I've just got off the phone to my friend Natalie in Portland Oregon who, I was reminded, once gave a small tin-foil statuette of the god Thoth to Neil Gaiman. This fact has always made me slightly envious as I have never given anything to Neil Gaiman. I have a signed copy of Mr Punch, though, and the memory of a day some time in the mid 90s when my friend Kathleen, a multi-lingual American with whom I worked, went for lunch with Neil and artist Dave McKean. Another green moment.

So I looked Neil up on the net and found his blog. It’s kind of strange to think of Neil blogging, because for some reason one expects a successful author to do anything else in his spare time but write. However, I’m glad that he does, because this is going to be another one of my daily destinations and high on my list of displacement activities.

How generous the world is when it comes to providing me with ways to put off til next week tasks which, otherwise, I’d only be able to put off til tomorrow.

It’s Sunday, and if I had an ounce of sense, which I will be the first to admit I do not, I would have spent the day chilling out, maybe going to Tescos, and possibly slipping quietly into a pleasant coma in front of the TV. But, being stupid, I didn’t. I intended to spend the day working so that I can have a guilt-free Tuesday afternoon off to go up to London and acknowledge (you don’t really ‘celebrate’ much after 31) my birthday.

In actual fact, I spent an enjoyable several hours trying to help a friend of mine figure out how to get Soulseek working properly on a Mac. Trouble is, there’s a bit of a communications hitch in trying to give a Maccite advice when you are, however unwillingly, a PCite:

‘Ok, so now you right-click on the user’s name… What do you mean you only have one button on your mouse?’

Eventually, I got to see a screenshot of said Mac version of the Slsk user interface. And promptly gave up. Even someone of my prodigious assumption-making abilities can’t fathom a program from one screenshot alone. I did try to find a Mac Slsk faq online to assist in the fathoming process, but they all seemed to be in German.

Other displacement activities indulged in today included burning CDs of mp3s for various friends of mine to whom I have promised an insight into my musical taste. (More fool them for accepting.) Now, this whole mp3 thing is great, imo. I get to road test music before I buy it, hell, sometimes before it even comes out.

As the season for new releases descends swiftly upon us, I have found that I will not be purchasing The White Stripes’ Elephant, no matter how hard they hype it, but I shall be buying Blur’s Think Tank, despite the fact that I was fully prepared to hate everything they ever released ever again after they fired Graham Coxon.

I am also now desperate to find the money to buy Tom McRae’s Just Like Blood, Athlete’s Vehicles and Animals, Hot Hot Heat’s Make Up The Breakdown, The Dandy’s Warhols’ Welcome to the Monkey House, Turin Brakes’ Ether Song, and several rather marvellous recordings by bands/artists who will never get airplay on XFM (Jeff Hanson, Joseph Arthur, The Shins) but who were justly recommended to me by friends.

[Hint: if you haven’t bought me something for my birthday yet, please refer to the above list.]

If you were to believe the music industry (although why would you believe an industry willing to sell its granny into slavery for a quick buck?) you would assume that having downloaded these mp3s, I’m now happy with my music and will never again spend a single penny on tangible musical assets.

How wrong can you be? Maybe it’s because I’m an Aries, but I have to own the things I like. I don’t like renting movies if I can buy the DVD instead.

[Second birthday hint: Stargate Ultimate, My Own Private Idaho, Donnie Darko, Shawshank Redemption, The Crow… I could go on, but that’s enough for the moment.]

Instead of being the happy punter whose pfenigs are safe in her purse, the ability to download mp3s has resulted in me craving the ownership of these CDs in roughly the same way that I’m currently craving Thornton’s Champagne Truffles now that I’ve given up caffeine again (although that’s another story).

I certainly don’t think that an mp3 is in any way a satisfactory replacement for the CD. For a start, you can’t look at the pretty pictures in the booklet. Secondly, the sound of an mp3 can sometimes be, well, shit. Thirdly, I like the idea that my purchase in some small way contributes to the hedonistic lifestyle of some band through whom I can live vicariously, although I suspect that you can’t buy much coke with 7p.

