Out-foxed: Leicester 2-1 City

City fell to their first loss of the season tonight on the road at Leicester. I was keeping up with the action on my iPhone via the Football League app (which is pretty good I think), and to be honest, apart from City's fluked goal by Lee Naylor, it sounds like we were easily second best all night long. On Twitter, @cardiffcitymad summed it up. "Like boys against men 2nd half. Got what we deserved to be honest".

In a sense, it's a wake up call. It's still early in the season, and despite a satisfying if unspectacular win against Hull on Saturday which some people though showed what strength and depth we had as a squad, the fact is, that without Olifanjana and Drinkwater in midfield, and Bothroyd plus one or both of Bellamy and Chopra up front, we're not yet quite as good as we'd like to think we are.

Hopefully most of those bar Chopra may be back for Saturday's visit to Ipswich - another tough game. Promotion contenders have to be strong and bounce back from defeats like tonight. Let's hope we can. After a great start to the season, back to back defeats is definitlely not what we need.

Up the Bluebirds!

No roar from the Tiger: City 2-0 Hull

Oops - a bit tardy posting this, but it's been a very busy weekend.

I have to say I didn't fancy this on paper. Despite Hull's less than impressive start to life back in the Championship, they have some decent players and a decent manager in Nigel Pearson. And with several of our major players injured (Bellamy, Bothroyd, Chopra, Drinkwater) I just felt it might be one of those days, especially with our loan player to them - Anthony Gerrard starting for them.

Not so. Hull were to be blunt, awful. Having said that, City managed to stop any sense of playmaking from Hull. Seyi Olifanjana, ironically on loan from Hull is a monster in midfield and City look in a totally different class when he's there. He breaks up play and passes simple. Opposition players just bounce off him. And it was I suppose therefore inevitable that it was Olifanjana who made the breakthough after a period of City pressure when we almost scored through McPhail and then McNaughton. A fizzing Peter Whittingham cross from a free kick was met by the head of Oli, and bang - 1-0. To be fair he didn't celebrate too much (but we all did)!

Shortly after that he picked up an injury and had to leave the pitch. On came Gavin Rae - not exactly a like for like, but Rae kept things tight.

Up front, Andy Keogh on his own on his home debut was working his socks off with no joy.

Late in the second period, Rae made it 2-0 to wrap up the points. In the end it was easy. Hull offered very little, and despite a couple of mis-communications between Gyepes and Marshall, it was all too easy for City.

But we'll take easy - hard games will surely come, so we'll have points when they're on offer. A professional if not sparkling performance from the Bluebirds, another clean sheet, and Bothroyd, Bellamy, Chopra to return. Happy days.

Up the Bluebirds!!!

Twitter and professional sport

Twitter and celebrities go hand in hand. Just about anyone who's anyone (including me - @Statto1927) has a Twitter account, tweeting their every move.

Professional sportsmen and women are no exception, and people like me are genuinely interested in hearing things direct from the horses mouth that we might otherwise not get to see or hear.

However, as with all things, there's a fine line which is crossed occasionally, sometimes with catastrophic results. Philip Hughes the Australian cricket opener was reprimanded and banned from tweeting after he announced that he was dropped from the side before it was officially announced.

I follw James Anderson (@JimmyAnderson9), Graham Swann (@Swannyg66), and Tim Bresnan (@timbresnan) amongst some others whose banter is often amusing, sometimes very close to the knuckle, and sometimes just dull.

However, today, one of England cricket's greatest celebrities Kevin Pietersen (@kevinpp24) announced via Twitter that he had been dropped from the England T20 side. Bad enough if he'd done it before any official announcement, but he also used a rather bold expletive to reinforce his unhappiness about it. He also revealed that he was moving to Surrey - perhaps less of a surprise but again prior to any announcement.

The repercussions of this are likely to be that all England cricketers will be banned from using Twitter. That's a shame, but probably predictable if people can't be more professional about how they use the service.

I wouldn't dream of putting myself in the same arean as KP an others (although I have scored a few tons in my time) and anything I tweet is personal or a personal view about things that I think are relevant, interesting or that I have a general opinion on. However, I would not for example tweet about anything specifically to do with my employment or employer (other than I might be having a bad day for example). If I did so, I'd expect to get a quick march down to the bosses office to explain my actions and unprofessional behaviour at best, and a request to pick up my P45 on my way out at worst.

In a black week for cricket with the allegations of spot betting and corrupt Pakistani cricketers, this is the last thing England cricket needed.

KP might be a brilliant cricketer (though sadly out of touch and thus the reason why he was dropped), but a little more thought about what he was doing when he tweeted that wouldn't have gone amiss. On the other hand, if he's free this weekend, mabe he could come and bolster our Tour sqaud for our annual sojourn to Torquay!

Gezza to Hull

So on deadline day we've shipped out Anthony Gerrard to Hull, but no faces in (as far as we know).

The deal for Gerrard, a season long loan does unusually allow him to play against his parent club - interestingly the next match up for the Bluebirds on 11th September. However, this deal also means that Seyi Olifanjana, who's on also on a season long loan the other way, can play against the Tigers in that match, whereas until this deal occurred he wasn't going to be allowed to.

As I've said before, I think Gerrard has been unlucky not to get more of a go at City this term. Something seems to have given as he was the pick of the centre backs last year for me. He has been prone to making a couple of mistakes, but I always felt he was giving 110%. However, I wish him well this season - just not against the Bluebirds on 11th!

Good result. Portsmouth 0-2 City

This was a tough fixture on paper, butt city came away 2-0 winners thanks to an OG and another from Jay Bothroyd. There were plenty of City faithful to see the Bluebirds end the day in second spot on goal difference behind QPR.

Things are looking good for us at the moment apart from that injury to Chops. There's still no news on whether Whittingham is staying or going, and Jonesy is still taking about getting another one or two in. The squad looks strong and I'm quietly confident that if we can hold it all together, this will be our year.

Hurrah for the weekend

It's been one week back at work after my holidays, and it's probably fair to say it hasn't been the best of weeks. Most things that could have gone wrong did so. Technology, that wondrous thing that is supposed to make all our lives easier has caused three major headaches (literally as well as metaphorically) these last five days, and resulted in my week finishing at 10.30pm tonight rather than the envisaged 5pm.

I suppose though it's moments like this where we really earn the corn so to speak. Frankly I could have done without it. At least I've got three days to recover.

Holiday snaps

Have uploaded my holiday pics to Picasa Web Albums. If you can bear looking through someone else's holidays photo's here's the link to our Pembrokeshire jolly.

New faces for City?

Away from the news of City's demise from the Carling Cup tonight, still no firm news on any more new faces at City.

The rumours continue surrounding the return of City old boy Glenn Loovens though reports suggest he wants to stay at Celtic and fight for his place, despite not appearing to figure too highly in manager Neil Lennon's immediate plans. God knows we need a defender on Loovens stature - both his height and his technical ability. I'm sure Mark Hudson is a lovely chap, but I don't rate him, and though Gabor Gyepes is decent enough, he needs someone big and strong with him. When he played virtually a season with Roger Johnson beside him he was great. I'm also not sure what Gerrard has done to fall out of favour with Dave Jones as he with Gyepes would have been my starting two centre backs this season. Rumours were that he was off to Sheffield Wednesday, though that's been denied by the Owls manager, and he played tonight.

