13 Jan 10 Rohan diving into the dim and distant past
I got a Facebook message from Mark Palacio a long-time friend who I met about 25 years ago when we both worked at Rohan. The Rohan Blog, Rohantime has a carousel on it’s home page with a picture of me diving off a cliff into the sea in Malta while directing a photo-shoot for Rohan.
Click to launch full size image
It was Feb 1988 Blue Lagoon Malta, shooting a catalogue with Paul Howcroft, Adam Croxen, some models and the photographer Mike Heffernan. The photographer said the shots were a bit wooden and I was standing on the cliff top above the sea and I said, “If I jump, can you get a shot”. He got out a 35mm motorwind camera and at the last second I decided to just dive off the thing. Long way down, it hurt, soaked all my money and ruined my watch – but it was used as the catalogue cover. It was a good time. We stayed in a castle in Malta and it was at that time that Paul Howcroft promoted me to become Rohan’s Marketing Manager.
Given the mayhem of litigation that took place between Rohan and me, Paul, Adam and Mark a couple of years later, it is hardly surprising that they declined to give me a name check!
It’s interesting how Rohan crops up from time to time as I go through life. I got contacted on the 30th anniversary by their designers looking for any Rohan samples I may have had. I was contacted by newspapers both national and from Skipton (where Rohan launched). About three years ago, I was stopped after a presentation and asked about my time at Rohan by someone I had never met before.
There was a lot of bad blood for a long time between me and Rohan, but it would be good to get to know them again. I can see that Tim Jasper (who I first met when he was a customer at Rohan’s Bristol shop) is Brand Director at Rohan and the founder, Sarah Howcroft is back there working on Social media for them.
12 Jan 10 Stoke fans Wiki revenge on ‘horse faced, dutch prick’ van Nistelrooy
After Ruud Van Nistelrooy appeared to rubbish the chances of Stoke City buying him or, more likely, taking him on loan in the January 2010 transfer window, an offended Stoke fan took revenge by altering van Nistelrooy’s wiki page to read as follows:
Ruud Van Nistelrooy is a horse faced, hay eating, dutch prick who currently (doesn’t) play for Real Madrid. There’s a picture of him over there on the right. Go on, have a look…..a face only a mother could love. If he’s better than Stoke City Football Club, I’ll eat my own arse.
A picture for posterity needed to be published (click image or this link to launch full size):
06 Jan 10 Stoke 3 – 2 Fulham
For weeks now Stoke have been threatening to give someone good hiding and it was very nearly Fulham. While recent results suggest Stoke have been going through a dip in form, the results are deceiving. I don’t want to come across all Tony Mowbray, but there are times when Stoke have been breath-taking this season and still lost. There were plenty of critics competing to damn the tactics last season. More disappointing, this season, even with a change of approach, commentators reluctantly eulogise about Stoke through gritted teeth. For Stoke fans listening to Gary Linekar raise his eye-brows weekly to announce the last game on MOTD, with a big sigh “…and now to The Britannia Stadium, so switch over to Newsnight, it’s more entertaining”.
But then tonight it came together, in a way that I hope proves to be a tipping point. Three goals from the The Good (Tuncay), The Bad (Ab Faye) and The Unexpected (Mama Sidibe) actually flattered Fulham who should have gone in at half time 5-0 down. Stoke were hard, yet sophisticated in defence with Ryan Shawcross easily managing Andy Johnson and hinting at why Stoke have, this week, placed a £20Million hands-off label all over him. Huth showed quietly why he is a German international and Ab Faye seems to have rid himself of the kryptonite poisoning from which he has been suffering of late. In midfield Stoke were just magic. Tuncay flitted between midfield and attack always creating things and remaining unplayable. Etherington must have been spending his born again time at Stoke chatting with club ambassador Terry Conroy, because he looks like the best winger Stoke have had since that time. Liam Lawrence returned to great effect and all in all, the team massacred Fulham in the first half.
I have declared that the second half did not take place. Tuncay did not get injured , Fulham did not score twice, one of which was not a magnificent looping shot from 40yards and this was not Fuller’s last game for Stoke.
Great night to be a Stoke fan.
