Euro 2004

Football fever is with us again. Gotta love the big tournaments. Everyone gets so wound up in the anticipation looking forward to seeing the very best in the world or in this case Europe pit their wits against each other, then despite a plethora of dull negative football, people will happily sit and watch the Czech Republic vs Latvia when they would pay good money to avoid watching that fixture at any other time. Still it's all good, even I'm maintaining a excel document tracking all the results, like when I was a kid and dutifully filled in my wallchart for Espana 82 or Mexico 86. Fan-bloody-tastic!!

In other news, we're moving offices this week, going from nice central Belfast to horrible in the middle of nowhere Business park. Pain in the arse. As if the job isn't shitty enough, we don't even get the benefit of being able to go shopping at lunchtimes anymore. It's got me thinking though. I really should chase up my transfer. I've been in the Northern Ireland Civil service for almost 9 years, and I can honestly say I've never had or even seen a public sector job that looked genuinely interesting. How damning is that? I wonder if the private sector is like that...

It turns out I'm a lying bastard. So sue me!

Here goes for that promised big update...

Things that have happened recently including Wolsey's closing for a refit for a few days. It meant I managed to stay out of the pub all week including a Monday night sat at home seeing all these programmes on television that I didn't realise existed. My first free Monday night in years except when I was ill. Turns out I was missing nothing. The programmes were all shit.

Before the refit though the big news was that we (Wolsey's) organised an auction to sell off a lot of the bar memorabilia and to raise some money for charity. I wasn't sure how it would go but it worked far better that any of us could have thought possible. We raised over £3,000,which considering there was almost no external advertising prior to the event was a phenomenal effort. I was auctioneer for the event, and I was amazed at just how much people were getting into it. The three big items, the tractor stools, the old film posters, and the picture of Kirsty (one of Wolsey's barmaids) recreating that Athena tennis player pose had the crowd oohing and ahhing with each new bid when it got to the serious money. £290 for the picture of Kirsty. I reckon the guy who bought that was going to have a lot of explaining to do the next day to his wife, girlfriend or bank manager!

After all that I was determined that bar wasn't going to piss away the opportunity of some publicity for this, so told Simon and Steven that I would draw up a press release for them to send to local media outlets. It was pretty good for a first time effort (I know self praise really is no praise at all, but cut me a little slack, I've been learning loads of new stuff like this recently, and I'm all proud of myself for it. Yay, go me! Anyway I still haven't seen the promised write up in the Spectator (local paper), so it remains to be seen whether it will have worked.

Okay gotta go now, will post again soon. I promise, no really I do promise this time. I'm not shit you know...

Long time no post... (Again)

Wow, almost a fortnight since my last post. I had no idea it had been that long. Lots to write about but little time, so I will give you some detail to follow up from where I left off and leave the recent stuff until tonight when I promise I will post a proper update!

So to recap, it turned out that I couldn't find anyone to do the quiz for me and had to do it myself. Turned out it was a very good night for them, with plenty of people turning out. Also Neil O'Driscoll (a former Asst Bar Manager from Wolseys and a genuinely nice guy) was there so we ended up walking back into Bangor together where I went to Fealtys to meet with Gail and Simon (current Wolseys manager and Gail's brother) and of course our French visitor Ryan. Well it was a pretty good night. Neil's mate Brendy (a former barman in Wolseys) has joined the Flange Band as their new singer and although he missed a ton of cues and was slightly unsure of himself at some points, he can definitely sing and I reckon will do the job very well with a bit of practice behind him. Unfortunately I missed his second gig last Thursday due to the stinking cold I've had for well over a week now. Well it turned out that after all that build up that couple of hours was all I managed to see him while he was back. I was supposed to go up to some guys house to watch the FA Cup final with him and a few others, but I got stinking drunk on the Friday night and was in no fit state to start drinking again so early in the day.

Still at least the glorious Man United won the Cup (comfortably 3-0 winners against a very poor, no disgracefully poor, Millwall team. A real shame, but they didn't even seem to try although Cristiano Ronaldo in particular simply destroyed them. That boy is going to be the best footballer in the world in a few years if he carries on at this rate. He was comfortably our best player in the second half of the season, and is developing physically as well as mentally. I don't think he ever stopped running on what looked a very hot day.

OK, enough for today as I need to get back to work! Will post a major follow up tonight including some important birthday news....