Also tonight I saw a post on Twitter from @cardiffcitymad the well respected Michael "Mad" Morris's Cardiff City Online suggesting a loan move for Wolves Republic of Ireland striker Andy Keogh. You can see in the photo above that he's already practising the "Ayatollah"!

However, given the number of loan signings we currently have I think we can only have one more, so it looks like it would have to be either Loovens or Keogh. For my money (and lets' face it, I give enough of it to Cardiff City every year), I'd rather Loovens, because there's no doubt we need a better central defence, whilst we've got Bothroyd, Bellamy, Burke, Chopra, Whittingham who should all score goals this season.

City out of Beer (sorry Carling) Cup: Peterborough 2-1 City

Posh stuffed us last year at London Road, and they grabbed a later winner to dump us out of the Beer (sorry Carling) Cup tonight.

City, without Craig Bellamy, the injured Michael Chopra and the soon to be a Leeds Utd player (?) Ross McCormack were 1-0 up at half time through Jay Bothroyd, but conceded in the 74th and 88th minutes to crash out.

I know a lot of people don't rate the Beer (sorry Carling) Cup, but it's a money spinner if you stay in and there's silverware. On the flip side, no more distractions until January keeps players fit and focused on the League. Your call.

Given City's history (well as long as I've been watching them), one or more of several things happened at/after half time. Tick as many of the following that apply.

1. They were complacent (quite probably)
2. Dave Jones said "Well done lads, lets try and hang on" (we know what happens when they try and do that. Arsenal under George Graham they are not)
3. Our rubbish defence got found out (yes)
4. They had a shocking second period due to points 1, 2 and 3 above (often the case when they are leading 1-0 at HT)
5. They were tired probably from such a long journey on a luxury coach (poor dabs)
6. They couldn't care less about the Beer (sorry Carling) Cup (well I don't think DJ does anyway - he sees it as a early season training programme to get players match fit)
7. They decided at half time to concentrate on the League (probably not but it's a good cliché when you've been dumped out of the Beer (sorry Carling) and/or FA Cup
8. Our rubbish defence got found out....oh, I've done that one. Still worth repeating it.
9. A poorer team (on paper) upped their game to try and get one over (successfully) on a club that's hogged the limelight in the last week signing a fantastic Premiership quality player who didn't play, and we didn't up our game to match. Oh, that's complacency again. Sorry. No, I'm not.
10. Our rubbish defence got found out. Have I said that before?
    

I just feel sorry for the fans that made a long trip and watched us capitulate. And to make it worse, the Jacks came from behind to beat Tranmere.

Still, at least we can concentrate on the League now ;-)

Swarbrick shocker: City 4-0 Doncaster

This match was all about Craig Bellamy.

Over 24.000 packed into CCS today to see Craig Bellamy, City's new signing strut his stuff, and he didn't disappoint. Donny had the better of the opening half, although City should have had a penalty inside two minutes when Chopra was unceremoniously upended in the visitors penalty area.

Referee ND Swarbrick waved away City appeals and to be absolutely fair, he and his assistants SJ Barrow and ME Weaver had an absolute shocker, missing balls that were out of play on the sidelines, giving throws or balls that were obviously in, and the referee himself failing to punish several studs us tackles from the visitors, Chopra and Bothroyd the main recipients of some terrible tackles especially from Donny's number 5 Wayne Thomas.

Bothroyd it was though who opened the scoring after the ball fell rather fortuitously to him inside the box. 1-0 City at half time and glad to take it after Chopra had limped off after his earlier challenge. The change to 4-5-1 though inspired City and it was no surprise when Bothroyd doubled the score in the second period left unmarked after Bellamy drew defenders to Burkes great cross. Burke then added a third as City began to play ole football, Bellamy's 60 yarder leaving the ginger Scotsman plenty to do but a fine finish ensued.

And to make the day complete Bellamy rasped in a 35 yarder to seal a 4-0 win,. There was even time for Koumas to come off the bench in the final minutes, though how he'll fit into this side will take a braver man than me to predict.

Great win for City, who move 2nd. I predict at this early stage automatic promotion for the Bluebirds - if - we keep out players fit.

Finally, I have it on good authority we'll be welcoming back another City old boy on loan next week - Glenn Loovens from Celtic on loan. Magnifcent.

Blooobirds!!!

Bellers is a Bluebird

A bit late with this post, but I am on holiday!

Following the capture of Jason Koumas (see previous post) on loan, rumours abounded last weekend that Craig Bellamy of Manchester City & Wales was close to signing on loan for City. Having been left out of Man City's Champions League squad, the writing appeared to be on the wall for Bellamy, arguably one of the Premiership's outstanding players last season. Mancini clearly didn't want to flog him to any premiership rivals either, so something had to give. Allegedly several clubs were in the hunt for Bellers, including former employer Celtic, but in the end the lure of playing the majority of his matches in his home city and close to his family who have never moved from the area swung it City's way.

If Koumas was a big signing, this is massive, and a real feather in the cap to the City management team who have pulled this off. If nothing else it'll ramp up the gates at the CCS, but I'm sure too that Bellamy, along with Koumas, Drinkwater and Olifinjana the new signings, will provide City with the player power to mount a serious promotion challenge. I hope so, because now, nothing short of promotion will do/

I'm back of my holiday in time for Saturday's match v Doncaster, and I'm really looking forward to it. It'll be a cracking atmosphere.

Up the City!!!!

Is Koumas a Bluebird - again?

Reports are coming in that Jason Koumas, of the borough of Wigan is close to returning on loan to Cardiff City.

As is usual at this time as a City supporter, don't think this is a done deal. te transfer embargo placed on us for failure to submit end of year accounts isn't quite resolved (though rumours suggest it has been sorted), and until everything is tickety boo, I for one won't believe anything for certain.

If this is true though, I'd be very happy. Koumas is another of those players who many managers fail to get the best out of, but in his spell with the Bluebirds he looked every inch the class player he undoubtedly is, even at 30. Given a straight choice between him and departed City hero Joe Ledley, frankly I think I'd go for Koumas every time.

Let's hope this is true, and more importantly, let's hope it's sorted in time for Sunday's Championship opener vs the Blades.

Up the City!

Long season ahead: City 0-1 Deportivo

First match of the new season for us today, a friendly against Spanish la Liga team Deportivo la Coruna.

On the evidence of today, it's going to be a long hard winter for City and their fans.

Firstly, we still have major off-field problems. We have continuing difficulties in paying tax, threats of winding up orders and transfer embargos preventing us bringing any new players in.

We have a squad of 21 which includes three goalkeepers, two youngsters who have only just been offered professional contracts, and the centre midfield lynchpin is out injured.

Apart from that, things are OK. (That was a joke, but not a funny one).

So, to today. Deportivo didn't really look like they could be bothered - at least in the first half, although they did make more of an effort in the second period. City looked brighter in the first half, but given the visitors apathy, that wasn't too difficult.

0-0 at half time and with the inevitable rash of substitutions for both sides, things became quite fragmented after the break. Deportivo though did up the pace (from walking to jogging), and eventually through a series of close passes just about walked the ball into City's net. In truth, City offered very little in the second half, and that's the problem fr the season ahead.

