Personal

My verdict on Alex McLeish

Stuart Radcliffe — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 10:12:00 GMT

Find it here: David Murray's Loyalty Overdose

My delicious link roll

Stuart Radcliffe — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 14:13:00 GMT

I have added this to the sidebar.

Thanks to A VC

Local Planet Christmas Night Out

Stuart Radcliffe — Sun, 19 Dec 2004 17:25:00 GMT

http://mail.localplanet.co.uk/Blogs/stuart/gallery/36.aspx

Miss Saigon at the King's

Stuart Radcliffe — Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:40:00 GMT

Penny's got a new hobby. When we went to London we took in a couple of West End musicals, the first we had seen, and enjoyed them a lot more than we expected. Penny has decided that this is something that she is missing and has since been frantically buying tickets for various theatre productions. I'm not invited to all of these but was to Tuesday night's production of Miss Saigon at the King's Theatre in Glasgow.

The King's is my idea of what a theatre should be like. Lots of intricate detail, four levels of balcony and velvet (or some velvet like substance) lined seats. It is also the only theatre that I ever went to as a child. My father's work (BOC back then) would run a trip to the pantomime at the King's every Christmas and for me, this was a magical experience. It was something completely different from TV or even the cinema. It was like being part of a film with all of the senses engaged: the feel of the seats, the taste of the ice cream, the distinctive smell of the place, the audience participation. To some extent it still seems like that.

Penny and I were both impressed by the shows in the West End and were probably not expecting anything as good. We were pleasantly surprised, though. The production was professional, the performers talented (and very sexy) and the King's just blows away the London theatres for atmosphere (not to mention convenience).

Apparently the set for this show had been redesigned as the original required a very large stage. You wouldn't have know it though. The choreography and setting were brilliant with some spectacular lighting effects.

I couldn't really fault any of the performances. Some of them stood out though. Jon-Jon Briones was fantastic as the slimy "Engineer", with a tremendous voice and a very insightful performance. The role of "Kim" looked to be particularly demanding and Miriam Valmores Marasigan played it with energy and enthusiasm. She also has a lovely voice.

The show itself is pretty good with much to keep you entertained. Or, in Penny's case, crying throughout the show.

Making the Difference

Stuart Radcliffe — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 11:37:00 GMT

A few months ago, on the back of Celtic's seventh straight victory over Rangers, I was bemoaning the fact that Rangers couldn't beat Celtic and pointing out some research showing the negative mental health problems that this could induce. Little did I know that the ability to change the situation was in my own hands the whole time.

In the good old 9-in-a-row days I was a season ticket holder at Ibrox and would regularly see us beating Celtic and generally being pretty successful. Under financial constraints I gave my ticket up and we just were not as successful. I missed the games and each year would consider buying a season ticket before deciding against it. This year in particular I had considered it and talked to Penny about it. She told me to go for it but I still felt that I had other financial priorities.

Well, a few weeks ago I, again, became a season ticket holder at Ibrox. The first game was against Aberdeen. The same Aberdeen that had beaten Celtic a few days before. This was the first meaningful league game that Celtic had lost at Parkhead under Martin O'Neil and Aberdeen were vying with Rangers for second place in the league so it was looking like a tough game for Rangers. I, though, had a "feeling". I "knew" that we would not only win the game but would score a few goals as well. This duly came to pass and the bears mauled the sheep and ran out 5-0 winners.

I jokingly suggested that I had made all the difference. A much bigger test was to come in the next game. Celtic were due to arrive at Ibrox in the league cup and would be going for their 8th straight victory. As with many other times over the past few years, Rangers dominated the game without either turning their pressure into a reasonable number of chances or scoring from the chances that they did create. Just as thoughts were turning to the possibility of extra time, Celtic did their usual headed goal from a corner.

