Laughton Road

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There’s something thoroughly entertaining about Nadal.

He plays with intensity and with fire; a steely determination to never give up, never allow a single point to slip away. He literally plays every point as if he were against match point. And yet, he has such endurance that you have to think the longer the game goes, the more it favours him.

Berdych is a relative unknown. Although he if he wins, he will be the first person to ever win the title having gone through the top three players in the world to do so.

As I write, the Wimbledon final is underway, and I’m hoping it’s going to be a thrilling game. It’s a little bit strange not to have Roger Federer in it: he limped out against Thomas Berdych earlier in the competition – and it will be interesting to see if it will be a passing of the torch moment, like when Federer trumped Sampras all those years ago.

There are some famous faces in the crowd, too, and you can see why: it’s a fantastic event. The sun is shining, there are strawberries and cream and offer, and tennis is a game that you don’t have to follow to appreciate.

I can go a year without watching it, but sit down and appreciate Roger Federer’s pinpoint precision and appreciate such poetic skill. And I’m hoping it will be the same here, with these two players.

Tags: Wimbledon

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In The Sunday Times today, there is an interesting piece on England the football team.

It is about what went wrong, about why they failed so woefully at the World Cup.

John Carlin interviewed Spanish midfield wizard Xabi Alonso, who said, very eloquently, that the 11 best does not make the best 11.

In other words, we can litter our team with world-beaters and Champions League heroes, Premiership champions and footballers of the year; but ultimately, it is not a team.

To make a team, you design it, and design it with specific players and their specific skills in mind. You do not get the 11 best players and force them into a position and a system that they’re not used to. You don’t force them to play in these unfamiliar ways, because, as we have seen, they will play like strangers.

England have played like strangers for so long that it has become the norm – to get better, to make it into a further stage of the World Cup than the last 16, we need to break the mould.

When Germany were thrashing England the other day, the commentator said: how many of these German players would you swap for the England team? He was talking, of course, about the supposed brilliance of our individual players.

But Germany are a brilliant team. They play with the fearlessness of youth, and they play like they are enjoying themselves. And they are now in the semi-finals after destroying Argentina in a similar fashion to the way they dismantled England.

It is not about the individuals: it is about how they co-exist, how they play together, how they string passes and think and work as a unit out on the field.

I just hope that England learn their lesson, and learn it quickly.

Tags: World Cup

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It’s fully possible to recycle them. And yet, either people forget that, or they don’t properly realise that you can do.

Mine can’t be the only house with old phones laying forgotten and discarded in shadowy corners of the house?

I’ve seen many offers over the years trying to entice me to sell my own mobile for mobile phone recycling – and it couldn’t be more easy to take these companies up on their offers.

In many cases, they send you a package, which you slip the phone into and post back to them. And then you get paid. It’s really as simple as that.

I don’t expect mine is the only house with old mobiles left lying around, so it begs the question – why? Why don’t people take more care to sell or dispose of their old or broken phones in a green and reliable manner?

We live in a society that is obsessed with recycling: there are about four different bins on my road for whatever rubbish might accumulate over the course of a week or two. Food rubbish, plastic, cardboard – the list goes on.

And people have taken to the multi-bin approach very well. People recycle their waste and their drink bottles enthusiastically.

So what is it about phones? When I bought my new phone, it even came with a recyclable plastic bag to put my old model in, so there really is no excuse.

Perhaps it’s a matter of publicity. It’s a bit of a struggle to find any stories about recycling services in the news; I suppose it’s entirely reliant on people being proactive and finding out about what’s on offer.

Tags: phones, recycle

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With my post-graduate course drawing to a close, I’m having to look around at jobs that I can apply for when it finishes. And now, I suppose. Better to get the applications in as early as possible.

When I first came out of university, there was barely a job to go around. In the arts field, the creative field, there were even less than many of the other areas; and it made it relatively impossible to find the sort of work I wanted to find.

Doing the extra course was partly because of that. And, partly, it was so I could separate myself a little more from the next batch of hopefuls graduating and flooding the market.

And while it strikes me that the job market is a lot better this summer than it was last year, it’s still, inevitably, going to be hard to get a job.

