Its been a busy week since my appointment at MRI last Friday, hence my delay in posting this blog.
Overall the results remain good, my bloods remain as stable as can be expected which is good. As mentioned in previous blogs I suffer from bone pain in my hips and pelvis. That's why I fidget a lot when I'm sat down - Ive not got ants in my pants - honestly!!!
The specialist has decided that I need to start some treatment which as well as helping with bone regrowth will hopefully help with pain relief. The drug is a zoledronic acid with a trade name of Zometa. You can find out more about Zometa here When the specialist told me they would start this treatment he said "We will start you with some Zometa Infusions" I thought he was offering me a cup of herbal tea which I'm not keen on!!!!
I will have 15 minutes of intravenous infusions once a month at the same time as my monthly check up so that saves a second journey to MRI. First one is 8th March, the date of my next appointment and I'll let you know how I get on.
Friday, 8 February 2013
Thursday, 24 January 2013
Great club or simply great teas
When you are a young cricketer just starting out in the world of senior cricket you judge another club by the quality of their cricket teas.
Each Saturday and Sunday ladies, some men do get involved to be fair, but generally ladies, make the cricket teas. Some are simple affairs done on a tight budget generally sandwiches, crisps, salads and fruit/cake. Some however are more extravagant including warm food such as curries or chillies, hot pot or pies, Lasagne or pasties, chips, baked potatoes, ice creams, yoghurts, trifles and fairy cakes.
You will often hear younger cricketers, when they find out where we are playing next week say "Oh I love/hate it there.The teas are fantastic/crap" delete appropriately!!
As you get older though you judge a club on much wider issues such as the culture of a club or the facilities.
The culture of a club is about how they play the game, how they treat the opposition, opportunities for young players to play first team cricket - quite simply do they play the game hard but fair and are they the type of club you would be happy to have a pint with in the bar after the game?
Facilities are a slightly different kettle of fish. There are many clubs who have a great culture but simply don't have the money to invest in their facilities. They therefore struggle to attract new players or develop clear pathways from junior cricket into senior cricket.
Wigan Sports Club where I play cricket (quite badly I may add) and coordinate the junior section is one of those clubs. We have a great culture. This is largely down to the players but most credit should be given to club captain Mark Rowe. He has been instrumental in developing a fantastic culture at the club. Don't get me wrong when he leads the team out on a Saturday there is a steely determination in his eyes. His team play the game on the edge and play to win and on the odd occasion a player oversteps the mark, he instantly rectifies the situation and has a "quiet" word with the relevant player.
After each game the umpires score each team as to how they behave and how well the captain keeps control of his team. It's no coincidence that Rowie has received the top marks in this area, and Wigan have received the Spirit of Cricket award too, for the past 2 seasons.
We have though, struggled for years without investment in our facilities. The changing rooms and clubhouse badly need refurbishing. The cost to the club in utilities due to inefficient heating and lighting systems as well as essential maintenance costs each year is enormous. The cricket section badly need some new cricket nets and there are significant issues with drainage to the pitch too.
Now however we will begin to develop facilities to match our culture. Myself and Rowie set about applying for a grant from Sport England back in the autumn. We chose to submit a project to refurbish the changing rooms and the common areas in the clubhouse. If successful the work would benefit the whole club - Hockey and Squash as well as Cricket; would help attract new members and retain existing members.
The announcement today by the Sports & Tourism Minister of a maximum Inspired Facilities Grant of £50k is fantastic for the club.The club is match funding this to the tune of £31k meaning a £81k investment in changing room facilities at the club. We should be able to install energy efficient lighting, heating and hot water facilities - seeing a reduction in our utility bills. We should also see more attractive and functional changing rooms that require less maintenance too. We will also see new kitchen facilities so should see good cricket teas as well!!!
Not a bad effort for 2 blokes from Wigan - one a great cricketer, extremely intelligent, well educated man with thoroughly decent principles. Oh, and me!!
So hopefully over the next couple of years young and old cricketers of other clubs when they find out they are playing at Wigan the week after will say "Yes, they are a great club, great culture and great facilities. Oh and the teas aren't bad either!"
Each Saturday and Sunday ladies, some men do get involved to be fair, but generally ladies, make the cricket teas. Some are simple affairs done on a tight budget generally sandwiches, crisps, salads and fruit/cake. Some however are more extravagant including warm food such as curries or chillies, hot pot or pies, Lasagne or pasties, chips, baked potatoes, ice creams, yoghurts, trifles and fairy cakes.
