A change is gonna' come.

Some of my best football related moments in the last two years have come courtesy of Nigel Atkins. He took over my football team, Southampton, when they were near the bottom of League One. First season in charge, he got them promoted to the Championship. Next season in charge he then got them promoted to the Premier league. "Back to back" promotions, no other Southampton manager has ever done that. In fact very few football managers have ever done that!

On Friday, because of the snow, I was working from home. During a break for coffee, I briefly checked Twitter. This tweet popped up. "Southampton Football Club has appointed Mauricio Pochettino as First Team Manager having relieved Nigel Adkins of his duties." My jaw dropped and and I mouthed "what!!!!!" I stared at the screen unable to take what I was reading in. On Wednesday night we had gone to the home of the European Champions (Chelsea) and having gone 2-0 down came back to earn a 2-2 draw. To me that was the night I felt we could rightly sing "We are Southampton, we're Premier League" and get taken seriously.

Now Saints Chairman, Nicola Cortese, has form in sacking managers. Adkins predecessor, Alan Pardew, was sacked after winning 4-0 away from home! That had been a shock, but worked out very well by his appointing Adkins. This was worse though, we had only lost 2 of our last 12 games and were 15th in the League.

Reaction to the sacking has been generally appalled at what we have done to a "good and honest manager". That's from the media and from fans of both Saints and other clubs. Everyone wishes Adkins all the best in the future and he will always be greeted like a hero at St Mary's, even if he turned up as Pompey manager.

Thank you Nigel for all the happy moments that you gave me and all other Saints fans.

Madman at the screens

Like thousands of others, maybe millions, this Christmas has bought me an iPad mini.

My eldest son, Matthew, bought one on the day that they were released and yes he did queue up outside the Apple store at 7 o'clock in the morning! Seeing the joy that he has got from his, made me convinced that this was the next addition that I needed to my gadget life.

My first impressions are very favourable. I've rarely turned on my laptop since I've owned it and can see that remaining the case. The screen is big enough to see almost every website very clearly and apps designed specifically for it are generally very impressive.

I also have an iPhone so a bit of the "Wow" factor was reduced, some of it is just what I've experienced on the iPhone on a bigger screen.

So what is different?

Firstly the newsstand app. I now read the Guardian on a daily basis, have a free copy of Stuff magazine and I'm considering subscribing to GQ again. Reading a newspaper or a magazine on a tablet is a very different but fun experience.

Next is the improvement in using the Apple browser, Safari. It's always been difficult on my PC, let's remember is not designed for a PC. It's fairly basic on an iPhone, but it is excellent on the iPad. It also means that through iCloud, articles I've read on my iPad I can also carry on reading on my iPhone if I don't get a chance to finish them.

The final initial benefit I've seen of the iPad is reading books. I have a Sony e-reader and that's been great but let's be honest, it's limited to just reading books. It's also very slow. If you copy a PDF onto it to use that in a meeting, it better be a very slow meeting, otherwise you'll be way behind. Through differing apps the iPad allows you to read PDF's, Kindle, iBooks and EPUB books.

So, so far so good. A very good investment.

PS this blog was mainly dictated using Siri!

Don't look back in anger

So as another year draws to a close, it's time to have a look at what music I enjoyed this year. These are in no particular order.

The Alt-J album "an awesome wave"won the Mercury music prize this year and quite rightly so. To be honest it was my eldest son Matthew that got me into this album and I'm very glad that he did. It's different, a bit hip-hop , a bit acoustic but generally a really lovely album.

My prog rock collection has grown this year with new albums from Neal Morse and Marillion. Both are probably each artists best album for a while and were both welcome additions to my collection.

2012 was also the year of prog rock artists re recording some of their finest works. Steve Hackett decided to do a second album of Genesis revisited where he takes some of his former bands finest songs and rerecords them. They're pretty faithful to the originals to be honest but his choice of vocalists to replace Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins are well chosen and the overall result is a really high-quality album. His version of "The Lamia" from The Lamb lies down on Broadway album with Nick Kershaw on vocals is inspired!

Rick Wakeman also decided to do a studio version of "Journey to the centre of the earth" the original album having been a live recording. He's added extra music to the original version as well and a mighty fine album it is too.

This was also the year that Ben Folds put back together the Ben Folds Five (the joke being that there's only three of them) and released a new album. His last couple of studio albums, released under his own name, have not been as good as previous recordings but this is a real return to form.

Other albums I've enjoyed this year were the Bruce Springsteen album which was Bruce at its finest, he's angry and when he's angry he always writes good songs.

Muse's album "the second law" was also released this year and continued their excellent work. A bit more funky in places nonetheless it still rocked when required!

Finally I can't let this post go without mentioning Led Zepplin's "Celebration day'. This is a live album recorded back in 2008 when they reformed for one off concert at the O2 arena in London. It's immense and truly acts as a wonderful epitaph to the band.

Experiments in Mass Appeal

For the last 22 days I've been carrying out an experiment on Facebook and Twitter. Each day I post a Christmas song in what is wittily entitled "Mark's musical advent calendar".

