Few photos from today. FA Cup round 1 Met Police v Crawley Town. Great game. Will post tomorrow about that but here is the mascot and we now know his name!! PC SO Steve. This has to be the most unusual mascot in the world. He goes around talking to the children and playing football with them!
Sad after losing
I posted a photo of an odd mascot, a policeman, at the South Park V Met Police FA Cup game last week. I have had an unbelievable amount of hits because of this so am adding a few photos! Dont just look at this stuff but come and read my blog more often!
Jo Nesbo is one of the worlds leading authors. He writes norwegain crime novels about a detective Harry Hole ( pronounced Who Lay). Some of his descriptions of these crimes are graphic and frightening. Thus it was a pleasure to meet him at a book signing of his latest novel THE BAT. In fact this is the oldest book but it has only just been translated into English. Jo was not how I expected him to be but thats just my vivid imagination . Many thanks to Foyle’s for staging this. What was also nice was to see him then come in and have coffee and muffin in the Cafe there. The cafe can be highly recommended. An amusing moment though when someone wondered if Jo Nesbo was carrying a ” Leopold’s Apple” in his hand. It turned out to be nothing more sinister than a chocolate muffin (presumably squirrelled away).
Jo Nesbo. Latest book The Bat
I am gently amused today that having done this blog for around 15 months now, and blogged about all sorts of things, football through to literature and travel, that the most hits on my blog in one day have come from me posting a handful or words and a single photo of a really odd football mascot yesterday.
Anyway today a return to sanity and a nice trip to a National trust property in Esher in surrey. A grey day, rain in the air, mostly drizzle, but a real autumnal feel to the day. Not so many people there, but a nice walk around the lake and through the woods. Lots of mushrooms and the trees looked nice, at least those retaining their leaves. Worth going here? Maybe. as a member of the National Trust it is of course free but otherwise to pay £7 entry, maybe not.
Mushroom Concoction
I had never heard of South Park until 2 weeks ago. they play in the Combined counties League which sits below the Ryman league and I think is hailed as Step 5. Put more simply they need 5 promotions to be in the football league. they have a small ground on the outskitrs of Reigate. Small floodlights. Small clubhouse. Fenced off pitch surrounded by concrete standing and a small stand that holds maybe 100. A nice compact ground. Friendly too.
A few photos to show you what their existence is like. Some more will be found on my website http://www.footballgroundz.co.uk
South Park sit high up in the combined counties league just below Ryman. Today was their chance to make it to the first round proper of the FA Cup. The reality was that they were totally outplayed by a decent Met Police team who had some very competent players, especially in defence where Jay Lovett stood out despite looking double the age of some of the younger players.
SouthPark have a small ground that is essentially a fenced off playing area, with concrete to stand on and a small 100 seater stand behind one goal. a neat ground with plenty of off road parking nearby. Nice clubhouse with nice burgers and rather oddly an ice cream van in attendance in the autumn with chilly temeperatures.
South Park almost took the lead early on with a shot that hit the post but from then on it was really Met Police’s game. They looked two divisions above in many regards but especially their defending. Despite saying all that both keepers had equal amounts of work to do but the second goal just after half time killed off the game in reality.
james wastell
A first win in the league for Carshalton since Easter monday and well deserved. Things have been a bit chaotic at Carshalton this last few weeks with many senior players departing, the manager changing and only an interim manager in place. So the fact that a young side was even competitive was impressive. There were actually three good goals in this game but according to the linesman, two of them were offside. Good atmosphere and good burger. The other bonus is that this was non-league day and Carshalton did everyone proud by allowing in free of charge anyone with a League club season-ticket or local residents. A moment of amusement when the girl on the turnstile had no idea that such a club as Brentford existed! I had to spell that one out. The person before me was a West Ham season-ticket holder.
Anyway the game was fast-paced and played in good spirit. Nick Hamann the Carshalton keeper was man of the match in my view making some impressive saves, suggesting that he could perform easily at Conference level if not in the league. But carshalton deserved the luck and in fact should have been 3-0 up by half time. This is a club well worth visiting. The fans are friendly and the football always interesting.
Carshalton football Club
This is the third time that I have had the priviledge of seeing the LBO this year and the second at this same venue. On a miserable wet rainy night the venue was packed and LBO gave another excellent performance. Lucinda Belle is like a lead guitarist and singer except she has no guitar. Her instrument is the Harp which she plays sometimes slow and melodically and sometimes like a rock musician. This band are excellent and deserve to become famous. They sit on that cusp where their fans fill the venues but more media attention is needed. Perhaps the next album due out in early 2013 will do this. the songs from the new album are going to be even better than their first album and last night certainly were played with more emotion. The set was superb, the musicians were superb and sometimes there is a danger of forgetting that a whole band produces the amazing sound. Sheldon Conrich stood out last night not only as a singer, but also as a vocalist he is not too shabby either. He has great stage presence. This was a great set that we all enjoyed. I guess we all need to spread the word and tell others that this band is worth listening to. LBO play a few ( 2 in fact last night) covers, but really a few other bands would do well to play covers of the LBO songs.