We have no creativity in midfield. To be honest I'm not sure we've had any for a long time, but there's none there now for sure. New loan signing Danny Drinkwater (from Man U) looks capable, and (thankfully) positive, trying to get forward at available opportunities, but he's hardly pulling the strings.

And up front? Welll, Bothroyd felt his hamstring in warm up so didn't play. We've no other target man, but still persist in lobbing high balls up for the shortest front pairing in the Championship of Chopra and McCormack. They huffed and puffed, and both had decent chances, but if we can't score against a side who are hardly bothering, what are we going to do against battling Championship teams?

I'd like to think things will sort themselves out, and everything will be OK, but somehow I've got a feeling that this isn't what's going to happen.

Another tough season for City and their fans methinks.

Talent shows - boooooring......

I'm so fed up of these "talent" shows on the telly. whether celebrity or Joe Public, whenever you turn on the TV these days there's another re-hash of some form of show where people battle it out for the "ultimate" goal. I can't even remember where it started - perhaps as far back as Opportunity Knocks, which unless you're as old as me you won't remember. But in those days it was only Opp Knocks, and only once a week - now it's endless with every TV channel trying to outdo the other or think of a new format.

Let's see: Bearing in mind I try not to watch any of these - I only get glimpses when daughter/wife/son is watching, I'm bound to miss loads out...

• Strictly Come Dancing
• The Strictly rival one that started when whats her chops (Arlene I think) was kicked off Strictly
  
• The X Factor
• Big Brother
  
• Britain's Got Talent
• That Choir one
• Andrew Lloyds Webber's Maria/Oliver/I forget the last one
• Some street dancing one was on recently
• All the public ones have a celebrity version and all the celebrity ones have a public version
  
• Top Model ones (a daughter previous favourite - think she saw the light with that drivel)
  
• And daughter's current fave....Don't stop believing
• There's cooking ones, jungle ones, singing ones, dancing ones, choir ones. Blimey, we'll have celebrity hairdressing competition next. Mind you, there's probably already one of those on one of the more obscure TV channels
  

There's tons more, but it hurts my head just thinking about them. They all seem to have a few things in common.

• There's a lot of distinctly untalented people on most of them, all of whom are under the delusion that they're the best thing since sliced bread.
  
• They all have a nauseating (and often supremely talentless) host
• The judges are getting increasingly less talented and increasingly less well known
• There's always one "nasty" judge"
  
• They all have that irritating pause when they announce "And the winner is......."
• They nearly all have an "off" for the worst two - dance off, sing off etc.
  
• The Joe Public contestants/groups nearly always have to find an increasingly subtle "twist" to make them stand out for the crowd
• They all go on for far too long (both in show length and episode run)
  
• Half of the winners disappear into fairly immediate obscurity
• The person/group who comes second is nearly always better/more talented than the winner

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate these type of shows. Oh, hang on, yes I do.

I can't wait for the football season to start. At least there'll be something worth watching....can't beat a dull 0-0 draw any day.

iPhone round up

iPhone 4 owners can now order their "free" case from Apple using the iPhone 4 Case Program app. This is Apple's attempt to appease the wrath of iP4 owners suffering from the "Grip of Death" signal attenuation problem by giving every iP4 owner a free case.
It's a neat solution. Download the app, sign in using your iTunes login, and you're presented with a selection of cases to choose from. Choose the one you want, hit "Place order" and that's that. Your details come up for confirmation and you then sit back and wait 3-4 weeks for delivery.

Notwithstanding the view of many that this is a bit of a fob off by Apple, the delivery concept is great.

Also out today is the BBC News app. This brings BBC's news service it's own dedicated app, which also plays video - something not possible via Safari because of the Flash on the BBC site. The app looks good, seems quick and configurable to a degree. Early days, but worth having on your device.

Worst news of the week must be poor old Murray over at Palm-Mac who's brand new iPhone 4 has started coming apart at the seams - literally! His case has warped and is bulging out at one corner. Hasn't been dropped or knocked - really bizarre, and a problem I haven't seen reported anywhere else. Obviously it's going back to be exchanged, but very, very odd.

Zagg Invisible Shield

I'm not normally one for cases and protectors, but I had heard from a few sources that the iPhone 4 back was prone to scratches - even though it's supposedly made of an especially toughened glass.

Sure enough, about 4 weeks in I found a tiny scratch on the back of the case. A few of my techie chums have espoused the use of a Zagg Invisible Shield protector, and so with the confidence that comes from having known these chaps for sometime (at least in the virtual sense) ordered a back protector direct from the Zagg website.

You can get the protector for front screen as well, but I think that's probably overkill - I never got a scratch on my virgin 3G screen in 18 months of use, and I think a protector of any type - even a supposed "invisible" one, must make some sort of difference.

The protector arrives in a box with a spray bottle of some sort of liquid and a rubber squeegee. Basically, you peel the protector off it's backing, spray it with the liquid, apply it and squeegee out the bubbles. Care is needed not to overspray and end up with a mess of liquid seeping out of the sides of the protector, but it went on easy enough. At first it looks a bit messy - even with all the main bubbles squeegee'd out you start thinking "oh, don't like the look of that", but miraculously after about 24 hours it's fine. You can tell there's a protector on there just y looking at it, but it's flattened out fine. It lends a slightly tacky, more grippy feel to the iPhone which is no bad thing for those of you that have held this wonderful, but thin and slippy device. I'm impressed and now have a layer of protection which I'm happy with - this stuff is apparently very tough.

Make sure you read the instructions. You need the surface of the device you're applying this too pristine, with no particles, and the instructions recommend you washing your hands thoroughly and wetting the finger tips with some of the spray solution if you don't want to end up with fingerprints stuck to your protector.

All in all, a worthwhile purchase.

I'm also getting a silicon case in a day or two courtesy of one of said techie chums who had a few going spare. I should then be well protected.

So, nothing to worry about

So his Stevieness has spoken. There is an antenna problem, but hey, all phones have it, and we'll demonstrate it for you too.

But because Apple loves all it's customers, they'll give everyone a free case and refund the cost of those who have already bought one.

I suppose you have to hand it to Apple. Despite a thrashing in the tech media this week (and a bit longer to be honest), they've come out and said there's a problem, but it affects only a tiny minority of people, bu we'll give everyone a free case because we're nice.

On top of that, reading between the lines, it sounds like they're pretty miffed by this antenna issue (which isn't surprising) and that they're already working on further antenna development. Be interesting to see how that pans out - no doubt future Apple devices are going to be subjected to more scrutiny than ever both by Apple's R&D people and by the public when they get their hands on kit.

So no recall. I'm still more than happy with my iPhone. It's a brilliant device, and I really pleased with it. Might get a free case if they're giving them away though!

Raoul Moat - the reaction

I'm all for law and order. And I'm all for things being done properly. But I can't understand why this case has generated so much negativity around the police handling of the case and subsequent "end game" (not a game I know - figure of speech) where this man took his own life but where the police are being set up as the baddies. They didn't do this, they didn't do that, they used the "wrong" tasers which are unauthorised by the Home Office, they fired them at the wrong time etc etc.

