I Get Readers

Fascinating stat-porn recently. Buried in amongst the visitors from Wolverhampton University, Aberystwyth University (is it Rich, or Smithy? Or both?), Telford and other local places, I've received some fascinating visitors, including:

A visitor from Hong Kong, who found my blog after typing in "Tim Lovejoy disgrace" into google.

A visitor from Spain, who found my blog after typing in "Jade Lovejoy".

A visitor from Croatia, who found my blog after typing in "Running down the wing all United sing".

A visitor from Eire, who found my blog after typing in "Tim Lovejoy girlfriend".

A visitor from Holland, who found my blog after typing in "Tim Lovejoy ego".

And finally another visitor from Holland who found my blog after I did some shameless advertising on a forum dedicated to a female singer. 50% of you reading this will know who that is, the other 50% can find out for yourselves and have a good chuckle.

I'm now off to sit on a train for 40 minutes, arrive at university, hand some work in, then go straight back home. And I'll be doing all that tomorrow as well. Joy.

The Dream Final

The second Champions League semi-final has just finished, and even though I don't wish to stifle my blog with football talk, I'm rather excited about the final, and can't resist blogging about it.

May 29th 1968 London I was -18 years old so I can't comment, but my dad (19 at the time) tuned in his radio to the game and sat down with his dad to nervously listen to the final. Charlton scored twice, Best sealed his legendary status and history was made.

May 26th 1999 Barcelona The greatest comeback of all time? Maybe. Sheringham's equaliser is still my favourite United moment of all time, more so than the winner, funnily. The treble was realised, yet more history was made and I knew I could die happy, having seen my side reach the ultimate height.

May 21st 2008 Moscow More history made! The first all English final, and one where you couldn't have separated the sides with a cigarette paper. John Terry had the chance to win it, didn't, and we won it. I will never be as exhausted after watching a football match as I was that night last year -was insane.

May 27th 2009 Rome Without doubt, the dream final. The 4th city we play a European Cup/Champions League final in, and amusingly the 4th different house my dad will watch said final in. Who's going to win? Well, Barca will have a lot of defenders out. If we can get hold of the ball, I fancy us to score at least once. But never write off a team which contains the little genius, Leo Messi. Stop him, stop Barcelona. Bring it on!

Live-Blogging the snooker

20:05 Ready for a bit of live blogging? Good, so am I. Thanks to Alex C for the idea.

Here we go then, the final of snooker's World Championship. John Higgins vs Shaun Murphy. Higgins odds on favourite to win, and I hope he will - nice chap. I've met him, don't you know?

20:07 Wow, they've shunned the usual entrance and gone for a dramatic entrance down the steps past the crowd. Higgins only needs 2 frames to win, and he's made an encouraging start here - at the table, and breakbuilding. More to follow!

20:11 Michaela Tabb looks gorgeous tonight.

20:12 Former World Champion Peter Ebdon aka the world's most boring snooker player is in the crowd. Boooo! Ah, but there's Ray Reardon - a genius and a nutter.

20:17 Referee Jan Verhaas has just winked at Michaela Tabb's son. The excitement of all this is killing me. Murphy at the table, looking to win the frame from here!

20:18 Murphy misses the black off the spot! C'mon John!

20:21 Higgins has won the frame, and now only needs one more for victory. Murphy needs to win 10 in a row. As much as I want Higgins to win, we could do with a bit of drama, otherwise this final session is as terrible as the O'Sullivan-Dott one was a few years back.

20:22 Some fat lad in the audience wearing a white t-shirt on with "Higgins for Champ 2009" or something similar on it. It literally looks like he's painted it on with blue paint, is laughable.

20:24 A slow-mo of the fat lad bouncing up and down. Not nice.

20:27 I'm desperately hoping someone makes a mistake and the cueball goes into the pocket, so John Virgo can shout "Where's the cueball going? WHERE'S THE CUEBALL GOING?" Nothing yet, but I'll keep you informed.

20:29 DICKIE BIRD IN THE AUDIENCE! What an absolute legend.

20:39 Shaun Murphy won the last frame, but now he's played a terrible shot! Higgins at the table, still 0-0, but you fancy Higgins to make a big break here, balls are nicely placed. And now, tension...

20:43 No! Higgins makes 32 but then misses a black, and Murphy is still in this ball game!

20:44 But Murphy misses a long pot! Ooh, the tension, the tension!

20:45 Could be all over now! Excellent cannon by Higgins into the pack, and he's almost there...almost there...

20:48 It's all over, and Higgins is just strolling round the table, enjoying himself. The tournament is won. Shame there was no real drama, but we'll always have Dennis Taylor and his finger wagging.

20:50 Higgins now with family, and lots of photographers. Probably a good job Murphy didn't win, who would have celebrated with him? If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the tabloids a bit more!

20:51 Here's Ray Stubbs with the interviewing. Stubbsie!

20:54 Stubbs tactfully avoids Murphy's personal problems. Come on Stubbsie! Ask the probing questions!

