I tried to get up at 6am this morning to make that planned early start at work – it was impossible! It was an effort in itself putting the alarm clock on my mobile phone forward an hour to 7.15am, let alone getting up at that ungodly hour. 6am is exclusively reserved for shepherds, fishermen and night clubbers returning home from a night out.

When I finally did arise, I looked in the mirror, only to find two massive scratches on the side of my face. How the hell that happened, I do not know. I must have done it by accident in my sleep; either that or Freddy Kruger is real and attacked me in my slumber!

After patching up my wounds, I managed to find my way to work, still earlier than normal, and managed to get some overtime in. Along with working to 6pm this evening, I have accredited 2 hours of extra income today. Hopefully I’ll have the stamina to do the same tomorrow.

Finally some good news – my fatigue and morale was lifted when I attended my management course. I received feedback on that coursework I had been working on last week (or “management-course-assignment-bollocks” as I once referred to it). The lecturer was very impressed. I was very pleased, especially as I was expecting a list of changes that had to be made in order to fulfil the requirements. As of today, my assignment is now ready to hand in. Bath College had better get my certificate ready; and a message to Mr. Barwick and his cronies at The FA – if you want a decent England manager (with qualifications), come and get me!

My office is offering a rare opportunity to earn some extra pennies through working overtime these next two weeks.

After the recent expenses of Christmas shopping, a visit to the dentist today and other annoyances, I have been left a little out of pocket. I have decided to work until 6pm, every night while the overtime is available, but am a little stuck on when to start work.

I normally stagger in at 8:59am (for an “official” 9am start), but am tempted to come in for 8 or even 7am. Coming in so early would mean getting out of bed as early as 6am. I’m a young, 9-5 office worker; I don’t even know there is a 6am! Still money is required. It will be interesting what time I wander into work tomorrow morning…

This afternoon at work, I did fire training. Not on how to start fires (that’s next week), it was some less fun subject of “putting them out”.

As well as being shown the fire exits and alarms in my office block, we were allowed to test some fire extinguishers. Unfortunately we were not allowed to try them out on a real fire, but instead used an old chair as a target. Who would have thought spraying an everyday object with water and CO2 could be so much fun?

This newfound knowledge may come in useful for home. My letting agency has still not fixed the alarm, so if there’s a fire, I’m screwed. Good thing I know how to use a fire extinguisher, now I can go round to their offices and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

Bath City did tonight what England failed to do last week – come back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2, and hold out for a result. OK, this comparison may be a tad unfair – their opponents, Hayes & Yeading, are far inferior to Croatia, and some may argue Bath City are better than England – it’s not comparing like with like!

I was on the cameraman duties again, and due to a late delivery of the equipment had to run from one side of the football ground to the other, holding a rather large and heavy camera. The filming of the game went OK, although I totally forgot how to adjust the spirit level on the tripod; so if you buy the DVD, you may have to tip your head sideways in order to get a good perspective.

This afternoon I went to Cheltenham Town Football Club. Had I been going a few years ago, I would probably have been watching Bath City play; instead, as things are nowadays, I was sadly watching Leeds United.

Whaddon Park, Cheltenham’s ground, is very small, so I wasn’t able to get tickets in the away end. Instead I bravely entered the lions den and stood alongside the home supporters. They quickly realised I was a Leeds fan, and I quickly realised that I wasn’t the only one. I would say 40% of the ground was full of Leeds supporters from up and down the country.

The Cheltenham fans I met were very commendable and a credit to their club. We had some friendly banter and discussed both Leeds and Bath City, both of which they were very complimentary about.

Anyway, back to the game (something I have been trying to avoid). Despite totally dominating the game, Leeds lost 1-0 to a late Cheltenham goal. Gutting. Still, I will disagree with anyone who says Cheltenham didn’t deserve their win. They had their chance, and they took it; unlike Leeds.

I still believe that Leeds will win the league – it is just a shame I wasn’t there to see them score a goal or win a match.

Here’s some pictures from the game.