Let's face it, this man was not a nice bloke. Arrested 12 times, just out of prison, shot and killed a man. Let me repeat that. Shot and killed a man. And shot a policeman. Known to have been abusive and aggressive. Armed and extremely dangerous. Not the sort of bloke you want to meet. Cut the authorities some slack. They're doing their job.

iPhone 4 problems

Does your iPhone 4 suffer from the "grip of death" antenna issue? Just google iPhone 4 antenna and see the plethora of hits.

Basically there are loads of people saying their iPhone is afflicted by a problem where if you hold the phone in such a way as to touch both parts of the antenna (the steel band that folds around the edge of the phone) on the lower left side of the phone across the black band break, the signal will slowly (or quickly in some cases) degrade to the point where any signal is lost and if on a call, the call dropped.

I can't lose the signal completely, but certainly the bars do drop. Apple have been accused of not testing the phone properly - in the wild, pre release, testing was done with cases disguising the phone and ace would negate this effect. Apple's respons eis that it's a software issue - and has been universally derided.

Whatever the reality, Apple's kudo has been dented, and they need to do something about it and quickly. Some blogs and websites are implying a mass recall is imminent, whilst others say Apple supplying free "Bumper" cases (normally retailing at £25 in the UK) would assuage unhappy owners. Others again say there isn't an issue - or if there is, it's only with AT&T's network in the US.

So no definitive problem, or solution - yet. Watch this space.

To make matters worse, a lot of people are also reporting problems with the devices proximity sensor. This is a sensor that detects when you are holding the phone to your face on a call and blanks (or is supposed to) the screen. The reported problems are that the sensor isn't working properly, and touching the phone screen with your face can mute, or worse, end a call. I haven't experienced this problem, but I know people that have. Another one for Apple to dwell on.

Software fixes for both problems are mooted, but most people seem to think it's a hardware issue.

Apple need to sort this out - their shares are already falling based on the bad publicity they're getting, and I can't see Steve Jobs wanting to brazen this one out.

Here we go again....: Bath 0 - 2 City

So Cardiff City are underway again. In the blinking of an eye since the play-off final it's back to pre season, and City started off on the right foot with a comfortable 2-0 win over Bath City.

Granted the opposition standard wasn't great, but it's the run out that counts, and with Bothroyd and Burke getting on the scoresheet, Dave Jones will probably be happy with the first outing of the season.

No!!!!!!!!!!

OMG no.......!

If news earlier this week wasn't bad enough, today's rumour for all the City doom-mongers is the touted return of Sam "The Man" Hammam.

For some people, Hammam was the best thing that ever happened to Cardiff City, and there are those who would welcome him back with open arms. I'm not one of them. I think he sold the club down the river for his own gains, and just knew how to play the audience (including me for a time I might add).

The club have been quick to refute the rumour that he is set to return, and I only hope that's the case.

In other City rumours, former City icon Robert "Earnie" Earnshaw has been linked with a move back to the Bluebirds on a three year contract. On his day he was one of the most accomplished strikers at this level and could score goals for fun. However, despite an inevitable move to the Premiership, he has subsequently failed to replicate his City goalscoring prowess at a number of clubs including West Brom., Norwich, Derby and his current club Nottingham Forest. To be fair he had a decent end to the season with Forest, but his days look numbered there. I'm not sure a return to City is the right thing for hi, or for the Bluebirds though.

City not out of the mire yet?

There seems to be a general consensus around, that although Cardiff City have some shiny new investors, all is still not well at the club I support.

So far there has been no talk or sign of new players coming in. To be fair, it's still early days, and with the World Cup still in full swing, many football people's eyes are still on South Africa rather than the to-ing and fro-ing of UK player transfers. Once everyone's back from holiday/South Africa, no doubt we'll see some activity.

Worse, there are reports today that seem to be true that this months wages have been paid late (again). This is allegedly down to red tape and problems at the bank end rather than not having any money...ahem..., but is worrying nonetheless coming so soon after our tax and debt problems seemed to be resolved.

Finally, although it was almost inevitable, it looks like we might lose Joe Ledley to Stoke.
Now, personally, and I might get shot down in flames (or worse) by some other Bluebirds fans, I think Ledley is over-rated, but he is a real focus for fans and the media as a home grown Cardiff boy. If he wants, and can get premiership football, then good luck to him, though I wouldn't have Stoke at the top of my list of Premiership teams to want to go to.

Worse, we probably won't get a pot load of money for him. Stoke, who are like a dog with a bone here, offered us £6m about 18 months ago and we snuffed it. I bet we won't get close to that now.

There's plenty of time before the season kicks off on 7th August (8th for us), but I just get the feelings everything is still a bit unsettled.

Goal, what goal?

And we thought it was over the line!






Or if you prefer.....

Downgrading iOS4 to OS3.1

o go back an OS version (or two)Happy as I am with my iPhone 4, my 3G handset is really struggling with the upgrade to iOS4. As my son will be using this, (lucky him), I decided to try and downgrade the OS back to v3.x. This isn't straightforward. Apple in it's wisdom believes the only way is up, and doesn't offer an easy or obvious way two.

However, following (carefully) the steps on this site I managed to do it first time (well, OK second after I had failed to read the "Read-me" text file in the Recboot zip properly and fully the first time.).

It was painless and took only about 10 mins to end up with a virgin iPhone 3G running version 3.x, and it feels a lot snappier for it.

More iPhone 4

Well I've had the beastie a few days now, and have hardly been able to put it down. It was my constant companion on a weekend away with the wife (much to her chagrin), but provided a good opportunity to test a few things out.

First the bad news. The screen isn't great in direct sunlight. Granted it was VERY bright, but looking at the screen was hard enough, taking pictures or video was often sheer guesswork. Still in the UK, that sort of weather is the exception rather than the rule, so most of the time should be OK.

On the camera, the overall pictures in good light are fantastic - certainly for someone used to the 3G camera and Palm Treo/Centro cameras before that! Low light photo's aren't bad, but they're not great, but again an improvement on the 3G.

The video is outstanding. It's clear, bright and comes close to replacing my handheld Samsung F30 which I only got at Christmas. Only the capacity for storage will make the iPhone second best, but for short scenes it's the dog's dooda's.

Battery life is much, much better than the 3G. I can more than easily get through a day, and probably close to two and I'm a fairly heavy user. If you believe batteries need to settle down and benefit from a few full charge/discharge cycles early doors, then there is still a way to go before mine starts maxing out, but I'm already impressed. I am though used to charging every day anyway, so it's no hardship for me.

And if course it's fast. It whizzes along at a canter where the 3G in comparison is more of a trot.

Still glad I bought it - you bet.

iPhone 4

I've got my iPhone 4, and on release day too!

It was a snap decision. I was going to wait a couple of weeks until the hoo hah died down, but when the cat woke me just before 6, I decided to give it a go. I arrived at the O2 store in Queen St Cardiff at 7.10am to find about 150 people already waiting - the first ones had allegedly arrived about 1am! Within minutes there were another 20 or so behind me, all waiting for the 8.02am opening.

Our initial worry was would there be enough stock, but the staff made several head-counts and assured us they were "sitting pretty" and we'd all get one, something they repeated about three times, although by the time the queue had extended too much further they were suggesting that was that.

