David Mankellow

Blog

Here’s another installment of a piece of my brainbox. Not too sure how useful it’ll be but hopefully anyone that reads this will muse a bit, at least out of pity!

Chuckle Brothers

CelebraDoodle

I have decided to do a regular feature on the site called CelebraDoodle. It’s simply going to be a little fun, if not for the reader it’ll be fun for me! It’s going to be a satirical spoof Newspaper/Magazine article about a D-list celebrity or celebrities. The story will be as random as possible and if possible i’ll try to make it as real as I can. The best thing I can possibly hope for is that some sort of viral rumour starts from it like Neil Buchanan (of Art Attack fame) being dead. Worst case scenario it’ll make me laugh!

I’m certainly not a pioneer in this field. I have taken the idea from a number of things that I really like. As you will already be aware I am a big fan of comedy. Things like On the Hour, The Day Today and BrassEye are satirical news programmes and they all feature parodies of celebrities or politicians in a similar manner. Similarly Time Trumpet, a show I reviewed on this site does a very similar thing but looking at it from a different perspective – the future. With this view they have a fantastic creative spectrum to use. My idea is to delve into my brain and try to dig out some of the most random stuff I can and then attempt to put that on top of serious writing in a journalistic writing style. This will certainly be a useful task for me as my writing skills aren’t great, English has never been my forte!

Look out for this feature in the near future. I will try to have it as a weekly thing but who knows how it’ll turn out so it could be increased or decreased!

HTC Desire

I’ll continue to bleat on about this until you want to pull your eyes and ears out (ask my girlfriend) but the release date of the HTC Desire is getting ever closer! I’ve still not pre-ordered one yet. Still trying to stump up the courage to buy the handset out-right. It’s a lot of money you know. In my student scum days I purchased two cars over the three years. They were rubbish but the price of those put together is less than the phone that I want! I know that if i’m patient (something i’m not) I could get it subsidised on a contract but then if I got the phone free on a £40 per month contract that works out at £960 plus the fact that you’re tied into a contract for 2 years. If I pay £440 (max, it is cheaper) and then keep it for 24 months paying £20 per month for the 1 month rolling contract it’d work out at £920. I know that seems like a small amount of money to worry about over 2 years but there’s more to it. After 1 year I’ll be able to sell the phone for close to face value if I keep it in good condition (look at how much HTC Hero’s are still worth). Then I can get the next beautiful new device that flutters it’s eyelids and I don’t need to worry about being tied into a contract. That small amount of money saving comes with something a lot more valuable – freedom. More and more people I know are doing the same thing. It’s the same system used for buying cars and houses but on a smaller scale – buying and selling assets.

Portsmouth 0-5 Chelsea

Chelsea managed to win away from home last night at the hands of League One outfit Portsmouth. The scoreline and performance was much needed. I don’t think it mattered who we played but we needed something to increase the confidence at the bridge. I have to say I can’t see Joe Cole staying. When he’s sitting on the bench watching Deco start he must be livid! I would be. Overall we needed the win and got it. In addition to that we clawed some good goal difference back which could prove crucial with the title race looking so close at the moment. I have to be cautious though. Just because we’ve beaten a very poor team does not mean that we’re world beater once more. We’ve got a huge game at home to Villa on Saturday. It’s very pessimistic I know but if we do not win the league is over for me. United have Bolton and if they win and Chelsea don’t we will need a lot of the points from the United, Liverpool and Spurs away games, something that i’m not that confident of judging by recent away games.

Elsewhere in the football sphere Arsenal have one of the trickier ties coming up on Saturday. Birmingham have taken points from United and Chelsea this season and they’ll be looking to continue that. Arsenal have Vermaelen out and the Barcelona game to think about so it could be a potential banana skin. With Villa away at Chelsea I should think that David Moyes will see the Wolves game a massive one in the hunt to spoil the party in the quest for 4^th and 5^th. Man City have a game on Monday against the indifferent Wigan so the sides around them will be wanting to put them under a bit of pressure. Liverpool face Sunderland at home on Sunday. I can’t see many problems for the reds but then we’ve said that before! At the bottom of the table every game is massive from now until the end of the season. Hull will be looking at the Fulham game and see it as an opportunity to pick up a point or 3 whilst the woeful West Ham need to really battle if they’re to get anything from Stoke. Wolves will have a fight on their hands against the in-form Everton but the result on Tuesday against West Ham has bought them some space. Burnley have a huge Lancashire Derby at home to Blackburn Sunday. Burnley have been poor recently and Sam Allardyce has got Blackburn playing well so this will be an interesting game, tough to predict.

Closer to home the Saturday team that I play for, the Vine, have a big game this weekend. We’ve been on excellent form of late despite the humbling away to the league leaders last Saturday. We need to pick ourselves up and get a win against Burwell!