Bradfields’ Brain

Gutted, all the anticipation, all the waiting and we didn;t even turn up.  I apologise now for thre massive amount of typos, punctuation erros and whatever other shit you;re about ot experience. I”m drunk, fuck it , it’s coming how you get it.

Let me start at the beginning, it was a good first ten minutes..  We showed up and it looked like Ronaldo was going to live up to the billing that he’d received.  Ronaldo vs messi, first blood to Ronaldo surely.  A good shot from 30 yards out and a good free kick that on aother day would have spilled to a united player and we’d have been 1-0 up.  But after that it just went wrong, there was nothing, Barca had a good attack and it just seemed to dry up for us, Barca scored and all of a sudden it was like there was no belief.  There were some shocking moments just after the goal, someone kicked it straight out for a corner and then Anderson managed an air kick of monumental proportions, something suitable for Sunday league.  Taxi…

I called the Tevez cahnge at half time, it was the only way forward.  United looked short of any kind of energy and even Park Ji Sung who must have brought 2,000,000 ext5ra viewers with him wasn;t wirth shit in the first half.  Barca seemed to enjoy playing around the energetic players like they weren’t there, it was a game, it was like football training when you play 6 on 1, just for sport.  Tevez made no impact whatsoever, the change that he’;d brought earlier in the season, game slike Tottenham, it just wasn’t there, he looked like a man on his way out of the club.

The rest of the subs were poor too, Scholes couldn’t make an impact, his most valuable moment being nearly crippling Busquets (or as the ITV commentators said, Biscuits) , but otherwise with only a good  few passes that came to nothing he didn’t prove to be game changing.

Berbatov coming on in the later stages was something that seemed to change the game but really it just highlighted the problems that had been there from the start.  I long to here Alex Fergusion sit there and say in a Mike Bassett style - “United will be playing 4-4-fucking-2″ and then see him whack Berbatov upfront with Rooney, Ronaldo on the right playing against a weakened Barca left side.  There were so many things that I wanted to see that just didn’t happen.  United offerend nothing and Barca deserced to win.

When it comes to Barca I have nothign but praise. They played some quality football, sheer brilliance at times and deserved to win against a somplete nothing of a Untied side.  I hope that the papaers appreciate the quality of Messi’s header in the morning, that was tough and at 5″ 7′ popping up between two big centre back he made it look easy

ITV coverage was terrible, there were a good 40 minuted of the game when they didn;t even manage to have the score and the time on the screen.  And as for the Italain editing, they needed  to show more of Barca  ’s football, Messi, Xavi and Iniesta had some amazing touches at times that weren’t given credit by the Tv coverage I saw.  I have no complaints, Barca were the better team, and for them to be the first Spanish team to win “The Treble” is a great acheivement.

But still, fuck you to the Liverpool lovers who tried to rub my face in it tonight,  I can smile, we still won three trophies this season which is better than one of our midfielders winning “The Sun’s best player”. We didn’t hold our heads high in the final but it hasn’t been a bad season.

What is it with us Brits and our fascination with the weather?  Seriously, when we’ve got nothing to say to someone, or there’s an awkward silence, we feel compelled to get our meteorologist hats on and get involved in discussion about the latest chapter in the cumulonimbus story of life.

Example, I just went to the shop to buy some milk.  Now buying milk is a pretty straight forward transaction, there doesn’t need to be a large amount of dialogue with the shop assistant, the conversation could go like this:

Shop assistant: Hi
Bradfields: Hi, just this milk.
Shop assistant: £1.25 please

[Bradfields hands over money and receives change]

Bradfields: Thanks, see you later.
Shop assistant: Bye.

But instead, because I’m British, the conversation went like this.

Shop assistant: Hi
Bradfields: Hi.  What happened to the nice weather eh?
Shop assistant: Holiday weather!

[Bradfields and the shop assistant share a small chuckle over the irony of rain on a Bank Holiday weekend when it has been nice during the rest of the week]

Bradfields: Just this milk please.
Shop assistant: £1.25 please

[Bradfields hands over money and receives change]

Bradfields: Thanks, see you later.
Shop assistant: Bye.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like to have a bit of a chat with the people that serve me in shops.  I used to work in a shop and I know that if people treat you like a human being then it makes the job more enjoyable.  I also know that if you have the same conversation about the weather fifty times in a day then that becomes quite annoying.  So why the hell do I do it to people?

I could have asked the shop assistant about his plans for the weekend, asked him if he watched the football last night, perhaps discussed the recent city building developments or had a chin wag about Somalian pirates.  But no, my fine British upbringing means that the weather is the only topic of conversation for me.

I even ask questions about the weather when I know what the answer is going to be.  In the middle of August I’ll ask my colleagues in Mallorca “so what’s the weather like there today?”.  What the fuck do I expect them to say?  “There’s a blizzard here today, would you believe it!”  It has never been anything other than thirty degrees and clear blue skies in Mallorca in the middle of August so why do I have to ask that question?!?

Will this problem get worse with age?  That scares me.

I just realised that it is now over a year since I wrote anything on here, that’s a poor show!  I’d like to say that I’m doing all kinds of other exciting things to occupy my time, but other than working that just isn’t the case.

Recently I’ve developed a squeaky trainer, the left trainer of my favourite white trainers. It never used to squeak, it just started one day when it rained and hasn’t stopped since. Initially I was able to just shift my weight slightly to the outside and it would stop but now those days are gone. It just squeaks….all the time.