The next worry was how long was it going to take? Again the staff said they were working on 5 or 6 stations and they reckoned about 10 minutes per person. Even so, I was in for a long wait. In the end, I got into the shop at about 12.20pm - over 5 hours after arriving, and believe me, but then I was knacked. My feet ached, my back ached, and only free water and free Dansih pastries from the O2 team had made it bearable. Bearing in mind my general impatient disposition, I did well to hang on, but it gets to the point where you can't turn away. A teacher 4 back from me cut it so fine, he was literally at his latest cut-off point when he was 3 away from the door, but we let him go in before us. By then we were all best friends anyway!

So, the deed was done and I came away with a shiny 16GB iPhone 4.

Was it worth the wait? The cost? The contract tie in?

Yes, yes and yes again.

It's blisteringly fast - the fastest phone I've used by a country mile. Actions and apps snap open and closed. The fabled "retina" screen is gorgeous.

However, it's not in such a way as you immediately feel the obvious differences between this and previous incarnations (in my case a 3G) until you compare side by side.

It doesn't feel markedly thinner on it's own. But put it by the 3G and the latter dwarfs it. The screen on it's own undoubtedly looks superb. But put the same image on the 3G next to it and you see just how gorgeous and crisp the retina display is.

Phone sounds are louder and "clunkier" than on my 3G. The unit is about the same weight, but ounce for ounce it feels more solid.

It's so fast - compared to the 3G which was never blistering, and since iOS4 update has been positively laggy, this unit is very, very fast. You can almost hear the apps snapping open and closed.

Inevitably, there have been some reports on the web about problems. Two in particular stand out. One, is yellow splotches on the screen. This has been put down to the fast paced manufacture process and something called "Organofunctional Silane Z-6011" not evaporating properly, but is something that will apparently disappear in a few days use once whatever it is does completely evaporate. The other, slightly more worrying problem being reporting is a slowly fading signal when picking up a call with the phone in your hand. This is allegedly something to do with the contact of the skin across the antennae joins (3 small black bands around the unit that perform 3 different radio functions).

I haven't got yellow splotches (hooray) but in a crude test did see a slight signal fade when I put a finger across both lower seams of the antennae. Or at least I though I did once. I couldn't replicate it though, and you'd have to be holding you phone tightly and in a rather odd way (to me at least) to persistently "short" across these seam. This will be one to watch with interest.

So, there are my first impressions. I'm of an age where it's fun to do something radical once in a while. Getting an iPhone 4 isn't radical. Queuing for 5 and a half hours for a phone is.

Glad I did though.

iOS4

So I updated my iPhone 3G to the new iOS4 last night. The download took a mere 22 minutes, but the backup, install and restore took an interminable time. Eventually though it was done and I was ready to explore the wonderful new world of iOS4.

As a 3G owner, I had already resigned myself to the fact I wasn't getting multi-tasking or background wallpaper, so not too concerned about that.

The first thing I did was create folders, and tidy up my apps. I'm an organised personal (generally, though my wife might not agree), and I like a sense of order. It was nice to be able to group apps together inside folders according to type of app. It also allowed me to put those default iPhone apps I never use (stocks, weather etc) into an "unused apps" folder far away from my home screen.

The unified in-box is neat too. I don't have my work email on my iPhone, but I do have three different email accounts, and it's nice to get everything in one place. The threading view is also handy.

I did think that iOS4 had broken my Exchange syn with my work Outlook Calendar (several reports of similar around the web), but it turns out our work has switched off Exchange sync to non work phones because they can't be remotely wiped if lost. Not convinced of the security arguments myself, and it's a pain that I can have my work diary available on my iPhone, especially as you can now decide which calendars you want to display, rather than an all or nothing scenario pre iOS4.

I've also just discovered the digital zoom on the camera. Just tap the screen then drag to zoom. Granted digital zoom isn't that great, and on a camera that's ropey to start with it's even worse, but hey, it's better than no zoom at all! It's not like it's a replacement for my main digital cameras!

I'm sure there's a myriad of other enhancements tucked away, but those are the obvious ones so far. I'll discover more as I play more I guess.

I also felt that after the upgrade the 3G was a slower. Apps seemed to be taking longer to start up, and the response within apps didn't seem so good. This has largely disappeared following deleting my (now useless) Exchange calendar and doing a reset of the phone. Will keep an eye on it though.

I've seen some reports of battery draining faster too, but haven't seen this myself.

But I probably won't be playing for long, because I've decided that I'm going to upgrade to the iPhone 4 pretty soon. Watch this space!

World Cup woes

Well how grim was that? If England's opener in South Africa against the USA was disappointing, this was miles worse. Really. In fact I'd go so far as to say the only team that's looked worse than England did tonight was France, and that's saying something.

Devoid of ides, nervous, and increasingly tesne as the game wore on, these "professionals" looked no better than a Sunday Parks outfit. Capello is almost as stubborn in his ways as Sven was clueless, and unless something miraculous happens between against Slovenia on Wednesday, England will be coming home. Slovenia looked very good against the US today, especially in the first half when they went 2-0 up, and will provide a stern test.

Am I confident?

No.

City - tax debt freee?

It doesn't numb the pain of the play off final loss, but at least it's comforting to hear that City's £1.9m tax debt appears to have been cleared.

The recent take over by a Malaysian consortium seems to be steadying the good ship that is Cardiff City. However, it's early days of course, and we wait to see whether the investment is just about getting City on a financially operationally sound footing, or whether it's that plus a genuine commitment to push for Premiership football next season.

Many said this last season was City's do or die season, but I think it's this coming one. Having got so close last time, I think it' won't take much more for City to be genuine automatic promotion challengers. But if the investment doesn't come, I see only one way for City, and it's not up.

Looking ahead, I think the Championship won't be as strong next season. I'm not complacent, but I think the sides coming down - Burnley, Hull and Portsmouth aren't as strong as two of the sides that have gone up - Newcastle and West Brom. I really can't see Blackpool doing anything other than finishing rock bottom, and that's not just sour grapes.

Of course, it's all a long way off, and we'll just have to wait and see.

Clever GMail

How clever is GMail?

You probably know this already, but I didn't. I just went to send an email in which I had intended to add an attachment, and had said in the body of the email "...see attached". Except I hadn't attached it. I do this all the time at work and Outlook blindly sends the email and people come back and say "what attachment?"

GMail though popped up a message that basically said "Ooop! looked like you meant to attach a document but you haven't done so - do you still want to send?"

Simple, but brilliant!

I and I know GMail isn't in beta any more, but this is the image I had lying around.

iPhone 4

So here it is - the latest, greatest, slimmest smartphone on the market, courtesy of those nice people at Apple.

It is, as was widely predicted the same phone that was widely leaked around the internet a few weeks ago, something hat even Steve Jobs, Apple's head honcho alluded to in his keynote - "Some of you have already seen this."

A quick run down of some of the main highlights are a scratch resistant glass screen, a mere 9.3mm thick, a bigger battery, front and rear camera (flash with rear), something Jobs called a retinal display - from Apple's website this is..."The Retina display on iPhone 4 is the sharpest, most vibrant, highest-resolution phone screen ever, with four times the pixel count of previous iPhone models. In fact, the pixel density is so high that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. Which makes text amazingly crisp and images stunningly sharp".
For most of the rest of the world this probably translates to HD or high definition.

