Everton 5 - 1 Huddersfield

Pretty good all things told, We were in The Paddock it is was trickier for us to tell how the team were doing as a whole but it looked like the sort of calm, professional performance you don’t always see from the blues.

 

Just got the ball and kept hold of it. Huddersfield had a little spell just before the break but other than that Everton cruised it with most of their big names on the bench. Great to see.

Start as you mean to go on. Everton v Wolves

Argh, what an annoying start to the season for Everton. Wolves kicked , elbows, barged, backed into and fouled everything that moved in the midfield but ultimately we ony have ourselves to blame for being on one point instead of four.

So annoying when you look at the quality of the players Everton can field at the moment.

Hope we'll click soon but with Villa and Utd coming up we've left ourselves trying to salvage a dodgy start instead of looking to build on a positive one.

So this is what they've been using for the Wembley pitch

Surely, given the state of the numerous relaid pitches, this is one of the worst bits of footy marketing products ever

Getting good mileage out of this Everton v Everton thing

Ed Miliband nails The Greek Defence

Quote on Cameron

Brilliant quote from an article in The Guardian that needs preserving and repeating :

"I don't have a phobia about Tories. That would suggest an irrational response. I hate them for a reason. For lots of reasons, actually. For the miners, apartheid, Bobby Sands, Greenham Common, selling council houses, Section 28, lining the pockets of the rich and hammering the poor – to name but a few. I hate them because they hate people I care about. As a young man Cameron looked out on the social carnage of pit closures and mass unemployment, looked at Margaret Thatcher's government and thought, these are my people. When all the debating is done, that is really all I need to know."

The Wanky Balls festival

Love this. An old vandalised version of the Wikipedia page for the Big Chill Festival reads like this :

Founded in 1994 by Pete Lawrence and Katrina Larkin[1]. The Wanky Balls festival began as a series of ambient parties at the Union Chapel in Islington, but developed into an outdoor festival in 1995 with an event in the Black Mountains of Wales.[2] In the early days the most prominent DJs were Matt Black of Coldcut, Tom Middleton of Global Communication and Mixmaster Morris also known as the Irresistible Force.

And ends up in Saturday's Independant

Look at the stars...

After last week's disappointing lack of Northern Lights we now have the Perseids to look forward to :

August 12 and 13, 2010 Perseids

And when we say August 12 or 13, we mean the morning hours after midnight … not that night. These typically fast and bright meteors radiate from a point in the constellation Perseus the Hero. But you don’t need to know Perseus to watch the shower. The meteors appear in all parts of the sky. The Perseids are considered by many people to be the year’s best shower, and often peak at 50 or more meteors per hour. 2010 is a great year for the Perseids. This year, the slender waxing crescent moon will set at early evening, leaving a dark sky for this year’s Perseid show. The Perseids tend to strengthen in number as late night deepens into midnight, and typically produce the most meteors in the wee hours before dawn. These meteors are often bright and frequently leave persistent trains. On the mornings of August 12 and 13, watch the Perseid meteors streak across this short summer night from midnight until dawn. Lie back and watch meteors until dawn’s light washes the stars and planets from the sky. The morning of August 11 should be good, too – in fact, this shower tends to rise gradually to a peak for about a week. Then it’s known to drop off rapidly after the peak mornings.

Progress Report : Horse chestnut (grown from a conker)

This one will need planting in a park in about 12 months. It'd be fantastic to see a tree grow from something I picked up and pushed into the soil.

Progress report : My oak trees (grown from acorns)

So far so good for little oak trees I've grown from random conkers I picked up here and there.

Follow, follow, follow...

Follow, follow, follow...Everton is the team to follow and there's nobody better than Mikel Arteta. He's the best little Spaniard we know.

So chuffed to hear Mikel has signed a new contract with us. Apart from the fact he's one of the best players i've ever seen it says lots about the attitude and atmosphere at Everton right now.

Texts and Facebook/Twitter messages were flying round yesterday as the news broke. Everyone was ecstatic.

Great quotes too :


Arteta said he has come to realise "how important I am to the club and how important the club is to me".

Toffees chairman Bill Kenwright has described Arteta as "one of the finest players ever to wear an Everton shirt" and Artena said the support of the Everton hierarchy had been a big factor in his decision to sign a new contract.

"The chairman and the manager wanted me to stay 120% and that makes me feel proud," the midfielder, who has twice been Everton's player of the season, told the club's website.

"We are all seeing the club and the future in the same way and that is special - something that you don't always find.

"I believe in this squad. We have got a very strong squad now and it is getting difficult to pick an 11 because of the players we have.

"Something is happening here and I want to be a part of it."

Everton boss David Moyes described Arteta's decision as "great news".

"He is a very important player for us and we are delighted to secure him," added the Scot.

How random

Random picture from Twitter :

Great article by Polly Toynbee about Cameron's Big Society

Good to see something solid in black and white about the Tory revisionism

So is the big society a romantic Tory aspiration or cynical political sophistry? Follow the money and the story unfolds. Far from finding themselves cherished, charities are taking a hard hit from the first round of cuts. The new Office for Civil Society (OCS), replacing Labour's Office of the Third Sector, has cut £11m from existing organisations that encourage volunteering. The youth volunteering charity V lost a further £8m and probably 90 jobs with the abolition of its schools programme. Why cut experienced organisations and staff who know how to do the job?

Coalition rhetoric denounces Labour for its big state takeover of voluntarism: it's a straight lie. Blair and Brown channelled more money and effort than ever into the voluntary sector, which doubled in value on their watch. Was that due to a sudden spasm of generosity from the burgeoning wealthy? No. Stephen Bubb, head of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, points out that 70% of their extra funds came from the state.

