My view and thoughts on everything!

The following is my article that was published in the match day programme for the game against Southport United. During last month the transfer window was open for all football clubs to actively try and make their squads stronger, with the aim being to either win a trophy, obtain promotion or to stave off the impending fear that relegation can bring. The elite clubs, with supposed money to burn, can obviously call the shots. They have the power and influence to do so. If you were following the transfer rumours during January it would appear that the top clubs in England were after every single player in Europe! Naturally, this was not the case, or was it? However, the ‘Big Boys’ can offer top class players an attractive salary and bonus arrangement plus immediate access to sponsors. There are some Premier League players who earn more than £200,000 per week after tax! Imagine what a club like Ebbsfleet United could do with one week’s pay, kindly donated by Messrs Rooney and...

Over the festive season the wife, aka No Worries, and our two growing daughters left the wilds of Sydney for the quieter realms of NSW Country life.  We were going to spend Christmas with my wife’s side of the family. Certainly nothing unusual about that, except maybe the 10 hour drive north to Ballina and me driving through a number of storms. No Worries and I shared the driving whilst the girls got excited about the impending visit of a rather roundish man in a red cloak and a white beard! We left Sydney on Christmas Eve and it was a fairly relaxing drive north except for No Worries driving across Taree bridge at 10kms an hour! But I won’t elaborate on that! Christmas Day arrived and lo and behold my gals must have been very good, as Santa left a number of presents for them.  They were excited to say the least! The rest of the day was one of relaxation, food and drink and everyone having a good time. Anyway, the subject matter of this blog is not one of Christm...

A belated Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year to all.  I hope that everyone had a great New Year celebration and didn’t overindulge in the amber nectar, or drank to extreme from the offerings available from Messrs Walker, Daniels and Beam! Here in Australia the family has been on a two week holiday to see the outlaws (ahem, my in-laws – as my wife hovers over me to see what I am typing!).   Anyway, the outlaws live in Northern NSW and also across the gun-toting border in Queensland.  So getting to see them involved a road trip of 11 hours, with food and restroom breaks, from the Big Smoke that is known as Sydney.  Things in the rural areas of NSW seem to move much slower than in the cities.  At times it feels like time has stood still as nothing really seems to change from one day to the next.  Part of this is due to the weather which is normally stinking hot this time of year, and also due to the “she’ll be right mate” attitude of the friendly ...

When I heard that a friend of mine, Sabiha, was working on an hijab article/documentary I asked whether I could give a perspective from a westerners (my) point of view.   So, without further ado, here it is.   What is my view on women who wear hijab (headscarf) and dress moderately? Do I think they are treated as lesser beings for doing so? Or are they generally passionate about their role as Muslim women in respect to their faith? Read on and I will put forward my own unique western view on this rather, at times, over-debated topic. I suppose like most westerners, I didn’t really think a great deal about Muslim women who wore the veil prior to the events of 9/11.   Then Islam became front page news for all of the wrong type of reasons.   Sabiha herself was attacked on a bus as strangers kicked and punched her whilst trying to remove her veil.   Thankfully for her she survived this brutal attack with headscarf still intact. To hear about this more th...

Season’s Greetings from the Land Down Under! I hope that you were all on Santa’s ‘nice list’ and had a great Christmas Day with family and loved ones.   I thought it would be a good idea to tell you what it is like to experience Christmas here in Australia. Despite the obvious, (the weather) there isn't too much that is different between what Christmas is like in the UK and here in Oz. In fact, unsurprisingly, it is virtually the same! For example, all the major department stores put up snowy Christmas scenes in their store windows. This includes fake snow in the shop windows, carol singers, a portly Santa and so on. It can be quite surreal to walk into a department store and see these 'winter images' when the temperature is 35C and sweat is dripping from your brow! All around Australia, major cities and towns will erect Christmas trees decorated with baubles, angels and tinsel etc. I have to admit that this can look strange when you are in the tropical part of A...

Following Ebbsfleet United, or indeed any English football team, in Australia is quite an experience.   For starters, there is the obvious time zone issue.   What this means is that living in Sydney (as I do) the time zone difference can vary from 9 – 11 hours depending on the time of the year.   For those of you who are wondering, Sydney is currently 11 hours ahead of the UK. Then there is the lack of football coverage here that you take for granted back in Blighty.   The top English and European teams get a lot of coverage in Australia, but outside of that you will not find out much about say, a Crewe Alexandra or even our beloved Ebbsfleet.   Nowadays, this is less of an issue due to a wonderful thing called the “internet”.   If you haven’t heard about it then please check it out!   This has been a major boost for all ex-pats living not just in Australia but around this amazing world of ours. However, if you go back not too many years the ea...

Every now and then I like to check up on my blog statistics to see where my readers are located when they came across my wonderful (ahem) blog.  Currently, just over 50% of my readers are, not surprisingly, from Australia.  My second biggest market is the US, followed by the UK in third place and Egypt in fourth position (thanks Amira!). I also like to review what word searches readers used to get to my blog.  Naturally some of them make sense whilst others certainly don't! I do get a chuckle from some of them I have to admit. So, without further a do, here are some 'word searches' that caught my attention: "showering in a moon boot" - regular readers will know I posted a few blogs about my Achilles injury which required an operation and the wearing of a moon boot.  However, why you would want to shower in one is beyond me! It sounds like a sexual fetish thing.  Maybe the boyfriend said "I'll shower in a moon boot, whilst you shower with me in a plas...