Posted by sean on August 18, 2005 at 7:57 am in England with No Comments


It’s the morning after that terrible game of football, I was laughing at it then, mainly with embarrassment but this morning my feelings have changed to anger. Anger towards the team and anger towards Sven Goran Eriksson.

The players England have are good enough to beat anybody and win The World Cup but they will never get past the Quarter Finals of the competition under Sven.

Firstly, I’ve said it before and sadly I’ll probably have to say it again, David James should NEVER play for England again although for some bizarre reason Sven keeps picking the inept keeper.

There is also the issue on captaincy, this was given to David Beckham some years ago when he was very good. He is getting on a bit now and it is time for him to hand the Captains Armband over to another player. This should be given to either John Terry who captains English Champions Chelsea or Steven Gerrard who’s captaincy skills turned Liverpool from 3-0 down against AC Milan in The Champions League Final to winning the competition. If England were 3-0 down against a world class team we would NEVER get back to win under Beckham and Sven!

What is Sven’s idea when it comes to substitutions? Michael Owen cannot play the next competitive game for England as he is suspended, Jermain Defoe is set to take his place, why is it then that Sven saw it wise to take Defoe off at half time to replace him with Owen?

Sven shows absolutely no emotion towards the players, during the post-match interview he looked shocked and embarrassed. He claimed he was angry, but what he showed was not anger. You can tell when a football manager has been yelling and kicking boots about in the dressing room at useless players. Sven had not been doing that. We need a manager with a backbone and balls and whatever Ulrika Jonsson may say, Sven hasn’t got any. Still, at least he gets his massive wage packet from The FA, that’s all that matters hey Sven?


See Sven, this is a manager who’s SHOUTING at his players!

Sven has no “Plan B” for the team, he picks the players he likes regardless of their form and if one of them is sent off, injured everything collapses as he doesn’t know what to do,

While the whole team was dire (with the exception of Wayne Rooney) and they should all hang their heads in shame Sven is the man who has to take most of the blame. I have never felt confident with him as manager and the English national team is underachieving thanks to this Swede. Last night was the final straw to break the camels back and Sven should be handed his P45.

Some possible replacements for Sven

Sam Allardyce – everyone’s favourite, done wonders for Bolton – ENGLISH
Alan Curbishley – Charlton manager, has done a lot for his team – ENGLISH

and someone who hasn’t been suggested before, he may not be made available now but once he has won everything with his current club he may want to move on to managing a national team…. Jose Mourinho – he would be great!

If we can’t get any of these there’s always Kevin Blackwell, rubbish manager but at least we’ll have rid of him at Leeds!

Posted by sean on August 17, 2005 at 8:47 pm in England, Movies with No Comments


I had the misfortune of watching the second half of the England – Denmark game this evening where the National Team lost 4-1 in a dire 45 minutes of football which made Leeds look like Brazil.

The whole team are to blame, including everyone’s favourite David “Calamity” James who came right out of his box to aid Denmark in grabbing their first goal. All in all it was a shambles, laughable, yes LAUGHABLE, luckily it was a friendly so you can laugh at it but the players must in no way play like this against Wales next month. I have created a montage of the Denmark goals for your amusement here.

On a serious note, yes I can laugh BUT the England players should hang their heads in shame. It is an honour to represent your country and wear the shirt, anyone wearing it should always give 110% and they should all be ashamed of themselves.

5,000+ fans travelled to Denmark to watch England, spending their hard earned cash on their beloved team, I would like to see these players on £50k+ a week refund the fans their ticket and travel expenses, after all they can afford it.

Moving on from football, I did something today that I thought I would never ever do…. I bought something…. a DVD…. Star Wars. Years ago I saw the first half hour or so of the original movie when someone lent me the trilogy on VHS, I don’t normally like films in space and am not a massive Sci-Fi fan so was not that enthralled. However I do like movies in general so thought it was about time I bought the DVD Boxset, especially as it meant I would be able to buy Scrubs Season 1 for half price :o)


I won’t be attending any conventions just yet

Anyway, I watched Star Wars: A New Hope (the original) this afternoon and I DID like it, good film although I still fail to see how it has a massive cult following, I suppose I haven’t seen the other movies or grown up with the movies. Don’t worry, I’m not going to become a Star Wars Geek.

