boats that rescued the remnants of the British army from the beaches of Dunkirk to escape the Blitzkrieg German army in 1940. That rescue is well documented, but what isn’t so well known or is what happened to the men that put up the rearguard action and kept Rommel's forces at bay so 330,000 Allied troops could escape to England.
This book tells the story of the unfortunate 41,000 British troops who were left behind and spent five hellish years as German prisoners of war.
It wasn’t for another six weeks after the evacuation that the units of British and French armies finally surrendered to the Germans. For the next five years most of the men became prisoners of war. But life as a German prisoner was far removed from films such as the “Great Escape“ , but horrifically closer to those who became slaves of the notorious Japanese. These men became slaves, starved, executed, tortured and worked to death in mines and wherever the Third Reich felt that they could be of use.
A third of the book tells of famous last stands where it was only after all ammunition and hope of rescue was lost did the soldiers surrender. Sadly many of these troops were executed shortly after offering their surrender by an enemy who cared nothing for the Geneva convention. After this things didn’t get any better.
Mention the word “Dunkirk“ and you probably picture an armada of small boats that rescued the remnants of the British army from the beaches of Dunkirk to escape the Blitzkrieg German army in 1940. That rescue is well documented, but what isn’t so well known or is what happened to the men that put up the rearguard action and kept Rommel's forces at bay so 330,000 Allied troops could escape to England.
This book tells the story of the unfortunate 41,000 British troops who were left behind and spent five hellish years as German prisoners of war.
It wasn’t for another six weeks after the evacuation that the units of British and French armies finally surrendered to the Germans. For the next five years most of the men became prisoners of war. But life as a German prisoner was far removed from films such as the “Great Escape“ , but horrifically closer to those who became slaves of the notorious Japanese. These men became slaves, starved, executed, tortured and worked to death in mines and wherever the Third Reich felt that they could be of use.
A third of the book tells of famous last stands where it was only after all ammunition and hope of rescue was lost did the soldiers surrender. Sadly many of these troops were executed shortly after offering their surrender by an enemy who cared nothing for the Geneva convention. After this things didn’t get any better.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
No Life beyond Football
Now that I'm working again the only thing I seem to blog about is football. I guess it isn't too surprising as a part of the job relates to football, I play on my free time, Q.P.R. are actually winning the occasional match and am now trying to start up a team.
It was only a couple of weeks ago when all seemed lost and I was banishing all things football far far away from my blog universe, but now its all changed. Yesterday morning fourteen potential superstars turned up to play, which is thirteen more than the last time we were meant to play. Yes, that's right I'm still moaning about being the only one who turned up.
Anyway that was then and this is now.
And now I am in the process of starting up an official football team that will take part in the Estonian forth division next season. All I need to do is register thirty players, which includes convincing and ensuring that they not only sign up but turn up every week for practice and then for the actual matches when the season starts in February or March. With that matter sorted out all that is left is to find somewhere to play, train, a trainer, a method of getting to away matches, a kit and other equipment a name for the team and of course some method to cover all these costs.
With a stroke of good fortune I seem to have found a couple of potential sponsors, one being a well known pub in Tallinn and the other to be announced later in case that doesn't work out. These sponsors will hopefully cover most of these costs.
With the new job at Bet Genius I found a source of potential players and was able to kick start the Saturday morning match once again. With half of yesterdays team coming from B.G. and potentially another ten due from the old Chinese Dragons as well as further recruits from B.G., things are slowly taking shape. Hopefully this initial interest will continue, with sufficient numbers turning up every week.
Early this rainy Sunday morning I went to look at a potential venue for our home games. The pitch was great but with winter approaching and I don't mean an Irish winter, I will need to find an indoor venue as it will soon be too cold to play outside, although we could use this pitch for official matches in the new season.
Seeing so many people turn up yesterday felt very rewarding, but thinking about all the work that lies ahead is rather daunting.
During all my childhood years of dreaming about becoming a footballer, I never saw myself as a manager. Yep, its a funny old game.
It was only a couple of weeks ago when all seemed lost and I was banishing all things football far far away from my blog universe, but now its all changed. Yesterday morning fourteen potential superstars turned up to play, which is thirteen more than the last time we were meant to play. Yes, that's right I'm still moaning about being the only one who turned up.
Anyway that was then and this is now.
And now I am in the process of starting up an official football team that will take part in the Estonian forth division next season. All I need to do is register thirty players, which includes convincing and ensuring that they not only sign up but turn up every week for practice and then for the actual matches when the season starts in February or March. With that matter sorted out all that is left is to find somewhere to play, train, a trainer, a method of getting to away matches, a kit and other equipment a name for the team and of course some method to cover all these costs.
With a stroke of good fortune I seem to have found a couple of potential sponsors, one being a well known pub in Tallinn and the other to be announced later in case that doesn't work out. These sponsors will hopefully cover most of these costs.
With the new job at Bet Genius I found a source of potential players and was able to kick start the Saturday morning match once again. With half of yesterdays team coming from B.G. and potentially another ten due from the old Chinese Dragons as well as further recruits from B.G., things are slowly taking shape. Hopefully this initial interest will continue, with sufficient numbers turning up every week.
Early this rainy Sunday morning I went to look at a potential venue for our home games. The pitch was great but with winter approaching and I don't mean an Irish winter, I will need to find an indoor venue as it will soon be too cold to play outside, although we could use this pitch for official matches in the new season.
