A blog entry by Rich Fisher

It seems my blog entries are becoming a bit like buses.

Yes, nothing for ages - but then all of a sudden, two come along in quick succession!

So what to write?

Well, apart from having said a few words about the Brian Clough statue that I helped raise money for, which was finally unveiled at the beginning of November, I haven’t really said a whole lot on here about what I’ve been up to over the last couple of months.

To be fair, it has largely been a case of work work work.

However, there has been a bit of play as well.

If you’re reading these words on my blog at www softbulletin.co.uk, then you can see photographic evidence of some of what I’ve been up to courtesy of a recent photo album that I’ve uploaded - titled 'Various shenanigans from the last few months'.

If, on the other hand, you’re reading this on Facebook – well, simply click here to be redirected.

For some reason, the photos appear in a fairly jumbled up order. Here however, in chronological order, is a bit of a round-up of all the things that I’ve been up to…

1)      A trip to London

The October half-term school holiday saw me pop down to London for a few days – and a fun time it was too!

The main purpose of my trip was to catch up with my friends Charles and Binni, who are living down in the big smoke. With impeccable timing though, it just so happened that the my visit also coincided with Nottingham Forest being in town – with the mighty Reds having an away game at Crystal Palace.

Rather than getting to London by car or train then as I normally would, I actually made the trip down on this occasion via a minibus organised by a gang of lads I know who were going to the match. Amusingly, this was a minibus belonging to a certain charitable organisation, which one of the guys had outrageously blagged use of for the day under the pretence that he’d be using it to take some old people for a day out!

Or something…

Now to say the least, Forest have not had the best of starts to the current footy season. However, the trip to Crystal Palace was a rare silver lining amid the prevailing dark clouds, with the Reds recording their first away win of the season.

For me though, the most interesting aspect of the game was not the taste of victory – but rather, the fact that it involved me subjecting someone to their first ever English football match, what with me having dragged Binni along with me.

Binni is actually from Australia, and is currently spending a year in England. Naturally, her introduction to Forest was a life-changing experience!

Binni, Charles and me also spent the next couple of days hanging out and catching up, an enjoyable time that was largely centred around quaffing copious amounts of wine and laughing about the fact that everyone on the planet looks like Pete Townshend from The Who when they gaze into the back of a spoon.

I also fulfilled a long-held ambition to visit the famous London cheese shop Paxton and Whitfield, where I ended up purchasing a range of luxury cheeses - including one made by none other than former Blur bass player Alex James, who’s now a dairy farmer!

Random..!

2)      The funniest evening ever

The evening of Friday 7^th November was a memorable one – largely because I laughed possibly more than I have ever laughed on any evening before or since!

It was always a nailed on cert to be an evening of great hilarity – as my mate JHH and me were off to see the Mighty Boosh live show at Nottingham Arena.

Amazing as it was though, the funniest part of the evening was nothing whatsoever to do with Vince Noir and Howard Moon.

JHH and me, you see, have a really good mate called Paul. We’ve all known each other for a decade, with the three of us having through being thrust together in halls of residence when we all started uni back in 1998.

And hilariously, our fix of teatime telly before we left the house to go off and see the Boosh involved Paul and four members of his extended family appearing on the TV quiz show ‘Eggheads’!

For the benefit of anyone who has never seen this show, it basically involves a group of five people – in this case Paul and co – going head-to-head in a quiz against a group of seriously clever bastards.

Brilliantly, Paul and co got off to a great start when his wife Betty heroically beat one of the ‘Eggheads’!

Alas though, this was as good as it got – with the Eggheads prevailing in all of the remaining rounds.

Still, top effort from Paul and co – or ‘Let’s Get Quizzical’, to use the team name they’d chosen for themselves!

And if you’ve never experienced watching one of your mates on a TV quiz show – seriously, it’s about as funny as things get in this life..!

3) Media whoring

I don’t seem to have been able to stay out of the media spotlight lately – having ended up appearing on both telly and radio in recent weeks.

My telly appearance occurred on ‘Children in Need’ night last month.

Every year you see for about the last five years, my brother Al and I have done our bit for Children in Need by giving up the evening to spend the evening at Boots The Chemists’ head office here in Nottingham, answering phones and take credit card donations.

Usually, a camera crew come along at some point in the evening to do a bit of filming for the local BBC news – and so it was this year that Al and me ended up standing like a pair of goons holding a giant cheque as a reporter stood in front of us explaining what was going on.

Tragically, I’d come straight from work… and so in my fleeting appearance on the goggle box, it was quite clear to viewers that I wearing a crappy pair of tracky bottoms that I’d been wearing to teach P.E. in earlier in the day!

