Wednesday, May 31, 2006

More robotic stylings

The Crouch does robot news has been picked up by many bloggers including the BBCs World Cup blog. From this there is some more disturbing footage of Crouch dancing showing he doesn't only confine this sort of thing to the football pitch. A nice link to some proper robot dancing is here. Ignore the two kids on first and just see the contortions that the next guy manages to pull off. Needs some body popping to make the routine complete though ;)!

Do the robot

There was one unforgetable moment from the England v Hungary pre-World Cup friendly last night. It wasn't Sven's decision to give Gerrard more freedom playing in an open role behind Owen as a second strker. It wasn't Sven's decision to substitute on Hargreves instead of Carrick - why play Hargreves, why? It wasn't any of the precision balls that Beckham placed in the box - and damn(!?) him for playing so well as I do enjoy giving Beckham a good slagging. It wasn't even the very nice runs that Joe Cole made at the defenders. "What was it then?" you may ask. Well the one outstanding moment of the evening, in what was really a fairly average match (depsite the 3-1 scoreline) was Crouch's celebration after he scored. No one expected it, and after it happened people were left rather dumbfounded and confused, for Crouch didn't do a normal celebration slide or arm raise, or even the classic rock the baby (which had already been used for an earlier goal), he preceded to dig into his 80s dancing roots and perform the move which so many try but so few can pull off, and that is the robot! Yes, you heard it, the pasty white, gangly 6'7" Liverpool striker jerked his arms and upper torso around in the style of a pasty white, gangly 6'7" robot. I can picture it still, and what a picture it is.

I'll probably be posting a fair amount during the World Cup, so come back for more of my football related rambling. I may have some sort of rating of players celebrations, although they'll have to try bloody hard to top what we've just witnessed.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Worrall Thompson eat your heart out

Today after a morning watching food programs I decided that I should make an effort to produce some fancy food for myself. After racking my brain I decided that I would make a pork casserole - it being fairly easy. I checked out a few recipes online, but they were all rather shit so I just made up my own recipe, which I will reproduce below:

  • 400 grams diced pork
  • 1 onion
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1/4 clove of garlic
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 leek
  • a few closed cup mushrooms
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 1 pork stock cube (knorr)
  • 1 can of strongbow - preferebly left over from a house party, but make do with buying some if necessary
  • salt and pepper

This is very easy to preper, just chop up all the veg, put everything in a casserole dish, add the cider and stock, cover and place in preheated oven at 175 C for 1 and a half hours. This dish is accompanied by a sweet potato/normal potato mash as follows:

  • 2 medium sized potatoes
  • 1 sweet potato
  • some butter
  • coarse ground pepper

Boil the potatoes, then mash up and add the butter and pepper, et voila! This casserole should serve two - or if your eating it on your own like I was :( - then will leave enough to keep for another day. The mash is especially nice even if I do say so myself. Now get to your kitchen's everybody - I want to hear those pots and pans rattling. Send me your comments and suggestions on what you think of this or alternates to this recipe.

That end todays cookery corner - I may change the supposed nature of this blog from astrophysics to cooking, but then again we all know that I've never really kept up on the astrophysics news side of things so we'll see how long this new fad lasts!

Friday, May 26, 2006

When will they ever learn...

Today I discovered that I have been given a lecture course to teach next year. I will be charged with filling the minds of first year undergraduates with knowledge of observational methods in astronomy - so telescopes and stuff basically. I think I'll be having to look through my old undergraduate notes - throughput anyone, how about some grazing incidence optics, or maybe a CCD or two - as these are all things I will be expected to talk about with confidence. I'm actually quite looking forward to it as it will be fun to actually learn this stuff for real, rather than the fake, take-it-in-for-a-few-minutes-before-the-exam-and-promptly-forget-it learning that I did as an undergrad. It will also be fun because I get to write Dr Pitkin on the black/white board at the start of the lecture. I am also going to practice my stern looks for those cheeky undergrads who sit up the back chatting away distracting the rest of the class - they know who they are!

On a more Mr T realated note (and as such it is a note which "pities the fool" and is afraid of flying) I got sent this link by a friend the other day - sage advice by the T there about respecting your mother. This was followed up by a link from Bob to the an entire 50 minutes of the T's lifestyle advice. If you've not seen Mr T with a pizza on his head before then I suggest you watch the first few minutes - it's a revelation.

Football news: Only two weeks till the world cup - hurray! The less said about England's defeat by Belarus last night though the better.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Up, up and away

The mighty hornets, aka Watford Footbal Club, have done it! We pounded Leeds 3-0 in the play-off final yesterday. After a short break in the Championship, for rest and relaxation purposes of course, we've returned to the top flight. We'll not just be there making up number you understand, not the way of Sunderland for us you see. For we have one thing that proved to be the key factor in Wigan and West Ham staying up this season. Do you see, do you see? We begin with the letter W, it surely must be what provided the extra impetuous (ruling out the midlands blip to this hypothesis that was West Brom). Due to the their alphabetical positioning these clubs always languished at the bottom of any table, therefore giving them extra drive to push upwards in tables where lexicographical sorting was not there to hold them back i.e. football league table, where it's points that matter.

Back to reality though, it's going to be a tough, tough fight to stay there. I can't find any odds on us going straight back down yet, but the odds given for Sheffield Utd and Reading to win the Premiership are currently 1501-1 and 1001-1 respectively and I don't see Watford getting any better odds.

On another footballing note: only three weeks till the World Cup. Oh yeah!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

...in other news

Right, I know it's been a while. Well not just a while - it's been fucking ages! But I had things to do. Lots of important things. Places to go, people to see, worlds to save - that sort if thing. You don't believe me, huh! Ok, ok so I've just been neglecting you, I'm sorry. I'm going to make ammends I promise. I'll give you more posts than you can shake a whole tree at - unless it's one of those giant sequoias, as that is a truely large stick.

Well some of my busyness wasn't all made up. I did have that PhD I'd been mentioning to finish up. And you'll be proud to hear that it did get finished. All bound like a proper book and everything. Ain't I good, or what. So that means I'm a Doctor - yeah you heared right - Dr Matthew Pitkin MSci PhD FRAS to give me my full on, stick that up your pipe and smoke it style, dues.

Also I entered the world of the grown ups by having an actual job. Ok so post-docs not a proper job like you might think of it, but it's a start. Plus they give me money. What do I do with all this money, you may ask. Well I've only gone and bought myself a flat - well 45% of a flat, but it's the nicer 45%!

That's the start of the updates. I might fill in some more of how the past approximately one year has gone in subsequent posts, although as no bugger actually reads this blog it would just be some bizarre self-indulgent internal crazyness on my part!