We had a wonderful rugby weekend last weekend. After training on Friday Nats and I headed down to the Irish pub for a pint or two and to meet Hoey who had some friends over from England and upon leaving the pub heading back to my place (sans one of Hoey's friends) we found the jacket potato place that Kezza had told us about a few weeks before so that was dinner sorted.
After waking up at some godforsaken hour, getting lost on the outer Munich ring road and slathering myself in factor 50 sun cream against the 28 degree heat we went out on to the pitch for our two games of 10-a-side rugger. We played a tough game against our hosts and eventually won it 29-5. I didn't play because we were too many but I did get to play the first half of the second game which we won 62-5!!!! I felt really good when I came off the pitch (although a bit shattered due to the heat) as I thought I'd played quite well, an analysis confirmed by our trainer who told me that that was the best game I'd ever played!!!! Nats later told me that he was stood next to her on the sidelines and he kept saying "who's that running all over the place? Oh wow it's Hazey!" We had a couple of lineouts and my fellow lifter and I got our liftee really quite high up, she was no heavier than a feather. The only downside was our friend Schlumpf going off with a serious knee injury just before the half time whistle and even that's not 100% negative- she had such a blinding game and a half that she was voted player of the tournament. Upshot of this is- we qualify for the next part of the competition with one tournament left in 2 weeks time, we can lose both of those games and still qualify- yay!
Then on Sunday we went to watch our boys play and win their league too, thrashing their opponents 72-0! Their coach told me afterwards how happy he was, it was the best they'd ever played etc. But they weren't as good as us.
Thank God we're not playing this weekend though. I do love it but I also need some time to do some other stuff like go to the Wasen and spend some quality time
April 24, 2007
April 17, 2007
We Don't Need No Education
Inspired by a conversation Curlygirl and I had over Easter, the booksI have read off the BBC's Big Read List*. In green, books I've read, ones in pink are books I love
* I have read a couple of Terry Pratchett's but I have no idea which ones they were. I think Mort and The Colour of Magic so the true figure is actually about 37. Not too shabby
- The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien only the first one- too bored to read the others!
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
- His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
- Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
- Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
- Catch-22, Joseph Heller
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
- Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
- Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
- The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
- The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
- Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
- Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
- War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
- Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell. Am going to read this over the summert-1002 pages!
- Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
- Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
- Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
- The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
- Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
- Middlemarch, George Eliot
- A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
- The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
- Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
- The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
- One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
- The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
- David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
- Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
- Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
- A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
- Persuasion, Jane Austen
- Dune, Frank Herbert
- Emma, Jane Austen
- Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
- Watership Down, Richard Adams
- The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
- The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
- Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
- Animal Farm, George Orwell
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
- Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
- Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
- The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
- The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
- The Stand, Stephen King
- Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
- A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
- The BFG, Roald Dahl
- Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
- Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
- Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
- Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
- Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
- A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
- The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
- Mort, Terry Pratchett
- The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
- The Magus, John Fowles
- Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
- Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
- Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
- Perfume, Patrick Süskind
- The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
- Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
- Matilda, Roald Dahl
- Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
- The Secret History, Donna Tartt
- The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
- Ulysses, James Joyce
- Bleak House, Charles Dickens
- Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
- The Twits, Roald Dahl
- I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
- Holes, Louis Sachar
- Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
- The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
- Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
- Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
- Magician, Raymond E Feist
- On The Road, Jack Kerouac
- The Godfather, Mario Puzo
- The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
- The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
- The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
- Katherine, Anya Seton
- Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
- Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
- Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
- The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
- Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
* I have read a couple of Terry Pratchett's but I have no idea which ones they were. I think Mort and The Colour of Magic so the true figure is actually about 37. Not too shabby
April 15, 2007
Oh Eddie Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie Stein
I read an interview this week online with the wonderful Eddie Stein which brought back some fantabulous (my new word) memories. Whaddaya mean you don't know who Eddie Stein is? Check it out here: http://www.barnetfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/News/LatestNewsDetail/0,,10431~1009443,00.html
Speaking of sport- running around a rugby pitch in 27 degree weather whilst wearing a black 100% polyester shirt IS NOT FUN. We went eastwards yesterday for a rugby tournament and one of the other teams was short of players so I went to play for them with a couple of others from my team. They had enough players for the position that I normally play in and when one of the other girls went off injured in the first game I took her place and played out of position. It was actually good fun playing for another team (except for getting smacked in the ear, having a very high tackle on me by some bitch and the bruises all over my knees and elbows) I gave everything I had (which isn't a whole lot) and played over 3 and half of the 4 games we had and although we lost all our games we didn't play too badly actually. Most interesting was the game when I played against my own normal team. Steffi was desperate to tackle me and didn't manage it- hah!- and even gave my team a penalty when she came offside against me.
