Thank God That's All Over

And it is, now. And what a sparkling finale. In what is likely to be one of my last postings regarding football for four years, I would like to pay homage to the Italian side who, despite being the weaker team, gave dem Froggies a good match. Further, I would also like to pay homage with extra cheese to Monsieur Zinedine Zidane who, in a maneouvre reminiscent of Eric Cantona's flying kung-fu fan-kicking days, managed to render every single global viewer utterly speechless. What a way to finish your football career, racist maternal comment or not. Anyway, Italy deserved to win after that shenanigans. Forza Italia!

Anyway, back to business. I've continued to sort out all those odds and sods that invariably fall by the wayside when you have a permanent daily job. Being as I am in hiatus mode right now, with several exciting potential channels to explore, I'm taking the time opportunity to get a few things sorted: get my London flat rented out; collect my Dad's boat from Mallorca and get it on the water in the UK. I'm thinking Swansea. If you happen to know of a good reason why I shouldn't moor up there, please tell me. And "there are Welsh people there" won't do.

A gadget a day keeps the doctor away, said one of my good friends as he walked into my living room on Monday, as he spotted my new (oh God, I'm sorry) projector. It's mini and made for laptops, but the fucker will crank out a 8ft by 3ft image on a white wall with no worries at all. So, this mate and I sat watching the movie rendering of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, and a jolly good time was had by all, most notably Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, who must have had laughs of quite titanic proportions making that film. Haven't seen it? Sort it.

Forget all the entry-level shit about him being a massive caner and unable to manage his life and finances...Hunter S Thompson was poking fun at America long before Michael Moore came along, and the public appetite for that slobby jalopy seems to be insatiable. If you want to see the rot at the heart of the American Dream...you'll get more from this than you will from Death Of A Salesman. Later that evening, I simply had to watch the directors cut of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do, I do...

Just need some surround sound action now and it'll be apples.

I've been very busy on the home maintenance front. Save for changing a few lightbulbs (don't shake your head, it's those 50w halogens that are so easy to keep forgetting to buy at the DIY superstore), I have finally installed the retractable mirror that's been lying around in the bathroom since the end of 2002. It works like a charm, and I even waterproofed the drill holes and face plate with silicone sealant. I love doing DIY. My Dad used to take me around the house whenever he was fixing or mending or rewiring or changing a fuse. It used to bore the living shizah out of me at that age. But, it all went in.

I've finally paid off my uni mate for the university house week. That's in November down in Hampshire - over the weekend of Bonfire Night - and is costing £174 per couple FOR THE WEEK! Now that is smart. Dunno how much of that time I'll be spending there - probably just the weekend, maybe a long'un...we shall see. It'll be good to catch up with everyone - you know how, even when people have been your best friends through some truly formative times, you just lose touch? It's at that stage with these folks, though I am sure that we shall relight the old fires, even if it's just for a weekend.

Today I have researched marinas in the Wales area. It's been a kind of poisoned chalice, inheriting this boat. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that my Dad left me his speedboat when he died. We had some of the best times on that boat. It's a SeaRay Seville 18, which should mean approximately jack-shit to you unless you happen to be a "boatie". I say "boatie" rather than "yachtie". The two don't mix. If you have a mast and sail, you have class. If you have a planing hull and a powerful engine, you're a petrol-headed boy-racer. Guess which category I fall into?

The bastard is just 18 feet long but has a 175 horsepower Mercruiser engine, 3.5 litre. With one-up, it'll do 50 knots easy, so let's call it 55-60 mph for you landlubbers. When you move at these speeds across water, it's not like a casual sub-limit stroll along the motorway. Water, at speed, takes on the properties of concrete: it hardens, but rather than being flat, polished concrete, it's bumpy, jumpy, choppy concrete.

Of course, the best thing about the whole lot of this is that I get to go over to Mallorca and "make arrangements". I haven't been back to the place since Dad died. I wonder how I'm going to feel? Staying around in the town we spent so many family holidays in. Driving the roads. Eating and drinking at the bars and restaurants. Crying on the same harbour wall?

Anyway, the basic cost of keeping a boat of this size on a mooring in Wales for a year is coming in around the £1500 average. However, this is why I fancy Swansea, where the costs could be under a grand per annum. Which would be much better. I was thinking about somewhere on the western or northern coasts of Wales, but the prices are high and the distances/drive times are crippling. Swansea is right next to the M4 - so, head south on M5 from Birmingham, take a right on the M48, join main M4 in a bit, and get off at Swansea. Motorway all the way, that's my motto.

Before then...I must still submit my freelance expenses and get my final timesheets signed off. To be fair, the hold-up is no longer my fault - I have made the contact and need to have it all done by the end of the week, discussion time with former boss allowing. I also have my tax return to submit, which is a ballache but a necessary evil. While I do allow a professional to pull the whole lot together, it does fall to me to collect and annotate all of that material and hand it to them. To call this process dull is grossly inadequate.

I shall book my flights to Mallorca today, and get in touch with the right people Cala D'Or sides so that I can bunk in some cheap grothole for seven nights and get this mission accomplished.