But finally, this whole burning a CD of your mp3s thing is utterly over-hyped. The CDs fail to burn properly resulting in the wasting of many blanks. Some mp3s that played perfectly well on your computer turn out to be so full of pops and clicks when you play them on your stereo that they become unlistenable (and result in the throwing away of yet another CD). And the mp3s that aren’t poppy or clicky sound like they’ve been recorded under a duvet.

Nah, mp3s will never kill off CDs. That’s the job of the money-grabbing capitalist pig record labels who pass off piles of grossly over-priced shite as ‘product’ and hope that the record-buying public is too stupid to notice.

Oh, btw, I did get some work done. Eventually.

1. Your morning routine is:
- get up
- turn computer on
- check and reply to emails
- check and reply to messageboards
- shower
- breakfast
In that order.

2. The numbers 24/7 fill you with a suffusion of joy, and yet the nearest all-night garage is miles away.

3. Your neighbours, whom you’ve only met twice in three years, worry that you’re not getting out enough.

4. You work for an internet start-up which entails working long hours, mainly online. When you get any spare time at all, you spend it… online.

5. Your biggest fear about flying to San Francisco is how on earth you’re going to cope without the internet for 14 hours.

6. The fact that they have 18mbps broadband in Japan seems like a perfectly adequate reason for moving there.

7. You have become adept at calculating time differences and know instantly exactly what time of day it is in any part of the world. The figures -8 and +9.5 are particularly important to you.

8. What used to be ‘TV dinners’ have now become ‘internet dinners’, and you only cook dishes that can be eaten with a fork alone, because that leaves you one hand free to type.

9. You regularly *emote* in your hand-written letters.

10. You have a list of Ten Signs That Your Internet Dependency Is Getting Out Of Hand, all of which apply directly to you.

Right… I’m off for some cold turkey. Anyone coming?

I always knew that there was a strong risk of this blog becoming somewhat, er, circular, but I never imagined that it would happen this soon after revealing the presence of said blog to my web compatriots.

It happens like this… you discuss something on your blog. Then you discuss the same thing with someone who’s read your blog. They then quote your own posts back at you for their own entertainment. You then threaten them with publishing their comments on your comments on your blog which they can then quote back at you the next time you see them online… And so the decline into online mental unhealth proceeds.

I must admit, I toyed with the idea of a ‘what Neil said’ thread, but ultimately, MSN conversations are never the same when you read them back the next day. So you’re saved. Say thank you and pray it doesn’t happen again.

Anyway, other thoughts percolating through my grey matter today: Why won’t Blogger play happily with NTL? I have all this new web space to fill full of shite, and Blogger refuses to publish my blog to my NTL home page. I spent hours on Thursday going through every permutation of Blogger setting possible, but no dice. Instead I ended up watching Buffy trying to save Spike, again. Why she didn’t stake him first time round I’ll never know. I mean, he deserves it even if only for that godawful chipperfuckingcockney accent.

Why can’t American actors (on the whole) do British accents? This has bugged me ever since I was first terrified by the inane utterings of Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins (Gawd bless ‘er) when I was nowt but a wee sproglet. Why do they think that if they drop a few haytches and convert a few ths to fs, they’ll sound like a Luhndaner?

At least James Marsters’ accent has improved over the seasons, but he really has no excuse considering that there’s a real Brit on set that could (one presumes) give him a few pointers. Or maybe Anthony Stewart ‘Oh would you like to come in for a coffee’ Head was too busy pissing himself laughing to be able to get a word out.

Finally, I learnt a new word last night. Scriking. Apparently, it means ‘crying’. I look forward to being able to work that into conversation very soon.