Come to think of it I actually played football for a bit yesterday- during a game I was chasing the ball and was about a metre ahead of my opponent so I had no possibility to pick it up which meant I had to resort to kicking it along gaining some distance up the field until it finally went out for a line out. This was also done only with my left foot- quite an achievement as if I was a footballer I'd be totally right footed.
Speaking of sport- running around a rugby pitch in 27 degree weather whilst wearing a black 100% polyester shirt IS NOT FUN. We went eastwards yesterday for a rugby tournament and one of the other teams was short of players so I went to play for them with a couple of others from my team. They had enough players for the position that I normally play in and when one of the other girls went off injured in the first game I took her place and played out of position. It was actually good fun playing for another team (except for getting smacked in the ear, having a very high tackle on me by some bitch and the bruises all over my knees and elbows) I gave everything I had (which isn't a whole lot) and played over 3 and half of the 4 games we had and although we lost all our games we didn't play too badly actually. Most interesting was the game when I played against my own normal team. Steffi was desperate to tackle me and didn't manage it- hah!- and even gave my team a penalty when she came offside against me.
Come to think of it I actually played football for a bit yesterday- during a game I was chasing the ball and was about a metre ahead of my opponent so I had no possibility to pick it up which meant I had to resort to kicking it along gaining some distance up the field until it finally went out for a line out. This was also done only with my left foot- quite an achievement as if I was a footballer I'd be totally right footed.
April 13, 2007
Born Of Frustration
Scenario: friend at work (lets call her Leprechaun) asks me to install something on her new PC. It doesn't go right and I don't know enough so I have to contact the support team for the application. To cut a very long story short someone from the sub-continent tries to fix it for over 90 minutes with no luck and totally fed up so I call the guy.
Me: Hello is that XXX?
XXX: Hello? Hello?
Me: Hello this is Hazey
XXX: Hello? Hello?
Me: Am I speaking with XXX?
XXX: Yes this is XXX.
Me: So hi, I'm Hazey Jane, I need to know how much longer this going to take
XXX: Oh, is this Hazey Jane?
Me: Yes this is Hazey- let me just conference Leprechaun on the phone
***Leprechaun comes on the phone too and I am shocked that XXX is still on the phone***
Me: So is application installed?
XXX: Yes
Me: And does it work?
XXX: Yes
Me: okay let me try it
***I'd already seen the errors and knew it would not work. Point being he told me it did***
Me: It does not work. Can you get it fixed tonight?
XXX: I deinstalled then reinstalled.... hello?
Me: Yes- we're still here keep going...
XXX: I deinstalled then reinstalled.... hello?
Me: Yes- we're still here can you please keep going?
***You can already here Leprechaun getting huffy***
XXX: We have this problem (starts rambling on- you can barely understand the guy. I have no difficulty at all with accents but his grasp of english is just so poor I can understand my 4 year old sister better with her baby voice on the phone)
Me: Right well we need this to be fixed tonight. Can you do that for us?
XXX: errrr... shuey, shuey (rambling starts)
Me: Excuse me?
XXX: Someone in Europe had this problem yesterday too
Me: Okay but we need this to be fixed on this PC today.
Leprechaun: Look I need this this weekend- what can be done?
Me: What do you need from me to be able to get this done this weekend, do you need me to talk to your manager?
XXX: Hello.... hello?
Me: Yes, we're still here. Look- is there anything that I can do to help you get this fixed today?
XXX: Tier 2.... tier 2.... you have to log a call with Tier2....
Leprechaun: You need to log a call
XXX gets his colleague YYY to join us who can actually
YYY: Hello this is YYY (couldn't actually hear the name)
Me: Hello- can you fix this issue tonight?
YYY: We deinstalled then reinstalled...
Me: Yes XXX already told me that
YYY: And we need to ask Tier2...
Me: Yes I've heard that. What do I need to do to get this solved tonight?
YYY: Maybe you need to log a call with Tier2?
Me: No, there's no maybe about it. You need to do that and you need to ask them to help us solve this issue tonight
YYY goes away. We sit on the phone- I start trying to ask XXX something
XXX: Hello? Hello?
