StewBlog

He is actually wearing shorts! haha! I remember taking this shot with my old-fashioned SLR and wondering whether there might be an element of doubt there...

I met Leon and Vicki for a few drinks in the Cherry Tree last night. I was surprised when Dazza and Scott turned up as well as I've never seen them in the Cherry Tree! Anyway, Jonny, Nuala and Andy joined us later as well and we all went on to the Cuban. Leon and I decided a trip to the Westgate kebab shop was in order so we got the dirtiest of things from the menu - doner meat and chips with chilli sauce. Went back to Leon's for a look at his X-Box 360 and eventually got home around 5am... My mother then called my mobile at around 9am to say she was coming round for a cup of tea, so I'm up now...!

btw. The two new barmaids in the Cherry Tree are hot!

PS. I think that's my 'I've had 3 pints of Guinness' face!

MJ and I traveled up to Oxford on the train on Wednesday to attend an open day on the Thursday. The hotel we were meant to stay at had developed an electrical fault and had to close down while repairs are carried out so we had to stay somewhere else
Anyway the open day was great! We had a look around Keble College in the morning and had lunch in the dining hall there. We spent the rest of the day in the Physics department on various tours. I am slightly nerdy, so I was amazed to see an experiment using lasers to trap a cloud of atoms - They are hoping within the next year to get to the stage where they can manipulate single atoms!

Nuala, Andy and I went to see the 20twenty game at St. Lawrence Cricket Ground in Canterbury between Kent and Sussex. We were sat round the back to the left of the Colin Cowdrey stand. After a decent start, Kent tailed off towards the end of the innings and Sussex capitalised with a nice century from Wright who copped a bit of abuse while he was fielding at the boundary near us: 'Where's ya Mum, Wrighty?!' - Can anyone explain this? Needless to say, Kent lost quite comprehensively, but I'll hopefully get some more cricket in over the summer when it gets a bit warmer and sunnier!

About two weeks ago now I sowed lettuce, rocket, spinach, carrot and beetroot seeds in rows in one of my squares in the garden. They've all started to come through now!

The seeds were planted about a month ago now...

I had a brief discussion with my friend, Jon, this morning about computer games. I am terrible at almost all computer games and lose patience and interest very quickly with all but a few titles. When I was still at school all of my friends were into fighting games like Street Fighter and Double Dragon. Unfortunately for me, all I could do was kick, punch and jump whereas they had all seemed to master the art of special moves. I would kick, punch and jump around only for them to press some fancy button combination and cut me down with a ball of fire to my head or something... Not that I'm bitter or anything. Many years ago, I managed to complete Sonic the Hedgehog on my Sega Megadrive which is probably my proudest gaming achievement. I loved Lemmings - maybe I should see if I can get that again for my Mac - I'm sure I would still enjoy it now! I quite liked Commandos when it came out circa 1999 and played for many hours with my little brothers. Nothing has quite grabbed my attention since though, with the exception of Baldur's Gate on the X-Box.

As well as the telephone, I also found a load of old coins in the attic. So, I am stuck with a pile of old 1/2 pennies, 5 and 10 pence pieces... I'd forgotten how big the old 10 pence pieces are/were - They're about the same diameter and width of the current £2 coin! The old 5 pence pieces are about the same as the new 10p coins and the 1/2 pennies are tiny!

I e-mailed the Royal Mint and they told me some banks may still accept them...

I have borrowed 24: Season Two from my little brother. It's predicted to rain all week down here in Canterbury, so I might stock up that new husky fridge and devour some Bauer...

Picked up one of these last night to help chill beers for barbeques etc. throughout the summer! Cools down to a refreshing 1 degree centigrade apparently... Just need the sun to come out now!

I went on a spending spree in Habitat recently, a bit hungover, and bought, among other things, a couple of sofas! they got delivered today and look a bit like this thing here when they're put together...

Fresh from the success of my first eBay sale, I decided to have a good look in the loft and see if there's anything else I can put up for auction. I found this old telephone, which I've listed as I'm sure somebody might make use of it... It's sooo loud when it rings! Anyway, the auction ends at around 18:40 on 28th June.

I've bought a few things on eBay over the last few years, but I actually sold something today. I put my sofa on a 5-day auction which closed today. It's a 1930s leather sofa in a kind-of Art Deco style - nice, but I needed a change... Now I just need to deliver the thing... Hmmmm

My folks, brothers and my nan, as well as a few of the neighbours came over to the house for a barbecue. I marinaded another leg of lamb from the butcher, this time in a garlic, rosemary and lemon - Yum! I also made some cherry samosas that I'd seen on Gordon Ramsey's F Word on Channel 4 - It's a brilliant show! Anyway, these things consist of a cherry compote all wrapped up in filo pastry and then shallow fried in butter and served with marscapone cheese or creme fraiche etc. Very nice! I'll definitely be making those again...

