camper!

me and mrs plowy (soon to be) have decided to start planning what will be the trip of a lifetime.

we both really fancied going to new zealand but didn't really see the point in going for just a couple of weeks as there's just too much to take in.

so, after seeing them telly, we've decided to hire a really cool campervan and drive from one end of the country to the other. now when i say "campervan" i don't mean any old thing i mean one of these babies!

each van is individually painted with a different design and there are loads to choose from. they are fairly roomy (for a van!) and have a surprising range of facilities.

Its hopefully gonna be the trip of a lifetime, with the freedom to go almost anywhere we want and the pace we want.

It want happen for a couple of years as we'll have to save quite a bit but its something to aim for. watch this space!

ps. the title of this post is an in joke for anyone who has played a childs boardgame called 'jump the queue'. you know who you are! (camper, limpo, scooooooooter!)

money+football=ripped off supporters

so not only do we have to pay £30+ a time to watch 22 rich men play in a sponsored stadium, wearing sponsored shirts, whilst 'enjoying' over-priced sponsored food & drink, reading the 'advert' that passes for a match day programme, we now have to pay for the privilege of knowing who our team is playing.

the information below was taken from freethefixtures.com and it makes very interesting reading.

"On Thursday 14th June the fixtures for the 2007/08 football season were published. However most fan run websites will not be displaying them....

Football DataCo Ltd is a British company that grants licenses to third parties allowing them to reproduce certain intellectual property such as fixture lists and statistics.

Football DataCo is wholly owned by FA Premier League and The Football League. Fans have 3 options.....

1) Become the clubs nominated fanzine and get a licence for the fixtures for £1+VAT and a delivery charge to your site £104+ VAT, delivery via email! A total of £123

2) Get authorisation from the club to use their fixtures in isolation. This would be £266+VAT plus delivery charge A total of £435

3) Without authorisation from the club you must buy fixtures for all clubs - this is £4244+VAT for the licence and £5200+VAT for delivery A total of nearly £12,000.

The fees are charged to all 3rd parties including independently owned football fan sites and fanzines. Numerous fan sites have been closed as a result of legal action initiated by Football DataCo Ltd.

We the fans should be free to publish our teams fixtures on our sites.

Please sign the petition and we will present it to the people that are responsible for charging the fans to publish THEIR fixtures!"

i think you'll agree that this is getting silly and needs to be stopped before the soul is totally taken out of the dying body that is football.

sign the petition!

stop it now!

did you know...? (#3)

...that ipswich used to have an underground railway network?

i know its hard to believe (and i'm not sure i do yet) but apparently its true.

there's even a website about it. have a look and decide for yourself.

---UPDATE--- its an april fool from earlier in the year! i'll admit it had me going for a minute but the stuff about Stalinist sympathisers started some alarm bells ringing.

another little visitor

we've had another little visitor to our patch recently, but this time i was more than happy to welcome him (or her) onto our allotment. hopefully from the picture you'll be able to see that we've had a little mouse come and say "hello". i'm pretty sure that they haven't been the ones eating all our crops (bloody pigeons!) so i'll be more than happy to see it again.

it grows on you

after all the fuss about the new logo for the london 2012 games (now i'm gonna say the next bit quietly) it's actually beginning to grow on me a little bit.

what about the price? £400k? yes it is a lot of money, but compared to the rest of the 2012 budget, and compared to the huge amounts of money spent by private companies (and other public sector organisations) it is actually not that much.

you can't fault the boldness of seb and his team on choosing a very striking and provocative design, and it has certainly gained a reaction. but what would you prefer? a logo that no one can remember and disappears even before the games have begun (there's still 5 years to go don't forget), or something the gets a reaction and will last in people's memories for a long time to come (good or bad). i know which i'd choose.

ps. i think it looks better against a dark background like at the end of the launch video (don't worry, its safe now!).