So this time I’m approaching it with a different mindset. This time I’m happy to do anything, at least at first. Mostly anything, anyway. Even if it means using the old elbow grease and signing up to do basic office cleaning work.

At least until something more my preferred thing comes along. That way, I can be earning something and not just sitting around doing nothing, and I can at least maintain something of a social life.

Who knows – maybe something ideal will spring up just in time for the course to finish.

Tags: cleaning, jobs, recession

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With the holidays looming, and pay day arriving last week, I’ve decided to do a bit of window shopping online.

Is it “window” shopping when there are no windows involved? Well, in any case, I have been doing some online shopping and not actually buying anything – yet.

Mostly, it has been books, I suppose. I think it’s quite important to get some good books piled up for a vacation; books that you can lose yourself in, books that you can dip in and out of while sitting by the pool.

When I shop online, I seem to make mental notes and lists of things that look nice, or that I’m sure I’d like, and then weighing up their pros and cons over a few days, before ultimately deciding whether or not to pull the trigger on the purchase.

Most of the time it happens with books — but I don’t want to buy something just for the sake of it: I want to be sure I’m going to enjoy it. Or as sure as it’s possible to be, because most of the time you can’t really be sure about such things.

One book I’m almost certainly going to get is STORIES, a compilation of short stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio. It has received rave reviews, and sounds brilliant. And perfect to dip in and out of, while abroad.

But there are other, less well known places to shop online, not necessarily for books, but certainly for interesting and often unusual goods. Shiny Shack is particularly interesting, especially when you don’t necessarily know what it is you’re after, or you’re looking to buy particularly unusual gift ideas. Or you can do the more traditional Kelkoo search: search for a product you know, and let it find the best price for you.

Tags: shop online

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Plans are afoot to go abroad, to America, one weekend soon.

An extended weekend, of sorts: Friday through Monday, and we would probably stay in a hostel somewhere.

The thing that’s so tempted about it is that it will be right in the middle of American football season, and not only would we get to watch an NFL game – and probably a very good game at that; we would get to choose the area we go to, after all – but we would get to see a college game as well.

I’ve not seen a college game before, not in the flesh, and the atmosphere and the spirit of them is fantastic from what I can see.

The trouble is, it is difficult to afford it. Especially after paying out so much for my sub-editing course over recent weeks. So I’ve been looking at independent financial advisers to help me put together a plan to combat my penniless state.

It will have to be a big move to afford it, either way. I’ve got my current account, and, really, that’s it – I’ve never had to get a loan before, discounting my student one back in the day. And I don’t like the idea of increasing my debt.

I’ve been looking at banking websites and browsing through financial new sites to keep my eye on trends and deals that might help out, but ultimately I think it’ll have to be a loan and the debt that entails – or no trip.

Decisions, decisions…

Tags: business, finance, independent financial advisers, loans

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One of my favourite writers, Neil Gaiman, the author of American Gods, Coraline, and all manner of other creations and wonders, has won the Carnegie medal – and I am overjoyed.

It is the UK’s most prestigious award for children’s literature, and it was scooped by his novel The Graveyard Book, which is well worth checking out if you haven’t already.

On top of the win, the medal makes him the first person in history to win both the Newberry (America’s equivalent) and the Carnegie for the same novel.

And I can’t think of a better book to have won it. The Graveyard Book is about a boy whose family is murdered in the dead of night, but he – then a toddler – wandered out of the house and up a hill into a graveyard.

There, he is raised by ghosts and a vampire, living with and being taught by the dead. It’s a remarkable book, based on and inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

But one of the fantastic things about these awards is that the shortlist often consists of a number of authors that I haven’t heard of. While there are some that I’ve seen, some that I’ve read, it’s a joy to discover altogether new books by altogether new authors – most of which are wonderful.

There is a video up here where you can see the winner being read out and hear his acceptance speech.

Some of what he says on cutting library funds is particularly poignant. Cutting library money, he says, might be easy, but it is also “stealing from the future” to help remedy today.

Tags: Neil Gaiman

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The iPhone 4 was released today, and there has been the inevitable buzz of interest and frenzied excitement from fans and eager buyers keen to get their hands on the product.