Seeing so many people turn up yesterday felt very rewarding, but thinking about all the work that lies ahead is rather daunting.
During all my childhood years of dreaming about becoming a footballer, I never saw myself as a manager. Yep, its a funny old game.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
We made the second Round
Four times a year or so the Estonian football association organises an eight-a-side tournament. Today was the latest of these and the third one that I've taken part in, this one however was different and for the first time my team (The Chinese Dragons) qualified for the second round.
This time the statistics didn't read "played three lost three". After a shaky 3 -0 defeat, which was just 1 - 0 with two minutes left to play, we then won or next game on penalties and were through to the second round. But lets not get bogged on details regarding the remainder of the competition, yet let us focus on the facts that not only did we get to play three more games, scored a few goals and were unabeaten in all the penalty shoot-out that we played in.
Although the day didn't end in glorious victory it was a definite improvement on our last couple of attempts and it helped bolster team spirit as my plans to turn our weekend kick-about team into an offically recognised team in the Estonain league for the 2010 - 2011 season.
But much much more on that topic at a later date.
This time the statistics didn't read "played three lost three". After a shaky 3 -0 defeat, which was just 1 - 0 with two minutes left to play, we then won or next game on penalties and were through to the second round. But lets not get bogged on details regarding the remainder of the competition, yet let us focus on the facts that not only did we get to play three more games, scored a few goals and were unabeaten in all the penalty shoot-out that we played in.
Although the day didn't end in glorious victory it was a definite improvement on our last couple of attempts and it helped bolster team spirit as my plans to turn our weekend kick-about team into an offically recognised team in the Estonain league for the 2010 - 2011 season.
But much much more on that topic at a later date.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Ingloriously Confusing Bastards
Went to see Brad Pitt and the rest of his Inglorious Bastards today.
Wow What a movie.
For those of you who haven't already seen it I won't say too much about it apart from the fact that I loved it, it was totally over the top and half of the film was in subtitles as the dialogue for fifty percent of the time is in French, German and Italian.
Normally watching a subtitled film isn't a problem. The problem arises when the subtitles aren't in English but in a foreign language, which in this case was off cour
se Estonian. As Brad mumbled his few words in Italian his heavy American accent the audience roared with laughter while I sat there wondering what the joke was. 
se Estonian. As Brad mumbled his few words in Italian his heavy American accent the audience roared with laughter while I sat there wondering what the joke was. 
Luckily for me however I had Tiiu beside me to translate as fast and as quietly as she could.
On the way out of the cinema I couldn't help but take a picture of this weird 3D type type picture on the floor and then go for a ride on the vibrating chair. Come on people surely somebody has a joke or two about that last comment.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Promotion Commotion
Today I had a great stroke of fortune. After three weeks on the job and in the middle of training I was offered the opportunity to interview for a permanent role in the in the Client Services QA team. A few hours and a couple of interviews later I was offered the job.
I will be working with five or six others monitoring information sent in from bookmakers around the world and then matching it with information that goes up on their respective web sites. Well the job starts today.
Tune into this Channel in a week or so for more information.
I will be working with five or six others monitoring information sent in from bookmakers around the world and then matching it with information that goes up on their respective web sites. Well the job starts today.
Tune into this Channel in a week or so for more information.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Life Really began at 40
It was my birthday a couple of days ago and the year of the big FOUR O came to an end.
“Life begins at forty” is one of those clichés that is offered as some form of consulation to anyone hitting that birthday in the hope that you don’t spend the entire night crying into their double Vodka, with the realisation that they can no longer fool strangers that they are thirty two and that it’s “all down hill from here”.
Well isn’t it just one cliché after another on this blog?
Yet having said all that I am happy to declare that this was not the case for me. For those of you who haven’t been following my blog all that closely I can sum up year number forty as my best so far. September to December passed with only one thing to talk about, our plan (Tiiu and mine) to move to Estonia.
Then on January 13th we made the move, leaving behind….well everything.
Since then we’ve made a new life for ourselves and I’ve done so much.
Actually I’m not gonna bore you, you can always read my old articles to see what I’ve been up to. Suffice to say that clichés are just clichés and that life is what you make it.
Oh hell there another cliché. But seriously for those of you approaching or have already surpassed this milestone, there seems to be so much more to do regardless of your age. Tune in again in another twelve months to see if I’m so full of wise comments and great hopes and expectations.
“Life begins at forty” is one of those clichés that is offered as some form of consulation to anyone hitting that birthday in the hope that you don’t spend the entire night crying into their double Vodka, with the realisation that they can no longer fool strangers that they are thirty two and that it’s “all down hill from here”.
Well isn’t it just one cliché after another on this blog?
Yet having said all that I am happy to declare that this was not the case for me. For those of you who haven’t been following my blog all that closely I can sum up year number forty as my best so far. September to December passed with only one thing to talk about, our plan (Tiiu and mine) to move to Estonia.
Then on January 13th we made the move, leaving behind….well everything.
Since then we’ve made a new life for ourselves and I’ve done so much.
Actually I’m not gonna bore you, you can always read my old articles to see what I’ve been up to. Suffice to say that clichés are just clichés and that life is what you make it.
Oh hell there another cliché. But seriously for those of you approaching or have already surpassed this milestone, there seems to be so much more to do regardless of your age. Tune in again in another twelve months to see if I’m so full of wise comments and great hopes and expectations.
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