Me: Yes we're still here. ***I'm clearly getting nowhere and start to think bollocks to this, let's go straight to the manager now but I need the name of YYY***
Me: What's the name of your colleague please?
XXX: Hello?
Me: Yes hello, what is the name of your colleague?
XXX: Er...
Me: What is the name of the man who was just on the phone with us?
***XXX starts rambling and clearly has no clue what I'm asking him. I rack my brains thinking how else can I put this and my voice turns to dangerously soft***
Me: At the moment there is you, me and Leprechaun on the phone. There was someone else on the phone. What is he called?
***Colleagues around me listening in start laughing. I can't believe it either***
Me: We were four people on the phone, at the moment we are three. Who was that other man who was just on the phone?
***Eventually YYY comes back on the phone, he is at least able to tell me his name but can't fix the problem and cannot promise to get it done that day. I decide to get the manager involved, leave him a voicemail asking for a call back which he doesn't but at least he gets someone to fix the problem. I will call manager next week if he doesn't return my voicemail cos I am not letting this one slide. I personally find it totally unacceptable for companies to offshore/outsource jobs to cheap countries and to provide such terrible service back. I mean for fucks sake this eejit could not even understand 'what is the name of your colleague?' when spoken in my native speaker neutral accent. I have no idea how my colleagues in other european countries cope. Actually I do- they don't, they find it worse, they can't even understand the accent.
I call Leprechaun out of exasperation and she promises to buy me some beer ***
Me: Hello is that XXX?
XXX: Hello? Hello?
Me: Hello this is Hazey
XXX: Hello? Hello?
Me: Am I speaking with XXX?
XXX: Yes this is XXX.
Me: So hi, I'm Hazey Jane, I need to know how much longer this going to take
XXX: Oh, is this Hazey Jane?
Me: Yes this is Hazey- let me just conference Leprechaun on the phone
***Leprechaun comes on the phone too and I am shocked that XXX is still on the phone***
Me: So is application installed?
XXX: Yes
Me: And does it work?
XXX: Yes
Me: okay let me try it
***I'd already seen the errors and knew it would not work. Point being he told me it did***
Me: It does not work. Can you get it fixed tonight?
XXX: I deinstalled then reinstalled.... hello?
Me: Yes- we're still here keep going...
XXX: I deinstalled then reinstalled.... hello?
Me: Yes- we're still here can you please keep going?
***You can already here Leprechaun getting huffy***
XXX: We have this problem (starts rambling on- you can barely understand the guy. I have no difficulty at all with accents but his grasp of english is just so poor I can understand my 4 year old sister better with her baby voice on the phone)
Me: Right well we need this to be fixed tonight. Can you do that for us?
XXX: errrr... shuey, shuey (rambling starts)
Me: Excuse me?
XXX: Someone in Europe had this problem yesterday too
Me: Okay but we need this to be fixed on this PC today.
Leprechaun: Look I need this this weekend- what can be done?
Me: What do you need from me to be able to get this done this weekend, do you need me to talk to your manager?
XXX: Hello.... hello?
Me: Yes, we're still here. Look- is there anything that I can do to help you get this fixed today?
XXX: Tier 2.... tier 2.... you have to log a call with Tier2....
Leprechaun: You need to log a call
XXX gets his colleague YYY to join us who can actually
YYY: Hello this is YYY (couldn't actually hear the name)
Me: Hello- can you fix this issue tonight?
YYY: We deinstalled then reinstalled...
Me: Yes XXX already told me that
YYY: And we need to ask Tier2...
Me: Yes I've heard that. What do I need to do to get this solved tonight?
YYY: Maybe you need to log a call with Tier2?
Me: No, there's no maybe about it. You need to do that and you need to ask them to help us solve this issue tonight
YYY goes away. We sit on the phone- I start trying to ask XXX something
XXX: Hello? Hello?
Me: Yes we're still here. ***I'm clearly getting nowhere and start to think bollocks to this, let's go straight to the manager now but I need the name of YYY***
Me: What's the name of your colleague please?
XXX: Hello?
Me: Yes hello, what is the name of your colleague?
XXX: Er...
Me: What is the name of the man who was just on the phone with us?
***XXX starts rambling and clearly has no clue what I'm asking him. I rack my brains thinking how else can I put this and my voice turns to dangerously soft***
Me: At the moment there is you, me and Leprechaun on the phone. There was someone else on the phone. What is he called?
