Fickle

I do that thing where I pledge not to delete anything that I write.

I'm fickle and I write a million beginnings of things. This blog is a prime example. I have 5 posts spread across 3 years including this one. I'd say at least 60% of those now make no sense. Work that one out.

On my Mac I have pages and pages of the beginnings of books and reports and essays which I have started. None relating to the other. I have business plans for various get rich quick schemes and hobbies which I think can become careers, emails I have sent to friends asking for advice and business proposals on Elance. Once I have finished that initial bit though, once the first page is done and the concept is on paper, I immediately hate it. I want nothing more to do with it. I can't look back over the posts on this blog because I hate them.

Edit: I deleted two of the blog posts.

For West Ham it's a game of one half

(Left) - West Ham's right hand side last night under Hérita Ilunga's careful watch.

I subscribe to receive the weekly emails from the 'West Ham manager'. I am convinced that for the last 3 years West Ham United's marketing team have re-hashed the same email and signed it with a different managers name.

"The second half was a different story. They started much better in the first 15 minutes and got another goal."

Gianfranco Zola, 2009

"It was too easy for them to control the game in the second half."

Avram Grant, 2010

"We have lost three precious points from the closing stages of the first two home matches."

Sam Allardyce, 2011

I was at Upton Park last night to watch us get beat by Aldershot Town and once again we succeeded in not playing football in the second half. Stanislas put us one-nil up first half and for the entire second half the rest of the team stood still in astonishment, looking at the scoreboard and patting each other on the back. That's a bit unfair, Callum McNaughton did manage to get himself sent off.
I would hate, as a West Ham fan, for this blog post to be entirely negative and as such I would like to congratulate one man on the pitch last night for his continued effort and good movement; Without referee Graham Scott blocking an Aldershot defender, we would never have got on the scoresheet.

Mourning isn't a competition

I think it is fair to say it has been a pretty devastating week.

The atrocities in Norway, the huge accident in China, the famine and the resulting complications in the Horn of Africa, the murders in a UK hospital and the death of an international pop star.

The reason I can mention these terrible but very different events in the same paragraph is because, as the title suggests, mourning is not and need not be a competition.

I was appalled to see some of the comments made by Dan Wotton, former Showbiz editor for the News of the World over the weekend. I could not comprehend the comments he made via Twitter "Amy all the way for me, Norway is a day old. Amy is an icon gone". Let alone the fact that from where I was sitting, he seemed to 'dine out' on the sad events over the weekend, appearing across news channels discussing the difficult decision for editors, Norway vs Winehouse. Now, I wouldn't want to be unfair to anyone, the comments are probably taken slightly out of context as he was involved in a more over-arching conversation about the news agenda ("Just seen the Sunday Mirror front page at Sky News. They haven't splashed on Amy Winehouse in first edition. Very strange decision"). Even so, surely there are better stories to use as case studies when discussing this? It looked very much like someone clambering to hold on to any sort of infamy/profile following the cancellation of his column.

I also wanted to mention in passing the Facebook status doing the rounds which caught my eye:
"5 days ago a true hero was killed fighting for our country. I bet you didn't know his name, I bet you didn't care, then a smackhead junkie dies and its all over Facebook, people need to start coming into the REAL world! RIP Corporal XXX XXXXX XXXX from the XXXXXX: PUT IT AS STATUS FOR RESPECT"

It really got to me. Not because I do not think that someone dying serving in the forces is sad; it undeniably is, but because of this 'competition of mourning' it seems to promote. If I am honest, I didn't know of the Corporal who died but I did know who "smackhead junkie" Amy Winehouse was. I was saddened to learn of her death, not because she was more important than anyone else who has passed away over the last week but because what she had done had made some sort of impact on me (albeit, very small; listening to her music).

I don't know, for some reason Twitter exploding over 'which is more important' this weekend seemed pretty vile in my eyes; It isn't a competition, RIP to everyone who has passed away in a very sad week and condolences to anyone involved.