Here are the things on my mind, or in the pipeline for the blog…

I note that some while back Zac Goldsmith left his fragrant wife for some other silver-spooned piece. I also note that the rabid environmentalist, so keen to hold back the way us normal folk live our lives, dodging from one month to the next, is very prepared to tax us to the hilt in the name of greenery, but not so keen to pay what he should with his lovely non-domicile status and Cayman Islands based nest eggs. I could go green if I had his cash. However, in the sense of charity, I have decided, for the first time, to remove someone from the “against the wall, come the revolution” segment and it is Sheherezade. I can’t be bothered to look up how to spell her name. Frank, for that is his real first name, is just like his father – single-minded, ignorant, full of shit, and a c***. Good luck with winning Richmond, you ponce.

So maybe I’ll rant about him some more. Along with the run-up to Copenhagen, the CRU leakage and the “nothing to see here” reaction of the British press and TV, I’m sure there will be enough fodder. As always.

I had a clean off of the fridge and now it is looking magnet sparse. Don’t worry, they are all safely contained in a Celebrations tin, and yet…. there are new corkers to add on for your delectation. Audrey and Liz have come up trumps with magnets from Iowa, Maryland, Dominican Republic and Chicago to name but a few, while father-in-law has donated a particularly awful Hong Kong effort to my burgeoning collection. Add to that my visit to Liberty State Park wasn’t going to hinder my pursuit of tattery under the famous statue and I have much to add to the fridge magnet analysis. Stay tuned.

Then there was the WindyBricks magnificent victory over the Concrete Cow Economics Professors on Tuesday, sealed by an added on time winner by the faded supermarket sign, who has had a lot of stick from the cognoscenti both on and off the WindyBricks fora. I am very glad he did nab that winner. Two excellent goals by the death of Christ had pulled us back after early goals from Comes Alive and Can’t had put us in the box seat. We loiter just under the play-off zone. Which is about where we should be.

I have a number of other observations from the States to share with you. I regret I did not see as much sport as I would have liked but family duties came before all. I must give sincere thanks to Eishockey and partner for their excellent Thanksgiving Dinner. It was a brilliant effort and made my first celebration of this particular occasion a most worthy one. A grand pity the two NFL games we saw were pony.

I went on a wine tour of Central New Jersey, passed Lakehurst where some big vessel went down and no-one can visit a memorial to it (it seemed) and I did not purchase any NFL shirts for myself. However, Izod and Timberland certainly benefitted, as did, by the beloved, a well known ladies clothing outfitters who I wish to see banned. Should they ever arrive in England, I will be doomed.

What else? Oh I am sure I’ll think of something or other. Keep rolling.

I am so pleased to be back in old Blighty. As we landed at Heathrow a little piece of me was relieved to be touched down safely in the land I love. The land of my birth. The land of the original power, before those upstart Americans took over.

Then I woke up. Terminal Five may be a glass edifice up there with the best of them (or in my view, just a larger version of Ataturk Airport in Istanbul), but it still doesn’t mean you can’t park your BA jet miles from the terminal and get a bus to passport control. This also means your luggage gets delayed too. When you need to pick up a border collie by 12:30, this can be stressful. Thankfully Dmitri Younger drove like a loon and got us there with plenty of time to spare, but he was as contemptuous of Richard Rogers showpiece as I was.

The following day I returned to work. Within the day the hat-trick had been completed as I was cut up in the morning by an ignorant Merc driver, followed up by a crazy Beamer idiot jinking inside and out of lanes in the pouring rain, and then cut up by a nutter in an Audi TT on the queue to the Blackwall Tunnel. Welcome back.

But the tin hat on my return is what has gone on around my house in my absence. I live next door to council tenants and we get on really well. If you come to my house now, you’d think we should be on Neighbours at War. Our dilapidated storm damaged fence was replaced by the council. Whereas it was a trellised five feet or so for half the length of the garden, and about 3 and a half feet for the rest, it has been replaced by a six foot high piece of timber for the whole length, which has made my garden look like a military stockade. They have trespassed on my property to put it up, dug holes in my garden, and left the back gate hanging off. I thought the Cowboys played in Dallas. All this without my knowledge, and certainly without my permission.  You have to love the good old UK.

Just look at this piece of work. Note the expensive wood, note the height relative to my door, and note the cheeky bastards nailed or did whatever they did on MY side of the fence to attach the thing to make it secure. Brilliant.

After two relatively relaxing weeks, I come back straight into a dispute. The message could not be any clearer. You really don’t need this shit.