As the sign says

A rather bizarre mascot which sat ontop of one of the huts

The old bill realise there may be Leeds fans in the home end, and immediately predict trouble… there wasn’t any

Dennis Wise. I cannot see his face, but I am sure his eyes are wobbling

Spot the ball

This evening (after the earlier fire alarm troubles) I went to my DVD cupboard and dug out The Ghost and the Darkness - an excellent film, which I haven’t watched properly for almost 10 years.

For those who haven’t seen the movie, it is basically about two lions who decide they prefer the taste of human meat to zebra, and start feasting upon a group of locals who have been employed to build a railway. Val Kilmer, an Irishman (yes, he’s very Celtic) is leading the build, but has to take his attentions away from the construction in order to shoot the pussy-cats; with some predictably bloody results.

Amazingly the film is based on a true story, where hundreds poor Kenyan workers were attacked by a pair of lions in the late 1800’s. The exact reason for the real attacks is unknown, but it is believed to be linked to the beasts developing a taste for human meat, due to consuming poorly buried bodies of dead rail-workers. There is also some evidence to suggest the pair of rogue lions had weak teeth, and were unable to hunt wild animals, so went for the easier option of humans.

The whole story fascinates me (mainly because I like blog and gore). The bodies of the lions can be seen at The Field Museum in Chicago. Here’s a few photos of them I found.

Oh my God! The last two hours have been hell! The fire alarm system in my flat developed a fault, causing a siren which sounded like it was the end of the world, to be emitted throughout the whole block of flats.

I reset the system, only for it to start wailing again moments later. After much swearing, praying and crying, I gave up and called my landlord. No answer. I called the local fire department. No answer. I called another fire department. They answered. I was relived that they actually gave a damn, and even questioned why I didn’t dial 999. I explained it wasn’t an emergency and I didn’t want to waste their time, but they said it would have been OK (interesting to know – next time I see a spider in my flat, I know who to call).

Shortly after making the call, a fire engine pulled up outside, equipped with flashing blue lights. In stormed five burley fire officers – if I was gay I would have loved it. They were just as confused as I was about the problem, and despite ripping apart a fire sensor in the bedroom, were unable to fix the fault. One of the officers did make me laugh when he suggested I visit the “hottie upstairs” who was throwing an all-female party. I must admit, I was extremely tempted.

After further ringing and texting, my landlord eventually answered, and after more swearing, praying and crying, she came round and disabled the alarm. My neighbour questioned the legality of deactivating such a system, but was told that they are not obliged to provide a fire alarm service – something I somewhat disagree with. Anyway, all is now silent (despite a constant ringing in my ears). The alarm won’t be fixed until Monday, so if you are an arsonist, please don’t burn my flat until next week. Thank you.

Tonight was a quiz night at Twerton Park. I joined a group of Bath City-going regulars to form a deadly alliance in knowledge.

The questions ranged from “Who was Christmas No.1 in 2006?” to “What does the chemical symbol ‘AS’ represent?”. My team of five actually got those two questions right, however finished something like 6 out of 10 in the overall rankings. Still, we probably had the lowest combined age as a team (with me being the youngest), so if it is true that ‘age = knowledge’, we were at somewhat of a disadvantage.

Along with the quiz, there was a raffle, where I won a crossword jigsaw (basically a quiz page of The Sun newspaper which had been put in the food blender) and a bottle of wine. I don’t normally drink the stuff, but my friend Simon who is a wine connoisseur (or wino) informs me that Liebfraumilch is a rather good brand; although going by what was said at the quiz and a quick search on Wikipedia, it sounds like piss.

Just because England are not in the European Championship next summer, it doesn’t mean I can’t support a team competing. Therefore, I have made a draw on which team I will support. Here’s how it happened…

Firstly, write the names of every competing team on pieces of paper

Screw these pieces of paper into tiny balls

Ask my hamster, Dennis Wise, to make the draw

To encourage him to collect a bit of paper, I put a little bit of margarine and sugar on each piece

He finally picks a team

To stop him eating the sugary-fat coated paper, and getting a horrible combination of diabetes, high-cholesterol and ink poisoning, I quickly took the scrawn-up team off him

Great choice, Dennis… I think not

Following England’s defeat last night, Watkins sent me this text:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha….. (breathes) ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So funny. Maybe England can make it though if a German player farts tomorrow evening and if the ball turns into a goat when Bulgaria next play.

Sums it up really.