It gave me a chance to share with my friends, some of the music that I like to listen to around this time of year. I have an extensive Christmas playlist that I like to listen to mainly as I drive around and I thought that it would be an opportunity to share some of these songs with my friends, mainly via YouTube clips.

It's gone fairly well and certainly on Facebook I've had lots of comments and "likes". Every day has resulted in some kind of response from my friends. That has made it more fun for me and inspired some of the music posted.

The response on Twitter however has been completely different. It's been the social media equivalent of tumbleweed blowing down the deserted high-street! I think I've had one, response may be two?

What does that tell me? Well I think maybe it just reflects the fact that on Twitter you can follow anybody whether they know you or not. That means that my Twitter feed is full of posts from people that I don't really know and can skip over if I'm pressed for time. Clearly my posts get read that way too!!

On Facebook however my timeline is full of posts from closer friends and I'm therefore more interested in what they're saying and I take more time to read them. That seems to work for my friends as well bearing in mind their reaction to my posts.

Not an earthshattering discovery I know, but I did expect a bigger response to my twitter posts.

Change we must

One of the reasons that there has been huge gaps in this blog, has been the inability to update it other than sat at my laptop. There is a smartphone app but the inability to write something and save it via the app to be revisited later, meant that you had to write the whole thing there and then. Too difficult!

Well that has changed with the latest update to the Blogger app and here I am using it! Hopefully now when I am inspired, I can whip out the old iPhone and right away, write away!!

Well it all sounds good, lets see what happens!!

Walk this way

OK, so yet again, there has been a huge gap in between blog posts.

This time, however there is a kind of valid reason! I have taken up walking to get fit! (Those who know me well were amazed at this news, when I started!)

I have been needing to do some exercise for a while and couch potato is not a career aspiration to be proud of!

I have a friend in the US, Stevie G, who has been regularly walking a marathon distance each week for as long as the weather in Cincinnati will allow him.

He in turn has inspired a friend of his over here, Diane, to follow suit and she has too been walking 26.2 plus miles per week and a lot more for the last 18 months. He suggested that she and I walk together and one Sunday in June I turned up on her doorstep completely ill prepared and we walked two miles!

I enjoyed that so much that I decided to invest in the correct footwear and clothes and a regular walking friendship has ensued. What started as 2 miles, quickly grew to 4/5 miles and then to 6 miles per walk.

While that is great, the bit that I didn't expect was to want to walk as much as I have when Diane and I can't. That has meant that most nights when I get home from work, I now get changed and don the trainers, plug in the iPhone, cue the podcasts and off I go.

I am also, therefore, now doing a marathon equivalent per week (well I have for the last 4 weeks!)

The benefits? Firstly, I've lost a lot of weight. At least half a stone, probably nearer a stone, but I didn't weigh myself before I started any of this. I'm certainly thinner, both around the waist, down one whole trouser waist size and in the face, even my Mum has noticed!

Secondly, I'm eating a lot less. Walking and snacking don't go together and generally I'm less hungry.

Thirdly, I feel so much better about myself. Doing something and enjoying it has made me a far more confident and positive person!

How long will this last? Who knows, but at least until the weather turns cold and even then I'd like to think I will battle on. Walking after work in the dark may prove a challenge but time will tell.

Steve and Diane, I am in your debt, thank you from the bottom of my ( healthier) heart for kick starting this and continuing to support and motivate me.

Bridge over troubled water

I have just finished watching the Swedish/Danish TV series "The Bridge" and it has been one of the best programmes that I have watched for a while.

A detective thriller, it has a plot that kept you guessing until the last couple of episodes (there were ten in all) and then it played out as race against time.

Set in Sweden and Denmark, it featured the Øresund Bridge, which effectively links Malmo and Copenhagen, on which a body is found and as the investigation proceeds, this links the Swedish and Danish police forces to the crime. 


The two lead detectives are Saga Noren, an attractive, blond Swedish female officer and Martin Rohde, her Danish counterpart, who looks like the British MP, George Galloway!


Initially they find it hard to work together (Saga files a formal complaint about Martin after they first meet!) but as you would expect as the series develops so does their working relationship. The fact that Saga is virtually incapable of small talk leads to some wonderful scenes as they drive around both cities. Martin has a complicated personal life and this is initially shown as he tries to work having just had a vasectomy and then discovers that his wife is pregnant (again).


It's hard to describe the plot without giving too much away, but it revolves around a killer who is setting a series of traps/puzzles to make a number of socio-political points about varies injustices and spins on from there. 


The programme looks fantastic with the director of photography using lots of washed out colours and effects and both cities look wonderful, particularly at night. There is also a modern soundtrack which adds just the right amount of tension when required. 


As it's in Swedish/Danish, you have to turn off computers and phones and concentrate on the sub-titles. That also helps with the complex plot, so you don't miss things either. 


It's still on the iPlayer and although at ten, one hour episodes, it's a sizable commitment, but it's worth every minute.