Eyemouth (Scotland)

Connoisseur Naess Hat

Plopped through the letterbox today. Pleased as punch to pick one up after missing out last time. Prefer the navy colourway but decided to stay loyal to my Kangol bucket, which the same colour, and therefore opted for sand - they say variety is the spice of life. The stamp on the wee bag was a nice touch, plus the brown paper bag itself is useful to keep the hat in and also store the build up of CC stickers I've amassed. Will probs keep the badges in there too as I haven't got the nuts to pierce it with them four like! Keeping it nice. After the disappointment of the Tam Weir hat not fitting, pleased this actually does as would have been heartbroken. Delighted with it, you'll be looking at cucumber boy in this, as in 'cool as a'...

Dunston Rocket

I'm not talking about Dunston born Gazza's brain leaving the planet earth - I'm actually referring to Derwent House - dubbed the 'Dunston Rocket'. Time has been called on another one of Gateshead Council's brutalist structures. Like Trinity Square multi-storey (The 'Get Carter' car park) before it, demolition work has started on the spaceship shaped tower block - only this time, unlike Trinity, Sly Stallone didn't lend his weight try to get this one saved. Amazingly someone still tried to get this listed with English Heritage. They failed.

Designed in the 1960s the Derwent had 30 storeys and 196 dwellings, plus an underground car park which became a haven for drugs and crime, and was thus sealed off long before the building was condemned. 1300 residents once lived in this concrete slum but have been long gone for awhile amidst water supply and damp problems.

Still it's a fantastic example of brutalist design not often seen in these parts of the woods. Most have long since gone and other than major metropolises down south, there are not many existing strucutres in Co Durham.

Lock, Stock and Four Hungover Northerners

Couple of tourist snaps from an away weekend in the smoke with a few Sunderland lads in 2008. We saw out a nil-nil draw with Fulham and crashed at a youth hostel-come-nightclub in London Bridge. Early Sunday morning it was round the corner to Borough market to take a few pics at the Lock, Stock & Two smoking barrels location.

Cottonfield Parka

Picked this up from fleabay for under a score with postage. Smashing piece of parka from the Scandinavian brand Cottonfield. Established in 1986 in Denmark, the brand has been churning out simple designs with modern details and a casual outlook - sounds like perfection to me. Classic khaki green and some particularly nice detailing, especially on the buttons and the flight jacket style sleeve pocket. Bargain and a nice bit of clobber for dressing down.

Brian Glover's Match of The Day

Carlton Palmer is a Wanker

Does anyone actually like him? I'm putting forward the simple arguement of 'no'. Reasons -

As a Hartlepool United fan, we don't like him as he wound up club legend and hero Brian Honour in a FA Cup match in 1993. After he'd kicked Wor Jackie into the air then accused him of diving and being a 'cheating little shite', he proceeded to make his mouth go constantly - comments such as 'I'm getting paid two grand for this match, how do you get by?', 'this summer I was playing for England, what were you doing?' and similar taunts led to fellow Sheff Wed team mates Trevor Francis and Danny Wilson telling him to 'shut it' and 'stop being a prick'. So he's hated by Poolies one and all.

But it's not just us surely. He was part of an unfashionable George Graham Leeds United, so they can't be fond. And was relegated at Coventry and Nottingham Forest - again they can't be keen? Even his previous managers have had digs at him. Big Ron (manager at WBA, Sheff Wed & Forest) famously said 'Carlton can trap a ball further than I can kick it'. There was a similar theme Southampton, where Dave Jones said "He covers every blade of grass out there, but that's only because his first touch is so crap". He also noted that in the dressing room was "abrasive, awkward and argumentative" - university speak for 'twat'.

All England fans will remember Graham Taylors ill fated regime were work rate and doggedness was rated over flair and skill. Therefore Palmer was included in the England squad that flopped at Sweden 92 and failed to reach USA 94, winning 18 caps during these dark days in English football.

He's potentially hated even more as a manager. At Stockport County he led his troops to lose ten out of his opening 11 games in 2001. Relegation form surely? Yep. The Hatters went down to division two and proceeding to win only eight in their first 22 in the Football League's middle tier. He was sacked in Sept. 2003 and problems have continued at Stockport since.

Despite this he managed to get another manager's job, this time at Mansfield Town in 2004-05. Poor form yet again led to abuse from the fans and he walked with the Stags in the relegation zone. Another team Palmer successfully guided to failure. He still wasn't satisfied with what he had achieved (namely pissing the Mansfield fans off) and went back, as a TV pundit for a live cup match with Boro, to do what he did best (namely piss Mansfield fans off further) by openly critiscisng their star player of the day (name escapes me, possibly Simon Brown?) saying he lacked desire and commitment - something Palmer himself was short of when he resigned as manager of Mansfield because the fans were singing a few nasty songs.

Finally he gets in bathtubs with football fans in the name of betting. Not pleasant behaviour.

In short a bit of a nobhead. In tall, a bit of a tall nobhead.