Spider-Man visits Brentford urinals
First home game of the season at Brentford. Pitch looking good. Interesting visitor in the New Road Gents urinal. Clearly watching different action in there. 
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The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world
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Does This Constitute A Potential Theft? Should I Inform The Police? Advice Please
In itself this is a relatively minor and trivial matter and I have no desire to waste police time. On the other hand this is not a precedent I am happy to set with my neighbour if I do nothing . I am also making one large presumption here.
Story
While away on holiday the neighbour chose to replace his old fence. Although we knew it would happen some time, it might have been a day , week or year. He did not tell us when he was doing this.
We know the old fence was pulled down and due we think to a disagreement he had with his fencing builders , the fence was down leaving our two gardens connected openly at the back for around 5-7 days . A new fence was then erected and this was complete before we returned home.
While checking the garden today I noticed that all my gardening tools have vanished. These were left in the garden in a small alleyway. A broom, spade and fork. All fairly new and decent quality. Probably worth £60 in total.
Presumption
That the neighbour will not take responsibility and replace these tools as it is his actions that can only have expedited their loss. With an erected fence there is no entry realistically into the garden.
What should be done?
Firstly I have checked that there is no other explanation for their disappearance. No one for example who was looking after the house has borrowed them.
I seem to have three options
- Do nothing and buy new ones.
- Ask the neighbour to replace the missing tools as for me it is his responsibility having created the scenario whereby they could have been misappropriated . This I will do of course however my presumption is that this will not be a happy request and be declined
- Report this to the local police and take their advice. However I am keen to not waste their time .
The Giraffe Tree
Here in the Maldives one is unlikely to find any giraffes floating around. The vegetation though suggests otherwise with a number of trees clearly resembling giraffes. Maybe one needs a little creativity regarding the tail and the number of legs but the resemblance is really not at all bad. 
Brentford 2 Southampton 2. A competitive entertaining pre-season game. What did we learn?
A decent crowd turned up to watch a surprisingly competitive pre-season game that saw Bees use their new signings. A draw was a fair result with each side donating a goal. Brentford looked the sharper side early on and scored with a nicely worked goal from Vibe. Two Charlie Austin goals put the visitors in front before a howler from the fierce looking Fraser Forster gifted Brentford a late but deserved equaliser. 
So what were the main learnings? Here are my thoughts:
- Fans will turn up in decent numbers for a pre-season game especially if the new players are on show
- Despite all the rumours Jota looked fit, interested and made a few Southampton defenders look quite silly at times, being allowed to run around them and then across the penalty area.
- I am no expert in physical fitness but for me these players looked far fitter than in previous seasons. The game was played by both teams sensibly, with a few good challenges but nothing rash nor dangerous.
- Daniel Bentley looked a class goalkeeper making a couple of excellent saves, whereas Forster looked distinctly rusty.
- The Brentford style this year will be an attacking style using the wing and the concern will be not whether we score goals, which we will, but how to concede less. It is complex to read anything into a single game but to me the body language of Harlee Dean was not positive. Is he on his way out? Will it be Barbet and Egan in central defence? Dalsgaard looked solid at full back and Colin had his usual good game. Difficult to predict the right back starter. Good to see Mokotjo defending also as last line of defence.
- Kamo Mokotjo looked good, scary and solid. He reminded me of Toumani speeded up. He did make a few mistakes but rapidly corrected them. It is hard to see Yennaris getting many games.
- Lasse Vibe is a class player. His hairstyle this year will be curious. Probably still our first choice striker. Neal Maupay and Ollie Watkins both looked good and created mischief in the Southampton defence.
- Florian J looked good too, maybe fitter, quicker and more stylish than last year.
Brentford fans will be looking forward to the season knowing that the size and strength of the squad means there will be healthy competition for places, and allows for injuries and suspensions. Why will we not be a top 6 side?
A full set of photos can be found on chrisbushephotography.com
Acoustic Bliss at The Greyhound Carshalton. Royal Marsden Charity Weekend
The Greyhound in Carshalton is hosting a weekend of bands July 21-23 ( and even if it rains there will be large umbrellas for cover!). Tonight friday it was the turn of Acoustic Bliss to play. A few photographs of the band. They did well in the inclement weather.
Tapeface at Garrick Theatre until July 23rd. Just go and see him.
Tapeface came to my attention via a teenager and YouTube and much laughter around a week ago. He had been a contestant on America Has Talent and the ubiquitous Simon Cowell. He is a stand up comedian of an unusual type. He says nothing . His mouth is taped over with a piece of masking tape. YouTube clips are mostly short maybe 5 minutes so I wondered how he would make a whole show last. Reasonable price tickets were available from Todays Tix an app I find incredibly useful for last minute- well last week- theatre tickets . So for 25£ I end up on a Wednesday evening in London.
