It bugs me every single year. Christmas decorations, music and advertising campaigns all seem to commence somewhere around the end of October. I usually allow myself to start feeling festive somewhere between Thanksgiving in the USA (today) and St. Andrew’s Day (this coming Sunday).
On the subject of Thanksgiving – just when you thought it was safe to go back to Alaska. Saturday Night Live should so offer her a writing position:
I’m sorry but she does make fun poking a little too easy sometimes. I recently heard the comedian Paul Sinha link the futures of Sarah Palin and the athlete Paula Radcliffe: rumour has it that they both fancy running in 2012 but will probably both be beaten by a Kenyan again.
He who slings mud generally loses ground. - Adlai stevenson
Well that’s it. Nobody landed a knockout blow to dramatically alter the polls in the final pre-election debate last night. Race over I reckon. The USA has a new leader. Welcome to the White House President David Palmer. Sorry, I obviously meant Barack Obama. I can’t be the only one to have noticed the similarities with the character played by Dennis Haysbert in 24 – there was even an assassination plot!
If you had purchased £1,000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1,000 would have been worth £16.50, and £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1,000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily.
Update 19/08/08
I think I may have found who may be responsible for Blockbuster going down the tubes. When your CEO is this out-of-touch this you should start worrying. I’m wondering the same thing as John Gruber: How does Jim Keyes still have a job?
Isn’t technology wonderful? I was worried about missing the Champions League final and probably would have had to change my flight had Liverpool beaten Chelsea in the semi but it turns out that I needn’t have worried. WestJet had ESPN available on their seat-back screens so I managed to catch the game at 40,000 feet. Annoyingly we landed 30 minutes ahead of schedule so I missed a large chunk of the second half but I made it through baggage reclaim in plenty time to take up a seat at the bar for extra time and the ensuing penalties.
I have to say that I’m glad Manchester United won. I only actually dislike them now compared with hating Chelsea with a passion and I think that it was somehow a fitting victory 50 years on from the Munich disaster. Bobby Charlton showed so much decorum when Platini tried to give him a winners medal and you have to admire the sportsman in Paul Scholes who went straight to console the opposition.
I had another celebratory pint with the Liverpool supporting barman and then made my way into Vancouver on the Airporter bus trying to spot anything that looked vaguely familiar but a lot has changed in the six years since I last visited the city.