The heads could easily have went down and indeed for the next five minutes Celtic were clearly on top. Rangers then raised their game and suddenly were turning their possession into chances. It seemed like only a matter of time until they scored and indeed when the goal came their could have been a couple of others afterwards before the final whistle. In extra time, Celtic were looking to hang on but Rangers again managed to pierce their defence. The run had ended. The bubble was burst. The hoodoo was gone. I was feeling better about life.

The Celtic fans came out with their usual excuses about injuries and Masonic conspiracies and I thought that maybe with the injury thing they had a point. A couple of their players had just returned from injury (unlike say, Alex Rae) and they were missing their talismanic cheating, diving, fouling (etc., etc.) demon, Chris Sutton.

Well, yesterday they had the chance to put that right as they came to Ibrox for the second time in 10 days. This time with what appeared to be a fully fit squad including the above mentioned evil genius.

During the first ten minutes, they did in fact appear to have the best of the game and should maybe even have taken the lead. Rangers then got their game going and scored a couple of goals, ironically from set pieces. The first from a Novo penalty. The second a headed goal from Prso. This had come from a free kick, amazingly given against Sutton, and even more amazingly the referee broke every rule in the book by actually booking Sutton for a bookable offence.

At this point, some of the Celtic players lost the rag and seemed to have great difficulty with the concept of losing to Rangers. Camara was the first and most obvious offender. After a full bloodied sliding challenge from Rae had put the ball out for a corner to Celtic, Camara grabbed Rae, pulled him back and then grabbed him by the throat. He was surely lucky to stay on the field at this point. The Celtic players seemed to take it in turns all day to try and wind up Rae but most of the time he showed admirable constraint.

This was quickly followed by Thompson reacting to a foul by Lovenkrands by rushing over to him and lunging his head towards him. Now, despite the fact that their was as much contact as the head-but for which Duncan Ferguson was run out of Scotland by the SFA and the Scottish Press, Lovenkrands did himself no honour by collapsing in a heap. The referee did the right thing by booking Lovenkrands for this reaction but was possibly slightly harsh in sending Thompson off. At this point there was a multi-player pushing and shouting guddle during which a number of players could have been booked.

The next incident saw Camara, amazingly staying on the field again despite having a retaliatory kick at Vignal directly in front of the assistant referee. No action was taking and Camara stayed on the field until half time when he was intelligently substituted by O'Neil.

At half-time, the rumour spread around the ground that Rae had been sent off in the tunnel going off the field but with the re-emergence of the teams after half time this was obviously not the case. As it turned out, there had been an incident in the tunnel when Lovenkrands was kicked and injured, apparently out of the site of the officials, and had to be substituted.

In the second half, Celtic came out determined to get back into the game by whatever means necessary and a few meaty tackles mostly managed to escape bookings. It looked like Rangers were the more likely team at this point though and there was the real danger of a rout.

Then Sutton made a brilliant tactical move. He deliberately got himself a second yellow card by repeatedly handling the ball. This had the effect of reducing Celtic to 9 men, removing Celtic's least effective attacker and taking the urgency out of Rangers play. Rangers contended themselves with controlling the ball and the most entertaining thing in the second half was thinking of reasons as to how Neil Lennon managed to stay on the field.

Lennon had obviously lost it and some of his "tackling" was a little bit overenthusiastic. Lennon is often treated in the media as a victim of sectarian abuse and at Ibrox there may well be some of that. However, he is certainly not booed only at Ibrox, and I find it difficult to believe that he is booed at Easter Road for sectarian reason. He really doesn't help himself. For most of the game he was ritually booed in much the same way as he is at most grounds. In much the same as competitive players like Ricksen are booed at away grounds. Then, midway through the second half, he starts to get involved with the Rangers fans and with Alex McLeish. He then took this a step further by spitting on what appeared to be a Rangers scarf that someone had thrown towards him from the Copeland Road stand. This didn't really endear him to the fans and they spent the remaining minutes of the game singing songs about his solo sexual practices.