You will often hear younger cricketers, when they find out where we are playing next week say "Oh I love/hate it there.The teas are fantastic/crap" delete appropriately!!
As you get older though you judge a club on much wider issues such as the culture of a club or the facilities.
The culture of a club is about how they play the game, how they treat the opposition, opportunities for young players to play first team cricket - quite simply do they play the game hard but fair and are they the type of club you would be happy to have a pint with in the bar after the game?
Facilities are a slightly different kettle of fish. There are many clubs who have a great culture but simply don't have the money to invest in their facilities. They therefore struggle to attract new players or develop clear pathways from junior cricket into senior cricket.
Wigan Sports Club where I play cricket (quite badly I may add) and coordinate the junior section is one of those clubs. We have a great culture. This is largely down to the players but most credit should be given to club captain Mark Rowe. He has been instrumental in developing a fantastic culture at the club. Don't get me wrong when he leads the team out on a Saturday there is a steely determination in his eyes. His team play the game on the edge and play to win and on the odd occasion a player oversteps the mark, he instantly rectifies the situation and has a "quiet" word with the relevant player.
After each game the umpires score each team as to how they behave and how well the captain keeps control of his team. It's no coincidence that Rowie has received the top marks in this area, and Wigan have received the Spirit of Cricket award too, for the past 2 seasons.
We have though, struggled for years without investment in our facilities. The changing rooms and clubhouse badly need refurbishing. The cost to the club in utilities due to inefficient heating and lighting systems as well as essential maintenance costs each year is enormous. The cricket section badly need some new cricket nets and there are significant issues with drainage to the pitch too.
Now however we will begin to develop facilities to match our culture. Myself and Rowie set about applying for a grant from Sport England back in the autumn. We chose to submit a project to refurbish the changing rooms and the common areas in the clubhouse. If successful the work would benefit the whole club - Hockey and Squash as well as Cricket; would help attract new members and retain existing members.
The announcement today by the Sports & Tourism Minister of a maximum Inspired Facilities Grant of £50k is fantastic for the club.The club is match funding this to the tune of £31k meaning a £81k investment in changing room facilities at the club. We should be able to install energy efficient lighting, heating and hot water facilities - seeing a reduction in our utility bills. We should also see more attractive and functional changing rooms that require less maintenance too. We will also see new kitchen facilities so should see good cricket teas as well!!!
Not a bad effort for 2 blokes from Wigan - one a great cricketer, extremely intelligent, well educated man with thoroughly decent principles. Oh, and me!!
So hopefully over the next couple of years young and old cricketers of other clubs when they find out they are playing at Wigan the week after will say "Yes, they are a great club, great culture and great facilities. Oh and the teas aren't bad either!"
Thursday, 17 January 2013
I will (un) follow - Social Media - Censorship, Offence and Shock
Im a lover of Social Media. It's power is immense. Recently I have helped source a printer for a charity event and solved a friends technical problems for a presentation - just through tweeting a friend.
I Tweet and I blog. I also use Facebook, Yammer and Linked In.
I find them incredibly useful in my work life as well as being very informative and entertaining in my private life. Recently though events have made me question how I use them and the appropriateness of my use.
The Chairman of the Bolton, Bury and District Football League (BBDFL), Warren Barlow, recently received a 5 month suspension from office, imposed by the Lancashire FA for inappropriate Tweeting. I don't know enough about the case to comment here, suffice to say that Warren is incredibly passionate about grassroots football and can often find himself in the middle of emotive arguments. However he was suspended for passing a personal comment in an official position.
A colleague of mine recently Direct Messaged (DMd) me on Twitter informing me of a BBC parody account that I may find funny and subsequently choose to follow. They wouldn't tweet me as they felt it was too rude. I looked at the parody account, followed and instantly retweeted. The retweet contained 3 swear words - 2 fucks and a bastard. I was happy to retweet but my colleague wasn't.
So what rules do you use when you are considering blogging, tweeting or posting? What is acceptable and what isn't.
The rule of thumb that I use is "Would I say what I say in an unfamiliar city centre pub?
I'm quite happy to talk football with anyone, no matter where I am, although I admit I'm less likely to be received warmly talking about Latics in Burnley or trying to convince a Rangers fan that Henrik Larsson is the greatest Celtic number 7 - even better than King Kenny!
I'm also quite happy to talk endlessly about music - although I'm not well up on certain genres like Dance, Reggae or Rap.
I can talk politics especially Social and Housing policy and indeed waffle on about virtually any subject as good as the next man or woman. I'm likely to use the word fuck quite a lot, I'm also likely to refer to some people as bastards and other mildly offensive swear words. I am not racist or homophobic and am likely to positively challenge anyone that is.
