'Federer wins easily..he must have relaxed after discovering Murray got knocked out'

Today is my last day in Middlesbrough for I don't know how long...My next two placements are in Boston (starting Monday) and Nottingham (starting 9th March) so it could be that I don't come back up here til 20th April and even that's not a certainty as I could be put anywhere again. It is rather frustrating as I still have to pay for rent, sky, internet while I'm not here and then have got to have a chat with my housemates tonight to tell them I won't be paying for electric gas and water while I'm not there (don't think they will like it).

I haven't been up to much recently as not been at uni so my days have involved watching tennis, eating, gym, messing around on the internet, gambling, catching up on 24 and watchind DVDs followed by the cycle repeating when the tennis comes on in the early hours. I have also been having hours of fun messing around creating videos on some program I downloaded, most of you will have seen the darts promo I created last week, I have since created another video my housmate wanted making for his football competition he's in where we acted as sky sports news presenters...very sad I know but the end result was quite pleasing. No doubt I'l stick it up on youtube at some point. Doubt it will make much sense to anyone else though! Watched American gangster last night which was good followed by some reasonable tennis although Djokovic has got to sort himself out. He has now retired from 7 matches over the last year and 4 of them have been in grandslam events that is worrying for someone that is meant to be the 3rd best player in the world. Also Del Potro was quite frankly embarrasing earlier, it looked like he couldn't even be bothered to try after losing that first set. Hang your head in shame!!

Transfer news is really really dull at the moment, with the will he wont he come to Arsenal move of Andriy Arshavin and no one of any real note going anywhere else.

I have also spent some of my day looking for holidays and seeing if I can find any good prices for both a trip with my girlfriend and with the lads. I need to find somewhere dirt cheap as I have didly squat in my bank account. I also need to find a job for the summer but don't know where to start looking so hopefully the quiz machine scam will start paying dividends if not I will have to get practicing at darts and go ad whoop their arses in the world championships next year. First I need to buy some darts as the Bottler destroyed my old ones and then hid the remains somewhere. Any ideas what I should get boys? I have been looking but am unsure what to get.

Oh Dear Oh Dear

Poor Andy Murray, sent crashing out a tournament he was favourite for against a top 20 player who had lost less games than anyone previously to get to that stage in the competition who Andrew Castle said he would beat in 3 sets. Well at least he will definately win Wimbledon!

Murray

Blogging about Murray seems to be the thing to do at the moment and I am going to continue with the Murray theme today (I wasn't planning to but was just incensed whilst having my lunch, turning the channel over at half time of the west ham game to see Sue and Castle talking) here is what was said...

Set the scene a typical BBC studio which our license fee helps pay for and two hosts that have won 1 grand slam between them and got shit reviews from strictly come dancing. Behind them is the shirtless picture of Murray that has already been discussed and Sue is salivating over it and pretty muh touching herself up underneath the desk as she says how well he played and how trim he looks. They then discuss how Verdasco played well and go to his post match interview....

Interviewer: You played well blah blah blah you now have the person who many consider favourite in this tournament what are your views on this?

Verdasco: Well Andy is an extremely good player blah blah blah but.... I don't think you can call him favourite as this is a grandslam played over 5 sets (FACT) Nadal is the strongest 5 set player on the tour (FACT) having lost less matches that go the distance than any current player (FACT) there is also Federer who has one the most grandslams out of anyone currently playing (FACT) and then there's Djokovic who is the grandslam holder (FACT).

They go back to the studio and Sue asks Castle...it seems everyone is asked this question in interviews now, do they actually believe it?

Castle: I don't think so, all the players probably feel they have to say that stuff so they dont get stick off the guys in the locker room. They know Andy is as good as the rest of them.

Sue (whilst vigorously frigging herself under the desk): So Verdasco saying that Nadal is a better 5 set player than Andy is wrong then? Surely Andys a different player now to the one that rolled around the floor like a pussy a couple of years ago isn't he? (Just to let you know this isn't word for word by the way...just the way I remember it!!)

Castle: Well Verdasco doesn't believe it and if he does he's an idiot!...... Yes that is right Andrew Castle better known for dancing like a twat than playing tennis called a top 20 player an idiot for believing that Nadal is a better 5 set player than Murray.

Castle continues: Verdasco is a very good player and top 20 in the world but everyone knows Murray will win in 3 sets because he is that good!

Now let me just clear a few things up that the BBC forgot to mention earlier...