The show lasted with a 20 minute intermission 2.5 hours and was interesting, funny, intensely watchable and superbly produced . No spoilers here but the acoustics and set design were superb and the production really unique. This is an audience participation show and Tapeface does venture to the back of the theatre.
If you can get there before July 23rd just do it! Tapeface has been described by more eloquent and no doubt more highly paid critics as a modern day Charlie Chaplin. This is right and wrong. He has more tools than Chaplin had including the excellent stage sound and lighting .
Who is Tapeface? He is Sam Wills a 38 year old New Zealander living in London. You have only a few more days to see him at the Garrick Theatre
Southern Railway Services. Another side of the coin
My travel takes me mostly on South West Trains here in uk and although far from perfect the service is not too bad 
Today for the first time in years I ventured into a Southern Rail train. The media is full of talk over the endless rail strikes and other negative chaos. Clearly this is a first trip and maybe an unusual one. However I had an altogether more positive experience.
- The station at Coulsdon South was well signposted for pedestrians
- Clear information given on the platform tegRding how to claim a refund if your train is more than 15 minutes late
- The station was clean
- The train was on time
- Carriages were exceptionally clean and comfortable with a good number of not only tables to work at but every seat had a plug socket. One can spend hours trying to find a plug socket at an airport and never at a station.
- Air conditioning on the train made the journey comfortable
Clearly I am a n=1 here and others can and no doubt will contribute horror stories regarding Southern rail but the point is that there are many positives as well as the well documented negatives.
Nostalgia with Brentford programmes over the last 70 years. Football really does change. Part 1. 1971-2011
With around 4000 programmes to go through you may be viewing a number of posts from me over the next few months. I pulled a random bundle out that were mostly Brentford programmes and a few surprises too.
Sometimes I hear moaning about the cost of programmes but did you realise that back in 2011 Brentford fans were already paying £3 for their programme? A few names in the Charlton line up one recognises, Ben Hamer ( what a wasted career he has had to date, languishing in premiership reserve teams last few years), Yann Kermogant ( who in contrast has been immense) and Jason Euell. A few names in the Bees squad that I really do not recall, Blair Adams, Dale Bennett and Kirk Hudson for example. Pim Balkestein, who to me deteriorated rapidly during his time with Brentford, Mike Grella ( one of the worst Bees forwards of all time) and the wasted talents of Myles Weston and Sam Wood, who had the talent to progress far higher than they ever did. A young Sam Saunders adorns the front cover. 
The next programme was from 1978 and forms a series of programmes from games against teams that have sadly become non-league along the way. Brentford v Workington programme cost 10p and reflected that Paul Bence was the Bees captain of the time. Anyone who ever went to Borough Park, Workington, might be surprised to know that the record attendance there was 21,500 v Man Utd, back in 1957-58. A lesser surprise is that Workington never had a player capped. A few interesting hairstyles of that time were viewed in the programme. 
A few names in the Brentford team that I recall well, Gordon Sweetzer, Roger Cross and Jackie Graham. For those that never saw Jackie Graham he can best be compared to a latter day Ryan Woods. Small, bustling, energetic and always 100% energy player. The programme notes make “sombre” reading with talk of hooliganism amongst Bees fans. In fact this was almost entirely the topic of the first page. Some context though is that this relates to the theft of a Brentford scarf from a fan (by another Bees fan) and warnings of no fireworks please! The game was played on November 3rd.
The final programme in this sequence comes from Brentford v Scunthorpe in 1971. This is a signed programme and seems to have maybe 8 autographs on the front cover. I cannot recall how I managed to get this! Maybe others can untangle some of the names on the programme. I can find Peter Gelson, Gordon Phillips, Bobby Ross . 
Cricket at Arundel Castle. Sussex v Leicestershire 2017. The Dogs enjoyed it.
Cricket is an unusual sport in that in the county games it takes four days to get a result (sometimes) and fans generally are less passionate about their own county than in other sports. a nice aspect is that many counties take a few games away from their main headquarters and take them to “out grounds” which are often cricket festivals and well supported. Sadly the crowd this year was smaller than in other years possibly due to the downturn in the success of Sussex cricket club over recent years.
A few photographs from a day in the hot sun. Some action photos including the wicket of Luke Wright, one of the most entertaining batsmen I have seen in 2017. A few folks hiding from the sun and a rather hot dog enjoying the sun. In fact cricket is one of the few sports where dogs are usually welcome and Arundel is am example of a ground with plenty of shade, walking space, and grass. A good place in fact to bring a dog, although this year with temperatures around 25c dogs were mostly seen in the shady areas.
Hot dog.
No Sun Allowed
Arundel Castle Cricket was not at full capacity in 2017
The Ice Cream sellers were amongst the most important folks in the ground
Luke Wright the ex-england batsman is bowled
A great name for a cricketer. Will Beer.
A Great Place
The rants and warblings of an active and some would say disturbed mind. A Brentford Fc supporter and a psychiatrist and photographer. Welcome to my musings and rants.
chris1957
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