Barack Obama

Pretty glad he got elected, just hope that the crap "W" leaves behind won't be insurmountable?

The $76 Billion cheque that he has to write as soon as he arrives could be the tip pf the "W" iceberg!

Here is his victory speech.

The British politicians are falling over themselves to be his buddy :-) BBC Report

Video

Good luck to him, having spent quite a bit of time in the Chicago area over the past few year, I can tell you that he was very popular locally.

More chance of a bit of peace in the world hopefully?

Reading FC and so it goes on!

Despite the pre season loss of a number of key players, we are doing very well and are sitting a comfortable third with a great goal difference.

Kevin Doyle has kept on banging them in and has signed a new contract, he is being ably supported up front by Noel Hunt.

Jimmy Kebe is now striking fear into the hearts of fullbacks, despite being s figure of ridicule last year.

Jem Karacan is proving to be a real find, although he is being rested at the moment.

At least if/when he goes we should get a decent fee!

The match away to Bristol City last week was one of the best performances for a number of years. BBC Report

I haven't seen us control a game like that for some time, cracking goal from Cisse also.

Today's game wasn't as good a performance, but as they say it's the results that count.

Great 20 yard effort from Doyle was a highlight of the performance, a downside was the really poor performance of the officials, particularly the yellow flag assistant who could have cost us the game. Two what looked like perfectly good goals disallowed and some phantom offsides ...

I'm really starting to worry about the general level of officiating in the English game, inconsistent and gutless are just two thoughts that come to mind :-(

Derby were really awful, they look as bad if not worse than last season!

Just looking at the report on Sky's web page, and apparently John Oster came on as sub in the 60th min !!!

http://www.skysports.com/football/match_facts/0,19762,11065_2861226,00.html

BBC report

Lets keep it up!

NFL in London San Diego Chargers v New Orleans Saints

Had a great day out at the NFL Game in London at Wembley Stadium, despite the heavy rain early in the day. We set off quite early and also attended the NFL tailgate party outside the stadium. The party had some really good New Orleans Jazz and some various NFL themed items.

The game itself was very hard fought as was expected due to the fact that whichever team lost was effectively out of contention this year.

It was my first visit to the new Wembley and we sat at one end behind the in zone, my only real criticism was the quality of the PA system, which was pretty poor, this made it hard to hear the refereeing calls etc.

The atmosphere however was fantastic!!

A good day all round with New Orleans coming out close winners 37 - 32.

Looking forward to next year!!

US Presidential Survey

Come and take my survey, just a bit of fun:-)

Bottom of the page.

Kinda Worrying!!

I was a little concerned at how quiet things on the investigation of the January BA Boeing 777 crash seemed, so I looked up the report after hearing the recent few mishaps with BA planes.

It would appear the crash was caused by ice in the fuel according to the report, which is kind of a worry.

Also some reports can be found here and here in regards to recent BA 777 matters and emergency landings.

NBA in the UK

Popped up to London's O2 Arena to see an NBA pre-season game between, the New Jersey Nets and the Miami Heat. A very good crowd watched a pretty tame game that came to life in the fourth quarter, leading to a narrow win for the Nets 94-92 after a number of turnovers from Miami.

The atmosphere was a little lukewarm as the audience were fans of basketball rather that either of the teams. Both fairly ordinary by NBA standard, kind of a Bolton v Villa type of thing, two good teams but not world beaters.

Dom Joly however was not impressed

A highlight of the evening was a wheelchair basketball match between members of the GB Paralympic wheelchair basketball tea which was played at high speed and with no little skill.

The O2 has come a long way from being the former dome white elephant, however concessions as it seems everywhere these days were horribly expensive.

May I suggest that you frequent the Starbucks inside the main entrance to the right as they are charging their normal high street prices and not £7 for a hot dog as in some places within the venue.

There also appears to be a massive shortage of toilets, this leads to 1970's third division football ground style long queues outside the few facilities that are available.

As long as you take steps on the food and drink situation a good night out can be had at the O2.

Our new lodger :-)

New inmate :-)

Saugatuck and Lake Michigan

Civilised Drive Through!

Uncommon Grounds Indeed.

A Souvenir :-)





Oval Beach


The Keetwatin Martime Museum
The Suite

Main Street
The River

Deer in the Garden

Whilst we were on the last trip we took a trip up to Saugatuck, a lovely area on Lake Michigan.

We stayed at a very nice place called Bella Vita Spa and Suites, which is just off the pretty main street.

There are lovely beaches and the river is very pretty, particularly Oval Beach.

We found a brilliant little coffee shop called Uncommon Grounds, excellent coffee(roasted on site) really nice food, books and free wi-fi. What more would you need!!

There is another small town nearby called Douglas where we had an excellent dinner at The Everyday People Cafe

Auburn Cord Dusenberg Museum

The Art Deco Showroom


A picture from the stairs showing an excellent view of the car and the original showroom floor.

Original Clay Model From The Thirties!


