28 Feb 10 Photo suggests Ramsey damaged leg before Shawcross made contact | #AaronRamsey
The incident being talked about in football pages this morning is of what Arsene Wenger has called a “horror tackle’ on Aaron Ramsey.
Was it the tackle that broke his leg?
Without wanting to detract from the seriouslness of the injury, a little closer inspection might be necessary. A photo originally from the Telegraph shows a snap-shot of the incident and suggests that the injury was incurred as Ramsey planted his studs into the pitch and no doubt compounded as Shawcross hit him. The position of the ball shows Ramsey getting to the ball first. It means Shawcross was late, but in the context of the challenge it was a 50/50 challenge and Ramsey was early more than Shawcross was late. It might also suggest that this was after the tackle had taken place. If so it shows Shawcross pulling his leg out of the tackle.
Personally I feel for both players – particularly Ramsey. I don’t believe there was any malice or even clumsiness in the challenge, it was full-blooded from both players and either could have been injured, equally both could have walked away. As it is Ramsey was carried of and Shawcross walked off distraught.
19 Feb 10 What’s the #BUZZ about Google Buzz? Oh look, the Emperor has got no clothes on
You have come across Google Buzz or maybe you haven’t. Anyway it is Google’s answer to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, although, I wonder what the question was if Buzz is the answer.
It launched recently to a bit of a viral fanfare and all of us social media maniacs and Twitter pimps toddled on over to check it out. It seems that lots of people are going absolutely unnecessary about it. It will apparently kill off Twitter, Facebook and change the world as we know it. I say ‘apparently’ for a reason.
The problem is that I am still trying to work how Buzz accommodates any need I have. I keep coming back looking at it and thinking, ‘I must be missing something’.
I understand Blogs, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter and they have somehow seamlessly slotted into the way I do things personally and professionally. I can write once on any of them and publish everywhere. I can use things like TweetDeck to get multiple views of Twitter based on friends, interest topics or back-chat. Others use aggregators like FriendFeed or Posterous but they all do variations on a theme – they collect all this etherlution (© Dave Yates, meaning rubbish deposited all over the web) and collates in into a single, manageable distribution and collection point for all you want to cherry pick from these platforms.
So while I detest e.g. FB, I do understand why it is there and I can interact with my contacts on it without having to go on it very often. Similarly with LinkedIn. I quite like it, but I don’t feel compelled to ‘live’ on it. I use it from time to time, but can update it remotely with a range of tools, mainly my Blog and Twitter account.
But again today, I returned to Buzz, looking at it this way and that and concluding that I must be missing something, because lots of people are saying it is great and everything else will now become obsolete. I repeat, I really must be missing something because, for the life of me, I don’t get it, I don’t know what to do with it and I don’t know why everyone else is raving about it.
Oh Look – the emperor’s just gone by without any clothes on.
10 Feb 10 Dictionary of Online Abbreviations
Image shamelessly adapted from toothpastefordinner.com
I know there are pre-existing glossaries out there, but at least with this one I know where it is for reference. Also I can keep adding to it.
Please feel free to suggest any more via the comments box and I will add them to the list
- AFK – away from keyboard (I am gone for a few minutes)
- AFAIK – as far as I know
- ASL – age / sex / location?