Meanwhile, my second bit of media whoring was possibly the nearest I am ever going to get to an ‘Alan Partridge moment’ – yes, I somehow ended up doing a live radio interview on BBC Radio Norfolk!

This is came about a couple of days before Nottingham Forest’s recent home game against Norwich City. Basically, Radio Norfolk broadcast a weekly sports show where they always speak to a fan of whichever team Norwich are due to be playing next – and having contacted their BBC colleagues at Radio Nottingham to ask for contact details of a Forest fan capable of stringing a few words together, I ended up getting the call!

As it happens, I actually have a few friends who live in the Radio Norfolk catchment area, and – bless ‘er – my mate Rachel’s mum actually recorded my appearance. So if any of you would like to hear this monumental piece of broadcasting, just shout up..!

So that was my TV and radio appearances!

However, my best and most random recent piece of media whoring occurred just a couple of days ago when - much to my surprise – I discovered that a photograph of me appears in a booklet that comes with a new DVD that’s just come out!

The DVD in question is a film has been released by the organizers of the Mongol Rally – which, as most of you will know, is an annual odyssey that my mate Ed and I took part in this year.

The film actually tells the story of the 2007 Mongol Rally - so neither Ed or me actually appear in it.

However, inside the DVD case there's an eight-page pamphlet giving background information on the rally – and imagine my surprise when, upon flicking through this, I was suddenly confronted by a big photo of me spread across pages 6 and 7!

The photo in question was taken when Ed and me were driving through Kazakhstan – and it shows me sat in the driver’s seat of our car having s shave!

I’m guessing whoever put the pamphlet together must’ve cribbed the snap from the many that Ed and I have posted online – and it’s strange really, because I’d say it’s far from the best or most entertaining photo they could have chosen,

Still amusing though!

If any of you want to find out more about the DVD, you can get full details and even view a trailer by clicking here.

Oh, and yes - Ed and I are still hoping to unleash our own rally film at some stage. Watch this space..!

4) Schmoozing with celebs

Lastly, the last couple of months has also seen me do a fair bit of schmoozing with a few famous folk!

First of all, I’ve written already on this blog, in an entry that I posted back on 4^th November, about how I attended an ‘Evening with…’ type event at Nottingham’s Broadway cinema with Samantha Morton. 

I had intended to write a bit more about this event at some stage, as the locally-born actress proved to be a brilliantly entertaining speaker. 

However, the Nottingham Evening Post’s reporter who was present on the night probably summed up the evening much better than I could’ve done – and so rather than listen to me waffle on about it, I suggest you click here to read their report if you want to know more.

Broadway cinema has these ‘An evening with…’ type events quite regularly, and I actually went along to another one a few weeks ago with the actor Robert Carlyle.

Unlike Sam Morton – who was kind enough to share some advice with me about how to get the kids in my class at school more excited by drama – I didn’t actually get a chance to speak to Carlyle. Again though, he made for a really interesting speaker. I’m just a bit gutted that my mum, who I went with, never stuck her hand up and ask the question she’d been threatening to ask – namely ‘Why do you always look like you need a good wash and a good meal?’!

As well as Morton and Carlyle, meanwhile, recent weeks have also seen me have encounters with the author and comedian Tony Hawks, and the former Nottingham Forest legend and current Aston Villa manager Martin O’Neill!

If you’ve heard of Tony Hawks, then it’s likely to be through his best-known work – a book called ‘Round Ireland With a  Fridge’. As it says on the tin, the tome in question is an account of how Hawks hitch-hiked around the entire circumference of Ireland with a fridge - in order to win a bet!

It’s a brilliantly funny book, one I’ve recommended over the years to numerous people. Just one person who I’ve pointed towards it is my great friend Mikey B, who subsequently developed a minor obsession with Hawks.

But how did I end up meeting him?

Well, quite simply, he was in Nottingham recently to do a reading at Waterstones from him new book, and sign copies. I duly went along, and I’m pleased to report that he was a top bloke!

Indeed, Hawks even agreed to take my mobile and make a surprise phonecall to Mikey B to say hello.

Sadly, Mikey B didn’t answer, and so had to make do for an answerphone message – although to be fair, he does live in Malaysia… and so it would’ve been the early hours of the morning there due to the time difference!

Finally then, what of Martin O’Neill?

Well a few weeks ago, I attended a civic reception hosted by Nottingham City Council to celebrate the unveiling of the Brian Clough statue – and having been a key part of Cloughie’s all-conquering Forest team of the late 70s and early 80s, O’Neill was there as a special guest.

Again, as with Hawks and Morton, O’Neill proved to be an absolutely lovely person when I sidled over to have a chat with him. He even wrote a personal message to my class at school, which has subsequently been stuck up in pride of place on my classroom door..!