From Robert Peston, BBC’s insufferable conduit for various high profile leaks, comes this bit of purple prose…

In this nightmarish predicament of his own making, should [the chancellor] sanction the $20m payments or muller the bank?

So says Robert Peston on the BBC News website. That would be the Baliol College Oxford educated Robert Peston who wants to prove he’s down with the kids by using the term “muller” to show he is “hip” and “with it” (I don’t care if you went to Crouch End Comp or whatever, Peston, but even I wouldn’t use the term “muller” in a paper I put up, so you shouldn’t on the BBC). This, of course, coming from the son of a Labour peer, a man who could put the abbreviation Hon before his name, and someone with privileged access in the past to Gordon Brown and his coterie of friends. A man with the credibility to use the word “muller” in a BBC article.

But then I believe he might be using the dictionary definition of “muller” as relayed on various online dictionaries but not covered by MS Word who put that red squiggly line beneath each rendition of the word. “A stone used for grinding powders” – however this is a noun, and not a verb as used in the above phrase so perhaps not.

 I don’t like Peston very much. He comes across as supercilious, with a sneering tone as if talking down to the plebs, rather than being down with them. I like him even less when he tries to be hip and trendy.

 Up against the wall, where I’ll get my piece and wax the chump. Or something like dat.

(for a defintion of the term mullered, please look here).

As my journey ends for this year, so two new ones begin. Sir Peter has left us for three months to travel the globe. Eishockey will be leaving us to sail south for three weeks or so. I will be in London with the beloved… ho hum. Thoughts turn to our return in May, where, perchance, the Red Sox meet the Phillies just down the road…. I feel a plan coming.

So to send sis-in-law on her way, I give you this ear pollution…

And to send Sir Peter on his way, I give you this torture…

Nothing too spectacular, but a nice cloud formation on the return journey…

No, not Enimem’s follow up film, but yesterday, while in Delaware, the beloved and I drove the short distance from Lewes and the Rehobeth outlets down to Georgetown, Delaware to visit the microbrewery run by two chaps under the trade name 16 Mile. This was another one of the intended “pick up beer glass, maybe a bottle of beer and then on my way” visits. As we found the place on South Bedford Street, just to the east of the main “circle” in Georgetown, the beloved wanted to stay in the car.

I walked in to the brewery to be met by Brett McCrea (as mentioned on the front page of their website). He had just finished a tour of the brewery to a number of people and he came up and shook my hand to welcome me. This American customer service is charming but can also be really unsettling. We English just aren’t used to it. He asked me what I would like, and offered me a free tour with another party who had come in. I said I just wanted a glass, and he went off and got a couple. He then offered me a beer (an amber ale on draught) which, I have to say, was absolutely fantastic. It seemed rude to just naff off, so the beloved and I went on a partial tour.

It was clear Brett has a real passion for beer. The niche this brewery has is aluminium (I refuse to go along with the American spelling) bottles. They do two beers in bottles (the draught beer is only available on the premises) and I bought a bottle of each. We went into the packaging area, but given he took half an hour in there alone, we felt Brett may make us miss our ferry back, so we apologised and left. The fruits of our visit are pictured below.

Great beer, great passion, lovely bloke. I really wish this firm the best. Brett revered English beers, and wants to emulate them in the US. This tiny part of Delaware deserves to be successful.

A post from an Englishman in New Jersey. I’ll post various observations. It is 11 am and I have ESPN on, and it has my favourite sports announcer, Chris Berman. He’s already annoyed me and he has been on for 10 seconds. If they cut his hands off I swear he wouldn’t be able to speak.

Here is South Jersey I have a choice between CBS, showing the Colts at the Ravens and Fox, showing the Cowboys at home to the Redskins (not the Giants). CBS get the better match up in the later games – Jets at Patriots.

Right – I’m returning to the post after all but the Eagles at Bears has been played today. I had a bit of a headache today so didn’t continue this post as an “as it happens”, but what follows is a summary of what I’ve seen today.

CBS had the better of the games, but ESPN, who had no games, have a pre-game show that lasts eons, and seems to want to cure the unemployment queues single handed with about 200 people seeming to talk about the games coming up, all marshalled by a grizzly bear passing himself off as a host, Chris Berman.

The Ravens v Colts game was quite good. You never really felt (a) that the Colts would lose; (b) that the Ravens offense would ever do enough or (c) the need to watch the Redskins v Cowboys on the Dallas Sports Network (or Fox Sports as it is more formally known). Dan Dierdorf is an absolute legend as a co-commentator. He’s one bloke I’m not arguing with. The game was close, and one expert after gave Manning credit for leading his team in another come from behind win (he took them to a field goal) but Joe Flacco threw a late INT to cost the Ravens any chance. This amused me as I was in Reebok in Delaware when the local chaveratti came in the store shouting and hollering like some yippedee yois asking where the Ravens stuff was because they lived in the same village as Joe Flacco (he went to uni at Delaware). I’m minding my own business looking at a tasteful Michael Vick T-shirt when one of the riff raff comes up to me and asks why there is no Cowboys uniforms. Why me? Do I look like a shop hand?