I don’t much like war. And I don’t much like war flicks. I’m particularly unfond of that kind of stressed, nervy feeling I get when I watch violent flicks, so I was a little apprehensive about watching Ride with the Devil. It was recommended to me by a couple of friends, and it does feature the inimitable Tobey Maguire, and as I’m busy at the moment exploring his back catalogue I thought what the hell, I’ll give it a go, see what gives.

And what does give? Well… For much of the film I was curled up foetus-like in my chair, not really sure if I was enjoying myself or not. There’s shooting. There’s death. There’s a really grim scene where a guy gets shot through the cheeks and later on, when he takes a swig of liquor he kinda coughs and it spurts out the bullet hole. I’m cringing just thinking of it.

But in the end, this isn’t really a film about war, although the American Civil War features prominently. It’s not really about the Bushwhackers and the Jayhawkers. It’s also not really about two southern childhood friends who join up as horsemen to fight the Northern Unionists.

It’s about the slow dawning of realisation that what you thought was a noble cause was in fact a savage one, and that loyalty to your childhood friends and adherence to what you thought were your principles is in fact a betrayal of your true self. And that, like it or not, good can happen to you no matter how fast you try to run from it.

This is a majestic film. It draws you in, no matter how hard you try not to become involved (for surely sticky ends are going to be met, and I’m not a fan of sticky ends). Maguire is, as usual sublime. I keep using this word when I talk about his acting, but really it’s not so much the superlative adjective when used to describe Maguire, in fact, it barely does him justice. His presence on screen is astoundingly intense, it’s awe-inspiring. He carries the story in his eyes, where other actors rely on their lines.

But my admiration for Maguire aside, this is a great film. The scenery is beautiful, the script captivating, the story brutally absorbing. War isn’t portrayed here as organised - this is an ad hoc band of men fighting for as many reasons as there are bullets. Some, like Jake Roedel (Maguire), fight because they feel it is their duty, some fight because they simply like killing, some like Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright) because they feel they have no choice. But with the bloody sacking of the Kansas town of Lawrence, both Roedel and Holt are forced to confront the fact that what they thought they were fighting for is nothing more than a mirage - they are instead fighting for men and principles they despise.

In Holt’s case, as a black slave whose bond was paid by his friend George, it’s the realisation that only George’s death can bring him true freedom. With George alive the debt of gratitude is as much a tie as slavery was - the only reason he’s not scalped along with the other blacks that the Bushwhackers come across is because he is ‘George’s nigger’. In order to pay back his debt of gratitude he must fight by George’s side even though he’s fighting for people who would gladly kill him themselves, let alone watch him die.

For Roedel, on the other hand, it’s a longer journey. He slowly comes to realise that what he is fighting for is not his way of life, nor is it to prove that he is a ‘true’ southerner. Always branded a ‘Dutchie’, Roedel can never truly become a Bushwhacker - his father and all the other ‘Dutchies’ are Unionists and that fact will always put Roedel on the defensive. This is especially true after he takes pity on a Unionist captive, arranging for him to be released in order to attempt to organise an exchange of prisoners. Instead the Unionist rides straight to Roedel’s Unionist father’s house and brutally murders him as revenge for his son’s political betrayal. Roedel is made aware later on that he was, in fact, responsible for his own father’s death. (Peter Parker, anyone?).

That kinda of reassessment of values in the face of tragedy is a theme that runs through Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm as well, which also features Maguire and about which also I feel simultaneously drawn in and shut out.

Part of the reason I felt slightly barred from full emotional participation in Ride with the Devil was, I have to admit, that I couldn’t entirely understand every word uttered by Maguire and his cohorts. You don’t get too many strong southern drawls in Reading and occasionally I just couldn’t understand what they were saying. Partly this is cos I don’t have a DVD player, so it’s all done with mirrors and cunning artifice (i.e. my computer and slightly crappy speakers).