“So this is Christmas,” the great John Winston Lennon once famously opined.

“And what have you done?”

And, indeed, what have I done?

Well, as I sit and write these words on Christmas Eve, I like to think the lil’ Baby Jesus would actually be very proud of the effort I’ve been making to celebrate his birthday.

Because ever since I finished work on the 19^th, it feels like I’ve pretty much constantly been out on the lash!

Now you might think this is simply because I’m a bit of a pisshead. And to some degree, I wouldn’t deny that that is entirely true!

However, more than anything, I’d say my excessive boozing over the last few days is almost certainly yet another by-product of my recent career reinvention.

As most of you reading this will be aware, the last couple of years has seen me jack in my previous career in order to retrain and become a primary school teacher.

And it’s changed my life in all sorts of ways.

Some of these changes have been long since either embraced owholeheartedly, or grudgingly accepted.

However, it was only the other day, as I sat complemplating life whilst nursing a particularly hateful hangover, that it fully ocurred to me for the first time just how much the school calendar now influences the way I lead my life.

You see, my very existence is now pretty much timetabled to a fairly rigid structure of ‘six weeks on, one or two weeks off’ – give or take a few weeks here and there.

And the ‘six weeks on’ periods are ridiculously intense.

You work your fingers to the bone, you never quite switch off from thinking about your class… and despite your best efforts, you never quite manage to achieve what feels like a healthy work-life balance.

But hey, I’m not complaining – because the fact that you get 13 weeks’ holiday per year is more than adequate compensation.

It has taken me a while though to come round ro this way of thinking.

Strange as it may sound, I actually found the holidays quite hard to cope with when I first started out in teaching.

It was all a bit like stepping off a fast ride at the funfair. One minute you were spinning round like a whirling dervish – and yet all of a sudden you’d be stood still.

It was all quite disorientating - and rather than simply enjoying the luxury of actually having a bit of ‘me time’, I’d find myself pacing around restlessly, feeling like I should be doing something.

Over time though, I’ve managed to adjust. Yes, compromises have to be made during term-time. You don’t have the time to socialise as much as you used to be able to. And sometimes, when you DO have the time, you’re simply too bloody knackered!

But the holidays allow you to play catch-up – and I don't know if any of my erstwhile colleagues would confer with me on this, but to me it feels similar to what I imagine it must be like being a marine on shore leave.

You just end up going on a drunken rampage!

The last few days have certainly been fun, in lots of ways. It’s been great being able to stay up late drinking copious amounts of red wine, without having to worry about having to be up early the next day and deal with a room full of children.

And it’s been great having the time to go and meet up with friends for long lunches, instead of the usual running round like a blue-arsed fly getting prepared for your afternoon lessons, and hoping you’ll find a spare two mnutes somewhere to wolf down a sandwich.

And though this will sound terribly smug, it’s also great getting to sleep in late when you know that most of the rest of the country is still having to drag their arses out of bed to go to work!

All in all though, the best thing about the school holidays isn’t actually any of the above. No, it’s the fact that you have a bit of time to switch off and simply forget about work for a while.

I haven’t thought a jot about the job since the moment I clocked off at the end of the final day of term. Yes, I do have quite a bit of work to do before I start back on January 5^th – planning lessons for the new term and such-like.

However, I shan’t be troubling myself with that for a good few days yet. Not when there’s more wine to drink, mince pies to eat, and – hopefully – something-with-Dick-Van-Dyke-in-it on telly.

All that’s left for me to do now is to wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Let’s hope it’s a good one – without any fear…

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m absolutely sick of hearing people moaning about the so-called ‘credit crunch’ currently afflicting UK.

It’s something that’s been irritating me for quite some time now.

But what really narked me off was a story on local radio news the other week - where a reporter was dispatched to the streets of Nottingham to find out how ordinary people were surviving the credit crunch.

Now obviously, any form of media reporting has to be taken to some degree with a pinch of salt.

After all, any self-respecting journalist loves nothing more than whipping up a bit of hysteria over very little.

I know – I used to be one!

Nevertheless, some of the absolute shite spouted by some of the muppets who were given airtime on this particular news report that I happened to jear really had to be heard to be believed!

For instance, one guy was bleating about the fact that the credit crunch had affected him so badly that he hadn’t been able to afford to go on a foreign holiday this year.

My heart bleeds, mate…

Meanwhile, there was also some bint whinging about the fact that she was struggling to afford to keep her car running – and without her car, just how would she get her children to school every day?

With a bit of further probing from the journalist who was fronting the report, it turned out that this woman actually only lived about half a mile from her kids’ school.

Ever heard of walking?