1) Murray hasn't won a grandslam and the other top 3 players have.
2) Murray is seeded 4th for a reason.
3) Murray's body is not that incredible I personally think Gary has a better body than him!

Please tell me someone else saw that.. I couldn't honestly believe my eyes when Castle was spouting that crap.... and telling a professional tennis player top 20 in the world that he's an idiot is quite franky ridiculous!

Angry

I have just come back from Tescos and am absolutely livid. It's a Tuesday lunchtime and I decided on a trip to the shops to get some dinner with my girlfriend. After mooching round the store for a while and a big basket full of food, I picked up a crate of Kronenberg and head towards the till. Tescos are extremely annoying at telling you wat till to go to, I queued up in one and was instantly told to go to the 10items or less as it would be quicker (it wasn't) by the time I had picked up the beer and basket and got to the other end of the shop someone had got there before me. We were at the checkout of a woman who always serves us and normally is a bit over friendly and she bleeped our stuff through as I loaded the items onto the conveyor belt and the missus packed into our bags. She then got to the Kronenberg and asked me for ID. Now normally I don't mind being asked for ID as I understand their reasoning and I'm not asked often, however today I was looking particularly manly, I have a beard and was wearing a university jumper and having IDd me before she knew I was old enough to buy beer.

I produced my ID and carried on packing when another woman started whispering in the woman's ear who then asked for my GFs ID. Now my girlfriend does look younger than me but I certainly wouldn't say she looks 17 anyway she didn't have any as I was paying and she had left the house without her bag. She then continued to put the rest of the stuff through the till and then I realised the till number was flashing above our heads....I attempted to give the woman my clubcard to get my points when I felt a hand on my shoulder and the store manager asking for my GFs ID! I said she hadn't got any as I was paying and he then refused to serve me!!!! I was gobsmacked, this is a shop I go in every day, buy alcohol from every other day every member of staff who was involved then had served me and my GF alcohol before with and without IDing me and now they were refusing to serve ME because my GF didnt have ID!!!!

I then started having a heated discussion with this guy with a whole queue of people behind me saying we come in here all the time and am always served and the girl must know we are both over 18 as she had IDd us before, how we were both wearing university jumpers (not matching of course) giving a clue we might be at least 18. He then said I could have given it to her to make her look older!!! I said if I come back on my own will I get served and he said no due to the fact I could be supplying minors with alcohol. I then upturned my bags back onto the counter, expressed how I would not be using their store again and said I would be writing a letter of complaint about their attitude and the way they treated their loyal customers.

Now I know everything is on their side and I probably shouldn't have got into a strop but how bloody ridiculous is that?!

Back to Blogging!

Everyones blogging! It's great. My normal routine in the morning is to have a shower get dressed come downstairs and turn my computer on as it sometimes takes a time to load while I eat breakfast with Sky Sports News. I then trudge onto my computer where I check all 3 e-mail accounts, facebook, the sun, the times and teamtalk. The next and my favourite is to then check the blogs in the hope that it tells me J has updates his blog, to my great suprise everyone had updated!! I can honestly say it made my morning.

On a seperate less gushing note i'm back to betting! Australian Open started today and tenns betting is my favourite as I feel I know this area better than most and also feel that bookmakers put some frankly quite ridiculous prices on some individuals. The first round in particular is my favourite as they often seem to always give the seeded player the lower odds even if they are in shit form against a hard court specialist for example. I stayed up and watched a few games last night/this morning retiring to bed at 4:30 (not the best of ideas seeing as I had a presentation at 9 this morning) as is always the case all but one of my accummulator won. The only one of 12 that didn't win was the seeded Feliciano Lopez (who's favourite surface is hard) losing 16-14 in the 5th!!! 16-14!!!!!!!! what a ridiculous scoreline and an extremely annoying one to lose money on.

I was going to have a rant about shit women's tennis and complain at how a recent tournament gave more prize money to them than the men but I may save the majority of the rant for another time!!! This is the same women's tennis that has a player at number 1 in the world who has never won a grandslam and the same women's tennis that I was watching last night where hotly tipped Ana Ivanovic was awful and losing her serve all the time! Why can't women hold serve could be a good title for a blog post or... why are all the female british tennis players fat? Melanie South looked like she had eaten way too many kangaroo burgers Elena Baltacha didn't even make the tournament and the only skinny one is Anne Ivelostmythong who was also dreadful.

