Steven Mooner Usher

There are many painful memories I hold of my childhood, force-fed runner beans, hand-me-downs, and my older brother to name but a few, but missing from this list, thankfully, is the doctor.

My doctor, that shall remain nameless, has never been much of child person, but nevertheless he treated me well, served my needs, and did the job that my parents national insurance contributions had part-paid for. Its’ been several years since my last visit to a GP, and I can only assume he is now a rock star doctor with scantily clad bubble-head blondes hanging from his arms, a tour of his luxurious penthouse due for broadcast on Cribs, and an unmerited ego based solely on the affections of a public that don’t know him. I base this on the fact that i was denied access to him, which i find just ludicrous. It appears receptionists in your local surgery now double as bouncers. I now have to return 36 hours later than I originally needed attention, having suffered terribly and weathered the worst of my illness without any medical help, after booking myself in to HIS schedule as to not inconvenience him…and there was me assuming his professional time was supposed to be dedicated to us! I’m so naive.

Now, I could very easily rant for a few thousand words about the diabolical state of our health system, and how it is only deteriorating, but the sad sobering fact is that we all know this, and I was not surprised by my treatment (or lack of it).

The NHS was once a beacon that other countries aspired to, where did it all go so wrong?

I was anticipating a fantastic series, one in which Freddie Flintoff was always going to make a return at some point, and one in which Kevin Pieterson was almost always going to steal the bulk of the headlines against his former countrymen, but unfortunately it looks as though the weather will play the largest part on the outcome, disappointingly, as is so often the case.

Now, After 3 days play and a batting collapse equaled only by the mediocrity of our bowling display, I fear we are doomed to going 1-0 down in the series. The selectors need to take a look at themselves and wonder what the hell they were doing in bringing in Bob Bollock or whatever his name is in to the bowling attack. Steve Harmison has been back at county level for sometime now, proving his quality and consistency over and again, and although he has retired himself from the labours of the one-day game, he has never hidden his desire to represent his country in the test arena. Here is a bowler of undeniable pedigree, fearsome aggression at times, and on his day, possibly the best bowler in the world. Lets’ take a rather unadorned approach to it, I know who I would rather face from 22 yards, and with Harmison firing 95/mph leather missiles, and generating vicious bounce and movement off the seam, it certainly wouldn’t be him.

England will lose, as the batting line-up is too inconsistent. Sure, Pieterson is a magician, but we need at least another two of him to match South Africa’s middle order, and with Vaughan looking as though he’s batting with a stick of Rhubarb, and the young Alistair Cook facing his first dip in form at the highest level, things are getting rather bleak after such a promising first test at Lords.

I may be made to eat my words, but its even likelier I’ll go just as hungry as our insipid batsmen.

This is the year 2008, and I may be wrong, but I very much doubt that 100 years ago, nay, 50 years ago, anyone could have anticipated the true Goliath that the internet has become. Sure, ARPANET was only 15 or so years away, and they were speaking to each other down phones, and receiving ridiculously polite visual messages through something called a TV (ironically one of the victims of the internet boom), but surely no one would ever have envisaged a day when when we could get home from work, turn a switch, and see/hear/type messages to our friends across the globe, exchanging photos and mp3’s, discussing the days events at a ridiculously cheap price?

For many of us this comes at no tangible cost, but for some, like myself, there is a price attached to the luxury of digital existance, and that price is my corneas people, my bloody corneas! I’m almost convinced I’m 70% blind, wheres’ a TFT monitor when you need one!?

Of course the price I refer to is in actual fact the lost art of conversation. I can already hear your cries of “hypocrisy!!” as I type my internet based views, and my defence is that i love the internet, simple as that, but why should we have to be restricted to purely one-sided views of something? As an employee of a web development company of course I embrace the internet, but the one major tendon of the web that really irks me is that with all this freedom of speech, we’ve forgotten how to talk.

ps; Emoticons can suck my balls thank you very much.

This is my first post on here, so I need to make it about something that means a lot to me, and that subject is coffee! This is really just a test post more than anything, so I will leave at this: if you are going to drink coffee, and I highly advise that you do, then make sure it is fresh-ground coffee using a caffetier, and unlike other forms of coffee, notably ‘granulated’, every brand produces a clean, tasty cup, packed with caffeine happiness. I personally use Tescos ‘Original Fresh Ground Coffee’ with the red band, but experiment and see what takes your fancy!