- BFF – best friends, forever
- BFN – bye for now
- BIO – going for bio break (washroom break)
- BRB – be right back
- BTW – by the way
- CSAK – Chucking Silently At Keyboard
- CUL8R – see you later
- CYA – see ya (or it could also be: cover your a*s)
- DH – darling husband
- DD – darling daughter
- DS – darling son
- FMV – fair market value (for selling items online)
- FTW – for the win (basically a big thumbs up)
- GG – good game
- IBTL – in before the lock (for when you post a message prior to the administrator locking the heated discussion thread)
- IMHO – in my humble opinion
- IMNSHO – in my not so humble opinion
- IRL – in real life
- KK – OK (commonly used by online gamers to acknowledge that a message has been received)
- LOL – laughing out loud
- MT – mispell (commonly used by online gamers to say that they made a mistake and mistyped their last message)
- NP – no problem/you’re welcome
- NWOT – new without tags (for selling items online)
- NWT – new with tags (for selling items online)
- BNWT – brand new with tags (for selling items online)
- OOAK – one of a kind (for selling items online)
- PICNIC – problem in chair not in computer (apparently favoured by IT support techs when dealing with low ability users)
- PLZ – please
- PLIBT – please let it be true
- PMSL – P*ssing myself laughing (a common UK expression)
- POS – Parents [watching] Over Shoulder
- QFT – quoted for truth (a compliment to another person on the forum)
- RL – real life
- ROFL – rolling on floor laughing
- ROFLMAO – rolling on floor laughing my a*s off
- RTFM – read the f***ing manual (to show frustration at someone’s ignorance of basic knowledge)
- RTM – read the manual
- SCAOMM – Spat Coffee All Over My Monitor (when something is very amusing)
- TBH – to be honest
- THX – thanks
- TTFN – ta-ta for now
- TTYL – talk to you later
- TX – thanks
- TY – thank you
- VFF – very f***ing funny
- W/E – whatever
- WTF – what the f*** [is that all about]
08 Feb 10 iPhone …or perhaps I don’t any more
iPhone Apps - Want them more than need them?
I found myself not using the iPhone recently while doing a load of Mountain Biking. I put it away safe in a drawer while doing rufty tufty phone threatening activities. Instead, I dragged one of the collection of old phones out of a drawerr, I got a free Orange PAYG card, filled it up with £20 and it has lasted months. I stick it in my pocket and use it if I get lost, when I fall off and need someone to put me or my bike back together.
But it has had a sobering effect. I have started asking myself what the hell I need an iPhone for at all. It’s a shame as well. I have an App called Map My Ride which is great for Mountain Biking. But I don’t use it because it s not so good if you smash your phone while taking a tumble. To give you an idea, I fall off at least once every time I go out on my MTB and usually a lot more. I started thinking that if I were to break, lose, or get my iPhone stolen etc. then I would suffer a load of cost and the sickening feeling you get when you break something nice. If I break the old Nokia, I rip out the sim card, bin the bits and get another cheapie out of the drawer, or on Ebay
iPhone meets mountain biking - not a good combo
Mountain Biking is good for the soul in many respects. All that exercise and fresh air combine with the pain and repeated falling off and landing on your head. It knocks some sense into you. With regard to the iPhone, my MTB epiphany on the off road trail to my metaphoric Damascus led me to suspect that I want it more than need it (note to self: Design iPhone App based on lyrics, such as Glenn Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’). I make myself use apps because they are there and handy, but in some respects they add extra chores to my day rather than save time. I like the idea of iXpenseIt, but it takes loads of time to use and the pics of the receipts are rubbish because the iPhone camera is poor indoors and poor at close-up – exactly the setting where you take pics of the receipts. I actually create more work for myself!
Then I have to wonder again. My old friend Ravi Damani and his cousin Chetan over at Imano are developing brilliant augmented reality apps. But do I really want to augment reality – I might find that I am superfluous rather than my phone. I could then send my iPhone to work and sooner or later it would realise that as much fun as I was, I was just expensive, stupid and unnecessary. It would dispose of me!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, I think everyone should try putting their iPhone / Blackberry away for a week and instead go back to a basic handset. You’ll be surprised at how superfluous a lot of its functions are. Funnily enough, I got used to using a phone based camera when I got an iPhone. But the iPhone camera is not particularly good. I wonder whether I should get a decent pocket camera and a basic phone instead of paying £30 / month for the pleasure of keeping a beautiful design icon in my pocket.
06 Feb 10 Dean Whitehead Superman
Superman's latest disguise - just lose the kiss-curl
Ever since Dean Whitehead joined Stoke City, I have had that distinct feeling that I have seen him somewhere before. Watching him flying round the Britannia Stadium this afternoon, I have suddenly worked it out, one kiss-curl short of a superhero. Dean Whitehead is Superman.