The device will be available in 16GB and 32GB models, in black or white and will be available from 24th June. My contract with O2 is up and I've already registered my interest for this new model!

Of course, it's not only a new phone, but it gets a new OS too - what was OS4 but is now in Apple speak iOS 4. This really gets my interest as it brings a unified mail inbox, multitasking and folders to name some of the myriad of changes to the OS.

I'm sure there are many people far better qualified out there to be talking about this, so I'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say, I'm quite excited in my own gadgety, geeky way.

Dem bones

I really should know better.

I forget how many times I've "retired" from playing cricket, but it's a lot. I'm more than content now to watch from the sidelines as Mini Stats plays and maybe score the occasional game. I'm involved enough with everything in the club that I can't get away from the game, without having to play as well with failing eyesight, dodgy bones (especially knee).

Anyhow, took Mini along to our Sunday friendly away fixture today only to find out we had two "no-shows". I volunteered to step in as it would have been a poor show for us to field only 9 men. I grabbed some borrowed whites that were a little on the snug side, and fielded 40 over in my trainers. Luckily I didn't have to chase too many, but when I did, boy did my knee hurt.

After tea, chasing 170, the skipper asked me to bat at 3. Whilst I'd have been happy bating down the order, my pride took the better of me and I said yes. Again with completely borrowed kit (including box), I managed to bat through from 5-1 in the third over to the winning post scoring 64 not out on the way. Most of them came in boundaries, so again not too much running, although the odd three didn't do me any good!!

So despite me trying to give up, I still get wheeled out occasionally, and there's life in the old dog yet. But I really ache and hurt after all that. My knee which isn't great at the best of times feels like a bunch of mashed up bones. It really is time to let the younger crowd do all this.....until the next time

iPad thoughts

I had a play with an iPad today in Cardiff's Apple store for all of 5 minutes. They had about 20 on display, all in use, but apparently none in stock for sale according to a salesman I overheard.

I'm an iPhone and Macbook Pro user, and as yet haven't "seen the light" of the iPad. I'm not really sure who it's aimed at and for what. My iPhone/MBP combo is perfect for me, and I can't imagine carrying around a third device which can do most of what both other devices can do, albeit in it's own form factor.

Don't get me wrong. The iPad is a stunning piece of kit, typical of most Apple products. It's got a gorgeous screen....but....

If it's browsing I want, I've got my MBP or my desktop PC. I don't do e-books so count that one out. If I want to type anything of consequence, again MBP/desktop PC. Don't do many games, and certainly not for extended periods so count that one out. If I want quick notes, access to same, email, text, twitter etc. the iPhone suits me down to the ground. I might watch movies on it, but I can do that on the MBP or even the iPhone - not ideal, but serviceable.

So despite it being a lovely bit of stuff so to speak, and possible "wanting" one sometime (though no immediate feelings of ust for it I have to say), I certainly don't feel that I "need" one or that I'm missing out by not having one. Does that make me a bad person?

One plus I did notice in my brief foray was a much nicer implementation of the calendar app - better view options. Of course the fanboys will argue it's only possible because of a bigger screen, but try telling that to die hard Palm/Agendus/Datebook Pocket Informant users who have long lived with great calendar apps on small form factor devices. Will we get this in iPhone OS4 ? How about in iCal?

Of course it's WWDC next week and we get to see the new iPhone (if you haven't already seen the various leaked images on the web). Currently, that's my next target, though if it fails to impress, I might be looking at something else (Android/Blackberry even?)

Could be an interesting week ahead for me.

Bellamy for City?

Here's one rumour that just won't go away. Craif Bellamy, servant of the parish of Manchester City, bit being widely speculated on a move to Cardiff City. How much truth is there to this rumour? Why would Bellamy, a premier league star want to drop a level (and no doubt take a huge hit on wages) to play for City?

Well for one, it's his home town club. For two, he can't command a regular place at The City of Manchester Stadium. For three, (and linked to two) he apparently doesn't get on that well with the City management. For four, his family are still based just outside Cardiff and he regularly commutes back and forth, a strain on anyone. For five, the Bluebirds need a "feel good" factor and strong indication that they really want to push and build on this years success (and ultimate disappointment).

So waht do you reckon? Will we see Craigo at the CCS next season? The jury's out, but it's not impossible by a long way. I only have one question.

When we're so shite in defence, why are we looking to sign another striker?

New wireless keyboard

I bought a new keyboard and mouse this weekend. My old compaq keyboard was full of all sorts of incredible gunge -you wouldn't believe it. Well perhaps you might. It's astounding how stuff ends up in there, most of which by the time you come to clean it out is unrecognisable.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I tried to clean it out,but after putting the thing back together several of the keys were deciding not to play. So I decided to shell out for a new one.

At PC World, prices ranged from about £9 upwards. I'm not using my home PC all day every day so don't need a top of the range one, so settled on a PC Line wireless keyboard and mouse set for £14. Yes just £14! I've used a wireless set before and love them. Wires are just so yesterday, so was pleased to go back to a wireless set.

Set up was a cinch. Put the batteries in, plug in USB receiver and Bob's you're auntie's live in lover.

The mouse is great. Responsive and comfortable. The keyboard not so. There's good key travel, but I'm finding my touches on the space bar are being missed unless I press really hard. I'm sure it's just a matter of getting used to it, but you can immediately tell the difference in quality between this and the old Compaq unit.

I guess there's a moral there. You pay you're money and take your choice.

Mac update

It's been a while since I've posted anything about my Macbook Pro experiences, so I thought I'd let you know how things are going.

Generally I'm pretty positive about having got a 13" Macbook Pro rather than a Windows based netbook or laptop. The Mac is undoubtedly a glorious bit of engineering, and is a delight to use most of the time. It's certainly powerful for the use I put it to - any powerhouse stuff tends to get done on my desktop PC, and the rather stingy by today's standards hard disk (160GB) is offset by the fact that most of my stuff is stored on a networked external drive or for in the cloud - mostly on Dropbox.

Talking of the cloud, one of the things I wanted to do when I got a laptop (whether it had been a Windows or Mac OS) was to move more to cloud computing. For the main part, I've succeeded. Nearly all my email is now handled by Gmail (isn't it great that for us UK users it can be "gmail" now rather than "googlemail"? that negates the use of the Apple Mail app as for email I'm now nearly always in the Firefox web browser. I haven't yet got contacts over there as the Apple address book and Google Contacts don't quite talk as nicely to each other as I'd like, but I will get there - and when iPhone OS4 comes out and enables more than 1 exchange account to be used, this could be simplified even further. Dropbox, previously mentioned is a boon -all my PC's, the Macbook and my iPhone can hook up to a cloud based sync service.

Back specifically to the Macbook, the other pluses for me are:

• Looks -it always turns heads when I'm out and about with it
• Build quality- simply superb
  
• Battery life. Not as great as today's latest netbooks, but better than most Windows laptops especially when not on a wifi connection.
• The large multi-touch trackpad. Once used, always missed on a device that doesn't have it. I had a small laptop mouse that I'd intended to use with the Macbook but I've never once connected it, and never once missed it. Scrolling , pinching ans zooming, and clicking is just so easy.
• Noise - or rather lack thereof. The beastie can get a little toasty when used for long periods, but even when the fans on you have to strain to hear it.
• Magsafe power adapter. How ingenious, and how sensible. I have tripped over the cable, and all that happens is the power adapter just pops out without pulling on the machine at all.
• Apps - in the main they are simple to use, and I've found (almost) the identical Mac version or something very similar to my Windows programs I use on the PC
• Screen - absolutely gorgeous

So what's not to like?

