Bradfields’ Brain

It’s official, the students have returned to Leicester! Like a plague of locusts they arrive and sweep every shop dry of bread, milk and beer within 48 hours before settling into a steady four month drinking binge.

I’d like to say that I haven’t grown bitter and envious of students and their lay about lifestyle but the fact is, I have! It pains me on a day to day basis especially when I see flyers everywhere for “£1 a pint” on a Wednesday evening when drinking ten pints midweek is completely unfeasible for anyone who works. Why can’t they have it on Friday and Saturday too!!

Having missed out on a cheap Wednesday drink through work commitments it then ticks me off even more when i have to step my way round four pavement pizzas on my way to work. It’s bad enough that the lightweights are chucking back up the Smirnoff Ice (often the drink choice of Freshers who don’t want to get too wasted in front of their new friends) they’ve been drinking, but the places in which they throw up are even more unacceptable. Outside our front gate, outside the entrance to the shop, right next to a pedestrian crossing where everyone stands to cross the road. What is wrong with the little f*ckers?? Whatever happened to puking in bus stops and telephone boxes - places mainly used by students and OAPs anyway - and they pay less tax than us so who cares if their public services are slightly tarnished.

So listen up students. Keep it off the streets! We don’t need you to shout at the top of your voices at 3am just so we can tell how drunk you are, it’s not big or clever, and you certainly ain’t either!

I think I’m getting old!!

Good news for my friend Jimbo today, I have finally procured a large envelope in which to send him back what you would think (from the texts / phone calls) was his most valuable possession.

The item, a navy blue jumper boldly emblazened with a picture of a Nazi car, was left at our house after Jimbo’s visit a few months ago and he has been campaigning to have it returned ever since. Attempts to get it posted back by Becky, who would actually have remembered, were thwarted by me refusing to give up the jumper as I wanted to sell it on eBay. However I have now decided that I should return it.

The envelope, a large, white, padded one, will be making its way home this evening leaving the following outstanding tasks to be completed

• Locate Jimbo’s address on the noticeboard
• Write address on envelope
• Find jumper
• Put jumper in envelope
• Take envelope (containing jumper) to the Post Office

With it only taking about 90 days to find an envelope I anticipate the jumper arriving back in Third Reich Norwich sometime in the next 8-12 months.

Received some very touching comments from some friends on email today that i thought I’d share. It’s nice to know that there are people in the world who recognise my achievements and aren’t afraid to praise me for them.

“Bradfields is a true champion - he’s got his wheelchair drivers license and a certificate from the Early Learning Centre saying he can do potato painting” - Steve

“Bradfields’ GCSE results were outstanding. An E in window licking and a D in calliper control” - Pete

Thanks guys. These mean a lot!

Ended up working on Saturday and Sunday afternoon this weekend which was a bit shit. I’ve got so much on at the moment and we are still fighting to keep even vaguely in touch with the deadlines we have so I didn’t really have a lot of choice.

Sunday was much more productive than Saturday for some reason, think it was because it was a little cooler in the office, plus I was probably under more pressure to get the work done so I got my head into it a bit more.

Bought the new Burnout game for my PS2 after work on Saturday and the rest of the weekend inbetween work was pretty much dominated by that. I was amused to see that the game is rated as a U!! We were laughing at the thought of a generation of drivers to come who think it is acceptable to drive their cars into oncoming traffic due to a computer game they played as a child. Well, if according to the government it can cause murder and violent crime, why not traffic offences!!

The almighty Evington FC were unfortunately hammered 7-0 in the cup on Sunday morning. I didn’t play which annoyed me, not because I thought I would have made enough of a difference for us to win, just because I would have liked to kick some of the players infliciting such a major defeat on us.

Feeling pretty pissed off today for several reasons.

Firstly I managed to pull my groin…again…playing five-a-side last night and so consequently walking / climbing stairs /coughing / sneezing are all rather uncomfortable today. And as this is the second time I’ve had to give up mid match in the last two weeks I am aware that it is likely to cost me three weeks to a month in recovery time if i don’t want to completely do myself in. This is pissing me off even more than the pain!

Secondly we lost at football 6-3 which meant my injury was even more pointless.

Thirdly, I’m still having to do too much work. Following my rant (see ‘The Smackdown’) I have obviously managed to avoid a bollocking for the fact that this project isn’t finished, but that doesn’t mean i am having to work any less. I’m under strrict instruction to finish certain sections by tomorrow so that they can be tested but i really can’t be arsed. Plus, once it gets to 5:30 and the boss goes home i know the temptation to go home for a big fat reefer and fuck it all off will become very tempting. The force is not strong in me and i am weak to the temptations of the dark side!!

