FOOTY.
Lots going on. On the England front, I just want Sven to stop pricking about this close to the world cup. How can he not have had a plan for players being injured. Example, Mourinho had a plan for Chelski to have 2 players in every position, presumably so they could have a formation and strategy that was not reliant on individuals (even though individuals clearly improve performance). Why did Sven not have players in mind and in the squad for previous friendlys to replace key players? Why does he only give people half a game to prove themselves? Why is Sven cocking about with Carragher and Hargreaves as holding players when Carrick is the obvious answer to everyone? I am worried - Owen is not fit and we do not seem to have a clear plan of how we are going to play with him - let alone if he doesn't play. Sven seems to have made his mind up to take Walcott (over Defoe & Bent???) so he needs to give him a game. On saturday I would start with a 4-4-2, start with Owen and Crouch up front and rest Becks and play Walcott on the right. Give him a whole game. Becks is 31, is in great form and will not suffer from not playing. Walcott could then be moved into a more central role in the 2nd half when Owen comes off and give Lennon a run on the right. Its a shame - I think we look strong everywhere but up front and Svens lack of forward thinking and his lack of clarity about what to do now is going to hurt us.

In other footy news Chelski can just fuck off now. Ballack, Kalou and Shevchenko. Sigh. Although, admittedly, I would have gone for Adriano over Sheva (just from an age thing) had I been them but then, he isn't best mates with Abramorich.

WORK.

Well, the UK go-live has been seamless...despite splitting it over 2 dates due to some psychic premonition and despite countless protestations that they were 'ready' and in fact could have been 'ready' 2 weeks earlier, the techy blokes have fucked up. It ranges from annoying (users not configured properly despite all the data being submitted) to stupid (maximum no of users set too low - gah) to catastrophic (massive server performance issues). Still, by outsourcing the work we have at least made sure we are on budget. Oh no, because they massively underestimated the amount of integration required, we're fucked there too. Overall, 6 out of 10. I am having to work too many hours at the moment (including all last weekend save the afternoon I spent at a 'rockfest').

C.

Very happy still, although we are both struggling to adjust to seeing each other without living together. We are both really busy and struggling to understand whats the right amount of time to spend together and then make enough time to spend it and we are both being a bit touchy if one isn't free when the other is. Still, we've talked about it (which is better than we used to manage) and are determined to get it right as we want to be together :)

2 shags.

Fuck off the British tabloid press. Can we please get on politicians backs about their politics? I don't give a shit whether some fat slug-a-like played crouqet over the weekend. I care about (for example) the alledged civilian murders carried out by the (heavily UK backed) US military in Iraq. I hasten to add, I judge not (yet) as I don't know enough facts but I am proper fucked off crouqet is the headline news rather than dubious policy.

Xbox 360.

Am not getting enough time to play my precious, save late at night (eg between 11pm and 2am last night). Am currently assasinating my way through the Dark Brotherhood missions on Oblivion. Fantastically, this is one of the few RPG games that (I at least) have played that seems to balance skills/powers/abilities eg I started with a swordy/magicky bloke and am now pissed off I didn't specialise more in sneaky type skills. In Morrowind I started with a thief type and got battered constantly. I continue my 'not being very good' campaign on Ghost Recon.

POLL:

Best modern footballer (and by that I mean one I can remember so must have played post 1986). I think I won't include Maradona as he's probably  quite a bit ahead of anyone else.

Thats it, good day to you.