England - Commonwealth Bank Champions

Do you know, I am completely amazed. I am in awe. I am very nearly speechless. England have shown an amazing degree of resolve, and Australia seem to have become bored with winning.
I joked with my boss after England won the first match that all three games might not be necessary, but I was expecting a 2-1 victory for the Aussies. Admittedly, the game on Sunday was interrupted by rain regularly, not allowing the Oz to get a rhythm, but in the same breath, the English bowling and fielding was excellent.
And in the end, England have won their first major overseas one-day tournament for ten years. Just in time to go into the World Cup, with a rebuilt sense of purpose. Excellent.
TTFN.

Dry January Days - III

Well, my dry January days came to an end last night. Admittedly, this was the 30th January, so I didn't do a full month, but I did do over four weeks. I nearly buckled once or twice, but with the help and disdain of TW, I made it this far. I was planning on going out tomorrow night with a friend, but unfortunately he is otherwise engaged, so my plans fell a bit flat. And then I thought, 'why wait until Thursday?'. So two Buds later, my drought is over. I could have chosen a better way to finish.
I think I will aim for one week per month off the booze. I think this would be most beneficial. Now, where's that bottle of Jura whisky...?
TTFN!

Labour Declares War on Single Parents

Well, well, well. People always thought the Tories & Labour were amalgamating, even as far back as when Labour delinked from CND. But withdrawing benefits from lone parents because 'the quality of childcare is so good'? Tone should declare that he is 'New Tory' and be done.
TW and I have enough trouble fitting childcare for lickle Monkey into our days, and there are two of us. Christ knows how difficult, logistically, it would be for lone parents forced into work.
They should have worked out by now that the benefits pot is not bottomless, but I don't think they're focusing in the right area.
TTFN.

Well, Really...

Just when you think it couldn't get any worse.........
TTFN.

Quelle Horreur

There's only so many ways to say it. We are fucking shocking.
I am quite disappointed. The English Cricket team seem to be rudderless, drifting from humiliation in the Ashes to ignominy in the Commonwealth Bank triangular series. How inevitable is failure at the World Cup and a swift slide down the rankings?
TTFN.

We Lost Again, Boo!

Ho-hum.
Still, at one stage Australia were 4 for 48, which gave us hope. And then they were 108 for 6! Unfortunately, that was the last wicket to fall. And, in all honesty, we were kidding ourselves if we thought they weren't going to get 156 in 50 overs.
Good for Mal Loye, though, to get 36 from 36. Shame the others couldn't keep up. I can see us winning against New Zealand and ending up in the final against Australia, and getting royally humped. Just before the World Cup. Great (not!).
TTFN.

We Won, At Last, Hurrah!

FINALLY!
At last, England have won a game of cricket Down Under. It may have been against a lacklustre Kiwi side, and they may have made hard-going of it, but a win is a win - which is exactly what England needed at this point. Good work fellas!

Happy 2nd BlogDay!

Who'd have thunk it? Still, I did get rid of the first blog. This is Treb's Blog II. More to come.
TTFN.

It's Time for a New Watch

See what I did there? Here it is: the Klaus Kobec Challenger. I bought this from iBuy, a cable auction site which I find most entertaining. I am a bit disappointed with their customer service, as I will explain...
I bought the watch for £73 on 23rd December, and before they had despatched it, I found it on their website for £56. Despite the fact that the watch was still in their possession, and they had not billed me for it, they insisted on sending me the £73 watch. As far as I was concerned, at this point the transaction was not complete, and if they had any degree of flexibility, they should have sold me the watch for £56. If I had received the watch, and been billed, and then noticed the cheaper watch, I would have put that down to experience, and not even contacted iBuy. However, because (as I said) the transaction was not, in my eyes, concluded, I felt that I was being taken for a mug.
So I followed their advice and returned the watch, and then bought it a second time at the lower price of £56. As my Ma said, I wouldn't have enjoyed the watch if I had paid £73 for it. And despite the extra postage costs, I still saved five pounds - result!
I guess the moral of this story is, think twice before falling for the 'theatre' of these auction shows. The way they present these goods is very clever, though. Firstly, they show the item (watch, diamond ring, Gucci bag...) at its RRP. So it is presented as unattainable. Then they plunge the price, and all of a sudden it is within the consumer's reach. Then they stress the exclusivity of the item (iBuy tend to sell three or four of each item per sale). So the pressure is on - do you want to lose out? You'd better buy it, then! And all of a sudden, you're £70 or £599 worse off. But you do have a lovely watch/ring/bag.
TTFN.

Oh, England!