Time at home

I have just returned back to the north east and had a remarkably good journey considering the amount of alcohol I had knocked back the night before and how especially at this time of year traffic seems to be particularly slow. Although I wouldn’t say the weather had been good at home, it had been windy and cold but at least no rain, however as soon as I took my turning off the motorway down it came, torrential rain what a welcome. On the note of weather a very nice local weather lady on the telly this morning said you can expect parts of the north east to hit -7 tonight BRILLIANT and when I was at uni handing my work in it started to snow oh what fun!

Over the Christmas period I had a great time only missing 4 nights out in the whole 3+weeks which I was quite pleased with and considering that included Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New years day I consider that quite good going. I thought it may be fun (for me at least) to name every place I have drunk alcohol in over Christmas so here goes:

Lowlands, RE Bar, Champers, Shapla, Black Horse, Woodman, Jolle, Moons, Oddfellows, The Victory, Chicago, Columbia Press, Beer Bunker, The Verve, Detroit Bar, Henry’s, Jewell, OnAnon, Waxy O’Connors, The Cambridge, Nag’s Head, Maple Leaf, Porterhouse, All Bar One, Goals Heathrow, Crown & Treaty, Liquid, Glasshouse, Sway = 29 places!

I may have missed some but I feel that is quite comprehensive, God knows what was spent in each of these places but there were certainly some funny tales.

A few of my most memorable moments since being home:

Hardened drinker Daz calling me an Alcoholic – Lowlands
Missing out on winning the quiz by 1 ½ points – Lowlands
Mass bar brawl – Victory
Very competitive game of Articulate - Oddfellows
Kieron pulling random girl – Chicagos
RE Sunday night lock ins – RE

Irish man singing Roy Orbison - RE
Horrendously loud yobish chanting - Henrys

Unfortunately I have an essay I haven't started yet which is due in this time next week so that may be me out of blogging action til then. Speak soon folks!

Girls

Recently I discussed how Kieron pulled by simply going up to a girl who he had not spoken to all night asked for her name and number and within 10 minutes had received a text off her, now I am by no way saying I am in the same league as someone with looks of a Greek God like Kieron however I am intrigued as to a females mindset when they go out for the evening. In comparison to Kieron’s amazing pulling I went out with a group of girls last Saturday and had a really good night even though we ended up at the local shit hole of a nightclub. As I entered I was well aware that a lot of the girls in there were younger apart from my group of 10 or so. I looked around I caught one girls eye and before I had even raised a welcoming smile she had scowled at me and gone to hide behind some pretty boy 17 year old. Now I had no intention of pulling her, dancing with her or even speaking to her and yet she could not even muster a friendly smile back in my direction. In comparison several knobish looking guys kept on trying to dance with my friends and understandably my girls would rather dance with a hunk like me than a load of 16 year olds that had borrowed their older brothers ID or snuck in the back door to get in. I quickly found that every time this happened one of them would grab me and start dancing with me in order to get the guy away. At first this was quite good as even I can’t complain about a load of hot girls wanting to dance with me (it doesn’t happen often!) but soon it became a little bit annoying, I would look up thinking does my friend want saving, if I went over and stole her away she could have really fancied him and then I look like a dick, if I do nothing and she didn’t want to dance with him I look like a dick for not doing anything. I soon gave up thinking and went back to drinking and wowing the girls throwing some shapes. Quite oppositely two girls just near us (not part of our group) were dancing with absolutely anything, one of them was pretty much being raped on the dance floor by some huge black guy that could have easily been twice her age, before long both girls were dancing with each other in a black man sandwich it was actually quite horrific to watch. My point is in my opinion as much as you are never likely to find a relationship in a club as all you can really go on is looks and dance moves you must be able to tell who is a knob and who is less likely to be a knob. I looked around seeing a group of about 10 guys in a group all with fashionable haircuts and the latest cool t-shirt dancing like pricks to baggy trousers and then a guy who had obviously just come out with his girlfriend who seemed decent, if I can tell that can’t girls? Then there’s me obviously out with a group of girls, smartly turned out causing no one any problems getting a scowl of a random girl just for looking in her direction. Anyway that post probably makes me sound extremely uncool, old, unfashionable and grumpy but I’m not really just a little baffled by the female brain. Finally I will leave you with one last question. Why do girls scream? They see each other for the first time in a week/day/hour and they scream as they run toward each other kissing and hugging. The latest Rihanna song comes on at the club, all the girls scream!! WHY? You very rarely would find me screaming AHHHHHH every time I see one of the boys or yelping out with glee when Natalie Imbruglia comes on the radio. HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!