I'M STILL AVAILABLE FOR THE 2014 WORLD CUP

Well this has been a bad week, infact an awful week. But, thats something to talk about when I can face it at a later date. Now, when I am down in the dumps about something, I give myself a few options to try to raise my mood: comfort food, alcohol or watching sport from the 1970s and 1980s. Now the comfort food thing I tend to do on a daily basis, a bottle of wine is hardly a rarity either, so that leaves me with the sport watching option.

It just so happens that tomorrow brings the start of another world cup tournament. As ever I have bought my

Panini Sticker Album

I still need 14 stickers to complete my collection but can't risk arrest by hanging outside any schools to do my 'swapsies'. The good news is that there are two people older than me in the album, the Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer and Lee Woon-Jae from South Korea. Incase you can't place the Korean fellow, he's the one with the basin haircut. Oh no hang on a minute.....that hasn't really narrowed it down.

Anyway, technically speaking IF England had picked me for their squad I wouldn't been have the oldest in the tournament so I am still in with a shout. Besides,

Dino Zoff

Was 40 years old when he was part of the triumphant 1982 Italian team.

So, if England had have decided to pick me, I believe this is the kind of player I would have been. I would like to think I would have had hair like

Carlos Valderrama

although if truth be known, it would be more like

Grzegorz Lato

I would have worn 'Budgie Smugglers' that I believe would have made me look like

Zico

I would definitely have scored goals like

Arie Haan

Or

Igor Belanov




And if I scored a goal, even if it was in training, I would celebrate like
Marco Tardelli


Anyway Mr Capello, I will be only 39 at the time of the next world cup, a full year younger than that Zoff fella, so don't be shy, give me a tinkle.

TIME TO FINALLY GET FIT

There's always an excuse; too tired, too miserable, too happy, too rainy, too cold, too warm. It's not that I don't know what exercises to do or what to eat or not eat, I'm just too lazy and I like food and drink too much. End of. I joined a gym in Stockholm I think four months ago. Technically speaking I have been there, although admittedly only to sign up for membership. I suppose that visit did burn some calories, after all there were around 12 steps down to the reception and then I had to do a few 'reps' with one of their pens.

Maybe the only answer is to get a personal trainer? Seeing as I live in Sweden and would be trying to get a trainer in a SATS gym in the city, I can envisage two scenarios, both with the same ending:

1) The trainer ends up being some Swedish angelic 20 year old female, who is quite frankly embarassed and disgusted to be associated with me walking round the gym in my:

shorts that are arguably one size too small


2) A 6 foot 6 inch Swedish triathlete and ex-viking who I take an immediate dislike to and spend the entire session plotting ways to get revenge after he laughs at

the dumbbells I choose for my workout


Either way, I predict I turn up once and then make poor excuses for the next two sessions and then move house and change phone number so they can never contact me again.

Now, what might work for me on the personal training front is hiring RICHARD SIMMONS, a well respected work-out guru from the 1970s and 1980s. The man oozes inspiration as far as I can tell.

Richard Simmons


And if I am unable to get hold of his telephone number, I can always start with

his dvd

THE SWEDISH POSEIDON ADVENTURE

When I was young disaster movies were all the rage. Such classics as:

The Poseidon Adventure


The Towering Inferno


Airport 1975


...to name but three. A film wasn't a good film unless

Charlton Heston


was somehow, against all the odds, managing to land a plane on a runway barely big enough to stick a postage stamp on to JUST in the nick of time.

Anyway, I work for a large company in Stockholm with a large staff canteen. Every lunchtime, well I say lunchtime but a fair few Swedes decide to eat their lunch at 10:30. However, that aside, once the proverbial

lunch time bell


goes at around 11:30am, then the real action begins. The only way I can describe this to anyone who hasn't seen the daily ritual is as follows.. Imagine new years eve in Times Square New York. Suddenly, unannounced,

Elvis


pops up on the roof of the MTV building with a microphone. He announces he didn't die afterall AND better still, he is planning an impromtu concert for the first 200 people in the queue starting NOW. Then and only then can one begin to imagine what the rush for the subsidised canteen food is like.

Now don't get me wrong, the food is fine, a pretty wide selection and all cooked to a decent standard. Sure, it can be a bit repetitive at times but you basically can't knock it. So this brings me back to my opening gambit. When that lunchtime bell goes, it is suddenly PRISON RULES. Every man for himself and women and children to the back, unless they're prepared to

ruck and maul


If one dares to take a relaxed stroll down to the canteen without realising it is a rizzla paper past 11:30 then what you will see is straight out of a scene from

The Poseidon Adventure


Some people are particularly hungry:


Some people just aren't up to it physically:


And some happy souls are first in line and get themselves a bucketful of the most sumptuous meatballs:

PUBLIC TRANSPORT SLEEPERS

I'll admit it, I'm one of them. Maybe its something we all have inside us from when we were babies. Our parents would try to get us to fall asleep for hours and if all their tricks didn't work, they would play their joker and stuff us in the car to be driven round the block and we would instantaneously slump into a coma. Well I am still the same; plane, train or automobile. It starts off with heavy eyelids, stage two i like to call 'the stevie wonder head' , stage three is leaning on whoever is sitting close to me and then please see above for stage four. I've fallen asleep when the dentist is drilling my teeth and even yesterday during an MRI scan when I was supposed to lay still, I woke up with a jump and kicked the inside of the scanner and part of it had to be done again. Sometimes I wish I lived in Tokyo where I would be admired for my ability to fall asleep faster than a puppy.