Off to Germany tomorrow.

Just for a couple of days to introduce a younger colleague (and my eventual successor if our company survives the present situation) to the delights of overseas customer visits.

Back Thursday evening after saying "Danke" to the two customers in the Dusseldorf region and begging them for more orders. In English - cos my German is only very basic.... I can order coffee, beer and a taxi receipt (quittung) which is usually different from other types of receipt (rechnung).

I can hear you all yawning now so.. see yer in a coupla days.

Belper Reserves v Graham Street Prims pictures

.... are here

http://s525.photobucket.com/albums/cc337/Nortoner_2008/Belper%20Res%203%20-%201%20Graham%20St%20Prims/?albumview=grid

No comparison with Tim Harrisons efforts of course (see Belper Town website and click "Forum" link) but I'm quite pleased with 'em!

Watched the Reserves again yesterday

The first team didn't have a game so we went down to watch Belper Reserves beat Graham Street Prims 3 - 1. (Odd name for a football team but this apparently comes from "Graham Street Primitive Methodist Church" which is where the club was originally founded.)

Not an easy win for Belper by any means against a team who are third from bottom of the league. In fact, Belper went behind but equalised before half time and then went on to make pressure tell in the second half.

The good things to come from this game for me included the performance of the Belper No 6 - a young guy called Ant Simpson who ran the centre midfield, particularly in the 2nd half. He looks a good prospect.

And (yes I really mean this) the referee was excellent! No fuss or bother or the "look at me I'm in charge" type performance seen from some refs this season.

A couple of pics above and as soon as I've managed to put a Photobucket album together, I'll post a link.

Turn the under-bumper lights off you dipstick!

Has anyone else noticed the apparent increase in inconsiderate wassocks who leave their "under bumper" front lights on when they are not necessary?

Driving to work this morning, I noticed at least 5 cars with what we used to call "sidelights" on (which in itself is bad enough in the dark,) but they all had their under-bumper lights on full glare!

I can't believe they were all too thick to know how to turn them off and am sure this a form of "posing" - like wearing a bluetooth headset when walking around a shopping centre or whatever with the cell phone in their hand or pocket. What's the point?

Back to the question of the lights, I nicked this from another forum but it needs wider notice:-

Highway code states in rule 211
"You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights" ('Seriously reduced' is defined as when you cannot see more than 100 m.)

IT'S ILLEGAL YOU DIPSTICKS!!!!!!

I know it's a small world.....

... but I find this a bit spooky!

The window cleaners arived at work last week. Amongst them was an older guy called Melvyn who used to own the business but now only helps out occasionally when they are "short-handed." We'd sometimes nod to each other when "knocking around" the Nortoner Towers area not long after we moved up there.

Haven't seen him (either at work or around Norton) for ages and as we chatted over a cup of tea, he told me he'd moved from Norton about 6 years ago.

I mentioned that we'd moved to Norton after living in our first house on Sharrowvale Road for 27 years and that the Duchess had been born on the same street. Further discussion revealed that this guy knew the Duchess' father, George, and remembered my wife because he was actually born 3 days before her and in the next yard!

He recalled her name with no prompting and told me (correctly) the names of the three other families who shared the yard of the house where the Duchess was born.

The Duchess said she recalled the family, although she did not specifically remember Melvyn. Not really surprising when you think that they were both born over 60 years ago!

Like I said - small world!!

Forgot to tell you.....

... at the game on Saturday, the Duchess won 2nd prize in the raffle - a box of chocs!

We've been going to Belper about 3 or 4 seasons now and buy a quid's worth of tickets every game so she reckons we've more than paid for them!!

Saturday wasn't all bad then!

I can't believe it.....

....having lost only two league games all season, Belper have now lost two in a week! And both to last minute goals.

The final score yesterday was Belper 1 - 2 Lincoln Utd and the winner came from a penalty (correctly) awarded in injury time. That was about the only thing yet another crappy referee got right.

This was another official who seemed to award free-kicks on a random basis. Most football supporters simply want consistency from referees but we are not only getting inconsistency week-to-week, we are now getting inconsistency within games.

One particularlty poor decision concerned the failure to award a penalty for Belper when Ryan Hindley was brought down in the box. We were no more than 10 yards away (as was the linesman) and we all heard the sound of boot on boot and not boot on ball (there is a substantial difference) as Ryan was tackled. He was actually left injured on the ground and there was a hole in his sock, caused by the defender's studs!

Anthony Wilson got booked for a tremendous blocking challenge which prevented a defender clearing the ball and on at least two occasions, free kicks were awarded against him for "backing-in" when he was clearly being held from behind. At one point, the defender had Ant's arms interlocked with his own arms to stop Ant from turning but the defender still got the free-kick.

I know I am slightly biased (well - OK - massively biased) but there is no way Belper Town deserved to lose either of the last two games. That just increases the frustration.

Anyway - the rest of Tim Harrisons excellent "snaps" are here if you wanna look (That's one good thing to come from every game - Snappers pics!)
http://www.timharrisonphotography.com/NailersAction/LnclnH0809/album1.html