20:56 Out waddles Sir Rodney Walker, and alongside him bookmaker Fred Done! Fred's also a massive United fan, famously paid out on United to win the title in 1997, before Arsenal stormed back and won it.

20:57 John Higgins looks so much like my Uncle Mike, it's scary.

20:58 Photographers want John's son to turn around and face the cameras, but he won't! Not surprising really, considering he has ginger hair.

21:01 John and his family have left the arena, but the director clearly didn't notice and we had to watch Stubbsie, Parrott and Davis instead. The Director is getting fired right now.

21:02 I'm sad the snooker is over, always enjoy the World Champs. Pleased that Higgins won, mind you. Well, that's pretty much it for tonight's live-blogging, shame it didn't last longer. Join me next time, when I live-blog an episode of "Britain's Got Talent" or something.

Premier League Predictions

Unbelievable. Last week, I was chuffed to get 5 results right, with 3 perfect scores. Mark "Lawro" Lawrenson got 6 results right, with 3 perfect scores. I hate "Lawro" so much right now. He now leads 4-2 overall, and as it's squeaky bum time in the Premier League, I can only hope for a draw. I feel like how Newcastle will feel going to Anfield this weekend - only hope is a scrappy draw. Great. Anyway, let's keep on trying:

Middlesbrough vs Man United - I'm calling it, right here - the comeback against Spurs last weekend won us the title. That was our Sheffield Wednesday game, for those of us old enough to remember back to 1993. Boro are a poor side, with a poor manager. 0-2

Chelsea vs Fulham - Home win all day long. 2-0

Man City vs Blackburn - I suppose it's a local derby, but no interest other than that. 2-1

Portsmouth vs Arsenal - I imagine Arsenal will be resting players in anticipation of the second leg of the CL SF on Tuesday. Portsmouth aren't a brilliant team, but they will be good for a draw here. 1-1

Stoke vs West Ham - No one cares. 1-1

Tottenham vs West Brom - Home win all day long. 3-1

Wigan vs Bolton - I'm struggling to think of a reason to care about this one either. 1-0

Liverpool vs Newcastle - I think the Toon are going down, and they stand no chance here. 3-1

Sunderland vs Everton - Shock result last weekend was Sunderland's mauling at WBA. Everton don't care about this game, they have a Cup final to look forward to. 2-0

Aston Villa vs Hull - A bigger game for Hull than Villa, but I just can't see Hull coming close to winning it. Best hope is a draw, but Villa will win it, 2-1

Mark "Lawro" Lawrenson was talking to BBC Sport's Mike Henson. I spend all day talking to myself.

Bank Holiday weekend now, so I shall leave all you loyal readers alone until Tuesday. Any plans for the weekend? Really? Ooh, that will be nice. For me, it's all about pizza, baseball, pubs and snooker. C'mon John Higgins! (I've met him, you know- nice chap.)

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Mythbusting

"There's deer up in dem woods up der!"

That's a phrase I've heard often since moving to Salop, but I always took it to be an urban myth. I've walked many a time up/down/around/through The Wrekin (if you're not from Telford - it's a big hill) and the adjacent Ercall Wood, and never have I seen any deer. I also play golf at The Wrekin Golf Course - never seen any deer. Urban myth. People seeing things. Absolutely not true.

On the final stretch of my walk today around The Wrekin I was startled by a noise coming from the bushes (steady!), something which had obviously spotted me first and seemed to be making a mad dash to freedom. I paused, not too sure what it was thrashing it's way through the bushes, before they emerged onto the path. Two glorious deer, as cute as anything else you'll see this week. We had a stare down contest, before they nonchalantly skipped away up the forestry to safety, where they turned round and stared at me again.

After my initial shock I decided to take some photos, of which you can see below. Bear in mind that a) If I had tried to get closer they probably would have run away and b) I'm not exactly David Bailey. Sorry about the 2nd photo, but the deer is there, if you look close enough.

There's deer up in dem woods up der. Seriously.

Once I pop...

...I just cannot stop. Yes folks, after embedding a Youtube video onto my blog for the first ever time yesterday, I'm now going to do it again.

A few of my readers have seen this before - it's been working it's way around the internet for a few weeks now, but it's so godlike that I feel I must share it with those unfortunate enough not to have seen it before. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. It's an Argentine, a Korean, and a Frenchie being awfully silly:

Britain Doesn't Have Talent

First off, many thanks to Merciless Public for tipping me off about Mixpod.com - by the time you read this the first track from my playlist should have started. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of people having music on their websites, but you can easily turn it off. That playlist will be up for a few weeks and then I'll change it to something equally dreadful.

Not much to blog about today, had a quiet weekend. However, what did catch my eye was the TV programme/clusterfuck "Britain's Got Talent". I don't normally watch it, but this week it had Kelly Brook on it, and there was nothing else on at the time. If you missed it, here is the overwhelming highlight of the show:



"I'll get you a nice salad and a bit of chicken" = best chat up line ever!