• I haven't settled on an "office" program/suite. I haven't bought Microsoft Office for Mac because generally the reviews I've read have said it's rubbish compared to the Windows variant, and it's also very flakey on the Mac. I have installed the open source Neo-Office and Apple's iWork 09 suite. Neo-Office is OK, but it's got that open-source look and feel about it something that tells you it's just not quite as polished as it could be. But I do prefer that to iWork. I've almost never used Numbers, the spreadsheet app because it just seems so alien. Pages, the word-processing app is more like a desk top publisher, and can't be set to save by default to .doc format something that really irritates me. You can save to .doc on a file by file basis but that's just tedious. And I rarely use Keynote, but rarely use Powerpoint either. I might yet bite the bullet and get MS Office for Mac.
• My printer is a Canon MP560 multi-function device. Setting it up on my PC to connect wirelessly was a breeze, setting it up wirelessly on my Mac took about a day and a half. It works now, but I think the driver is still a bit iffy - I don't get all the options I do on my PC.
• The USB ports are a bit close together. Picky I know. I rarely use two at the same time - just as well because it would be hard.
• Breakdown. Hasn't happened yet (thank God), but I didn't shell out several hundred quid on Applecare, so I hope nothing does go wrong, because it would be expensive to fix.
• As a long time PC user, I've never quite got used to the way that closing an app's window doesn't close the app. It keeps running in the background. To me, clicking that "x" means close. Finished, finito....not I'll just hide away but keep on chugging.
• The fact that there's no export to csv option from the Mac address book. What? Who dreamt that up? You can export to vCard though. Great, everyone used vCards - don't they? Then you have to find a converter program to convert to csv. Why not do what almost every other OS on the planet does and allow csv export? But we're talking about Apple here.
  
• And that other Apple sticking point. the ability to mark an appointment as private is missing. When I'm syncing to other calendars I really want to be able to do that.

But ultimately do I regret getting the Mac? Not one bit.

The new iPhone cometh

We're not far away now from the World Wide Developers Conference which start son June 7th at which it is widely anticipated that the new 4th generation iPhone will be announced.

I'm looking forward to this with some excitement as my current contract on an iPhone 3G runs out at the end of this month - perfect timing. From the various reports I've seen about the new iPhone that have been widely reported, as well as what we know for sure from Apple on OS 4.0, it should be a great device. I certainly hope so.

Jones to stay?

If reports are to be believed, it looks like DJ has committed his immediate future to Cardiff City.
Personally as I outlined in my previous post, I think this is a good thing. I'm also interested in the bit in the report that says "Dave also presented proposals to club representatives which were accepted by all".
It doesn't go into detail, but I'll bet it was a shopping list and and "hold onto" list.

Hope yet?

What next for City?

I've waited a few days before posting anything about "that" game at Wembley on Saturday, waiting for the pain to subside, and thought it hasn't really, I feel I have to write something.

Ok, let's get the basics out of the way. Thought it really hurts to say it, Blackpool were the better side on the day. They looked like they wanted it more. City sat off and despite taking the lead twice through superb goals, and hitting the bar twice, we were just abject in defence. Defend like that and you'll get beaten by a Sunday parks team. A decent Championship side (now Premiership side) will severely punish you - and they did. When Bothroyd went off on 15 minutes, the writing was on the wall for me. City didn't start playing until about 75 minutes. Too little, too late. Game over.

The shame of it is that of the 40,000 or so Blackpool "fans", only about 10,000 are real fans - the rest are just jumping on the back of the day. They didn't even look excited in the car park afterwards.

So, where do City go from here? The optimistic will say automatic promotion next year. The realistic will say if we can hold on to some of our players and our manager, maybe the same - playoff contenders. The pessimistic will say, that's as good as it gets. Players and manager will go, we'll fail to compete next term and with our financial troubles as yet unresolved, it's going to get a lot worse. Currently I sit in the realistic camp. I'm sure some of our best players will go. Ledley's out of contract; Whittingham, Bothroyd, Chopra (the only one with Ledley who came out of Saturday with any positives for me) and McCormack will surely attract interest from other clubs, and probably Premiership ones at that. Dave Jones is being spoken of in respect of other jobs.

But, and here's what I'm clinging to. Outgoing Chairman Peter Ridsdale hands over to Malaysian Dato Chan Tien Ghee (TG) on Thursday, and TG said on Saturday he's committed to keeping Jones and investing in the club for the future, to "get back here". If he holds true to his word, it may not be so bad for City. We can only wait and see.

And finally, as is the norm at this time of year, my ratings for the main squad players for this season, marked out of 10.

David Marshall (GK)
Stunning at times, errant at others. The best keeper we've had for a while but responsible for Blackpool's 3rd goal. 7/10
Kevin McNaughton (Defence)
"Naughts" can play anywhere. Big injury problems this season, but never gives less than 100% 7/10
Mark Kennedy (Defence)
An enigma. Sometimes outstanding, sometimes awful. Only got one forward pass - the lofted chip. Great pen in the playoff semi final though. 6/10
Gavin Rae (Midfield)
Again injuries this season. No a great one for Rae, who I think better than a lot of people say. 5/10
Mark Hudson (Captain/Defence)
What can you say? Came on a big billing, but is slow and prone to mistakes. Not impressed. 4/10
Gabor Gyepes (Defender)
Good last season, not had the same chances this term. I rate him though. 5/10
Peter Whittingham (Midfield)
Brilliant season. 20+ goals from midfield can't be sneezed at. Without him we wouldn't have got near the play-offs. 9/10
Michael Chopra (Striker)
Outstanding early season, tame mid-season, came good at the end. I'd always have him in my side 8/10
Jay Bothroyd (Striker)
Another enigma. Occasionally looks like he couldn't care less. But always a target, holds the ball well, works non stop if prone to falling over. My player of the season for his effort whilst being constantly battered. 9/10
Stephen McPhail (Midfield)
Took a lot of stick from supporters last year, but rode it all. Battled cancer too this season. Stability (if not flair) in the middle. 8/10
Chris Burke (Midfield)
Great when he gets the ball wide. Non-existant when City play narrow. The ability to change games, but didn't see it often enough 7/10
Paul Quinn (Defence)
Started well but a couple of howlers saw him put to the bench and he never got another chance 3/10
Anthony Gerrard (Defence)
Still quite raw at this level, but possibly a replacement for Roger Johnson? Great on his day, average on other days. 7/10
Joe Ledley (Midfield)
Cardiff born and bred, and maybe people read too much into that. Brilliant at times, too often a bit part player in midfield for me. 7/10
Darcy Blake (Defence)
Out on loan earlier this season, stormed back because of injuries and had some really great games. Too short for me though if he's going to play at centre half, and was found out against Leicester and Blackpool in the play-offs. 7/10
Adam Matthews (Defence)
Brilliant young attacking centre back. Got opportunities early on and impressed mightily, but faded later in season. One for the future, but we're unlikely to hang on to him. 8/10
Aaron Wildig (Midfield)
Another one for the future. Creative midfielder. Needs more bulk. Will improve. 6/10
Ross McCormack (Striker)
Missed out after a prolific season last term as Jones preferred Bothroyd and Chopra together. Always dangerous, and a game changer. Another one who'll go? 7/10
The rest didn't play well enough or often enough or impress me enough to get a rating.