CBS’s panel is Dan, the legend, Marino, “Coach” (seriously, they never called him Bill, it was always “Coach” as if he were the Pope or something – oh, his name is Bill Cowher), Shannon Sharpe who appears to play the role of resident buffoon, and Boomer Esiason who has to know his days are numbered with this gig when someone more famous comes along. Compared to the Fox team, this lot are cerebral.

Fox’s game was a real stinker. Troy Aikman willed on the Cowboys but they stunk the joint out for the second week in a row and only just scraped out a victory. On their panel is a vehicle for a hair-do to get around – Jimmy Johnson – who to be fair did a good bit on the Patriots 4th down and 2 play last week – Terry Bradshaw who looks about 80 (and I still know him better for his little cameo in Cannonball Run), Howie Long who reprised that double act (was it him in that film, I can’t honestly remember – or was it Joe Klecko, I’m rambling) and Michael Strahan who seems to have done little but rent himself out since he retired. The Cowboys one 7-6 and then Fox, unfairly, found themselves between a rock and hard place.

The nearest game played to where I am staying in the NFC was the Giants entertaining the Falcons. The game went to OT and the presenter (Curt Menafee?) said they could only show the game until 4:15, despite Fox not having a game on in our region after that time. Sure enough, the Giants marched down the field and the play was cut off just as the Giants were preparing to kick the winning field goal. Fox apologised profusely saying rules is rules. I thought that was mad.

Game two of the day for me was the big CBS game between the Patriots and Jets. CBS put out their number 1 team, Nantz and Simms, for the commentary. I loved the bit where they asked Simms what he would have done had he been in Belichick’s shoes in that 4th and 2 last week – he said “I would have punted” (the hindsight call) “but I know why he did it” (so still buffing up Belichick). Great fence sitting. The Jets, who last time I heard, were dead certs to go the Superbowl, and yet have a coach whose most memorable moment this week was word of him blubbing in a speech to his team, got spanked in the first quarter – trailing 24-0 until a blocked punt got them a TD just before the break. Sanchez conducted one excellent drive at the beginning of the 3rd and then reverted to how he played the rest of the game, for the rest of the game. The superbowl bound Jets are now 4-6 (the Dolphins they mocked are now 5-5, which is odd) while the Patriots, who I think look a little vulnerable, are now 7-3, but play the 10-0 Saints next week, and have 4 out of their last six games on the road.

Notable other games were the shock defeats of AFC North powerhouses Pittsburgh and Cincinatti. The Steelers did a pact with the devil last season with all the close games they won, and the debt is now being called. The Chiefs stole one from them today and the Steelers now face a real fight to get in to the post season, with a big game next week in Baltimore, where the Ravens must win to have any chance of post-season play. The other shock was the Bengals loss to the hopeless Raiders. The Bengal bandwagon had a ton of passengers this week as the hopes of the perennial jokers were talked up as their remarkable defense was praised to the hilt. Today the Raiders scored a late tying touchdown, and then induced a fumble on the kick-off and kicked a game winning FG. Wonder how many people will jump off that bandwagon today?

The evening game is the Eagles at Bears on NBC. Where is Bob Costas? I see that absolute cock Keith Olbermann is sniding away on the show, sneering and jeering. He really is obnoxious, and he can be on my dream team of commentary with Chris Berman and Andy Gray. The Eagles are 10-0 up, the Bears were booed on their first drive, and I can’t wait for the Eagles post-game show. The pre-game effort I saw on Comcast (the local sports channel here in South Jersey) wasn’t good enough to be called “amateurish”. There was so much back-slapping and in-chat that I thought I’d broken into a pub conversation in a language I didn’t understand.

Overall, though, it is a decent experience going through 10-12 hours of NFL on a Sunday even if the adverts really, really grate, and I’ve had a headache. I’m sure I’m delerious because I could have sworn Paul Collingwood scored a century and Spurs won 9-1. It is a mad world.

Bless my soul. While enjoying a moment of contemplation last night, I was reading an edition of the US’s flagship magazine Sports Illustrated, and I came across a piece that mentioned my little old WindyBricks. On Page 24 of the November 9 issue, there is a piece entitled Apologized (The Yanks love a zeeee), and mentions our club’s Kumbaya session with Occidental Cured Pork in August where both sets of supporters made daisy chains and sang folk songs, while watching the football, and swapped masonry to enable better construction of each other’s houses.

