Rovers going for an Indian

So, I looks as if Blackburn Rovers are set to become the latest Premier League club to get foreign owners, with Indian farming company Venkey’s Group all but ready to complete a takeover from the Jack Walker Trust.

They will join 8 of the other 19 premiership clubs who are owned outright by foreign nationals, with a further 3 being part owned abroad. That will leave only eight clubs wholly in the hands of British owners.

In other words, there will be more clubs in England’s top division owned by people from outside this country than within it.

And they call it England’s national game.

I for one am glad that when Jack Hayward put Wolves up for sale, he held out for a British buyer. Everything points to Steve Morgan being in this for the long haul and not as a play thing. I fear for the likes of Birmingham, Chelsea et al for when their foreign sugar-daddies get bored and ship out, leaving the clubs in the kind of mess Pompey currently find themselves.

For the record, the wholly foreign owned clubs are (from wikipedia) :

• Aston Villa (USA)
• Birmingham City (Hong Kong)
• Chelsea (Russia)
• Fulham (Egypt)
• Liverpool (USA)
• Man City (UEA)
• Man Utd (USA)
• Sunderland (USA)

And the part foreign owned clubs are :

• Arsenal (USA 29.9% & Russia 26%)
• Blackpool (Latvia 20%)
• West Ham (Iceland 40%)

Leaving Bolton, Everton, Newcastle, Stoke, Spurs, Wigan, Wolves & Albion in British only hands.

Android Market Surpasses 100,000 Apps

Here’s a report from Mashable about this…

Android Market Surpasses 100,000 Apps.

…to quickly quote from the article…

Android has just rocketed past a major milestone: 100,000 applications available in the Android Marketplace.

The announcement was made with just a tweet from the Android Dev Twitter account. “One hundred thousand apps in Android Market,” was all the tweet needed to say to spread the news. The search giant recentlyexpanded the Android Marketplace to 20+ countries in an effort to kick its developer ecosystem in high gear.

Now, I know Apple’s app store has nearly three times as many apps, but with Android growing as quickly as it being on such a wide variety of handsets, you have to say that any developer that is ignoring the Google offering, is simply shooting themselves in the foot and losing potential customers.

Review – X-Factor 23/10/10 part 2

IF you haven’t read part one of this ‘review’, read it here.

After the Boy Band, we were treated to a woman who’s bottom is not in proportion to the rest of her body. Seriously, this girl’s arse is huge. Not that I’m complaining, I quite like it. But anyway, I didn’t like the song, I don’t think it suited her, and if Cheryl insists on pushing Trayc as a “Rock Chick”, she’ll be out before to long. Shame, cause she has a wonderful, powerful voice.

Tesco Mary was next. She sang a song. It was good. She’s good. But she cries a lot. She won’t win, but she will probably get to release an album of ‘classics’ which they’ll sell in Tesco.

Then came Aiden, who after last week needed a strong performance. I didn’t think he was all that good, but the judges did so he went through cause some people can’t make up their own minds and do whatever Simon tells them. One thing I do like about Aiden – his surname. Can you get a more northern sounding surname than “Grimshaw”?

Girl Group time. They sang – yes, they actually took time out from moaning & bitching and generally not getting alone to sing – the Girls Aloud version of “I’ll Stand By You”. Cheryl was ‘honoured” and felt like she should get up and sing with them. It wouldn’t help, I don’t think these girls have much longer left. I liked them at the judges houses, but three weeks in and I’m sick of ‘em.

And can someone tell Cheryl Cole that “I’ll Stand by You” isn’t ‘her’ song. It’s Chrissie Hynde’s song. And The Pretenders version is better than Cheryl & Co.’s version by several hundred country miles. In fact, here is The Pretenders version.

And then there was Wagner. How the hell is this guy still here? What was he doing there in the first place? I have a theory. I think Simon had him put through (yes, I know Louis is his mentor, but it’s Simon’s show) to give the rest of us hope. Let’s face it, if he can make it the live shows, anyone can. His ‘performance’ was out of tune, out of time, and he looked like your drunken dad dancing at a wedding. It was entertaining, but only in the sense that it was so bad it was funny.

Katie was last to perform, but I couldn’t take anymore after Wagner. She can’t have been that bad, she got through, didn’t she?

Well, that’s that. Until next week. Will it still be a twelve hour show next week now there’s ‘only’ 11 of them left? God, I hope not.

The “Get Ready for Parenthood” Tests

This is one of those old e-mails that does the rounds. But it’s funny, so I’ve copy/pasted it here.Test 1 – Preparation

Women – to prepare for pregnancy:

1. Put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front.
2. Leave it there.
3. After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.