That aside, I’ll be watching Ride with the Devil again. And the Ice Storm. If nothing else, I want to more understand these films - there’s enough character motivation and development in there to keep me analysing for months to come. And that is my favourite hobby right now, after all.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why number five - this is the fifth Maguire film I've seen in the last three weeks.

Just spent 90 minutes (yup, 90 - count 'em) on the phone to NTL to sort out my NTL email account. The cable modem goes like shit off a shovel, but the email and free web space just weren't playing ball at all. It seems that my account was so badly shagged that the guy on the other end of the phone had to remove and reset it all three times before we got it fixed. Good job that I was actually looking for a bout of displacement activity to save me from actually having to think this afternoon.

All that now done, I can add an email address to my template so if you want to hassle me and tell me how interesting I am, you can. Plus I can finally move stuff over to my personal web space and get it off blogspot. Not that there's anything wrong with blogspot, but you know, I like to have all my ducks in their own pen.

One of my online friends, Jonas, last night asked me why I blog, and I couldn’t come up with a good answer. I’ve been mulling over this since, and I’m still not sure. Initially I wondered if it was the confessional urge, this inherent need to tell everything to everyone, but considering that when I started this blog I didn’t actually publicise it to my friends, I’m not sure that’s the case.

Maybe, instead, it’s just some inner need to write, a way of satisfying some fundamental aspect of my personality. But if it was just that, then why make it public?

Maybe it’s just displacement activity, some pseudo-constructive way of putting off doing the things that I wish I could delegate to the cat instead.

But I think the answer's a lot simpler than that. Why do I blog? Because I can. Since the dawn of time, humans have been doing stuff just for no real reason. From scratching geometric patterns on chunks of ochre to hacking. Why do it? Cos you can.

I think this ties in very well with what I was saying in one of my earlier blogs. See, prescient or what? :lol:

Well, would you look at that? Two posts in two days - quite a miracle don’t you think?

Ah, I feel like crawling into a crevice and staying there for a couple of years, after today’s exhausting excitement. I’m trying to locate some additional funds for my business, so today I met with a new Business Link advisor to see if they could do anything for me. That was a 9.15 meeting, so that meant actually leaving the house before 9am.

Now, normally I’m up some time between 7 and 8, and my 30 second commute to the lounge means that i’m at my desk well before 9. However, this does not mean I’m awake any time before midday. I’m not good with that breakfast thing, and I’m not good with any kind of movement or thought much before, oh about 5pm.

So having to actually leave the house and be intelligent (or faking intelligence anyway) that early was a strain. But the meeting went well, the advisor was impressed by my enthusiasm and my grasp of the issues at hand. Apparently. So fingers crossed someone comes up with the readies soon.

I made up for all that effort though. I bought myself a copy of Ride with the Devil, Ang Lee’s American civil war flick featuring, oh, I wonder who… might it be Mr Maguire? Oh, what a coincidence! I was talking to Nic (who runs a Welsh blog, MorfaBlog) on the phone on Tuesday and he recommended it. So I’m blaming him.

I also bought myself a copy of, wait for it… no, don’t laugh… Behind the Mask of Spider-Man. I said don’t laugh! I was actually in Waterstones looking for scripts to buy, but they had a pitiful selection. My eyes lit upon this instead, and the beautiful CGI Spider-Man on the cover, and it was a ‘have to have’ moment. I may even read it one day.

Flicking through it in the book shop, I did notice, however, one telling difference between the photos of stuntman Chris Daniels as Spider-Man, and the CGI created Spider-Man in the same scene, was the much larger thighs and genital region of the CGI Spidey. No really - it jumps out at you from the page. (That’s p. 155 in case you happen to be anywhere near a copy.)

Now, it’s long been the case that CGI women have bigger breasts and smaller waists than flesh-and-blood women - a quick glance at the history of Lara Croft demonstrates that only too well. Poor lass can’t stand up in a strong wind. But I’ve never noticed it so much in CGI men. It is, though, astoundingly noticeable in these two photos. I’m not sure what it says about the guy (and it’s not an unreasonable assumption that it was a guy responsible) that actually did this. Maybe he had some sort of wish-fulfilment thing going on.