This morning my Walkman ran out of battery on the way to work. This meant that I had to listen to the squeak of my trainer. It’s one thing making the rest of the world listen to my squeak as I walk to work in the morning but for me to have to listen to it is a different matter altogether, that’s just plain rude.

It is also impacting on my plans to start a second career as a cat burglar.

A little while ago I wrote about a mystery product, today I’m writing about a product that isn’t quite what it seems.

Can you guess what it is yet??

So, it’s long, it’s made of plastic, and it comes in a variety of colours. It is also very phallically shaped, has smooth ends and a ribbed middle. Hmm, what could it be???

I’m assuming that from the title and my first sentence you’ve all established that this isn’t a dildo, which is blatantly what it looks like, and you’d be right. What it really is could potentially be another product to sell to the new yuppy breed I was talking about yesterday.

Imagine the scene, you get to work after an arduous journey on the bus / tube / tram / whatever, and unpack your bag onto your desk. You’ve got a heavy schedule on and your bag contains books and folders along with yor laptop and your gym kit. It’s a big bag!! You get right to the bottom and stop in disbelief, “It’s happened again!!” you shout out to your colleagues. “Every damn day the same thing. Why can’t someone stop this?!? Ciao!! The humanity!”.

Yes, it’s true, your banana has been battered and bruised again.

Bananas get squashed. Fact.

But no more will your banana have to suffer. The end to all your misery is here.

Ladies and gentlemen. I introduce the Banana Guard

No, I don’t believe it either.

Once upon a time, in order to be a Yuppy, there was a checklist you had to follow:

• Carry around some stupidly large diary containing a section for every conceivable piece of information about you life.
• Say Ciao as much humanly possible
• Dress is work attire all the time even if you aren’t at work.
• Jeans are acceptable if worn with a blazer.

Nowadays it seems all you have to do is drink some stupidly flavoured tea, really….that’s it.

I’m not a Yuppy, I’m not writing this because I’m upset that the classic view of a yuppy is being jaded by this new breed, it just ticks me off that all of a sudden it has become kind of “hip” to drink rank smelling, rank tasting hot fruity piss water.

“It tastes nicer than regular tea” they say. “It doesn’t leave a fuzziness in my mouth and I just don’t want the caffiene”

“Bollox, bollox, stop being such a pussy” I reply.

As it was quite clearly stated in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - “The entire British Empire was built on cups of tea” and that was normal tea, probably PG Tips, not Redbush, or detox tea, or green tea or Cherry Chargers. Got it??

What the fuck is the deal with Redbush anyway? It sounds like something out of a ginger porn movie not a tasty infusion to enjoy with or without milk.

I give up!!

The tea selection in my office. And that’s without the real tea!!

So here we are, www.bradfieldsbrain.com/blog is born!! I’ve been meaning to move my blog for ages but was imspited today after forking out £60 for my hosting renewal. Whether or not it will inspire me to actualy get back into the habit of blogging remains to be seen but it’s a start I guess.

I’ve managed to drag all my posts across from the old blog (which is still there for now) but all the times are a bit weird. I’m using Wordpress now which is something a bit new to me but I expect any teething problems to get worked out over the next year or so 80)

Sit back, relax, check when you can be arsed and then enjoy!!

And if I do manage to do some blogging, don’t be shy, get the comments rolling in!!

Ok, ok, so yeah, it has been ages since I posted….again. I’ve got a million and one excuses but none of them are worth hearing. But here I am, about to blog for the first time in 2007 so lets have a little bit of appreciation please!!

Let’s have a little catch up on the months gone by

Jurassic 5 - the daddies

Mmm, pie!!!

A table, it really doesn’t get more exciting than this

The Sunshine Underground - check out the quality of that shot

December, time to do some washing!

It’s Christmas time, and the office dog is dressed up. Just like most office parties.

9:30pm, the day I finished work for Christmas

A christmas card, from Smithers I believe

My pooch, in an unorthodox sleeping position

Drunk again…it is the New Year after all!

I use a browser plugin called StumbleUpon quite a bit. It adds a little button to your browser that takes you to a random website that someone else had recommended each time you click it. This is a pretty good way to discover new sites and find amusing articles that you would never have otherwise found.

While stumbling this afternoon I was sent on a little journey to this site

Click here to view site

which is selling a rather bizarre product.

Unfortunately the site is in German and so I have no idea why there is a picture of a vibrator attached to an iPod. Perhaps one of my German blogging friends can enlighten us all!!

Last night while out drinking with my work mates I witnessed a strange event. We were sat in a bar, called O Bar, that has two levels and the stairs come down into the main bar where we were drinking.

So, all of a sudden there was a loud crash a we just saw a guy fall, from about half way up the stairs, down onto the floor. It looked like he’d landed on his head and there was a half sympathetic groan from most of the people sat around. The guy got up, rubbed his head a bit and went about his business claiming to be ok. His mates were having a good old chuckle about it and so with everyone healthy and no blood spilt on the floor we carried on with our night out.

About quarter of an hour later I crossed paths with one of the friends of the guy who had fallen. “Is your mate ok?” I asked, “That really looked like it hurt!”

The friend, who was wearing a fantastic, chequered, lumberjack style shirt I must add, just laughed.

“That’s his party trick!” he said “He just chucks himself down stairs for fun.”

I just looked at the guy in disbelief

“He’s much better when he’s wearing his slippy shoes you know” the friend added as he left.

Wonders never cease!