Of course, the Americans were amused that the Met Police took stills from the film “The Firm” and put them out as people they wanted to interview for the off-key singing and breaking the daisy chains.

Biggest small club in the world. WindyBricks….

Feel free to pass on this post all you readers who get bored me going on about this…

I read today on Devil’s Kitchen and on Watt’s Up With That that some little rascal has hacked into the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University and leaked the contents on line. Of course, with anything hacked, the veracity of the data needs to be very carefully assessed but most of those who know this sort of thing believe it genuine. I would encourage people to visit the Watt’s Up With That Site to get more information – link here. The CRU is a major source of “pro-Climate Change” data and evidence and some of the stuff leaked is pretty interesting. Such as this…

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” (emphasis mine).

Tricks? Hide the decline?

I wonder why the BBC aren’t reporting this? Where is The Guardian on this?

As I said head over to Watts Up With That for more information.

Of course, Climate Change proponents have their world leader, the man who picked up a Nobel Peace Prize, the man who gives gravitas to the climate change agenda and the cataclysmic consequences of doing nothing. In his recent tome Al Gore, the man who brought you “An Inconvenient Truth” has included this picture. (Linked from Watts Up With That – click here for the post (and I would really encourage you to read the comments for a laugh)

This picture is so funny in so many ways. It is the equivalent of releasing The Day After Tomorrow as scientific fact. Note that Cuba and Panama are under water. If Cuba (highest point 6580 feet) is gone, how come Central Florida (highest point 300 feet) is still there? I am not saying that illustrations need to be spot on, but this ridiculous.  If the highest point in Panama (11,000+ feet above sea level) is under water, well…. Al Gore’s previous powerpoint tour included linking Hurrican Katrina’s devastating impacts in New Orleans to climate change meaning more powerful, more frequent hurricanes. Since the dreadful Katrina, no major hurricane has had anywhere near that impact in the US. This year has been deathly quiet. Some years it does, some years it doesn’t…..

But Al has a book to sell, and he showed his real scientific knowledge to Conan O’Brien here in the States with this magnificent piece of accurate information -  link here – Al Gore believes the temperature in the centre of the Earth is several million degrees. Now in itself this is not that important but when the bloke tours around the world telling us what to do, is given a reception akin to reverence wherever he goes, and makes outlandish statements at the drop of a hat, I have to say “why isn’t he being challenged when he is talking bollocks? While Geothermal is something that should be investigated, I’ll bet someone we know has shares in this business.

One commenter says pretty much what I would want to say..

This is the worst jet lag I have had coming to the States. Asleep by 9:30 last night, waking up at 7 a.m. Hopefully I will be back to normal soon. Hammered it down all last night, but lovely and sunny this Friday morning. I think we are wandering up to Atlantic City later..

So some observations – ironically if I had stayed in the UK I could have watched the Dolphins v Panthers game last night, but we don’t have NFL Network on our cable here and I was just too knackered to find a bar that was playing it. Looked like the Dophins got through despite losing Ronnie Brown for the season, with Ricky Williams picking up the slack. I still doubt the Dolphins will make the playoffs, but they don’t lack for heart, that is for sure. I await the Jets v Patriots this weekend with much interest. Not sure what we are up to on Sunday, but we’ll be Eagles free until 8:20 (US time) here in South Jersey.

On the walking front, did a couple of miles to get a coffee, sub and newspaper yesterday. We get the car today so it will be up to me to get the motivation.

I also follow the Bulls and they were on TNT last night, at the Lakers. Of course, that means a 10:30 start here in Jersey, and as my eyes were popping out of their head, there was no chance. Just seen the ESPN round up of the game and they did not show a single Bulls basket in their 108-93 loss. Wonderful.

Food – we had a lovely greasy din dins at a burger joint last night called Five Guys. All along the wall we could look at their great reviews, awards etc. I have come over this year with the exchange rate around 1:66 (compared to 1:74 when I got married in November 2008 and 2:00 in September 2008) and so things have got relatively more expensive, but that meal cost £10, which is more than a UK McDonalds. But the quality is superior, no doubt.

Where the States does win hands down is the cost of clothes. Nothing more to add.

We met up with our memorable friend from our wedding last year in her office near where the beloved used to live. I really feel like Cape May is my second home, and we are being royally looked after. Such a shame it is such a short time to stay here….

Why are Mike and Mike talking about Twilight?