I have to admit, though, that this is going to have me scrutinising Tobey’s crotch throughout my next viewing of Spider-Man. Purely for research purposes, obviously.

Finally, the stakes have been raised on this blog now. I’ve told people about it. Previously this was just me, ranting quietly to myself in the corner of the virtual kitchen, glowering at anyone who tried to come near the fridge and playing with the cat. Now there are real people visiting this. And I know that to be true because some have passed comment.

Then next stage will be to actually email all my pals/family whom I owe emails, and see if i can’t palm a blog off on them instead.

Er, does this mean I can’t say fuck anymore?

PS. MS Word can’t spell ‘fridge’. How fucking weird is that?

Contrary to the rumours currently not circulating the internet, I haven't expired from overwork, nor have I been sold into slavery in Torquay. Instead, I've been doing promotional work for Pimms by drinking copious amounts of their product and recommending it to my pals in America. I look forward to going over to San Francisco and then Portland in July in order to show the Americans just exactly how you mix Pimms and lemonade in the correct proportions, how to hold a glass of said mixture and finally, the perfect technique for relocating it to one's stomach.

[pause]

[sips Pimms]

God I love working for myself. It means I can indulge my alci tendancies without risk of getting fired.

New amusements - everything Tobey Maguire. Spider-Man. Wonder Boys. The Ice Storm. Pleasantville. The Cider House Rules (co-incidentally on TV the other day so that saved me from buying the DVD). Even Cats & Dogs, although admittedly that's only a vo and the film's not all that good - the plot's so transparent you could use it as a window. But I have to rant here about Wonder Boys. I got the script from my new favourite site SoYouWannaSellAScript? and over the last couple of weeks have read and re-read it more often than I've checked my email. Yes. That often. And I am convinced that it is a masterpiece. It's just the delicacy of the script, the subtlety of the direction and the performances by Maguire, Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr, which are all sublime. Maguire has this intense stillness on screen, this almost Daoist ability to convey emotion with nothing more than the sixty or so muscles in his face. Most actors only seem able to use the one.

I'm really into reading screenplays at the moment. There's something fascinating about them, trying to picture them in your head, figure out how they got from just black splotches on the page in front of you to that amazing (or not) display of filmic movement and light. With Wonder Boys, it's easy. Same with Pleasantville - easy just to read and laugh and see the action unfold in your head. The Ice Storm was much harder going. Even after seeing the film now I'm not entirely sure I know what the fuck the point was. Still that gamelan soundtrack was one in a million, eh?

Which brings me neatly on to Tom McRae and his new album, Just Like Blood. I heard the single, Karaoke Soul, on XFM, and just immediately fell in love. Well, you know, I'm just such a musical slut - one moment it's Elliott Smith, then it's, er, still Elliott Smith then... er, well anyway. The opening track, A Day Like Today, has that gamelan sound to it that ties it up in my head with shots of ice-laden trees, Elijah Wood getting himself electrocuted and Tobey Maguire sitting on a freezing, blacked out train in the small hours. It's a great album, though, it's what David Gray would be like if only he were more interesting. Don't get me wrong, I've come to like David Gray pretty much in spite of myself. I spent a long time determined to hate him, but I guess i'm a sucker for miserable fuckers.

I bet Tom hates comparisons to David though.

Well, would you look at that... 5.35 already. Shite. Today's just got away from me. Like Tuesdays so often do. But I am determined to update this blog more often than once every five months. Determined, I say.

Where have you heard that before?

Hey peeps! Well, it's been a few months, and you might be wondering where I've been. Probably not, but it pleases me to pretend. Well, I've been working my small and perfectly formed arse off, frankly, doing stupid hours, working weekends and generally being a slave to the computer. So, what do I decide to do in my time off.. oh, yeah, right... damn. I must get out more.

