Manchester United 0 Coventry City 2

Congratulations to the giant killing Sky Blues for their Wednesday night Carling Cup slaying of the mighty Manchester United and three cheers for the Maltese Falcon Mifsud for his brace of goals. Marvelous.
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Other city news includes local band The Enemy who have apparently snubbed a civic-reception with Coventry's mayor and instead offered to take him for a curry at the Ocean restaurant on Jubilee Cresent Radford. I'll be keeping an ear out for developments on this one.
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Back that up

I had to change the back up tapes for our company server today and I have the honour tomorrow as well. Unfortunately something had gone wrong and no back ups had been created yesterday and it didn’t look like it was going to happen today either. The bloody back-up tape kept ejecting itself after only a few minutes. An emergency back up was hastily created onto a hard drive somewhere on a computer I couldn’t find. Dodgy tapes have been blamed but I think it’s ‘gremlins’, little green buggers, it’s the only reasonable explanation.
Things haven’t been good on our servers since the IT guy left so I have saved a shed load of data onto my computer. Because the server will probably explode into a million glistening particles when I attempt to touch the tape drive tomorrow morning.

MP3: Computer Song - Jim Noir

The Bucks Hill Tornado

Emergency services were called to Bucks Hill, Nuneaton this morning as high winds ripped apart trees and tore roof tiles from homes. This was the scene that greeted me as I drove up Bucks Hill at 6:45am this morning. The journey from Coventry had been bad enough contending with torrential rain and gusty wind but as I climbed Bucks Hill towards The Bucksford I noticed there were parts of tree branches all over the road and up ahead was the blue flashing lights of a police patrol car that was blocking the entry to Trafford Drive. The trees near the Trafford Drive shops on Bucks Hill looked like they had been savaged. I managed to squeeze my car past the police car, which I don’t think particularly impressed the copper inside, but then I had to pull up immediately anyway as there were more police cars and a whacking great fire engine blocking Mallard Ave and the houses on the corner of Trafford Drive and Mallard Ave had varying degrees of their roof tiles missing and there was debris all over the road and pavement.
It was blatantly obvious I was not going to get to my destination down Mallard Ave anytime soon so I turned the car around and headed back to Coventry. On the way I went down Astley Lane to discover Seeswood pool had partially flooded the road, and The Nuneaton Road near Fillongly was also flooded. I finally managed to get to work in Leamington Spa praying the rain would ease up as Leamington Spa floods like a bath.

Brownsauce.org

I found this site whilst Googling to try and find out why Daddies brown sauce has mysteriously disappeared from the shelves at Tesco's. Brownsauce.org is a fantastic Birmingham based blog site by Adham that covers everything you need to know about brown sauce and gets involved with the ketchup/brown sauce debate. He has documented the rise and fall of HP sauce in Birmingham in a humourous and informative way. The site has everything from photographs and film outside the gates at HP, to a heartfelt song about his beloved condiment. The site also contains recipes including one for an original style brown sauce that uses tomatoes and Lea and Perrins Worcester sauce, incidently, a similar product produced by Lea and Perrins is now stocked at Tescos and is what we now buy instead of Daddies brown sauce. I haven't figured out the whole thing with Adham and his towel head-dress perhaps you'll have more luck. The effort put into this sites content makes it worth a visit. Also if you know or find out what has happened to Daddies brown sauce please let me know.

Link: Brownsauce.org

Malamarismo

Favourite recent listening, for me, amongst others has included Malamarismo, the third album from Spanish hip-hop artist Mala Rodriguez. She is kind of the latino answer to Lady Sovereign. Sadly, I can’t understand a word she’s singing but I didn’t have to, to know it’s good. I believe this song has something to do with domestic violence.

MP3: Nanai

Hard-Fi at the Colly -7 Sep 2007

Big band little venue is a good recipe. The Colosseum, Coventry, was pretty much packed and inside it was hot and sweaty, and your beer came in a plastic cup, just like a gig should be. Hard-Fi got Suburban Knight’s out of the way about third track in and the crowd really to rose it. The highlights of the show included the clash-esque Television and We Need Love which was my personal favourite. Most of the new CD was covered plus Cash Machine and a really loud version of Tied Up Too Tight, (cue crowd participation and leaping around) I can’t remember the exact set-list as I had been drinking and generally enjoying myself but I can remember a good spirited crowd who were really up for blowing off a bit of steam on a Friday night. There was an encore but my wife and I headed for the doors because we were knackered and it was also easier to get a pint in the other downstairs bar, in which I discovered there was a DJ performing. The Colly is still the good old tatty venue it has been for an age but now features a very strange fellow in the gents with aftershave and other cleansing potions and a smokers area which runs down the side of the venue.

Verdict: Good laugh

Freecycle Coventry

A website bought to my attention today that I thought was worth a mention. Freecycle is a global organisation that finds homes for unwanted items that otherwise would end up in a land-fill. Basically, it’s an internet network moderated by volunteers who set up local groups. By joining your local Freecycle group you get access to a message forum where people offer and giveaway items to those who want them.

Link: Coventry Freecycle
Link: Freecycle UK site