The Soft Bulletin

If you’re a football fan, then you will probably have spent a good number of hours in recent weeks glued to the telly watching Euro 2008.

Certainly, I’d normally be taking more than a passing interest – despite the fact that England obviously failed dismally to qualify.

As it happens though, I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve not even managed to see a single game.

This is in stark contrast to my great friend JHH – who has actually been out in Austria enjoying the action first hand. And being a sports journalist, the lucky sod has actually been getting paid to be there!

Specifically, JHH has been out in Austria working for Sky Sports.

As part of his duties, he’s been doing a daily blog from a spectator’s perspective – and it’s a cracking read.

If any of you are interested in reading an example of JHH’s stuff, then click here.

Of course, though Sky Sports have never offered to pay me to do it, I myself am someone who enjoys putting finger to keyboard and uploading my own ramblings to the web.

Indeed, the explosion of blogging in recent years is something that I find fascinating. Of course, JHH has been doing his Euro 2008 blog as part of his job – however, I also have various friends who blog regularly for the same reason I do… namely, for the pure enjoyment of it.

In particular, my pal Mick Ruddock is a man blessed with a tremendous vocabulary, and always writes really entertaining stuff; while, my brother Al has been doing a blog for at least five or six years.

In fact, I think he may have actually invented the concept of the blog!

Probably my favourite blog at the moment though is one that my friends the Smiths are doing.

 No. not the Smiths as in Morrissey and co – rather, I refer to James and Tara Smith, a married couple who are great pals of mine.

Now up until January of this year, James and Tara were living in Nottingham – however, they then jumped on a plane… in order to fulfil a long-held shared dream of starting a new life together in Australia.

The two of them have settled in Melbourne, and have been doing a blog about what life is like for a British couple trying to settle into life ‘Down Under’.

It makes for a really interesting read – not only because of the subject matter, but also became James happens to be a journalist… and a very talented one at that.

I must say, I’m never usually the sort of person who tends to get too sentimental whenever significant dates in the calendar year come round. And when I say ‘significant’ dates, I’m talking about anniversaries of things that have happened in the past.

For a huge number of football fans for instance, April 15^th is a day that will always be associated with the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

Now I have a friend who’s a Liverpool fan who was there at Hillsborough – and nearly two decades on, he still makes a point on April 15^th every year to take some time out, in order to reflect upon the events that led to the tragic death of 96 people.

This year in fact, April 15^th saw my friend actually drive down to Hillsborough to go and spend some time there quietly contemplating what happened that fateful afternoon 19 years ago. A keen blogger like myself, he actually write a very poignant account of his trip down to Sheffield – if you’re interested, this can be viewed by clicking here.

But why am I telling you about this?

Well like thousands of other people up and down the country – whether they were actually at the match or, like myself, watching the horror unfold on the live television coverage - I too was deeply affected by what happened at Hillsborough.

Yet every year when April 15^th comes around… well, to be honest, I don’t tend to find myself feeling any differently about it than I would really on any other day of the year.

I guess I just don’t really ‘do’ anniversaries.

Or at least I thought that was the case!

For on Monday morning, as I was stood in my classroom at work writing the date on the whiteboard, it suddenly struck me that the date – June 16^th – was actually quite a significant day.

Or at least it could’ve been!

Yes, had certain things worked out a bit differently for me over the last few years, then yesterday would’ve been my first wedding anniversary!

Now fear not, this blog isn’t about to descend into a load of self-pitying guff in which I bemoan the wretched state of my lovelife.

Far from it.

Okay, so I can’t deny that I was gutted for a short time when things didn’t work out between myself and the girl I was going to get married to.

However, one thing I think I happen to believe I’m quite good at is picking myself up and dusting myself off whenever life deals you a cruel kick in the bollocks. And with all the things I’ve gotten up to over the last couple of years – from travelling round the world, to changing careers and becoming a teacher - I really do believe that I’ve reaped the rewards from putting on a brave face and simply doing my best to get on with life.

That said, from the moment of I the significance of Monday dawned on me, I found my thoughts regularly drifting throughout the day into idle ruminations as to what might have been.

Still, though I never managed to make it beyond having a deposit paid on a venue and Chas & Dave booked as evening entertainment – true, I’m not making that up! - I’m pleased to report that lots of my friends are not having the same trouble in making it to the altar.

I suppose it’s an ‘age’ thing, but over the last five years or so I’ve been to more weddings than you could shake a brown pole at.

My next one is in a couple of weeks’ time, when my mate Andy gets married to the lovely Kat in Norwich.

It should be a great day – though before the wedding, there was the small matter this weekend of Andy’s stag do, which took place this weekend just gone.

Now Andy is quite an ‘outdoorsy’ sort of person – and as such, it was no great surprise when he decided his last weekend of freedom would involve going camping and taking part in all sorts of strenuous activities!