05 Feb 10 John Terry has been doing more than just Wayne Bridge’s ex.
Okay, at the risk of this turning into a grubby gossip column, here is a some grubby gossip. I found this on The Oatcake:
The Sun have a round up of the current John Terry rumours which will make the paper over the next few weeks:
- The Sun have lined up another EIGHT women who’ve slept with him in the last 18 months or so. Enough for a couple of weeks of front pages. Including FHMs own HSH, Tanya Robinson
- The front page today that Bridges ex, Vanessa, has slept with five members of the Chelsea squad is only the beginning. Two other Chelsea players – Gudjonsen and Drogba – were also sleeping with Bridge’s girlfriend at the same time as Terry.
- The Sun is also paying Vanessa 250k to dish everything including the fact that the mystery fifth Chelsea player is, depressingly predictably, Ashley Cole. Which should give Cheryl the excuse she needs to finally dump him (now shes no longer Racist Toilet Cleaner Puncher, but the new Nations Sweetheart)
- JT has also been sleeping with current team mate Hilario’s wife (who also has kids).
- Away from the bedroom, JT also owes Wembley a substantial amount of money for a box he owns and hasn’t paid for, even after he had mates in there racking up a 20k bill at the FA Cup final.
Question is, will he have the energy to lift the world cup in summer if we should win it?
04 Feb 10 Apple iPad – Guess the review – What can we learn from history?
Apparently Apple has launched its iPad – news has even made it to Worcestershire! Apple fans love it. Geeks hate it. Why is that so predictable? Or is it? I’m just predicting that’s what the response will be. I haven’t read a single review yet, so before I do, based entirely on twenty years of Mac use, here is what I think the conclusion will be:
If history is anything to go by, the iPad will be innovative in its own way – but not by some other people’s definition of innovative. It will probably disappoint the techno-purists because it will use whatever edge it has to satisfy some kind of mass market potential (and critically it won’t be Microsoft or Linux). And the same techno purists will be quick to point out that some gizmo or other does some or all of it’s functions better and uses some or other connectivity or processor or screen that ‘rocks’ (said in the way only geeks can pronounce it) while the iPad ‘sucks man’ (again said in John Major meets Michael Moore geek accent). It will extend the Apple ethos of the Digital Hub making it a natural add-on to the rest of the i-suite of things out there, which will again anger someone for some reason.
Basically, it will infuriate the anti Apple brigade simply because it will be made by Apple. That has always been enough to bring out IT geeks the world over to burn effigies of Steve Jobs.
Steve Wozniac, co-founder of Apple back in the day and ‘not bitter at all’ exile these days, will appear in some Tech mag and tell us how he came up with the idea in the first place, back in the 1980′s and it would be much better if it employed some unpronounceable concept that only he understands.
Over time, the release version will prove to be underpowered and comparatively slow, lacking in memory and it will be unstable until about version 1.3. This is because everything Apple make is a great idea but a bad execution in it’s launch version. It then burns out quickly or the screens break or some such disaster befalls the early adopters. The second version is more robust, but the software is flakey or the connectivity is poor. You don’t really get a polished version out until third time around – which will be good. However, for all it’s early problems, it will capture people’s imagination better than any of its rivals have and it will redefine the market place for these devices.
Several niche companies and several large companies will file patent infringement cases on its technology, interface or other aspects of it. These will variously go on for years and no one will remember what they were all about when they eventually get settled.
It will be plaigiarised – or perhaps I should say it will inspire Microsoft and others like Nokia, Dell, and a load of firms from China – who will claim they were working on their version of it all along. These will get launched about a year later and spontaneously look remarkably like Apple’s product. They will be called ‘ePads’, ‘xPads’ and ‘MyPads’. Everyone will then get sued by Always Ultra who whose own iPad product will do something completely different. All the Windows based clones will be really fiddly, stuffed full of lots of features and complicated interfaces. They will impress the editors of computer mags but inadvertently reinforce the Apple iPad (or whatever it gets called) as a people’s favourite.
A final word or warning: You will need to watch out for slightly insecure and over-paid people conspicuously taking their Apple iPad to the pub and making sure everyone can see they have one.
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.
