Thomas Land 2009

Thomas Land At Drayton Manor 2009

Daniel loved his surprise visit to Thomas Land on Thursday. His excited sqeals when he realised where he was made it worthwhile in an instant.

Being nearly four and much braver than last time, he went on everything - including eight trips on the "Troublesome Trucks". It was sunny and not busy at all due to the kids being at school so we could go on everything as often as we wanted to. Which was nice!

We sort of insisted he looked at the other parts of the park too, so he saw some of the animals including the tigers, penguins and monkeys. He went on the cable car ride completely unfazed by the height and seems to have little fear when it comes to the rides.

Everything reverted back to Thomas though so that's where we finished up. The video below shows our trip on the "Troublesome Trucks" and how much he loved it.



We left about 3.30 after having "one more go" on all the rides - safe to say Daniel was asleep within minutes for the return journey.

Conservatory 2009

We've decided to go ahead with our addition to the house, I mean you can only worry about money for so long - so we decided f*ck it. The builders were only here for a few days and the job was done - now the glass will arrive next week. Here's a photo of Daniel sitting on the bricks.



He likes his new sun hat, I decided to buy one too so he took to weraing it more easily!

Hillsborough - Twenty Years On

Hillsborough - Twenty Years On

April 15th 1989.

Anyone, especially football supporters will know where they were and what they were doing on that awful day.

I was at Deepdale, home of Preston North End, watching a League game with some friends of mine who lived there. Preston obviously had a deep dislike of Blackpool and Burnley but for some reason also had no love for Liverpool or scousers.

At half-time the PA announcer told the ground that the FA Cup Semi-Final had been abandoned due to a pitch invasion by Liverpool supporters. The PNE fans were unanimous in condemning Liverpool - how little anybody knew at that time.

We got back in the car after the game to hear Peter Jones on the radio start the football round up by saying that a gym at Hillsborough was now being used as a mortuary. The four of us in the car fell silent and just listened. It was horrible. As a pretty hardore, every game Aston Villa fan I was used to terraces and terrible away grounds and disgraceful treatment by police from all around the country. I was used to being treated like an animal and cages, pens and the like were the norm for us all.

Only weeks before we had been to a League Cup game at Upton Park where Villa had taken thousands upon thousands for this midweek game - more than West Ham had expected. My feet had barely touched the ground 10 feet from the turnstile and the crush was intense once inside. We got near to the front and just swayed about with no control over what we did - a policeman shouted "move back". We just told him we couoldn't.

Luckily for us all that night, West Ham didn't have fencing and the police were alert enough to open up some of the pen to our right to relieve the crush. For the 96 Liverpool fans, the South Yorkshire Police didn't offer them the same protection.

That night we were all going out in Preston Town centre but before we did we headed to a local pub where my girlfriends Dad liked to go. The guy had the news footage playing on the TV - it was so horrifying he actually turned it off and a normal bustling pub was very, very quiet.

Every normal football fan realised it could have been them. As far as I can recall, our next away game was at Norwich - Carrow Road fell silent for a minute before the match and both sets of fans sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" before the game started. Like many others, I'd sent my Villa scarf up to Hillsborough via some Sheffield Wednesday friends of mine who lived in Foxhill near the ground.

When you look back at some of the photo's of Hillsborough then it looks pre-historic. When Villa played Sheff Weds in the first game of the 1991/92 season we were the first set of supporters to sit in the Lower Leppings Lane since 1989. We walked through that tunnel and everyone just shuddered at the thought of what went on that day.

Now, because I've mentioned this one here before, is not the time for me to apportion blame. Everyone knows where it lies but justice will never be done. I looked at the mothers and fathers and despair for them - if it was my son I would fight until my last breath and never ever give up hope of seeing someone pay for the targic events on that day.

Today at work has been very strange, everything being normal until the afternoon as I looked at some of the awful pictures on the BBC site - they warned that some photo's would cause distress and they weren't wrong. Everything got put into perspective. It makes me very, very sad.

RIP. Justice for the 96.

Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf - Oh Yes, They're Smegging Back!

One of my favourite shows, Red Dwarf, is back with some new stuff this Easter Weekend! Yes! Will the new episodes sit alongside classics and my personal favourites such as "Back To Reality", "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" and "Meltdown"? Should be fun finding out.



The cast are to reunite for a new two-part storyline which will see them finally return to Earth. Back to Earth will air on UKTV digital channel Dave.

It will sit alongside two further new episodes, an improvised Red Dwarf: Unplugged, which will feature the cast dealing with no sets, effects or autocue, and Red Dwarf: the Making of Back to Earth, a behind the scenes look at the new production.

The new two-parter will begin a decade on from when the crew of the Red Dwarf were last seen, with a "shock development" throwing Rimmer, Lister, Cat and Kryten back to Earth.

Chris Barrie will return as Rimmer, Craig Charles as Lister, Danny John-Jules as Cat and Robert Llewellyn as Kryten, with the new storyline written and directed by Red Dwarf co-creator Doug Naylor.

Red Dwarf originally launched on BBC2 in 1988 and went on to air for eight series and 52 episodes, as well as a number of specials

Team UK

Ultimate Fighter: Team UK v Team USA

The weekend was drawing to a close. The bitter and really fucking painful images of losing in the "next goal wins" phase at the Theatre Of Added Time wouldn't go away despite a good afternoon watching it in a bar.

Setanta fucking Sports have taken away the UFC once wonderfully housed by Bravo, so I rarely get to see any of it these days but imagine my delight when prely by accident, I found out that Virgin 1 (Channel 121) was showing the current Ultimate Fighter series! Yes!



Episode 1 showed the 16 UK guys being cut to 8 in a series of fights. Che Mills from the Range Fighting Gym just down the road from here was involved but unfortunately lost in the first round which was a big shame. Michael Bisping will be leading the UK team against Dan Henderson who will be looking after the US interests.

The eight fighters now head to Vegas to take on eight USA fighters who we'll see in their bouts next week.

Yum, yum - can't wait!