Dave Jones (Manager)
I've criticised Jonesy in the past, but he did a stunning job this season in the face of a barrel load of injuries, and huge uncertainty about the finances and future of the club. I've been very impressed with his man management too - particularly of Bothroyd, someone who many managers have failed to get the best from. I really feel for him that we couldn't get over the final hurdle. Some people said he didn't have a "Plan B". I don't think he had enough fit players to have a plan B. 9/10

Well I suppose I should be posting about how excited I am that City are at Wembley for the 3rd time in 2 years and all that, but the truth is I'm incredibly nervous. 90 minutes away from Premiership glory, I just hope and pray that we don't blow it now.

To lose to Blackpool (with absolutely no disrespect to them - they've had a fantastic run) would be terrible. To fall just short of the tape after such a long, hard season would be too much to bear.

If we don't pip the Seasiders to the glory land, imagine how we're going to feel next season watching the Tangerines take on Man Utd, Chelski and Arsenal whilst we play Doncaster and Scunthorpe!

Apart from anything else, I'm hoping that the Bluebirds promise of a refund of season ticket costs to everyone who was stupid enough to buy one at Christmas (yes, that's me) stands - Almost £400 beer vouchers wouldn't go amiss!

I also fear that if we don't make it, we'll lose a lot of our better players - Whittingham, Ledley, Bothroyd, Chopra and McCormack to name a few, and that means we'll struggle to make an impact next term.

It really is do or die time. Please God. Just this once, smile on Cardiff City.

Who said "it's only a game"?

C'mon you Blooooobirds!

Play-off semi final - reflection

Well it's been a couple of days now and I still can't quite believe that Cardiff City are just 90 minutes and one win away from securing Premiership status if....and it's still a big if, they beat Blackpool on 22nd May.

It was a monster night on Wednesday. A huge roller-coaster of emotions. Going 1-0 up on the night (2-0 on aggregate) after Chopra's opener, that followed 20 minutes of scintillating football from City, many though that was that, game over. However, many of us know how fragile City's defence can be, and how they can squander leads, and so it proved. Poor defending led to Leicester scoring not once, not twice but three times, and after the third, I felt City had blown it. From the amazing high 20 minutes in I was at the lowest ebb.

Them when we got a penalty, I could barely watch as Whitts, slammed it home to level the tie again. From there, we had the momentum, and possible should have gone on to win in 90 or even 120 minutes, but both sides were like boxers on the ropes at the end, having given everything. The atmosphere throughout was amazing - the best I've ever heard.

So to penalties. This was the first time I've been at a live penalty shootout. It all looks very exciting on the TV when it's not your team involved. When it is, it looks so easy for the oppo to score, and you invariably feel your players are going to muck it up. But massive credit they didn't and took superb penalties. all.

When Kermorgant had a rush of blood and tried the cheeky chip and Marshall saved, the last person I wanted to see walking up for the next kick was Kennedy who is no doubt a great lad, but I feel can't pass his way out of a paper bag, let alone take a pressure pen. But I bow to the maestro that is Mark Kennedy. It was a wonderful pen, and he'd obviously been practising. Advantage City, and when Marshall made a fabulous save to Waghorn's attempt, it was job done. The whole crowd (Leicester fans apart) erupted. Such a massive buzz/high/delirious delight. The signing and chanting could have gone all night.

Fair play to a majority of Foxes fans who stayed on and applauded us and the Bluebirds team. Respect.

I've bought our tickets for 22nd May, and I still can't quite believe we're going to Wembley for the third time in 2 years. This one though puts both visits into the shade. This really is a must win. It would be tragic to come so close and lose out on the Premiership prize, but I guess there are a load of Blackpool fans felling the same way.

I think we can do it. I hope we can. Please........

Up the City one more time!!!!

Photo above courtesy of a City fan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joncandy/

City til I die! Championship Play-off semi-final: City 2-3 Leicester agg 3-3 City win on pens

More tomorrow. Just got in - I'm completely and utterly emotionally drained.

It's never straightforward with City, but they just stuck in there.

Bloooobirds!

C'mon you Bluebirds!!!!!! Leicester 0-1 City

A great win for the Bluebirds at the Walkers stadium today in the playoff semi final 1st leg. I couldn't watch the match as I was at a cricket match, but kept up to date with tweets from @CardiffCityNews!

Can't wait for home leg Weds - me and mini will be there.

C'mon City!!!!

The good and the bad

Interesting comparisons .

A couple of months ago I bought a PAYG mobile broadband dongle from O2. This week I've also bought one from T-Mobile, as I know I'll be somewhere this summer that has very poor O2 coverage but pretty good T-Mob coverage.

Having both might seem extravagant but it does give me some backup options. Anyway, the interesting thing has been how easy (or not) these things have been to set up and get going with.

The O2 one was pretty straightforward. Installed the network manager on my Mac, put the dongle in. Went to the O2 mobile broadband top up page, entered my number, paid my money, connected and off I went. Now, every time I need to top up, I just do the same. I haven't needed to set up an account (even though I have an O2 account) or register a card.

The T-Mob experience was much harder. The network manager install was easy - easier than O2, as everything was installed from the dongle when I put it in.

However, that's when things went a bit pear shaped. When I bought the dongle it had a compulsory £10 "top up" on it, so I should have been good to go. But I wasn't. When I tried to connect I kept getting a message saying that I was trying to connect but hadn't any top up or hadn't activated my account. Activate my account I had to register a card! So I did. But to register a card I had to put a top up on it! Minimum £5. However, I must have tried a couple of times without success as eventually it told me I couldn't register the payment as I'd exceeded the number of attempts. So a long call to T-Mob ensued. The first problem was I couldn't register my debit card because that's already registered with another T-Mob account for my son's phone, and yo can't register a card with 2 accounts - apparently. So I topped up on my credit card. Now I had paid £15 of top up including the original £10 with the purchase of the dongle, but still only £5 was showing on my account.

Tried again, and got the same message - have to activate, and to all extents and purposes it looked like it was still asking me to pay. In the end I worked out that I had to go through the motions as if I was going to top up again whereupon my initial £2 daily top up charge was deducted from the £5 top up payment I'd made earlier (this was entirely unclear to me). A further phone call to T-Mob as to where my original £10 top up was elicited an apology and assurance it would be put right within the hour (and it was).

So eventually, I'm there. I just hope it's easier next time, and that the bloody thing gets a network connection in the middle of nowhere, where I'm assured by my sister who also uses a T-Mob dongle, it will.

Election 20101

Well not long to go now. Have you made up your mind?
I think I have, but I have to admit I've given more thought to this election than previous ones. There appears to be less and less between the parties general outlook these days - not like when Labour = left, Conservatives = right and Libs = something vague in between.

Of all the leaders I've been most impressed with Nick Clegg, although some of the Lib Dem policies seem a little vacuous.

But I'm not telling you where my tick is going.....