Wednesday 28 August 2013

Fits and starts...

...This blog has been running for a little over a year but this is, rather pathetically, only my thirty sixth post. I do post elsewhere and this is really meant as a quick blog for me to write with whatever is on my mind more personally or which won't fit onto the usual writing platforms I use. I may one day cross pollinate so people can see my complete works, something google author is now making much easier.

In the mean time I think it is fair to say that I have been contributing on here only in fits and starts so rather than make a commitment that I previously made to use this all the time I think I will keep this as my occasional blog and more as a way to write a little about my life and frustrations and keep other platforms for writing about deeper subjects.

Hopefully I'll see you there.

Thursday 15 August 2013

Welcome to the World Mia

Just a quick post to say welcome to the world Amelia Rose (Mia), who joined us one week ago today weighing in at 8lb 9oz.

I will be back to discuss the issues of old man fatherhood at a later date but we still have night feeds at the moment so I am too tired to write much.

Enjoy all.

Saturday 3 August 2013

My shortest poem ever...

After the release of the second shortest poem I have ever written- The Future- I was literally inundated with demands for the shortest poem I have ever written.

Okay, for inundated with demands read several casual enquiries. But they were from people who were either genuinely interested or who could act interested better than anybody else I know. So with that in mind I will be publishing the poem in its epic entirety at the end of this post.
Before I commit the work to the tinterweb I want to give it a two-pronged introduction. I wrote the poem back in the days when I was a young pretentious teenager but I have revisited the poem as part of a much more mature, yet equally pretentious,  body of work. So I will explain a little about the poem in both contexts.

When I wrote the poem it was an introductory poem for another, longer poem, and it was something I, at sixteen, thought was an amusing way of telling people that I was a totally normal teenager (I think at the time I thought I was being original- the older me can only laugh in embarrassment on behalf of younger me).

As an older man- as readers of the blog may know I recently celebrated my twenty first birthday for the fifteenth time and I have been toying with the idea of turning twenty-two- I have been  working on a compendium of poems exploring inequality based on three separate issues- geographical location, age and economic background. The reasons I have focused on these will become clear when (if?) the completed works are ever published. Given how the project has grown it may now be two published works. One exploring the themes and one which is almost a discussion between protagonists.

I have recalled the original poem because I think it will help to highlight the differences between some of the characters. I won't go into that anymore here.

Without further ado may I present to you the shortest poem I have ever written:

My Bed.

My Bed. I love it.


Not my bed, but I think it creates the desired impression of what the mature me is thinking of.

Thursday 1 August 2013

Coventry Cobblers

Tomorrow (Friday 3rd August) is yet another D-day for the wonderful football team that are Coventry City.

Our previous landlords ACL have made an offer to keep us at the Ricoh- a much better deal that the one that has forced us into administration and which has played a huge part in our finances pushing us down to League One from the heady heights of the Championship, yet still one which essentially prevents the club from building for the future. No option to buy the ground, no access to match day revenues- two things which the club needs to complete on an even keel with the clubs around us.

If the club agree to the deal they stay in Coventry at least for the next ten years (assuming they survive that long) and they avoid a fifteen point deduction at the start of the new season. Even better, our transfer embargo will end in twenty eight days meaning that we will be able to start signing players again on the last day of this month, giving us three days to do the transfer dealings that all of our rivals have had the entire summer to complete.

If we don't agree we are likely to end in liquidation, we will certainly be condemned to play our home games in Northampton for the next three years while the club (which is at least £65 million in debt already) look to build a new stadium in the Coventry area. We will get almost no revenue during that time but if we survive then we will have a slight chance of building a club with long term prospects. Of course we may not even be in the football league by then but at least we will have our own ground and revenues so we can start again.

There are no other alternatives on the table at the moment and neither of the above scenarios is appealing to the fans who are running a number of separate (and poorly organised) campaigns against the owners. Some of the wiser fans are also aware that ACL and the local council have each allowed avarice to play a part in the down fall of Coventry City FC.

I really don't want the club to move to Northampton but I totally understand why the new owners (who happen to be the same as the old owners, but that is a totally different thread) will refuse to sign the deal that ACL are putting on the table because without ownership of the ground they are just delaying the inevitable.

So come this time tomorrow I fully expect to be calling my beloved Sky Blues the Coventry Cobblers.
 
Play Up Sky Blues