Going Down

The bottom two clubs in the Premier League played each other at the Mad Stad this afternoon, in a last ditch attempt (for either) to avoid ejection from the top tier.

Home of the Royals.












In the end neither visiting Queens Park Rangers or the Royals could find the win. Since both teams are far enough adrift from those above them, they have both now been relegated and now look forward to spending at least next season in the lower Championship.

13 April Reading 0 - 0 Liverpool
20 April Norwich 2 - 1 Reading
28 April Reading 0 - 0 QPR

Shaun The Movie Star

Those talented plasticine model makers at Aardman have today announced that hero of Wallace and Gromit- A Close Shave and also star of his own TV series, Shaun the Sheep will get his own feature length film. This is scheduled for cinema release the year after next. In addition, Aardman will soon be working on a fourth 20 episode series, due on our screens early 2014.

Read more at the official Aardman website and also on the BBC News page.

Here's Some I Made Earlier*

I got busy in the kitchen the other day, baking these...

These biscuits are full of Golden Syrup and Oats, very tasty mmmm.















Sometimes these are called Australian Biscuits but are more correctly known as ANZAC Biscuits. They are traditionally baked to mark ANZAC Day and the start of the Gallipoli campaign (25 April 1915 – 9 January 1916), and the first major battle involving the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.





* In the best tradition of long-running TV show, Blue Peter LOL.

George

Happy St George's Day.

British recruitment poster, WW1 (Parliamentary Recruiting Committee Poster No 108).

Rather cool, isn't it?

(8:15pm) Update:

Speaking of cool, here's today's doodle from those lovely girls and boys at Google...

 

 

Can You Believe It?

Rant begins.

Tickets went on sale this morning (10am to be precise) for the London Olympics Anniversary games, an event to be held at the Olympic park, over three days later this year. Big name athletes from across the world have agreed to compete. 

Having totally failed to get tickets for London 2012, yours truly had registered for advance notice and I thought preferential booking for this new event. But as I said, tickets went on sale at an extremely unhelpful 10 in the morning and despite registering, there was nothing I could do: some of us have to go to the office to earn a living and can't spend ages on the computer selecting seats and paying etc when we are meant to be working, grrrr. I have to question the logic of opening up ticketing at such an hour but then again as far as the organisers are concerned, it was a success. Apparently both the Friday and Saturday events sold out in 75 minutes and by this evening, the Sunday had gone too.

Once again it looks like I'll miss out, double grrrr.

Rant over.

Seed

Today I planted up a (small) crop of seed potatoes. Will keep you posted on their progress LOL.

Tasty!

No One Would Have Believed

I'm off to the cinema later today to see the film of the new version of the musical based on an album inspired by a book. To be more exact, Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds- The New Generation. Something of a mouthful!

Can't wait.

Really?

I think the weather in Berkshire reached a heady 12 or 13 degrees Celsius today (that's not that many Fahrenheit), yet just at the end of the street where LL lives, someone was clearly having a barbecue party. The sounds and smells were quite unmistakeable and totally unfair when you're feeling hungry.

Was it that warm outside? Really?



Elsewhere, the Royals woes continued with a loss at home to Southampton. Two games in, new Reading manager Nigel Adkins is fast running out of games and options for keeping in the club in top flight football.

30 March Arsenal 4 - 1 Reading
6 April Reading 0 - 2 Southampton

Carters

This past weekend saw LL and I take a short trip to Palmer Park in Reading, where Carters Steam Fair had set up for a few days. Although they have only been running since the 1970's, Carters are something of a local institution, providing good old fashioned fairground fun. They over-winter at White Waltham in Berkshire, not far away but through Spring, Summer and Autumn travel the length of the country, always attracting a good crowd.

LL particularly enjoyed visiting the penny arcade with the slot machines and one arm bandits, possibly because because he got to tap his Daddy for money to change into old (pre-decimal) pennies. I dunno.

Motion sickness an optional extra LOL.

Truly shocking.

I don't think these will win the Grand National.