Contrary to endless Tory jibes about Labour's "soviet tractor factory target", voluntarism is deep-dyed in Labour's roots.

For all the "broken Britain" breast–beating, we are already quite good at volunteering – 13.5 million people volunteer at least once a month, more than in most equivalent countries. But it doesn't come from nowhere: the £35bn voluntary sector is 40% sustained by state support – more than in most countries – so shrinking the state means shrinking the charitable sector, too. Evidence from this first small sample of ferocious cuts to come warns that charities will take the first and hardest hits.

Charities are an essential buffer between state and market and a beacon for innovation, but the idea that a sector that is just 2.3% of the workforce can replace the welfare state is not so much fanciful as downright dishonest. Whenever you hear talk of the big society, just follow the money.

Everton FC v CD Everton

The game against Everton Vina del Mar was a tremendous occasion. My only regret is that the Chileans didn't score because you could tell everyone was ready to erupt for the visitors.

It was great to see such an historic game. I love sporting trivia like the Everton Everton thing.

The club definitely need to do something regular with the Brotherhood Trophy now.

It is what being a footy fan is all about. The fact that people from Merchant Tailors in Crosby founded Barcelona and gave them their colours, similar with Notts County and Juventus. I also remember that the amateur team Corinthians gave their name to the Brazilian team.

David Cameron and The Salford Lads Club photo opportunity

Loved this about Cameron trying to act all trendy and cool (from the Guardian) :

David Cameron was in the north-west, visiting a youth project in Salford, Greater Manchester. On the face of it, the trip chimed with his passion for "social enterprise", but as Cameron well knew, his destination was a local holy-of-holies: Salford Lads Club, the local Victorian landmark where the Smiths were photographed in 1986 for the inside cover of their finest album, The Queen Is Dead. In PR terms, the visit was thus a "twofer": a chance for Cameron not only to push the new compassionate Toryism, but to once again yak on about one of his supposedly favourite rock groups and thus remind us that the Conservative party is now groovier than anyone could have imagined.

The plan was for him to have his photo taken in front of the building à la the Smiths, but the local Labour party got wind of the script, and dispatched a pack of activists to foil him. Their placards featured such slogans as "Salford Lads not Eton snobs" and "Oi Dave - Eton Toffs' club is 300 miles that way", and they would not be moved, so Cameron went home without his snap.

Just under a fortnight ago, Salford's MP, Hazel Blears, the doughty secretary of state for communities and local government, recounted the tale at Labour's spring conference. It was, she said, "a story from a great city". When her comrades had got wind of Cameron's plans, they had been "incensed" by the cheek of a Cameron visit to an area that had "80% youth unemployment when the Tories were in power". They had spent "all night" getting ready to protest.

"And on the day," she said, "Cameron was bundled in the back door, and bundled out of the back door. And he never got his photograph! And that night, I couldn't resist it: I sent him a photo of me outside Salford Lad's Club" - and here she laughed like a triumphal drain - "and I wrote, 'Dear Dave, Sorry you didn't get the picture, all the best from Salford.' And when I saw him at the next PMQs [Prime Minister's Questions], he said, 'Hazel - I will get my photograph.' And I said, 'Not on my watch, you won't, Dave.'"

David Cameron's Eton Army Officer Cadet Anthem

As we all know by now Cameron is a bit of a halfwit but given that he used to take Eton Rifles as an anthem for the Eton College Officer Training Corps ("I was one, in the corps. It meant a lot, some of those early Jam albums we used to listen to") is pretty amazing.

Sup up your beer and collect your fags,
There's a row going on down near Slough,
get out your mat and pray to the West,
I'll get out mine and pray for myself.
Thought you were smart when you took them on,
But you didn't take a peep in their artillery room,
All that rugby puts hairs on your chest,
What chance have you got against a tie and a crest.
Hello-hurrah - what a nice day - for the Eton Rifles,
Hello-hurrah - I hope rain stops play - with the Eton Rifles.
Thought you were clever when you lift the fuse,
Tore down the house of commons in your brand new shoes,
Composed a revolutionary symphony,
Then went to bed with a charming young thing.
Hello-hurrah - cheers then mate - it's the Eton Rifles,
Hello-hurrah - an extremist scrape - with the Eton Rifles.
What a catalyst you turned out to be,
Loaded the guns then you run off home for your tea,
Left me standing - like a guilty schoolboy.
We came out of it naturally the worst,
Beaten and bloody and I was sick down my shirt,
We were no match for their untamed wit,
Though some of the lads said they'll be back next week.
Hello-hurrah - there's a price to pay - to the Eton Rifles,
Hello-hurrah - I'd prefer the plague - to the Eton Rifles.
Hello-hurrah - there's a price to pay - to the Eton Rifles,
Hello-hurrah - I'd prefer the plague - to the Eton Rifles.

As Paul Weller himself said "Which part of it didn't he get? It wasn't intended as a fucking jolly drinking song for the cadet corps."

It's a jungle out there apparently

Noticed this blog about one cyclist's battle with the arrogant and angry drivers out there :

101 W*nkers cycling blog.

Well worth a read (if only for the diligence shown with the accompanying Google Map)

Wonder if the people at Cannon Hygience took any action over their scumbag of a driver. I always regret not getting the licence plate of the Terravision airport coach that all but drove us off the road on Speke Boulevard a while back.

Everton Vs Everton

Looking forward to seeing Everton play CD Everton of Chile tomorrow