I pretty much watched all of 24: Season One today... Very good. Looking forward to catching up with Season Two now as I need to clear up this business of the alternate ending!

I met Karen at 8:30 and we went for a few drinks in the Old City Bar. I hadn't been in for a long time, but I was pleasantly surprised! They have a juke-box and a pool table - Two of my favorite pub things. We talked a bit about movies and indeed the lack of movies I've watched (I only have about 20 DVDs). I've been persuaded to give Anchor Man a go, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. I'm going to see if Karen likes any Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore etc)... We also went for a drink in the Blind Dog.

In a pleasing and fitting conclusion to the show this evening, Simon, the fledgling apprentice, who learned to program on an Amstrad computer, now joins Sir Alan's fold after beating off Kristina to the £100K job with the legendary self-made man.

The final task involved two teams made up from ten of the previously fired candidates, each led by the two finalists. The brief was to design and present their vision of a new building for London's South Bank.

While discussing ideas in the early stages, Paul could be heard saying 'I think Adam is out of his depth here... intellectually' The film then cuts to a shot of Adam making a penis out of Play-Doh... Paul also muttered something about 'being f*ucked over' by Kristina' I think he was referring to her expose of the Paul & Katie business, which provided an excellent link to a snippet of Sir Alan asking Kristina 'Are you telling me these two have been carrying on in the house?' - An excellent turn of phrase!

Despite some rather scathing remarks I've made previously about Rory 'The F*cking Nonse' Laing (Tre gave him that nickname, in case you were wondering) I think he saved Simon's bacon this evening with his wave-themed building . Tre and Simon were initially very taken with the idea of a stunted boat design that looked rather like a toilet!

To summarise, I much preferred Simon's building, presentation, and dancing girls to Kristina's rather lame effort. There's no doubting Simon is a risk taker but it seems Sir Alan is willing to take a punt and I, for one, think he's made the right decision.

I hope there's another series next year...

What a fantastic story...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20070612/tuk-uk-britain-apprentice-katie-fa6b408.html

Just e-mailed out the invite to my 30th birthday party at the end of July.
Very much looking forward to it!

After the barbeque, we took some of the best pop songs ever written... and murdered them.

Yesterday, I invited a few mates over for a barbeque to christen the newly finished garden. Here are some pics from Gav's camera... Karen gave me a marinade recipe for a leg of lamb, so we had ago at that and it worked brilliantly - The lamb was lovely, as were Leon's Westler sausages which he took great delight in skewering!

Caroline, Sarah, Dazza and I had a go at Singstar after Chicagos. Girls Vs Boys... Us chaps lost... Grrr...

and he's snoring...

I listened to most of the match last night via BBC Radio Five Live whilst mucking around on the computer. I was lucky to check in and see Joe Cole's goal - a fabulous bit of chest control and turn rounded off with a fierce half volley; whenever I try this the ball usually ends up in the stratosphere.
Beckham fulfilled his role extremely well providing great crosses for Peter Crouch to nod in and Michael Owen to get his first England goal for yonks. A resounding 3-0 victory, which is what I predicted on the way home last night when Dazza asked me, so I should have had a little wager...
Unfortunatly, we're still lying fourth in the table behind Croatia, Israel and Russia and we have to play Russia home and away. The next qualifier sees Israel visit Wembley on 8th September - much more of a test than Estonia as Israel are joint top of our table with 17 points.

In a highly dramatic conclusion to the penultimate episode of The Apprentice this evening, the Ice Queen (Katie) conceded her place in the final as she couldn't be sure of her commitment to Sir Alan. This soft underbelly of the most ruthless candidate ever to appear on the show was expertly unveiled by the great man himself and his associates during an interview process which all five of the final candidates endured. Poor old Lohit didn't stand a cat in hells chance of getting through...

Interviewer: 'Are you a nice person?'
Lohit: "Yeees"
Interviewer: '...they'll cut your f*cking legs off to make a few quid'
Lohit: ...

Christina did extremely well and deservedly made it through to the final two. Unfortunately, as I suspected, Tre couldn't find that little bit of humility when he really needed it and was exposed just before the final hurdle.

Apart from a rather disparaging e-mail from one of Simon's current tenants (which was hilarious) his mix of boyish charm, solid academic background and sense of fun propelled him into the final also.

It's impossible to pick a winner, so I'm just going to watch and enjoy it next week with some very cold beer...