I think it should be dubbed iPhone Day.

However, you don’t need to be an Apple hater to take a step back and think: what is it, really, that’s so different about it?

It may look nice, but when it comes down to using it, is there much that sets it apart from competitors – or old iPhone models, for that matter?

There is much that’s wonderful about these smartphones. But when it comes to actually calling, actually using the telephone part of the phone, they aren’t anything special. And, really, you can’t go wrong  buying digital dect cordless phones instead – if you want to make a phone call that doesn’t disconnect if you hold it in the wrong way, or if you want a good, crisp connection on your call.

There is an array of apps at your disposal with a smartphone that make them handy for work – they still pale in comparison to a computer. Which you tend to have at work more often than not. They are not really phone systems for business – more phones for play. Phones for enjoyment.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that there is a range of telephones out there that actually telephone better than smartphones, but they suffer from not getting anything near as good publicity.

Unless you’re BT, of course. BT phones tend to grace our television every day. But I’m with BT, and, well, that’s probably a blog for another day.

Tags: Apple, BT, iPhone, telephone

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So much for the group being easy for England, eh? It was supposed to be a breeze; and yet, the squad found a way to struggle, playing like strangers against Algeria, and letting in a tame goal against the USA.

There is not much longer to wait before the England game. I say “the” England game, because now there is just one; just one game – win or go home. And I can feel the excitement building, feel the tension rippling in the air.

What gets me is that the players don’t even seem to be having fun out there, and this is the World Cup – the pinnacle of their careers.

Just as there is much we can learn from Brazil and Argentina – moving forwards with the ball, not backwards; passing to ourselves, not the opponents – there is much we can learn from South Africa, enjoying themselves on the pitch. Having fun.

There has been a trend brewing in the competition recently, though, and thankfully it favours England and it favours Wayne Rooney, our talisman.

Everyone started off badly. The good teams, the good players – they all struggled, at least in their first game. But now Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Lionel Messi – three of the “big four” – are getting involved, having fun, taking crisp, brilliant shots.

Wayne Rooney is the fourth member of that club. Surely, surely, it’s time for him to step up, too?

This is the World Cup, after all. The great players – the truly great players – rise to the big occasions, rather than wilting in the spotlight.

There are more brown bears than professional footballers in Slovenia – this is not just a game we must win; it is a game we surely should win. I can see Rooney stepping up and having a big influence on the match. And I can see England winning fairly comfortably.

And then, I suppose, all this terrible performance nonsense will be forgotten, and all will be right with the world again!

Tags: England, World Cup

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Reports show that as much as 41% of parents deliberately lie when filling out car insurance policy applications – and that number is only set to rise. But are they going about tackling it in the right way?

In a process known as “fronting”, when the parents ring up or fill in forms for car insurance, they claim to be the main drivers on the policy, when in fact it is one of their children who is the main driver, or owner of the car – which usually offers large savings, but could also lead to prosecution.

According to numerous sources, Co-operative Insurance found that almost half of the nation’s parents were actually fronting policies, while 61% admitted that they would do so in the future.

The industry is warning that it is an extremely risky practice – indeed, there is a law society that presumably deals with this sort of thing all the time, and a growing number of legal services that have to deal with this so called “fronting”, as well as a growing number of car insurance fraudsters.

Tim Franklin, of Co-operative Financial Services, said: “The view that motor insurance fronting is harmless and does not hurt anyone could not be further from the truth.”

He added: “Parents who believe they are helping their children to save money by fronting are not only risking prosecution, but harming their chances of obtaining insurance in the future.”

But the real scam, I think, is the insurance companies themselves.

They charge extortionate rates to these young kids passing their tests. How are they supposed to stump up thousands of pounds, when they are 17 years old, and have just shelled out all their money on a car?

Never mind accident claims for compensation, which seem to be on the rise, or the multitude of claims for whiplash injury compensation – the real problem is the fact that these people charge way too much money. It’s no wonder parents are resorting to “fronting” to help save money.

The issue seems to be being tackled in precisely the wrong way. Cut down the costs, and there will be no fronting to worry about.

Tags: car insurance, compensation, fronting

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