The LBO sometimes has a different line-up due to space restrictions and no doubt monetary ones too but the sound is always the same. Great band, great evening and great chance that they will move onwards and upwards. A word of advice. If you get the chance go and see this band. They are on the cusp of achieving something special. I really hope they just fall over that cusp and end up being as famous as they deserve. Shame that none of the newspapers reported this concert today, shame for them that is. 
A word of advice. If you get the chance go and see this band. They are on the cusp of achieving something special. I really hope they just fall over that cusp and end up being as famous as they deserve. Shame that none of the newspapers reported this concert today, shame for them that is.
Lucinda Belle Orchestra
Lucinda Belle Orchestra
Sheldon Conrich
It has been a few months sinceI was last here and I always enjoy visiting. Coming in to land it was clear that there was no drought here. Many fields were waterlogged and rivers on the verge of flooding. The airport seemed quiet until one approached the taxi queue. Posters advised and indeed almost entranced me to use Glasgow Airport Taxis. Listings of wondrous reasons why. The sad reality was that the plane was full and around 100-150 people descended onto a taxi rank where there were no taxis. Each minute a few would arrive, take a single passenger and off they would go. Two things struck me. Firstly the sole man in charge of masterminding the entry of a person into the taxi ( would enjoy reading his job description) might well have considered for example saying ” this taxi is going to SECC, anyone up for sharing?”. My guess is that there would be relatively few places folks were heading. He did not, so each taxi departed with a solitary fee paying passenger having spent upwards of 30 minutes waiting in a queue. Secondly, the taxis were all mini buses. Most were designed to hold 7-9 people. Again these would depart with one passenger. Ludicrous. The alleged reason for the wait for an accident on the M8 ( I saw nothing of the kind) and a breakdown ( again nothing seen by me). What I suspect is poor planning. Clearly plane landings are predicted, clearly things can go wrong, but in general terms if you have a monopoly on a service you should be able to either provide that service or amend the service you do provide. Waiting for the taxi for some people was longer than the length of their flights. So I am afraid Glasgow Airport Taxis, you have failed on your commitment but I guess in your own way have provided an exceptional customer experience.
The taxi driver was an interesting character. I made the mistake of talking football with him. He then talked at me the whole journey and was still talking to me as I entered into SECC. The reason was his unhappiness, if I might tone it down, about Glasgow Rangers and their punishment being banished to Scottish League 3 with a transfer embargo until 2014 ( he said). I said what happens if all the players leave and you have none, surely then you can sign players? He skipped answering that one, but it was a sad tale. Whatever one thinks about the alleged crimes that Glasgow Rangers have committed, these have not been done by their fans.
Glasgow Airport
Just to remind anyone, a group of Exeter students including my son Charles Bushe cycled to Istanbul in temperatures of often 40 degrees this summer. The 13 cyclists did an incredible thing to raise money for Help for Heroes. Below I have reposted what i originally wrote. But today i flew back from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia to london and for most of the journey the plane followed the route that they cycled. it took them around 40 days and the plane around 5 hours to do that stretch. I hope these photos remind folks what an epic thing that was to do. the quality is not good as they were taken with the humble i Phone 4S.
A week ago on 26th July 13 students from the University of Exeter commenced a 4500km cycle to Istanbul. Why? To support Help for Heroes. Many of these students had just completed their degree and graduated 2 weeks before. Somehow they found time to train,organise and generally prepare for this strenous trip. Aside from the obvious physical aspects there were numerous other planning aspects to consider. For example how to spend as little as possible on the trip, as this would reduce the sponsorship amounts for the charity. So, they spend most nights in tents and some nights in cheap hostels. The van they were donated is not of the Formula 1 category and rather like a beached whale is not deemed well enough to migrate the Alps, so will go around and meet the cyclists on the other side. To date they have reached Lyons and are having a well deserved rest day. My son Charles Bushe texted that he had spent a good day but things like washing needed to be done. They will have finished and be back in UK on September 8th. They deserve as much support as is possible. Even if you can only donate £1 then please do so and also importantly please pass on this message so that others can donate.
They are all good folks and already it is clear that they have bonded well together and are supporting each other when needed. For example the first day of their cycle down to Folkestone the temperature was well into the 30′s C, and there were obvious heat problems. A couple of them have had minor injuries such as a fall and tendonitis but they all keep going.
The links are below.
http://www.justgiving.com/Charles-Bushe for Charles
for the others they can all be accessed here.
http://www.justgiving.com/teams/London-Istanbul2012
So, even if it appears a very small sum of money do please donate and help them to collect a decent sum for Help for Heroes. Do not forget that all the weather we have had here they have had too and have continued to cycle! Even Charles 11 year old sister has donated 5£ of her pocket money. Charles also gave up his olympic tickets to see the weightlifting to go on this cycle. Many thanks and again please pass this on to all that you know.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 