O'Neil's gesture at the end when he grabbed Lennon and strode with him off to greet the disconsolate Celtic fans just looked pathetic. It may, though, have been a smart move from O'Neil to keep him out of the tunnel until the Rangers players were safely out of the way. I wonder who kicked Lovenkrands.

Investors In People

Stuart Radcliffe — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:48:00 GMT

Local Planet has been re-accredited with Investors In People. Well done to everyone involved, and Paul in particular.

Quantum Acquires Certance

Stuart Radcliffe — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 07:51:00 GMT

Quantum has purchased the former Tape division of Seagate for approximately $60 million.

As a result of the Certance acquisition, Quantum will add Travan, DDS/DAT and LTO Ultrium-format technology products to its current portfolio of DLTtape® drives, as well as a DAT-72 autoloader and a disk-to-disk-to-tape appliance for small and medium-size businesses (SMB).

Hopefully, there will not be any major employment implications; particularly at the Irvine Certance facility.

Press release on Yahoo.

Another exam down

Stuart Radcliffe — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 18:19:00 GMT

Passed Exam 70–229: Designing and Implementing Databases with Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 Enterprise Edition.

Now on to Exam 70–310: Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework.

Unsolicited Text Messages

Stuart Radcliffe — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 18:15:00 GMT

Since 11 December 2003 it is unlawful in the UK to send an unsolicited SMS marketing message to an individual.

If you would like to complain about the receipt of such a message please contact the Office of the Information Commissioner. If the message contains a premium rate number contact ICSTIS.

The Information Commissioner's Office
	Address	Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF
	Tele	01625 545745
	Fax	01625 524510
	email	mail@ico.gsi.gov.uk
	Web	www.dataprotection.gov.uk

	ICSTIS, (Independent Commission for the Supervision of Telephone Standards)
	Address	4 Maguire Street London SE1 2NQ

	Tele	020 7940 7474 (9:00am - 5:00pm, Monday to Friday)
		Please note that this line does not deal with enquiries about premium rate numbers on your bill.

London Calling

Stuart Radcliffe — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:38:00 GMT

Saturday was the 40th anniversary of my parents (Archie and Anne Radcliffe) wedding. A special occasion on which their children (my sister, Sharon, and myself) felt it right to celebrate with them in a special manner. So we dragged them down to London for the weekend and forced them to enjoy themselves.

My Mum and Dad and Penny and myself flew to London on Friday morning on the wonderfully spacious Easyjet Glasgow to Stanstead flight. Rather bizarely, in the taxi to the airport, the driver asked where we were going and when we said London, he suggested that we would be staying at the Rubens Hotel; just a guess!

We arrived at The Rubens at the Palace where we met Sharon and Steve and went for some lunch at the pub across the road. We then went for a walk around Buckingham Palace and through Hyde Park as far as the Diana Memorial Fountain.

We came back to the hotel and had an early dinner at the Old Masters Restaurant before heading out to the Prince of Wales Theatre to see Mama Mia. This was a great laugh. It was the first stage musical I had ever been at and I was thoroughly impressed. Highly recommended.

On Saturday we had a full day. We started of with a buffet breakfast in the hotel before heading down to the Thames. We went on the spectacular if, for me, at least, slightly vertigo inducing, London Eye. We followed this up with a river boat cruise through some of the more unpleasant weather of the weekend.

After that we headed back towards the West End to have some lunch. Then it was to the matinee showing of Jailhouse Rock at the Piccadilly Theatre. Again, I was very much impressed and Mum and Dad knew all the songs and enjoyed it very much.

We then all headed back to the hotel for a much needed rest before dinner. For the anniversary dinner we stayed in the hotel but this time went to the luxurious Library Restaurant. We had a delicious meal including possibly the best red wine I have ever had. A great night rounded off by us all retiring to Mum and Dad's suite where we looked at some of the slides from Sharon and Steve's holiday in Canada.

It was a great weekend that we all very much enjoyed and my thanks go to Sharon for organising it all.