***Colleagues around me listening in start laughing. I can't believe it either***
Me: We were four people on the phone, at the moment we are three. Who was that other man who was just on the phone?
***Eventually YYY comes back on the phone, he is at least able to tell me his name but can't fix the problem and cannot promise to get it done that day. I decide to get the manager involved, leave him a voicemail asking for a call back which he doesn't but at least he gets someone to fix the problem. I will call manager next week if he doesn't return my voicemail cos I am not letting this one slide. I personally find it totally unacceptable for companies to offshore/outsource jobs to cheap countries and to provide such terrible service back. I mean for fucks sake this eejit could not even understand 'what is the name of your colleague?' when spoken in my native speaker neutral accent. I have no idea how my colleagues in other european countries cope. Actually I do- they don't, they find it worse, they can't even understand the accent.
I call Leprechaun out of exasperation and she promises to buy me some beer ***
April 12, 2007
You Can't See Tits On The Radio
Some alien appears to have logged into my blog account
So yeah- the Scissor Sisters were fab. Curlygirl and I were planning on just hanging around the back of the venue so we could get some dancing in but we bumped into our friend Soo from rugby who was stood right at the front with her friend so in the end we ended up about 5 rows from the front. We had a really good view of the antics of Jake Shears (I would fancy him like mad if I was a gay man) and Ana Matronic who is going up on my list of people to dress up and pretend to be. If you really wanna know, the others are Debbie Harry and the girls from the B52s. We whooped, shimmied, pranced, preened and hollered all the way through it.
As it finished quite early we went down to the pub in town to drink some more and bumped into some of the rugby boys. After the 2nd pint of Guinness of the evening (on top of the vodka and beer) the rest of the evening is a bit of a blur although I do remember seeing my friend Nick's beer belly- a sight not to be missed. Back at my place Curlygirl became the 3rd member of 'the wall of shame' and I'm not sure that I was 100% sober when I went into work today. I spent most of the day hiding behind my sunglasses and gripping on to the table as the waves of nausea came over me...
All in all- a great time was had by all. Curlygirl went back to England today and I am very sad.
So yeah- the Scissor Sisters were fab. Curlygirl and I were planning on just hanging around the back of the venue so we could get some dancing in but we bumped into our friend Soo from rugby who was stood right at the front with her friend so in the end we ended up about 5 rows from the front. We had a really good view of the antics of Jake Shears (I would fancy him like mad if I was a gay man) and Ana Matronic who is going up on my list of people to dress up and pretend to be. If you really wanna know, the others are Debbie Harry and the girls from the B52s. We whooped, shimmied, pranced, preened and hollered all the way through it.
As it finished quite early we went down to the pub in town to drink some more and bumped into some of the rugby boys. After the 2nd pint of Guinness of the evening (on top of the vodka and beer) the rest of the evening is a bit of a blur although I do remember seeing my friend Nick's beer belly- a sight not to be missed. Back at my place Curlygirl became the 3rd member of 'the wall of shame' and I'm not sure that I was 100% sober when I went into work today. I spent most of the day hiding behind my sunglasses and gripping on to the table as the waves of nausea came over me...
All in all- a great time was had by all. Curlygirl went back to England today and I am very sad.
THE SCISSOR SISTERS CAN KISS ,MY
si it is 01.44 jin the mornign and i hafe just ome home fromteh sicorror sistes conmcert/ They were fantabulous as were teh after parety imn Biddys.
O got a set listit comprosises of:
She's My Man
Laura
I Can;t Decide
Tits Onthe Radio
Skins
LOights
Paul McCartney
Ksiss You oFf
Filtyh /Gprgeous (my fave sciss sisters gong)
Everybody Wants The Samne \Thing
ELand Of A Thousand WOrds
Treansistor
Comrforetably Numb
Take oYour Mama OPut
I don't Feel lie dancing
O got a set listit comprosises of:
She's My Man
Laura
I Can;t Decide
Tits Onthe Radio
Skins
LOights
Paul McCartney
Ksiss You oFf
Filtyh /Gprgeous (my fave sciss sisters gong)
Everybody Wants The Samne \Thing
ELand Of A Thousand WOrds
Treansistor
Comrforetably Numb
Take oYour Mama OPut
I don't Feel lie dancing
April 11, 2007
Take Your Mama Out
Is there anything nicer than an SMS that says "I have dinner planned and will have it ready for when you get in"?