Okay, so the harsh financial climate may have made life a little bit more tough for a lot of us.

But nevertheless, I do think some folk really need to get a grip and get a bit of perspective!

I mean, times may be tough here in the UK – however, in the grand scheme of things, those of us who live here are still pretty damn lucky compared to a lot of people in the world.

The so-called plight we face here is pretty insignificant really compared to the hardships faced by millions of people in developing countries. In India, for example, there are millions of babies born every year who are pretty much doomed to spending their entire lives in the sort of abject poverty that is probably beyond comprehension for most of us.

And besides, aren’t a lot of people’s financial struggles in these current times largely self-inflicted?

For instance, in the story I heard on the local radio news, there were also several people complaining about being trapped in the vicious circle of spiralling credit card debts.

Erm, hello? Did anyone force you to take out those credit cards?

And did you really need the plasma TV whatever inessential luxuries that you frittered away your credit on.

I think it’s a bit pathetic really how a lot of people don’t seem to be able to take responsibility for their own actions.

Instead of wasting your energy whinging, why not actually get off your arse and do something to try and keep the wolf from the door?

That’s what I’m doing, anyway.

For the record, my own financial situation is pretty dire at the moment.

As it happens, this has very little to do with the credit crunch… though the credit crunch is not exactly helping!

No, my money woes are largely a product of my personal circumstances throughout 2007 and most of 2008.

As most of you will know, I spent the first chunk of 2007 backpacking around Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

As such, my income during that time was zero.

Then, from September 2007, I spent a year training to become a teacher. And while I actually got paid a salary as part of the training programme that I did, it was a pretty crap one!

For the last couple of years then, I’ve often had to utilise an overdraft and credit cards to subsidise my living costs.

Not that I’m complaining - I have absolutely no regrets.

Indeed, unlike a lot of people who owe money on credit cards and have nothing to show for it, I’ve seen some amazing places and have some absolutely wonderful memories.

What’s more, having been successful in qualifying as a teacher, I’m now firmly installed in a career that – whilst demanding – provides me with enormous levels of job satisfaction.

Unfortunately though, even when you’re fully qualified, one thing that teaching doesn’t provide is particularly brilliant pay! Indeed, I actually earn significantly less money now than I did five years ago. And with a mortgage to pay and those credit card debts, I’m finding that I don’t have a lot of cash left as soon as I’ve paid all my bills each month.

I’ve also been dealt a further financial blow just this week.

As some of you may know, I currently have a mate of mine, Steve, renting my spare room off me.

Naturally, the cash he pays me is a massive help in enabling me to keep my head above water.

However, Steve broke it to me this week that he’s actually going to be moving out over Christmas.

Who knows, I might be able to get another lodger pretty quickly?

Obviously though, I can’t really count any chickens on that score – and as such, I’ve put a bit of a contingency plan in place to get some cash rolling in.

Yes, I’m going to start selling some of my possessions!

Now I’ve always been a bit of a horder – and like most people who love music, one thing I happen to have a lot of is CDs.

Now we are in the digital age though, my entire music collection has long since been transferred to an expansive computer hard drive – and consequently, my CDs are now just gathering dust.

This being so, I’ve started flogging them over the web, having set up a second-hand seller’s account on the website Amazon.

Naturally, this is a bit of a faff. It is quite time consuming adding new CDs to your ‘items on sale’ list.

And then, when people place an order, you have to fanny around packing the CDs into jiffy bags and then go down the Post Office to get them dispatched.

That said, cash is starting to roll in. The way it works is that people who buy the CDs pay online with a debit or credit card. Amazon take a commission from each sale – and then automatically my proceeds into my bank account. And with me generally getting at least three or four quid for each CD, it soon starts to mount up.

The whole thing pretty cool actually. In an internetty kind of way, it sort of feels like I’m running my own record shop - which has been something I’ve often idly fantasised about ever since I first saw the film ‘High Fidelity’.

That said, there is a flipside. For being a reasonably sentimental person, who always tends to associate every major event of his life with particular songs or albums, it’s been quite sad in a way to see some of my more cherished CDs go.

As I said though, I still have all the actual music stored safely on my hard drive - and I’m happy in a way that they are going somewhere where they’ll hopefully be played and loved… as opposed to just sitting festering on a CD rack.

At present, I don’t actually have all that many CDs listed on my seller account – however, if any of you fancy having a peek, you can view my current items for sale via the following link.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/shops/storefront/index.html?ie=UTF8&marketplaceID=A1F83G8C2ARO7P&sellerID=AIYNEUL9EWMHT

I will be adding more items over the coming weeks – and all being well, my goal is for this new little business venture to see me totally debt-free by summer 2009.

Credit crunch? What credit crunch..?!