A Non Football Rant

Finally back on the net after 2 weeks of being offline :)
Partly my fault as I forgot to pay my Virgin bill and they cut me off in the early hours of Sunday the 13th, I paid them over the phone on Monday the 14th and was told it might take 24 hours to be reconnected (I know they can do it instantly but I accepted this).
By Wednesday I'm still not back on so I rang them back (the only number it lets you dial when you're cut off) and was told there was no reference of my payment? I pointed out that I had received a payment number which you only get if the transaction went through but they just told me to contact my bank which I couldn't do as they had cut my phone off :(
Anyway I get a statement that night from the bank and it shows that I had paid the full amount to Virgin Media, I ring them back but just get the "you haven't paid" line again.
I contact them again last Monday and argue the toss with various Indian call centre people (the first 2 cut me off despite the fact I have been reasonably civilised and not resorted to the full on expletive laden rant that I really want to use), eventually I am given a number for the credit department who have been told about my problem, I finally manage to get through to them last Thursday and it turns out that yes I had paid but my payment had been charged to someone else's account? meaning that I had paid another bill, they were very apologetic and instantly restored my phone and telly options but wouldn't give me the next months bill free which I asked for!!
I tried my internet and .... nothing, so I thought it might take a few hours for that but by Friday night it still wasn't on so it was back to the phone.
According to the "expert" at Virgin afyer going through all the idiot tests like "is your modem plugged in" there was a fault in the area connection down the road and an engineer would have to come and reset the box, but not until today :(
He turned up a few hours ago checked my modem and said it had developed a fault and fitted a new one and ... tada!! here we are :)
He did point out that I shouldn't listen to the call centre experts as they usually don't know what they are talking about :)
Rant over, back to footie :)

I've missed a lot while being offline with the added problem of my car radio also going wrong and the fact I never buy newspapers so I've got a bit of catching up to do.
Happy that Nolan signed for the Hammers, sad that Demba Ba went the other way.
Man U seem to restocking their English players, and the U-21's failed in the Euro championships, Chelsea have a new expensive unknown manager and Southend have signed Millwall's Southend based player Neil Harris and that's about all I know at the moment :)
Back soon after catching up with all the gossip :)

How Much?

Well some people who have read a few bits from this blog might think "he knows nothing about football" and after today's transfer dealings maybe they are right :)
It looks like £37 million pounds has been spent on these two in the picture and to be honest I wouldn't recognise either of them, yes I have heard their names Jordan Henderson the winger from Sunderland and Phil Jones the Blackburn defender but obviously I am not watching enough football to have been impressed by either.
Maybe they are the future of the England team, but I really haven't seen anything yet to set them apart from a whole host of others but with England in mind I hope I'm wrong.
For the record -
Phil Jones (19 Years Old) - Blackburn 39 Apps 0 Goals, England U21 5 Apps 0 Goals
Jordan Henderson (20 Years Old) - Sunderland 79 Apps 5 Goals, England U21 6 Apps 6 Goals, England 1 App 0 Goals

FIFA

Overheard in Zurich last December ...
"I've just bought FIFA "
"What FIFA 11 for Playstation or X-Box?"
"No, FIFA 22 ... it's great being the President of Qatar"

Chelsea - Contractual Obligation Album

A few months ago still feeling confident about the Hammers staying up I said to Longy "if West Ham get relegated I'll post a collection of Chelsea songs", well I never thought I would have to but .... :(
Anyway Longy has posted several good Hammer videos so fair's fair here are the tunes?, also consider it your prize for beating me in the predictions comp :)

I guess any Blues fan will have most of these but a bets a bet.
At least while looking for these in the archives I've found a bundle of old footie songs from many teams so I will eventually start posting some compilations.

There are a couple of reasonable songs here! ... no really :)

Big Sam

So within hours of Big Sam Allardyce finally agreeing to be the new Hammers manager news comes through that Malaysian Lotus boss Tony Fernandes is back in the running to buy the club.
I imagine Allardyce must be wondering if this will be the third time in 3 years that he'll be booted out by new owners?
As soon as Fat boy Ashley took over Newcastle Allardyce was on his way, and after 2 reasonable seasons at Blackburn the new Indian owners took an instant dislike to him and he's been on the dole ever since, now he gets himself a new job and it's a possibility that it could all happen again.

None of my Hammer supporting mates seemed over the moon about the news of Sam's appointment but we all seem to be saying the same things "at least it's not Dave Jones" and "he'll probably tighten up our defence" so reserved judgement on this one :)
I think he's a good manager and should be able to get us back in the Premier league, but not sure if he's ever going to be better than a mid table obscurity type, and his cup record is terrible, usually fielding weakened sides which won't please us cup run loving Hammers fans!!

A Bunch Of ?

These four have two things in common?

That's right they are all involved in football, and secondly they are all crooks ..
Garth's only crime is that he's as dull as ditchwater and able to make the most exciting games sound boring, but as far as I know he's never taken a bung.
The rest are all members of FIFA which seems to be run on bribes and backhanders?