I love you Curlygirl. You're fab.
I love you Curlygirl. You're fab.
April 03, 2007
I Think I'm Turning Japanese
2 things worth blogging about today- despite the pain in my sore finger
(1) Porn at work: The Grauniad's digested read (spoof of a real published book) today had me in fits of giggles and turning around to make sure that no-one was stood behind me reading it. Read it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2048715,00.html
(2) Danny Baker's daily talk show (BBC London, UK time 3-5pm) is normally good quality stuff and always worth a listen. Today's show was of a different calibre with tracks by David Bowie, Dodgy and an excellent phone in topic- phantom animal, people calling in telling their stories about brushes with ghostly animals.
I burnt the tip of my middle finger right on the bit where it hits the buttons on the keyboard taking cakes out of the oven. I decided to take my frustration out on dough rather than the wall again.
Late night addition to blog- I lied above. The other thing really worth blogging about and better than number 1 and 2 combined is 'My Life In Serious Organised Crime' by one of my all-time comedy heroes Mark Thomas as broadcast on Radio4. Do go and check it out. It is funny as fuck
(1) Porn at work: The Grauniad's digested read (spoof of a real published book) today had me in fits of giggles and turning around to make sure that no-one was stood behind me reading it. Read it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2048715,00.html
(2) Danny Baker's daily talk show (BBC London, UK time 3-5pm) is normally good quality stuff and always worth a listen. Today's show was of a different calibre with tracks by David Bowie, Dodgy and an excellent phone in topic- phantom animal, people calling in telling their stories about brushes with ghostly animals.
I burnt the tip of my middle finger right on the bit where it hits the buttons on the keyboard taking cakes out of the oven. I decided to take my frustration out on dough rather than the wall again.
Late night addition to blog- I lied above. The other thing really worth blogging about and better than number 1 and 2 combined is 'My Life In Serious Organised Crime' by one of my all-time comedy heroes Mark Thomas as broadcast on Radio4. Do go and check it out. It is funny as fuck
April 02, 2007
Frankly Mr.Shankly
I wish this yo-yoing shit would stop.
Yesterday am- 100% superduper hyper-excited as we were one of the lucky 175,000 to get tickets sorted for Glastonbury. Bring it on - I soooooooo need it right now.
Yesterday pm- totally pissed off due to being let down again by a so-called friend. I've written something out here 4 times and deleted it cos I'm fairly sure you'll read this... I'll leave it at this- given all the stuff I've helped you out with over the last few months- of course I'm going to be annoyed, that you don't realise this makes it worse and popcorn/beer MIGHT go some way to making it up.
Yesterday pm- go out with my rugby girls instead and have a brill time drinking beer in the sunshine, discuss what knob-ends (copyright Hoey, previously Catherine the Great- see I told you I'd use it!) then out for dinner at the Mexican for lots of lovely stodgy cheesy mexican food and Sangria.
Today find out whilst I'm at work that I'm being slagged off on the internet in a "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" type way- it's totally unpleasant and uncalled for and is making me feel like a total piece of shit. Ordinarily I'd deal with it a lot better but given that it feels like everything else that is going on in my life right now (plus the other gazillion things I've not posted on here like crap skin feels mostly negative this is the last thing that I need.
Yesterday am- 100% superduper hyper-excited as we were one of the lucky 175,000 to get tickets sorted for Glastonbury. Bring it on - I soooooooo need it right now.
Yesterday pm- totally pissed off due to being let down again by a so-called friend. I've written something out here 4 times and deleted it cos I'm fairly sure you'll read this... I'll leave it at this- given all the stuff I've helped you out with over the last few months- of course I'm going to be annoyed, that you don't realise this makes it worse and popcorn/beer MIGHT go some way to making it up.
Yesterday pm- go out with my rugby girls instead and have a brill time drinking beer in the sunshine, discuss what knob-ends (copyright Hoey, previously Catherine the Great- see I told you I'd use it!) then out for dinner at the Mexican for lots of lovely stodgy cheesy mexican food and Sangria.
Today find out whilst I'm at work that I'm being slagged off on the internet in a "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" type way- it's totally unpleasant and uncalled for and is making me feel like a total piece of shit. Ordinarily I'd deal with it a lot better but given that it feels like everything else that is going on in my life right now (plus the other gazillion things I've not posted on here like crap skin feels mostly negative this is the last thing that I need.
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