Suddenly in the space of a few hours, I have loads to report. Let me start with the geek stuff. Last August, I started using Technorati, thinking it would be the best way to start pushing my blog out there to the big wide world, rather than just a group of friends and people that find the site by searching Google for mp3s. After my lads weekend, in late July Technorati stopped picking updates to my site. In fact it stopped updating all together. I was not the only one. Searching various blog and reading comments and postings on forums I tried a range of things to get it working, including deleting my blog claim and reclaiming it. This did not work. In the end, I read somewhere that I should e-mail the CEO, David Sifry. Last Sunday, quite late I e-mailed David on his ‘work’ (AKA Technorati) address but heard no response. Yesterday morning I was searching around the web and discovered his personal blog and e-mailed him directly on his personal e-mail. This was 3.32pm yesterday afternoon. At 11.20pm, some eight hours later I had a replyand my site had been re-indexed. The words the founder actually used were, ‘I’ve adjusted our spiders so your blog should be picked up correctly now…’. Job done. Strange how I had to take it up with the big man before any action was taken. Even though I submitted three e-mails to Technical Support with no reply whatsoever. The only annoying thing about this is that all my previous postings from the past two months will be lost and not picked up, which is a shame but at least I am moving in the right direction once again.

It is common knowledge, the lack of television I watch. Apart from Eastenders, there is no regular series I watch. I have never seen a single episode of Friends, 24, Lost and many other popular television shows (which are so popular I cannot remember their names to list them). I dip in and out of Hollyoaks, having gone through a hardcore phase last summer watching every episode twice, on E4 then the day after on Channel 4. Then there are series that appear for a few weeks a year. Doctor Who takes that slot and while I grew up with Sylvester McCoy as my Doctor I have enjoyed the revival with Chris and to a certain extent David. You could not have missed the heavy bombardment of the new drama series that started last night, in between the new BBC1 indents. I had high expectations for Robin Hood and it was everything I expected and perhaps a little more. The action was there, a little light hearted comedy but still overall a great emphasis on drama. The casting is magnificent and acting superb, particularly from Keith Allen as the Sheriff of Nottingham. As an introduction to the legend there was enough to keep you wanting more and there was the right mixture to keep all members of the family entertained. I suppose for me, it was refreshing to watch something so down to earth. No superpowers, no amazing gadgets or death defying stunts. Just a simple bow and arrow. Sometimes it is great to bring the action down to a more realistic level, particularly if you consider the light sabre and the Star Wars sixology which I watched in part of the past few weeks. After such an intergalatic war between an vast army in the convides of space and time, it is refreshing to bring the battle back down to a conflict of wills between two men.

Have you heard of Weird Al? I am sure you have. Weird Al Yankovic is the king of parody. I can recall watching the ITV Chart Show with my Dad on Saturday morning back in the early 90s and watching the video to Fat, which had us both in stitches. If anything, the pop star has gone from strength to strength since those early days and now has quite a big fan base, fuelled by the power of the web. For some strange reason I thought I would listen to the song, eBay from the album Poodle Hat. He had released a new album a few weeks ago, so I headed over to You Tube to watch some of the videos. White & Nerdy was good but I prefer Don’t Download This Song was great with a fantastic animated video. The latest album, Straight Outta Lynwood is actually very good with some fantastic songs with a great polka of modern songs.

Must I talk about England. I suppose I must but there will be other sites that go into the details of the goal less draw at the Theatre Of Dreams. Extremely disappointed with the game, the performance left much to be desired and I was also frustrated that Steve didn’t change things at half time or sooner in the second half. You could clearly see that England were not making clear cut chances and needed someone with fresh ideas on the pitch. We should be beating teams like Macedonia comfortably, particularly at home. Yet for parts of the game yesterday evening we looked like the away side and there was no determination to be positive going forward. England can play much better, the quality out there is visible for all to see, it just seems that it is nearly impossible to make a great team out of the assembled cast of superstars. It is one thing to rue a poor performance, it is another thing to bounce back in three days time against Croatia. Perhaps the yellow card to Stevie G is a blessing in disguise. Time will tell.