Well, when the weather was more clement, I did get out a bit, and went on a rollerblading course with Citiskate in the old Spitalfieds market. I swear, me on rollerblades is like a whole new branch of physics. If there's only one tiny weeny little patch of oil in the whole place, then not only will i home in on it like my skates have some sort of oil-attraction properties, but I'll also do so at speed and already a little off balance. Some of the bruises were really kinda spectacular... anyway, I hired skates for the five-week course, which saw me go from only being able to fall over whilst stationary, to providing me with the skill and expertise to be able to both fall over whilst moving, and collide with other skaters no matter the avoidance manouvres employed by either me or them. I think I became a whole spectator sport, just by myself. I'm planning on getting my own skates when a) I have the cash (so that'll be the arse-end of never then) and b) when the weather improves a bit in the spring (er, ditto).

What else... oh yeah, Elliott Smith. I want to rant a bit here about Elliott, because he's not getting enough coverage (i.e. none) at the moment and no matter that he hasn't released a new album in years, the man is still a fucking genius. He has the voice of a broken-hearted angel, and it's just the most amazing sound I think I've ever heard. I used to think that Thom Yorke was the only person capable of making me shed actual tears just by the way he sings, but then Thom lost his head somewhere in his own colon at about the time of Kid A and frankly he kinda lost it. But Elliott, well, a more unassuming genius you won't come across, nor will you find someone who writes such achingly beautiful music, so delicately fragile yet lyrically quite dark and foreboding at times. He just takes your heart right out of your chest, rips it up into tiny weeny little bits and scatters it to the four winds. In a nice way, obviously.

So, I've been collecting his back catalogue, and I'm starting to get there - just the singles left to go, and the Heatmiser albums (his old band, before he went solo). Plus I've been downloading mp3s of rarities (I feel guiltless doing this, because I've already forked out a small fortune for legit releases), and whoa, there are some gems there. His version of Waterloo Sunset makes 'poignant' a serious understatement. Just amazing. I just can't wait for From A Basement On The Hill to come out, although no one seems to know when that's going to happen, or on what label. Still, keeps us on our feet.

You know, I really must get out of the habit of putting my laundry out to dry at 10 in the morning and then forgetting to bring it in until after dark. It really is a bad move. Becasue you know what happens... you stumble outside at half midnight, trying to see by the crappy yellow street lights that barely even illuminate the pavement, let alone my garden, and you try to gather up your clothing as best you can, but it's inevitable. You are just bound to drop a trail of knickers behind you, so that when the postman comes at 7.30am you have the double embarassment of being both bed-headedly unkempt and facing the sight of your best black briefs draped becommingly on a red hot poker. (That's a type of flower, by the way, not something left over from Richard III's bedroom closet.)

Other than that... I have to report progress in the spider-terror stakes. Being a certified arachnophobe with a history of arachnid-inspired hysteria, I was very proud today to deal with a sizable spider using the glass-and-card method. I am well impressed. No hysterics, no screaming, no climbing over the furniture in an effort to escape. Not even a raised heart rate. Bargain!!

I just haven't been able to face posting for the last, ahem, few weeks. Why? Well, spent most of the last month chasing round after banks trying to get funding for my business, and generally met an unfavourable response. At least none of them laughed. Although Nat West did ask some fucking stupid questions that, frankly, a three year old could have answered by herself. Obviously they're too thick to actually read the business plan and find out for themselves that I actually do know my competition, and that I'm not actually providing a service that the BBC already provide. Dickheads.

But then, that's banks for ya. They look at the figures, don't like them, then come up with some assinine reason for rejecting your request for funds. I'd rather they were honest and said, 'Frankly, we don't like your figures'. But no, they have to say things like, 'Well, we're not really sure about the market'. Of course you're not sure, you dolt. You're a bank manager. I'm the expert in my particular field of business. I've done the research and it's all there in black and white, and if you weren't too thick to be able to read words of more than one syllable, you'd be able to actually read the business plan and find out for yourself whether there's a market there.