Displays of other vehicles that used to be built in the area, such as Studebaker
The preserved building sign outside the showroom in Auburn



As part of our road trip we visited the fantastic Auburn Cord Dusenberg Museum in Auburn IL

http://www.acdmuseum.org/

The museum has a fantastic display of all three marques (and other cars), and is sited at the old factory and showroom. The showroom is particularly interesting, it has been restored to it's former art deco glory. The entrance fee is very low and the whole thing is maintained by enthusiasts.

The original offices of E.L.Cord and the design offices have been restored.

There is an excellent Gordon Buehrig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Buehrig exhibit and also his clay models and drawings are on display along with those of the various designers of the three marques.

An excellent museum, well worth a visit!

Whilst we were there we watched the Ben Stiller film "Tropic Thunder" which was really funny.
Strange thing was there were only four people in the cinema including us, during the show the weather was so bad there was a power cut. The reason it was so quiet was that the cinema had only been open for a few days. We stayed at an any excellent Hampton Inn (also brand new) and ate at a Buffalo Wild Wings (very frendly, good food, again brand new) All three were next to each other on a new development just outsise Auburn.

Downtown Indy

We stayed in downtown Indianapolis which was very nice, especially the Monument Circle area.

Stayed at the Hampton Inn Downtown, however this hotel was not up to Hampton's normal standard.

The parking guys in the area are a little over zealous, so watch out!

Indianapolis

We were in the States recently and had a vew road trips out of Chicago.
One of the places we visited was Indianapolis and the Motor Speedway

Graham Hill and Jim Clark are mentioned in quite a lot of the exhibits as you would expect.

The museum is pretty good, however I would not make a special trip to see it!

Looking a lot better...

Well, it's looking a lot better for Reading (at least at home:-)

Lots of goals and the football's not too bad, however we are not great away from home still.

The games at Notts Forest, Ipswich, and freak goal Watford were painful to watch!

Off we go then !!

Off we went to see Reading v Notts Forest in the Championship yesterday.

As expected we were terrible!

Forest were by far the better team, thankfully they had no clue where the goal was:-)

As you would assume we have leaked several of the quality players that we had from last season and it appears that several of those left behind don't want to stay based on this performance.

Considering the complete absence of a midfield during the game, the fact that we almost snatched a result speaks volumes for the division we find ourselves in

If we don't deal with the physical nature of the championship and quickly forget the premiership we will be here a long time, added to the fact we need players and now Messers Coppell and Hammond!

Please unload players such as Cisse and Matějovský as they appear to be little use at this level, stop wasting Hunt and get a left back! You knew Shorey was going as you did with Sidwell, please don't repeat the same misplaced loyalty that cost us last season.

BTW are we ever going to see any payback from our much vaunted youth system?

You hear tell of Henry's, Karacans etc etc and and never see them in the first team, next you read that they are either out on loan or gone....

In fact if you don't want to change before it's too late why don't you both consider your positions and let someone else have a go who is not scared to fail?

A little strong maybe, but you had to be there and see how bad it was, it looked like they picked the team in the car park and had never met before!

Onto the Plymouth game and hopefully a turning point:-)

Interesting Radio Stations and Personalities

I listen to a few US radio stations that are available on the net, very entertaining:

The Steve Dahl Show on Jack FM Chicago

Steve is the guy back in the 70's that was responsible for "Disco Demolition"

The David Stein Show, Syndicated but can be found on WSCR The Score Chicago, David is an interesting guy

WBBM780 News Radio Chicago

I picked these shows up during my visits to Chicago, enjoy :-)

Terminal 5 update

After writing a very strong letter to BA I received a pop up letter of apology, and this was all I was expecting.

To my surprise I also got a call from a very nice lady from Willie Walsh's office (apparently), the result was that I got an apology and a voucher.

I was offered Air Miles, however as everyone knows BA miles are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard!

Has a chance to vent about BA, which was probably more value than the voucher:-)

At least they did something I guess, still don't like them however...

Herald Update

Finished sorting out the tiny bit of surface rust under the front footwell carpets.

Only reason it was actually there was that the floor grommets has been pushed through into the car. These were refitted and sealed with silicon sealer, the floor treated with Kurust and a little matt black paint appled to seal it all up.

Made some temporary repairs to the seats and had a go at putting the carpet in a little more tidily.

The kick panels however are not right for the car, fitted them in temporarily until we can either make or buy some replacements.

As you can see the seats are still leaking foam, once again another job for after the MOT.

My Dad popped up and supervised proceedings:-)

We took her on a run of about 25 miles, performance was very good.

Small oil leak from the rocker cover gasket, needs sorting after the pre-MOT.

Fingers crossed!

Triumph Herald

We have a 1966 Triumph Herald which we are currently working on as the MOT is due soon.

Things to do:

Sort out ignition switch

Attend to very slight surface rust on floors

Replace seatbelts

Fit electric washer pump

Sort out perished foam on fron seats

Will keep you posted on the progess

Some information on the Herald