And finally, my last reason for my poor mood is that i have been a little hungover today. I know that there isn’t really anyone to blame for this but myself. If i hadn’t gone out and had five pints of Kronenbourg before dinner last night then i would probably be feeling a lot better. Even a dirty Greggs binge at lunch didn’t relieve the hangover stomach. More lager when i get out of this hell hole seems like the only solution!

Kicked off at my boss first thing this morning for his completely unrealistic deadlines. He expects me to finish a three week project in a week just because no one senior in our company actually managed to put together a decent specification or plan and so we’ve wasted loads of time and got stuff wrong.

It was pretty sweet because for the first time ever he had absolutely nothing, nada, zip, to say in return. He asked “why is it not going to be finished?” in an aggressive tone, and i listed the reasons in a slightly more aggresive tone. I didn’t swear at him…for a change…and i think this might have been a contributing factor to my success. Once i’d finished my rant he pretty much asked if i could give it my best shot and i said yeah.

Think i might end up working on Saturday which will suck, but at least that’ll mean another day off somewhere else down the line.

Well, I’ve been very very slack again in keeping up with my blog. It’s damn hard to even remember to write something never mind actually trying to write something vaguely interesting.

I’ve was up at my parents at the weekend so didn’t do much exciting. Just chilled out, ate lots of tasty food and read and slept a lot. Drove back down to sunny Leicester on Sunday to play football; the tigerish Evington FC were victorious once again, 3-1 winners over yet another strangely named team - Toyoda Gosei!!

At work now and having a pretty hectic week, got loads done yesterday thought which has lifted the pressure enough for me to at least be able to doss about a bit!!

I’m about half way through a piece about our wonderful National Health Service so will try and finish it at some point this week. I’m gonna have to make it good now I’ve mentioned it!!

Was just reading through some of the reaction the England’s Ashes win and found this comment left on the BBC site.

You only have to look at the headlines from the press after the first Test to see what fair-weathered fans most the country are: “You bunch of drips” - The Mirror; “Vaughan again losers” - The Sun. I guarantee the majority of those stood out in London never saw a whole cricket match before in their lives - most probably didn’t even watch the first Test.

As much as I appreciate the efforts of those people who stepped out of their office this week to have a wave at the triumphant England team, i am also left wondering where the hell 500,000 English cricket fans came from. I should probably be pleased that so many new people have got into cricket and that the game has had a positive impact on so many people’s lives over the summer, but for some reason I don’t feel that way.

Perhaps it is jealousy that i couldn’t be in London to see the team come through on the bus, but i think mainly it is the way that so many people have just jumped on the cricketing band wagon this summer. It reminds me of the couple of years that Gillingham FC got into playoff finals and all of a sudden there were 25,000 people trying to get a ticket to the game when normally Gillingham’s ground wouldn’t have sold out if they had been playing a friendly against Brazil!!

As i said, i don’t know what it is that bothers me about this whole thing - no Bradfieldses were harmed during the celebrations in London. Something just makes me a little p*ssed about it and I needed to get it off my chest.

Afternoon everyone. It has been a few days since my last update but I’ve been busy alright, so stop getting on my back about it and let me tell you what I’ve been doing. I played in a 5-a-side football competition on Saturday morning, the less said about that the better. Apart from the free bar and buffet afterwards there was not much to write home about. We played badly, drew two games and lost one, and the competition was won by a team with a girl in goal. Moving swiftly on, I then made the long trip down to the smoggy, expensive South to vist my old buddies Monkeyboy and the Quim in their new house in London. Two days of hazy memories are all that follow my arrival in London - we certainly laughed a lot though - my favourite lines from the weekend are listed below in no particular order

• What is it Steve? Hollioaks - the ones who didn’t make it
• I bet you wish you hadn’t got yourself into this
• All of a sudden i realised i was waiting to go through customs with a gram of MDMA in my pocket
• Pass the tray
• See You At The Party Richter

Ashes glory has followed all with a magnificent effort by England. Best part of the last test was our destruction of the Aussie scum on Sunday morning i reckon. The fact that they didn’t even manage to get as many runs as we did, when everyone said we had blown it with our first innings total, made it extra sweet.

Not much sleep for Freddie last night me thinks.