The plan was for everyone to assemble in Manchester on the Friday afternoon for a spot of snowboarding on an artificial slope there; before heading up to the Lake District for several nights’ camping, where we’d get the opportunity to have a go at various activities ranging from mountain-biking to kayaking.

Unfortunately, the fact that you can’t really get time off work outside of school holidays when you’re a teacher meant that I had to give the Friday snowboarding session a miss.

Instead, I decided to head up on the Saturday - driving straight up to the Lake District to join Andy and the rest of his mates, and then spending one night with them before driving back again on the Sunday.

Now I was actually quire excited by the prospect of going to the Lake District – as for my sins, I’d never been before. And I’m not sure why really - as it’s a place I’ve long wanted to go and check out.  I guess it’s simply a case of having never gotten round to it…

That said, my excitement as I hammered up the M6 was tempered with lashings of anxiety – an anxiety that I always find myself afflicted by whenever I’m going on a stag do. Not being your typical alpha-male, you see, I sometimes find it quite hard work having to spend any significant amount of time in exclusively male company.

And a series of text message reports I’d been receiving the previous night from my brother Al - who is also friends with Andy – hadn’t made me feel a great deal better better!

In particular, Al had unleashed into my inbox a frankly revelation about one of Andy’s friends called Mike.

Now there’s no delicate way of putting this… but Mike had gotten so drunk that he’d passed out. And as he lay prone, several other members of the party had decided to entertain themselves by getting their cocks out - and slapping him round the face with them!

In the middle of a packed pub, no less!

I naturally started to have visions of spending my entire time in the Lakes enduring what sounded like the rugby tour from hell!

I needn’t have feared though - as happily, Andy’s friends, most of whom I hadn’t met before, turned out to be a top bunch of lads.

Of all the outdoor activities that had been arranged, the only one I did was the mountain biking. This saw a group of about six of us each get given a mountain bike and go off with a guide on a ten-mile ride around the local hills.

Though some of the hills were quite hard work, cycling proved to be a great way to experience the local scenery. And given that we were all resplendent in matching stag do T-shirts, it probably looked to passers-by like a really shit version of Tour de France – albeit one where the competing cyclists vote in unison to stop off at a pub for a pint some two thirds of the way round the route!

The T-shirts in question are well worthy of mention actually - as brilliantly, best man Andrei had decided to make reference to something that the groom and I have in common..Yes, like me, Andy has a massive love of the mighty Nottingham Forest – and so ‘Drei had gone to the effort of having names of a different Forest legend printed on the back of each of the shirts that were dished out to myself and the other guys present!

Given that Andy, myself and Al were the only three Forest fans present, I think we were the only three who fully appreciated the brilliance of this. The greats chosen though ranged from Marlon Harewood to Stuart Pearce to Wes Morgan! And I’m very pleased to report that I personally managed to bag the legendary Brian Rice..!

On a less happy note however, Andy, as the groom, had been bought Derby County shirt to wear – Derby of course being Forest’s deadly rivals.

To his absolute credit though, Mr Cross was having none of it, and refused to wear it. In fact, as I left the Lake District to head back to Nottingham on Sunday morning, bidding farewell to all the others – who were staying another night – plans were afoot for a sacrificial burning on the campfire!

So what else happened on the stag do?

Well naturally, there was lots of drunkenness. And I’m pleased to report that I made my own contribution to making Andy’s weekend memorable by going to great lengths to provide him with the opportunity to indulge in his favourite post-pub snack – a parmo!

Now a lot of you probably won’t know what a parmo is – so allow me to explain…

Basically, Andy did his degree some years ago up in Middlesbrough – and up there, the parmo is a revered local delicacy.

It’s basically deep fried chicken in béchamel sauce, with shitloads of cheese on the top.  Andy pretty much lived on the things when he was a student – and so having been up in the north-east a few weeks ago, I’d decided to buy an authentic Middlesbrough parmo, freeze it… and then bring it along to the stag do!

There was however one slight problem.

Yes – how exactly was I going to defrost and reheat the thing when we were staying on a campsite?!

There was only one thing for it. Yes, when getting my car loaded up ready to head off to the lakes, I found myself packing the usual things – tent, sleeping bag, torch etc…

And then, having been on the website for the campsite where we were staying and discovered that it had a utility room with electricity, I also decided to pack… yes, my microwave!

Now taking a microwave camping is admittedly a bit ridiculous.

However, it meant that I was able to present a very hungover Andy with an authentic parmo for his breakfast on the Sunday morning – and I have to say, the look on his face was absolutely priceless..!

So then, cheers to Andy and all the boys for an excellent weekend! If you’re reading this on my blog site, The Soft Bulletin, then my photos from the weekend will be getting uploaded pretty soon.

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