Y'know, there's no point doing these business courses, and consulting with advisors, and spending three months preparing a business plan. You might as well just throw a fictional cashflow together overnight and save yourself a lot of shit.

*sigh*

Ok... rant over. Promise. (Although I do feel better for it. I did get quite antsy with some of these banking dickheads, but then it doesn't do to sink to their single-cellular level.)

Anyway, I did eventually get funding for my new business, and since that happened, I've been rushing round like a blue-arsed fly, trying to actually get everything in place to actually start the everything going. Which is a whole different kettle of fish to just thinking about starting a business. Sort of like the difference between reading Ranulph Fiennes' book about walking across the Antarctic, and actually walking across the Antarctic. Whilst you may cringe at the description of the puss-filled blisters that ate away at his feet, it's not quite the same as actually having puss-filled blisters. Not that I have had puss-filled blisters, although I did once burn the bottom of my feet and end up with blisters the size of satsumas. I couldn't walk for several days, and it really was quite unpleasant. But not, I hasten to add, as bad as puss-filled blisters and the inevitable frostbite that curses all polar explorers. Which I'm sure is much worse.

It's really nice to think that I am, finally, my own boss. Not just pretending to be my own boss in that self-un-employed way, but actually having a business, and a limited company and the whole nine yards. In fact, it's more like ten... but it is scary. Exciting, but scary. And exciting. But very scary.

I think you get the picture.

So, tomorrow is Saturday. Another working day, but not without it's lay in. If the cat will let me. Which this morning she wouldn't, having decided to play trampoline on my bed at 5am. Even locking her out doesn't work - she just sits under my window and miaows like some pitiful little kitten that I know she's not. Bless.

Hm, right, so what was I saying? Er, dunno... not that that matters, because I know no one is actually reading this, so I can be as self indulgent as I like... *sigh* Ah, the catharsis of confession without the embarrassment the next day when the alcohol clears and you suddenly remember what you said...

Well, here we are at another Wimbledon, and isn't it lucky that it started before the World Cup finished. Now we can all focus our attentions on willing Timothy on to the finals instead of whining about England getting knocked out by favourites Brazil.

That was really starting to get on my nerves, actually. What a bunch of hypocritical tossers people can be - firstly, no one thought England would qualify, then they didn't think that England could get through the Group of Death, and then we weren't going to get past Denmark... then when Brazil knock us out suddenly it's 'not good enough', and the team are a 'failure'. Come on! We should be damn proud that they got so far! The team was a young and (to some extent) inexperienced one, key players were carrying injuries, and Brazil are well known for slaying us at footie. Add to that in inconsistent ref, and Seaman's horrible fall which really shook both him and the rest of the team and it's no surprise that we suffered at the hands of Ronaldo and his chums. Of course it's a disappointment that we got knocked out, but really, there's no need to slag our lads off. They did better than expected, and all deserve a very big hug. Specially Becks...

Anyway, back to Wimbledon. All those instant footie pundits have now become instant tennis pundits (and yes, I count myself amongst that number!), and I'm sure that all of them were just a tad surprised to see so many of the top seeds knocked out yesterday. And it's only Wednesday! But I'm quite pleased that Monkey Boy's out, with his perma-gape, hairy arms and the personality of a brick. It's dull when the same people always win (cf. the World Cup final, and F1), so with Safin, Monkey Boy and Agassi out of the running, who knows what will happen next. Maybe our fair Timothy even has a chance - or Rusedski. Of course, if Tim doesn't make it, everyone will shake their heads knowingly and say that they never did think he was really capable, and what a disappointment he is. The fact that he's one of the best players in the world, and that he's achieved so much in his career will just pass them by. After all, it's far easier to criticise failure than it is to celebrate partial success. Especially when it's someone else that you're criticising.

Arse.