More time lapse astro photography

A very cool video here 

Mario Balotelli

The majority of my friends know my views on football, which I think is one of the dullest games known to man. How you can watch 90 minutes of mediocrity which result in a 1-0 win for some bunch of grossly over-paid egos and think it was great entertainment is beyond me. I also think that the majority of footballs are prissy, over indulged children. 

However, every now and again along comes someone who is so extreme and out there that its real rock n roll. That man is Mario Balotelli 

Last week Balotelli managed to burn his own house down whilst setting fireworks off from his bathroom window at 1am. He then went on to score two goals against Man Utd the next day. 

A quick investigation into this gem of a man revealed this, which is a great introduction to the man and his talents. Even if you hate football it's worth 30 seconds to watch. There is mountains more on youtube.

Roy Fitz sent me this great A-Z

 A  is for AC Milan. If you're a football player for Inter Milan, what's the most intelligent thing you can possibly do? That's right! You parade around on  national  television wearing the shirt of your club's bitter rivals, AC Milan!

B is for bib.

C  is  for  Camorra.  Balotelli is suspected by many to have links with The Camorra  -  a  criminal organisation very similar to The Mafia - because he was  given  a  guided  tour  around  notoriously violent areas of Naples by mobsters. He claims not to have known that they were mobsters at the time.

D  is for derby. Manchester Utd 1-6 Manchester City. Mario Balotelli scored twice  as City handed Utd their heaviest defeat in Premier League history - something the fans won't soon forget

E  is  for ego. "There's only one player that is a little stronger than me: Messi. All of the others are behind me." - see N for a follow up.

F  is  for  fireworks. Mario is extremely safety conscious when it comes to fire  safety. He would never do something irresponsible like - I don't know -shoot fireworks from his bathroom window! See Q for a follow up.

G is for generosity. Mario Balotelli has regularly been spotted handing out

£20 notes to passers-by. See H for a follow up. 

H  is  for  homeless. After winning £25,000 in a casino, Balotelli handed a homeless  man  £1,000  in  cash.  When asked why, he said it was because he liked his ginger dreadlocks and beard. 

I  is  for  impound. Balotelli has reportedly had his white Maserati sports car  impounded  27  times whilst racking up a staggering £10,000 in parking fines. 

J  is  for  Jenny  Thompson.  The  prostitute linked to Wayne Rooney in the media.  Balotelli reportedly saw her in a Manchester restaurant (See, Tevez

-  Manchester  does have restaurants) and started chanting "ROONEY!

ROONEY!ROONEY!" at the top of his voice. 

K  is  for  karma.  Mario  Balotelli's  back-heeled goal attempt against LA Galaxy  landed  him  in  hot  water with Roberto Mancini. He was subbed off instantly.  Balotelli  claimed  that he only attempted the back-heeled goal because he thought he was offside. 

L  is  for  Lothario.  Balotelli reportedly shouted at a 'wannabe WAG' in a restaurant.  With  food  falling  from  his mouth he told her to come over.

Unbelievably,  she came over. He handed her his phone and told her to store her number in it. Even more unbelievably, she did it. She then left without either of them saying another word. Who says romance is dead? 

M is for marmite. You either love him or you hate him. 

N   is   for   Nicklas  Bendtner  syndrome.  Balotelli  suffers  from  what

psychologists  call  "Nicklas Bendtner syndrome" - Mario genuinely believes he's the best player the world has ever seen.

O  is  for open top bus. When Man City won the FA cup, Balotelli reportedly said  he'd  only  go  on  the open top bus parade if he could take his dog, Lucky, on board with him. His request was denied. 

P  is for passenger seat. Mario Balotelli was pulled over by police shortly after  moving  to  Manchester  because he was driving round with £25,000 in cash  on  his passenger seat. When they asked him why he had it, he laughed and replied "because I can." 

Q  is for question. Who's the best man to front a firework safety campaign?

Answer  -  The  man  who set his £3million mansion on fire, with fireworks, just two days before fronting the campaign.

R is for role-model. Balotelli is the ideal role-model for kids everywhere.

Whether  he's  throwing darts, setting off fireworks indoors or abusing the general public, Mario's behaviour is always top-notch!

S  is  for  show  off. When Balotelli won the European Golden Boy Trophy he bragged  that  he had never even heard of his closest rival, Jack Wilshere, but would find out who he was just so he could remind him that he came in 2 nd place. 

T  is  for tyre-track. My personal favourite of Mario's crazy haircuts. (It was hard to pick a favourite) 

U is for undoubted talent. Aged just 21 Balotelli has already scored nearly

50 professional goals and has won 7 major trophies, including the Champions League.

V  is  for  visitor.  Balotelli  once  took  his younger brother to visit a women's  prison.  When  questioned  by guards Mario said he and his brother were "just curious at the fact that it was a women's prison."

W is for "why always me?"