The worst defeat, then, in 85 years, looms. Oh deary me. It seems that winning the Ashes in 2005 was the worst thing that could have possibly happened. England have gone into this Ashes series woefully under-prepared, without the appetite for a win. After this, there are a couple of one-dayers against the Oz, then a triangular one-day series against the Oz and NZ. Then it'll be time for the World Cup. Only by some sort of miracle will England have any interest in playing cricket in the West Indies. By then, I expect their spirits will be broken and they will have been completely and comprehensively stuffed by the Antipodeans. I would not be surprised if England fall to Zimbabwe or Bangladesh in the first rounds and take an early bath.
It's a shame, because I think England have some good players, but they are just not functioning as a team. I think major improvements can be expected after the WC. Things can't get any worse.
TTFN.

Dry January Days - II

Well, I've made it to Thursday 3rd and am still dry. I've also dropped four pounds or so and am now pretty much exactly on 13 stone. If that's what happens after three days, think what I might achieve in 31 days! The wife reckons I spend more than £20 - £25 per week on booze, so will be even better off than I first calculated. I'm feeling quite tired, I think it must be the reduced number of calories. Even tho' booze calories are bad calories.
I'm not finding this temperance hard, but it's only been a couple of days, and I haven't got an empty weekend stretching out ahead of me (yet). Still, if I'm not drinking, I might actually get around to reading the newspapers which I buy every weekend, which then sit in a pile until the following weekend, which are then thrown out. I just don't want to be getting edgy in the early evenings. Still, if I haven't had a drink since last Sunday, I won't feel the need for more, will I?
TTFN.

Dry January Days - I

I've decided to give up alcohol for the month of January. Not such a big thing, you might think, but since I normally have a drink at least every other day, and January has 31 days in it, that's probably 20 sessions I will be missing out on. I don't get roaring drunk every night, but I am concerned that I am drinking more than is good for me. And on a couple of occasions I have gone into work the following day feeling a bit 'jaded' - especially if I've hit the whisky.
Luckily I finished all the red wine in the house last night, so that particular temptation is out of the way. There are three small stubbies in a cupboard, but they're not cold, so I'm hoping that will act as a deterrent. The trouble is that they're so small, I will think that they don't really count as alcohol, so won't have any trouble in drinking them.
One thing I am worried about is that I will become short-tempered with Mrs. Treb and Trebina, but I shall ask for some leniency. I'm planning on posting regularly to log my triumphs / failings, and to document the trip as I dry out - I guess I've had residual booze in my blood for the last ten years or so...!
Benefits I am hoping to see are:
i) an improved bank balance, as I don't spend any money on alcohol. I'd say I might save £20 - £25 per week, and
ii) an improved waistline, as the fatty deposits are eaten up. I weighed 14 stones at the beginning of last year, and while I got this down to 13, I wasn't able to make any more headway. I think a month off the booze might kickstart the diet again.
Hopefully I'll get more reading done, and feel better all round.
Let's see how it goes.
TTFN.

Celebrating an Achievement

I'd like to record for posterity the fact that my daughter slept until 07:00 today. Normally, The Little Munch (TLM) sleeps until 06:00 - or, since GMT kicked in, 05:15 - and then we bring her into our bed until we get up at 06:30. On Sunday morning, TLM awoke as usual at 05:00, and I told The Wife (TW) that it was far to early to get up, and TLM was being unreasonable. Therefore, the correct course of action was to let her cry until a) she went back to sleep, or b) it was time to get up. I went into the cot room, held TLM and comforted her, then put her back in her cot. I closed TLM's bedroom door and our bedroom door in order to reduce the impact of the banshee-like screams, and went back to bed.
After approx. 30 minutes, TW couldn't take any more, and TLM was coughing as well, The Wife was concerned she was going to be sick. So TW got up with her. That was fine, I dozed off for a bit. Then we rose at about 07:00.
Fast forward to this morning. TLM woke at 05:10m, as per usual. I went in to pick her up, comfort her, assure her that we hadn't all been destroyed in a nuclear blast during the night, or fallen victim to a gang of wandering flesh-eating zombies. Then I put her back in her cot, left the room, closed the door, and...
Before I got back into our bedroom, TLM had stopped crying. When I went to check on her at 06:10, she was asleep. Result!

The Endless Possibilities

Ahhh, the endless possibilities of starting a new blog. All this empty server space, calling out to be filled... But with what? That is the question. Should I record my life as a high-class callgirl in the throbbing metropolis that we call 'London'? Or perhaps I should log my experiences as an Iraqi living through the wordt of times in the Middle East? I would like to record my own events, but how to make them stand out against the low-level background noise of all the other blogs, calling out for your attention? I could attempt to carefully craft each post, to nuance every word, and wring out all possible meaning from my jottings. Of course, this would mean one post every quarter. I could try to write stream-of-conciousness burble, which might be entertaining for a moment or two. I think the way forward, though, is to have a continuous thread running through out my posts. Whether this means I blog about one subject (e.g., Doctor Who, or toothpaste), or I blog about linked events, I have yet to decide. However, I think I need to make a decision.
TTFN.

Rebranding

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