So that's the rule I use. If I offend you via my Social Media then I would probably offend you in the pub.
Other people often have different standards. I read with interest the conditions attached to Greg Hoffmans iPhone that he got from his parents for Christmas http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255285/Janelle-Hofmann-Mom-makes-son-13-sign-18-terms-conditions-giving-iPhone.html in short his mum, Janelle, made him sign a 20 point agreement before he could use the phone. Condition 9 is "Do not text, email, or say anything to someone that you would not say out loud with their parents in the room. Censor yourself."
I Tweet and I blog. I also use Facebook, Yammer and Linked In.
I find them incredibly useful in my work life as well as being very informative and entertaining in my private life. Recently though events have made me question how I use them and the appropriateness of my use.
The Chairman of the Bolton, Bury and District Football League (BBDFL), Warren Barlow, recently received a 5 month suspension from office, imposed by the Lancashire FA for inappropriate Tweeting. I don't know enough about the case to comment here, suffice to say that Warren is incredibly passionate about grassroots football and can often find himself in the middle of emotive arguments. However he was suspended for passing a personal comment in an official position.
A colleague of mine recently Direct Messaged (DMd) me on Twitter informing me of a BBC parody account that I may find funny and subsequently choose to follow. They wouldn't tweet me as they felt it was too rude. I looked at the parody account, followed and instantly retweeted. The retweet contained 3 swear words - 2 fucks and a bastard. I was happy to retweet but my colleague wasn't.
So what rules do you use when you are considering blogging, tweeting or posting? What is acceptable and what isn't.
The rule of thumb that I use is "Would I say what I say in an unfamiliar city centre pub?
I'm quite happy to talk football with anyone, no matter where I am, although I admit I'm less likely to be received warmly talking about Latics in Burnley or trying to convince a Rangers fan that Henrik Larsson is the greatest Celtic number 7 - even better than King Kenny!
I'm also quite happy to talk endlessly about music - although I'm not well up on certain genres like Dance, Reggae or Rap.
I can talk politics especially Social and Housing policy and indeed waffle on about virtually any subject as good as the next man or woman. I'm likely to use the word fuck quite a lot, I'm also likely to refer to some people as bastards and other mildly offensive swear words. I am not racist or homophobic and am likely to positively challenge anyone that is.
So that's the rule I use. If I offend you via my Social Media then I would probably offend you in the pub.
Other people often have different standards. I read with interest the conditions attached to Greg Hoffmans iPhone that he got from his parents for Christmas http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255285/Janelle-Hofmann-Mom-makes-son-13-sign-18-terms-conditions-giving-iPhone.html in short his mum, Janelle, made him sign a 20 point agreement before he could use the phone. Condition 9 is "Do not text, email, or say anything to someone that you would not say out loud with their parents in the room. Censor yourself."
So everyone views what is acceptable slightly differently. Mrs Hoffman, my colleague, Warren Barlow and I and probably the millions of people using Social Media at this very moment will all use a different rule of thumb to censor ourselves effectively.
The easy ones to rule out are the illegal comments racist, homophobic, threats to kill etc.. if you made those comments in a pub or in front of your friends parents then you are likely to be assaulted, arrested or both and would probably deserve it.
The rest its fair to say, is down to our audience.
The rest its fair to say, is down to our audience.
So what do we do though if someone says something that offends us? There are 2 options I suppose
1. We either challenge the comment and put our view across; or
2. We ignore it, possibly tutting like Skippy the Kangaroo, and move on to the next comment. In the pub analogy we might move seats or even drink up and move on.
On Social Media we can choose to unfollow or unfriend someone but, because we are British, we feel we might upset the feelings of the person we are unfriending or unfollowing.
So if Im in a pub and Im spouting off and I offend you - Im sorry but you either need to move seats or drink up and move onto another pub.
If I offend you via Social Media then unfriend me or unfollow me - I wont be upset
Waits for loads of unfriending and unfollowing........
2. We ignore it, possibly tutting like Skippy the Kangaroo, and move on to the next comment. In the pub analogy we might move seats or even drink up and move on.
On Social Media we can choose to unfollow or unfriend someone but, because we are British, we feel we might upset the feelings of the person we are unfriending or unfollowing.
So if Im in a pub and Im spouting off and I offend you - Im sorry but you either need to move seats or drink up and move onto another pub.
If I offend you via Social Media then unfriend me or unfollow me - I wont be upset
Waits for loads of unfriending and unfollowing........
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