Men – to prepare for children:

1. Go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself.
2. Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2 – Knowledge
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour.  Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3 – Nights

To discover how the nights will feel:

1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 – 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 11pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am.
10. Get up when it goes off.
11. Make breakfast.
12. Keep this up for 5 years.
13. LOOK CHEERFUL.

Test 4 – Dressing Small Children

1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.
3. Time Allowed: 5 minutes.

Test 5 – Cars

1. Forget the BMW. Buy a practical 5-door wagon.
2. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
3. Leave it there.
4. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
5. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.
6. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Test 6 – Going For a Walk

1. Wait
2. Go out the front door
3. Come back in again
4. Go out
5. Come back in again
6. Go out again
7. Walk down the front path
8. Walk back up it
9. Walk down it again
10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you
14. Give up and go back into the house.
15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times

Test 8 – Grocery Shopping

1. Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child – a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
2. Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
3. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having
children.

Test 9 – Feeding a 1 year-old

1. Hollow out a melon
2. Make a small hole in the side
3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side
4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.
5. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
6. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on
   the floor.

Test 10 – TV

1.    Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies, In the Night Garden and Waybuloos.
2.    Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.

Test 11 – Mess

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out :

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains
2. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?
4. Empty every drawer/cupboard/storage box in your house onto the floor & leave it there.

Test 12 – Long Trips with Toddlers

1. Make a recording of someone shouting ‘Mummy’ repeatedly. Important Notes: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy. Include occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet.
2. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4
   years.

You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13 – Conversations

1. Start talking to an adult of your choice.
2. Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.

You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14 – Getting ready for work

1. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting.
2. Put on your finest work attire.
3. Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it.
4. Stir
5. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt
6. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture
7. Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel
8. Do not change (you have no time).
9. Go directly to work.

You are now ready to have children. ENJOY!!

Review – X-Factor 23/10/10 part 1

Well, this day was my birthday, 36 years young, so I was hoping that all my dreams would come true. Unfortunately, Wagner is still in the X-Factor, so I was all out of luck. As was John Yoda-lay-hey-who or whatever his name is, who went crashing out after forgetting the lyrics in his version of Kelly Clarkson’s “Because of You” not once, but three times. I wonder why the judges never mentioned his screw-up as they sent him packing?

Actually, I think this week’s show was pretty good. The songs chosen were, on the whole, awful, but that proved to be a decent test for the wannabes.

Paije was… well, he was Paije – all big smiles and solid vocals and looking like he’s having the time of his life. Lovely kid – judging by what we see of him, which is, of course, through the Syco editors lens – but he’s not going to win.

John came out with a sparkly suit and an new hair-do. I’m not surprised he left this week to be honest. He’s another one who looks like he’s enjoying himself, but was never going to win. I said to Sandrine on Sunday night, he’s the sort of man you’d listen to if he was performing somewhere you happened to be – like Butlins for example – but he’s not someone you’d stump up good money to see.

Rebecca was up next. I love this girl. I’d buy her album tomorrow (not strictly true since I haven’t bought an album in god knows how long, but it’s the sentiment that counts) and listen to time and again. Her voice is just… It just is. I hope that Cheryl doesn’t work to hard on helping Rebecca overcome her shyness though – that’s actually part of her appeal at this point. Watch her performance here.

Then came Cher. Is there a contestant this series that divides opinion as much as her. Hell, she’ even divides my opinion. Here’s why. I really like her performances. I don’t quite buy the whole “fresh and original” line the judges are taking with her – I see her as more of a British version of Gaga – Gaga Lite, if you like – but I think she puts on a good show and could be huge with the right guidance. It’s her I don’t like. I think there is something fundamentally unlikeable about her. I don’t know if it’s her constant snarling, or her ‘attitude’. Actually, I think the whole ‘attitude’’ thing is a put-on. The impression I get is of a spoilt middle-class kid trying to be ‘street’ but not quite understanding what ‘street’ represents – it’s more that she like the clothes and music.

In the end, I think she could win it. Here’s her performance from this Saturday.

Next up was Matt. He was great. Really, really good. As long as he doesn’t stuff it up, he’ll win. He sang Britney’s “Hit me baby…” and it sounded better than when she sang it. His performance is here

This part of the show was certainly for the girls though. In the same segment as Matt, came the boy band. I went to make a cup of tea at this point. They don’t need to win, Simon will make his money off them whatever happens. Next!

More to come…