X  is  for x-ray. Balotelli has been sidelined several times throughout his career due to recurring knee injuries.

Y  is  for youth team. Balotelli was once found guilty of throwing darts at members  of the Man City youth team. His excuse? "I got bored and wanted to pass some time."

Z  is  for  zoom.  Following  Man  City's  6-1  win over Man Utd, Balotelli reportedly  drove  around  Manchester  high-fiving City fans out of his car window.  I'm  not  sure about the validity of this story, but let's face it it does sound like something he'd do.

Wednesday Movie on Friday

Some great cliff jumping from Grant in Bermuda - not sure a cliff jumping festival would ever really take off in Scotland or Norway - maybe its the weather

Friday Joke - Steve Jobs

Twenty years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Jonny Cash
Now in 2011 we have no jobs, no cash and no hope
____________________________________________________

And our favourite news site sums it up nicely here 

Finally not directly related to the demise of the great Apple guru but in a similar vain

Wednesday Movie - some geology

Fairly awesome movie of a cliff in Cornwall collapsing
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-15250554

All a bit quite on the blogging front at the moment.
Having huge problems with access to internet courtesy of BT, BTFON and BTopenzone
New service provider  on Monday and then I hopefully never have to think about BT again
Normal service will resume then

Wednesday Movie

Are the modern generation spoilt?
This guy thinks so and I tend to agree

BT – The Saga Continues

In our last thrilling instalment…

...our heroes were living in near third world conditions without phone or internet for almost three months. The stress was beginning to show and there was some cursing and even threats to assault Maureen Lipmann with one of Sadam’s missing nuclear weapon. Now the saga continues, but will it result in a satisfactory conclusion? Will our heroes get back on line? Will BT manage to salvage the last traces of their once glorious brand from the gutters of Bangalore?  Or is it game over for the company that once supplied telecom services to an empire?

Dear BT – Part 2

I am very unhappy to have to write to you again. Last time I wrote a very nice man called Daniel, promised that your customer service would call me back in 48 hours but of course they didn’t. A rude woman from Newcastle then told me I should be happy to wait 5 days – so I resigned myself to other week scrounging internet access from coffee shops and friends.  Little did we know, it was about to get worse, in fact at this point we didn’t imagine that it could get worse. So naïve!

So while we were waiting for somebody in the complaints department to bother to do their job, the overzealous Nazis in the billing department went into my bank account and extracted £155, without notification and without any justification. Which in my book makes it theft. At this point I can not begin to tell you how angry I was. I was so mad that I waited the weekend before calling to, dare I say, complain. The women I spoke to in billing wasted another twenty minutes of my life (and my mobile phone credit) before saying that if I ordered broadband then you would credit me the £155. My £155, the one that you stole from me.

Fuck me! There are warlords in Somalia who could learn from your techniques. Out of the blue you cut off my phone and internet, then when I asked to be reconnected you tortured me for 2 months and finally when I opted to go elsewhere you went into my bank, took money from me and said I could only have it back if I buy services from you. THIS MUST BE ILLEGAL?  Its extortion!

So I had to go back to work and the women in the “appear incompetent whilst surreptitiously  robbing peoples bank accounts” department promised to call me back after 5pm, which of course she didn’t.  At least at this point we were not expecting a call so we were not disappointed.  Low expectations are the key to dealing with you and your organization.

Then three days later, just as we had pretty much given up ever getting this resolved we got a call from a man in the complaints department called Daniel. Daniel appeared like a Knight on a white charger out of the murkey gloom of incompetence and apathy that is your organization. I knew things were going to be different with him because when he called he already knew what was going on. He showed a real understanding of the issues, he shared my frustrations and he offered sensible solutions. He has organiased  monies credited to our account. He arranged for engineers to come out and tinker with lines, he didn’t offer us any more wireless routers. He didn’t try and sell us more broadband, he just did his job politely and efficiently. We love Daniel and if this gets sorted it will be solely down to him. Your organization is a disgrace and I humbly suggest that you need to get introspective and make some pretty substantial changes. And if you think I am alone in my woes I suggest you Google “BT customer service” and see what you find. With the exception of the pages you have put up there, it’s not a pretty story

Some statistics from our experience

11 – the number of times we have called your costumer services department

6  – the number of times people have promised to call back and haven’t

5 the number of wireless routers that we have been sent or offered  

3.5 the number of months that we have now been without a phone or broadband line

96 – the number of café lattes I have had to buy and drink in order to access the wireless internet in the coffee shop around the corner

5 – the approximate number of years that the stress has reduced by life expectancy by

150,000 the approximate number of people in your organization

149,999 the approximate number of people in your organization that are useless

So we wait in eager anticipation of Monday morning when the engineer comes around to install a new line and then billing department give back the money they stole. When (if) that happens we will be very happy to say

Thank you Daniel and goodbye BT