I received an email from Ste Burnett yesterday who is a friend from where I grew up. I was always jealous of how well he could draw when we were in school, I could barely draw a stickman (although so could lowry) but he produced amazingly complex pieces that looked really professional.

Needless to say, I took the science route at school and became an engineer and Ste took art and design technology. He has produced a tee shirt that is a really good, original design, and, in a complete abuse of the power that blogs have I have put a link to it in this post so that you can all view it and hopefully buy it and support up and coming designers. Who knows maybe someday it will be worth a lot of money, but in the meantime it is a damn good tee shirt.

You can view it here at MicroZine.co.uk

In the words of a popular band; "Here's my bright idea"

I have been thinking that a blog can only take you so far down the publicity line. What people actually need is interactivity and although comments go someway towards Web 2.0 I think that I can do better.

What I am planning over the next few months is to take this quest to a website where there will be more modern functionalities and services. I feel that if I offer services on my site that other websites charge for then people will come here even if they are not interested in what I have to say and hopefully will be drawn into the adventure.

I have big plans people so stick with me as we go through what I believe will be exciting times. I want people to visit the site and go in all directions, not just scrolling downwards, on today's Web people have short attention spans. I will still keep this blog going but will provide links to the website.

I will keep you posted on all developments that occur and give you to VIP invites to my brand-spanking new website when it premieres.

Do I sound giddy? I certainly feel it!

There is something I am very confused about. How do you retire as captain of a football team?

Now you don't have to understand football or even like it to take part in this discussion you just need a little bit of common sense. David Beckham has retired as captain of England's football team.

Is that not like saying, "I tried for the last six years but I have realised that I am no good at it". It is not like he has finished playing football or he needs to rest. It is more like he can't be bothered.

Why has he had this realisation now? It is the wrong time. Two years ago, six months ago would have been fine. We could have had Stephen Gerrard, John Terry or some other passionate player, instead we had a man with OCD.

OCD can be a debilitating illness but surely if he does have to do all those match preparations such as making sure his clothes are folded in exactly the right way then he has less time for motivational speeches and other captain duties. Gerrard and Terry and even Lampard have been influential for their clubs and would have made much better captains.

This is just another example of how poor the management was and how our chances were wasted by stubborn people who refused to admit they were wrong.

I don't have many rants so I hope you enjoyed this one - I did, if you didn't I promise that I won't rant often.

Have a good day and if something is frustrating you then put it down on paper, it'll make it better.

Congenital Heart Disease affects almost 1 in 100 children. 1 in 100 is actually not a small chance; how many people do you know, if you count up all of your family, all of your colleagues, friends etc., I bet it comes to more than 100.

Consequently, there are lots of people out there who have or know someone who has CHD. There are many celebrities who have CHD, two who spring to mind are Kanu (Nigerian Footballer) and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also there are celebrities who get involved with heart charities either because a member of their family has CHD or because they feel that it is a worthy cause.

I have had a little look on the internet and come up with the following celebrities who have been good enough to give some of their time to CHD charities.

Vinnie Jones (Footballer and Actor)
Gabby Logan (TV Sports Presenter)
Michele Heaton (PopStar)
Graham Norton (TV Presenter)
Ulrika Johnson (Ex-Weather Girl)
Chris Tarrant (TV Presenter)
Brian Connolly (Comedian)
Preston (Ordinary Boys Front Man)
Saskia (Big Brother Contestant)
Brian Littrell (Backstreet Boys)
Carole Smillie (TV Presenter)
Shaun White (Olympic Gold medal Snowboarder)
Roger Black (World Champion 4x400m relay)

I know that I may be scraping the barrel as regards celebrity status with some of these but that does not matter, the point is that they are trying to raise awareness of the issues and for that they should be congratulated.

If you know of any more then leave a comment on this post and I will add them to the list. Thank you.

Good evening,

What a weekend; spent half of yesterday getting psyched up for the football and the other half on a come-down from it. There was a guy on the local radio saying that he was glad that we got beat by Portugal; I was quite angry at the time, how dare he say that, but then I thought about it for a while.

We were crap under Eriksson, there is no nicer way to put it, quite simply crap. His assistant is now in charge. If we had been unlucky and played well then we would continue to be a mediocre team but now after what has happened there has to be change, the fans will not put up with McLaren if the first few games look anything like the last ones. So in a way I am glad that we were shown up, now maybe things can change.

The other half of my weekend was spent today (surprisingly). After spending a couple of hours painting the kitchen we could bear the heat and the house no longer and got in the car and drove to my parents. We took or puppy (Quentin) with us as we wanted him to meet my parents dog (Bailey).

Bailey is a 6-year-old Cocker Spaniel and he is looking his age. In human years he would be middle-aged and although he does not have a red sports car and a problem with modern music he is starting to show it in other ways. It is a shame as I remember him when I used to live at home and he was an energetic puppy but now he has slowed down a lot and meeting little Quentin today was a bit much for him. Quentin is full of energy and could show the England team (Owen Hargreaves aside) a thing or two about running after a football for 90 minutes straight.

Quentin has worn me out also so I am off to bed now. I have a big week of publicising and trying to obtain my third trade so wish me luck.