The FA Cup hasn’t been that exciting so far this year. Saw some of the Arsenal match but that was extremely dull. The United Reading match was better but I was disappointed we only drew. However Reading are a very good team and in something like 6th or 7th in the league. They are also in great form and have won there last 7 games or so. Ronaldo wasn’t as brilliant as he has been recently and Saha just couldnt shoot. When Laarson came on we almost scored. It also made a different when Scholes came on. Fingers crossed for a better performance tomorrow in the Champions League against Lille.

The FA Cup draw is in about 15 minutes as I write this. Will be interesting if we get City!!

One of the best bits of the match was in the pre-match. They showed on MOTD how Ronaldo warms up and one of the tricks he does. Its amazing!! Its on YouTube – see below.

It was Chinese New Year on Sunday and I met up with friends and checked out the fireworks. I also went home to see my parents on Saturday and had some lovely food including some traditionally lucky dishes.

The firework celebrations were quite good – photos now online.

Some facts if you didnt know:

* Its the year of the Pig
* The pig is the last of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac
* Pigs symbolise good luck, but also turbulence
* 2007 is the year of the fire (golden) pig
* Babies born in Golden Pig years are believed to be particularly lucky

Related links:

BBC News

Patrice Evra has revealed in an interview with The Sun that Cristiano Ronaldo is called the ‘playboy’ by his team-mates. He said “Cristiano makes me laugh because he is the only one to have his personal mirror in the dressing room. He spends hours doing his hair and putting on his gel. He loves his body,”. He also revealed other nicknames for his team-mates. Gary Neville is Mr 100,000 volts because he has a twitch. He said: “Gary talks very quickly and gets facial twitches. He often makes little grimaces as if he were receiving an electric shock. That makes us laugh a lot and Cristiano Ronaldo takes him off perfectly.”

Mikael Silvestre and Rio Ferdinand are given the nicknames by Evra of Creatine and Snoop Dog. Wayne Rooney is The Hummer because ‘he’s a four-wheel drive who destroys everything in his path,’ while the United line-up is completed by Paul ‘The Pitbull’ Scholes, Ryan ‘The Rocket’ Giggs, Ole ‘The Legend’ Solskjaer and Louis ‘The Panther’ Saha.

Nice to see he thinks Ole is a legend aswell. Wonder what he calls Vidic??

If you didn’t know Monkey and Al are back! They used to advertise ITV Digital but when that stopped so did Monkey and Al (aka Johnny Vegas).

They are now part of the advertising campaign for PG Tips. There have so far been about 4 adverts and they are on Youtube. Heres the first one:

Go to Youtube and view others

Sir Alex Ferguson has urged United fans to ignore any speculation linking Cristiano Ronaldo to a move away from Old Trafford.

Barcelona and Real Madrid have been touted as possible destinations for the Portuguese winger, but the United boss says he can’t see it happening.

“I’d dismiss it, to be honest with you,” Sir Alex told MU Radio. “Cristiano loves it here.”

“He’s in his best spell, he’s improving and progressing fantastically as a footballer. He’s a great lad and there’s no way you could see him not being happy here. Without question, he loves it here.”

Sir Alex was quick to point out Ronaldo’s contract runs until 2010 and slammed those who claim the 22-year-old needs to be on a bigger stage.

“Why would we sell Cristiano? We have as much right to be at the top of the footballing tree as Barcelona. We have the same ambitions as them.

“We may not have a 90,000-seat stadium but we do have 76,000 in every week. I don’t know if there’s another club in the world like it. There are so many positives about Manchester United. You wouldn’t want to leave here.”

This is great to hear direct from Fergie instead of all the paper talk recently of what various people have apparently said.

(Some text taken from ManUtd.com newsletter)

The gadget show returned this week. One of the features of the show was a challenge to get 12 gadgets for less than £500. This included computers, laptops, games, TVs,…

One of the managed to get 10 or 11 things for less than £500. The other got all 12 but for just over £500. Very interesting and some useful tips on where to get cheap stuff. They even managed to get a computer for free!!

Related links:

http://www.freecycle.org/
http://www.speedie.co.uk/
http://www.completewasters.co.uk/
http://www.val-u-computers.co.uk/

Some football news from the last few days.

Manchester United legend Andrei Kanchelskis has retired. To be honest I thought he had already!

Also over the weekend Becks plays for Real for the first time in a while and may have saved his managers job. Real have been terrible recently and Becks has not been in the team. If he was in the team who knows if he could have made a difference. However he played and scored a brilliant freekick. In a survey in a Spanish paper they wanted Becks back in the team, in a survey in The Sun England fans want Becks back in the team. We will see it McSven aka McClown listens – I dont it though.

Heres his freekick

In other news especially for Becks fans (like me). He will be playing in a special jubilee match next month. The special match marks two jubilees: Manchester United’s half-century of involvement in European competitions; and the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which laid the foundations for a united Europe. I have got tickets and really looking forward to it!

Finally there have been so many stories about Ronaldo recently and its getting boring. One day hes staying, the next he isnt. One day he tells his United team-mates he is not going anywhere. The next his Portugal team-mate has said he is leaving the Premiership.

Unluckiest player in Premiership?

Finally got round to writing about the football last weekend. There was plenty of incident as usual. In the Man City game v Portsmouth, Mendes went off injured after it appeared Barton deliberately stood on the back of his ankle. It looks like Barton has got away with it as well!

Mendes really is one of the most unlucky player. He was also knocked out my Ben Thatcher not too long ago, had a goal completely ruled out (when he scored from half way line) and also last season someone dived to get a penalty when he didnt touch them at all.