Posted by sean on August 16, 2005 at 8:33 am in Movies with No Comments


Watched Wedding Crashers last night and was left slightly disappointed to be perfectly honest. The reviews and TV ads promise a hilarious, laugh a minute comedy. Sure the film had its amusing moments but some of the jokes were feeble and the storyline a little too “luvy duvy”

The film stars Owen Wilson (Meet the Parents/Fockers, Life Aquatic) and Vince Vaghn (Dodgeball, Anchorman) as a pair of wedding crashers who crash celebrations in search of women, free drink and a good time.

In typical Romcom fashion things go wrong when one of the girls Vince Vaghn meets falls for him while Owen Wilson finds a girl he loves but cannot have. The duo must then go on a trip with the girls and their bizarre family leading to comical results including being shot in the arse, insulted by a uncouth granny and almost raped by the disturbed gay brother of the girls.

It is a good film and I was glad I watched it but it certainly doesn’t live up to all the hype it has been receiving.

Posted by sean on August 14, 2005 at 7:03 pm in Curry, Football, Leeds United, Trains with No Comments


Back from my holiday now, the journey down was far more pleasant than the one going up. For the Birmingham to Bristol train we decided to upgrade to First Class to guarantee seats, avoid screaming kids and generally have a more pleasant trip. We were told to board the train as normal and pay the ticket inspector the £15 upgrade fee when asked.

The train was so packed and busy that he simply didn’t have time to bother with billing us so we travelled First Class for the same price as Cattle Class. All in all a good holiday, I have uploaded a collection of holiday snaps here that you can view.

When I got home I was extremely annoyed to find out that all the TV Shows I had set to record on Sky+ had failed – the Leeds-Millwall match, Football League Review and five episodes of Dream Team. The error was solved after ringing the Sky Helpline but sadly all my beloved recordings had been lost! :o(

They say that holidays are supposed to relieve tiredness and help people recharge their batteries, I don’t know about that, I was very tired last night, also deprived of curry which I had not had all week. A delicious takeaway curry from the local Jaflong Indian Restaurant soon sorted that problem out!

Lastly onto football, bit of a disappointing game for Leeds yesterday, they only managed a 0-0 draw against Luton Town. Some fans are saying this is a good result, which in a way is true, Luton’s previous two games were both victories against Southampton and Crystal Palace. I would still have liked to of seen a bit more fight from the players who still seem to struggle to score.


The Leeds strikers couldn’t hit this with a banjo

Some blame can be put onto manager Kevin Blackwell, many are calling for him to be sacked although I am prepared to give him a chance for now. The key to Leeds United’s season is stability, sacking the manager will make the team unstable, there is also no suitable replacement manager I can think of who is currently available.

Watched the football this afternoon as well, the Arsenal-Newcastle clash was interesting enough, it finished 2-0 to Arsenal, good result which will keep Chelsea and Manchester United on their toes. I also watched Chelsea take on newly promoted Wigan. Wigan were by far the better team which I think surprised everybody. They had many chances to win the game but failed to convert any of them. The game ended very disappointingly, (unless you’re a Chelsea fan) Chelsea scored in literally the dying seconds to earn a fully undeserved win.

Posted by sean on August 12, 2005 at 4:49 pm in Canal Boats with No Comments


Well it is now the final evening of the holiday, we are back outside the boat yard, the boat has been scrubbed clean (well cleanish) we are both packed to go back home tomorrow.

The last two days have certainly been better than Tuesday and Wednesday. We avoided any dirty city canals and were able to take the far cleaner and more scenic routes stopping and Penkridge last night. We’ll be off to the pub shortly for a couple of pints and dinner before returning to the boat for one final sleep aboard.


The last stretch of thr journey


An odd site seen today – a chair made out of straw

This will probably be the last blog entry on this special holiday page, until the next time I go away at least. When I am back in Bath however I will upload a gallery of images and even a few videos which were just too large to upload with the connection that I am using and bandwidth limitations.

Overall a very enjoyable experience and one I would recommend to anybody unless you are one of these holiday makers who likes to completely relax sitting for hours in the sun doing absolutely nothing – work is involved on boating holidays (although most of the time it is fun). Also if you are the type of holiday maker who likes to go to hot Spanish islands, drinking to 4am, taking pills and fighting then this probably isn’t for you although you may like to hang around with the yobs near Wolverhampton Top Lock.

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