Cheat

In the Arsenal v Wigan game, Henry showed himself to be a diving idiotic tw*t. Of course since its Henry no one really has a major go at him. Just cause hes not Ronaldo etc. He was completely past the player and then just sort of fell over. It was embarassing. Also after he scored the winning goal he had a go at Kirkland after scoring Going on about time wasting – ironic when his own keeper time wasted and got booked.

Here is that ‘dive’

He is not all as good as some people think. Like in the world cup when he tried to get Puyol sent off by pretending he was hit in the head.

The United game v Charlton was tougher than some would have thought but a good win and good to see fringe players score. Without Ronaldo playing (think he was ill), we did miss something but Rooney played really well.

Brilliant!!

Other that football this weekend I watched Top Gear which was a US special. Basically the got $1000 each to buy a car and then sell it after travelling from Miami to New Orleans. Needless to say it was very funny and they almost got themselves killed by some rednecks in Alabama. (They wrote things on the side of each others cars with stuff like “Hillary for president”, “Country and Western music is rubbish” and “Man Love Rules”. Remember this is deep South country – the very religious, republician, country and western mad part of the World.

Other challenges include eating roadkill – Clarkson got a cow and put it on the roof! Also almost driving into a river full of Alligators (or maybe crocodiles – can’t remember).

One shocking think was when they got to New Orleans. Massive parts of it were still in complete ruin. You would think the richest country in world could have sorted it by now. Read the blog on the Top Gear site about the US trip.

Top Gear was brilliant and I have not laughed at a TV program for a long time! You will be able to find some clips on YouTube. Heres one for you:

Also last weekend went out and ended up in Sugar Lounge. One of us knew the bouncer so we managed to get in. Never been before and its a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Also the drinks were a rip-off. It was £4 for a bottle of beer. Glad it wasnt my round and lucky we had some free drinks vouchers. I didnt think it was that good and rather pretentious. There was one fool with a bottle of Moet thinking he was ‘all that’ and pouring it on the floor trying to impress ppl – it didnt! There was also another guy (I think he was with the Moet guy) trying to get a women to drink something he bought her. She was clearly not interested and I was going to say something but then the bouncers came and told them to leave.

Dont think I will be going again.

McSven is sending out DVDs to players to highlight their poor performance. Apparently the DVD is designed to underline the players “accountability” for their performances.

Interesting idea!! Can you imagine a proper manager (and not that stupid smiley one) like Sir Alex Ferguson giving players DVDs showing them how poor they played (with a nice backing track or something). Of course not!! You need to talk direct to the them Steve. Tell them to sort it out, do what they are paid (too much) money to do. In fact Steve, this is what you are being paid (even much more money) to do. Actually thats properly why hes always smiling – all the way to the bank. I am surprised Sven didnt smile more after (and continuing to) rip off The FA.

Heres a list of some of the movies coming out in 2007. There are a few good ones I am looking forward to like Spiderman, Simpsons and the latest Die Hard.

Smokin’ Aces – 12 January (US) / 26 January 2007 (US)
Rocky Balboa – 19th January (UK)
Goal 2 – Live The Dream – 9th February (UK)
Music and Lyrics – 9th Feb (US)
Gray Matters – 23 Feb (US)
Full Of It – 2 March (US)
Premonition – 9th March (US/UK)
The Ex – 9th March (US) / April 2007 (US)
Shooter – 23 March (US) / 13 April (UK)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – 23rd March (US) / 30th March (UK)
In The Land Of Women – 20 April (US)
The Invisible – 27 April (US) / 21 Jun (Germany)
Next – 27 April 2007 (US)
Spider-Man 3 – 4th May (UK/US)
28 Weeks Later – 11th May (UK/US)
Shrek The Third – 18 May (US) / 29th June (UK)
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End – 25th May (UK/US)
Knocked up – 1 June (US), 24 Aug (UK)
Wedding Daze – 1 June (UK), 17 August (US)
Ocean’s Thirteen – 8th June (UK/US)
Fantastic Four 2 – 15th June (UK/US)
Sicko – 22 June (US)
Transformers – 4 July (US) / 27th July (UK)
Die Hard 4.0 – 4 July (US) / 6th July (UK)
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix – 14th July (UK/US)
The Simpsons Movie – 27th July (UK/US)
The Bourne Ultimatum – 3rd August (US), 17 Aug (UK)
Rush Hour 3 – 10th August (US/UK)
Superbad – 17 Aug (US), 14 Sept (UK)
The Invasion – 17 Aug (US), 13 Oct (UK)
Good Luck Chuck – 24th August (US)
Death Sentence – 31st Aug (UK/US)
Run Fat Boy Run – 7th September (UK)
Shoot Em Up – 7 Sept (US), 14 Sept (UK)
The Brave One – 14 Sept (US), 21 Sept (UK)
Resident Evil: Extinction – 21st September (UK/US)
The Kingdom – 28 Sept (US), 5 Oct (UK)
The Heartbreak Kid – 5th Oct (US) / 19th October (UK)
Hitman – 17 Oct (US), 19 Oct (UK)
Rendition – 14 Oct (US/UK)
Dan in real life – 19 Oct (US)
Margot at the wedding – 19 Oct (US), 16 Nov (UK)
Gone baby gone – 19 Oct (US)
Bee Movie US 2 Nov (US) / 7 Nov (UK)
I Am Legend – 14 December (UK/US)
National Treasure: Book of Secrets – 21 Dec (US), 8 Feb (UK)

There is an excellent Yahoo web site for all the summer movies – http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movies