More than a month after I touched down on home soil I'm finally getting around to writing the last post about my trip. A number of things have seen me put off writing over the last few weeks but I guess it's time for me to tie up this series of reflective posts - some might say it's taken me too long!
So to Croatia and our final stop on a splendid month of travel. After the beauty of Slovenia, this country to the south had a lot to live up to, not to mention the fact that I wasn't ready to wind down on the new experiences despite home being but a few days away.
The title is cheesy but it rhymes - what more do you want? I got in about half an hour ago after being at the pub with a few mates and thought that I might be able to get a little bit of the work that I've got to get done for tomorrow out of the way. I picked up said work and put it down almost immediately, safe in the knowledge that it will still be there in the morning. What, then, is the next best thing to do when I can't be bothered doing university work? Blog of course - it's been a while since I've had a good proper ramble about nothing in particular.
If last night's incident at the Liberty Stadium wasn't odd enough to watch, today I find myself agreeing with Pat Nevin - now that is odd. I went to bed thinking about Eden Hazard's alleged kick on the Swansea ball-boy and I was greeted with the same thoughts this morning as I made my customary cycle through the news channels. I'll say at the outset of this post that I'm on Hazard's side. This is mostly down to the fact I'm a Chelsea fan but that's not the only reason - I would probably be on the side of most footballers in this situation. The main reason why I feel very strongly about this is because of the reaction and the type of person that the boy (although at 17 he would have to pay an adult fare on my local bus) portrayed himself as.
Firstly, let me explain why I agree with Nevin. I don't particularly like the guy; in fact, I find him to be a particularly annoying pundit. It should also be noted, for those less aware of football in general, that Nevin is himself of the Chelsea fraternity - maybe take what he says with a pinch of salt. Here's what he said:
Yes he's got a slightly annoying, whiny voice but what the basic part of what he said is true. The boy shouldn't have been rolling around on the ground. Hazard did not try and kick the guy (he's all grown up now) who was meant to be doing the simple job of returning the ball the goalkeeper. I heard a football agent's view on this earlier who first of all noted that at 17 you shouldn't be a ball-boy. After all, ball-man sounds just wrong. Secondly, he said that it shouldn't be up to him to make the decision to time-waste in such a game. Granted Chelsea were getting nowhere, but Hazard wanted to keep pushing and, as a Chelsea fan, I can only commend him for that. In fact it might have been a breath of fresh air if the whole team had showed a little bit of fight last night.
I got side-tracked with a dig at my team's poor performance last night but I'll quickly sum up what I'm trying to argue here because I need to get on with something else. Hazard shouldn't have got himself involved - that's a given - but he did and so what happened is a reality. Yes, he should get a 3 game ban for violent conduct; if he'd kicked a Swansea player then I wouldn't expect anything less. However, the ball-boy acted disgracefully and I don't have any qualms about sticking up for Hazard who has received more bad press this morning than David Cameron has since his speech on Europe over a day ago. Pretty impressive for someone who was just trying to do his job - Hazard that is, not Cameron. Also, a note on the ages of the two involved. As I've noted, the ball-boy is 17. Hazard himself is only 22 - only a year or two older than me. It's not like he kicked a 10 year old now is it?
Sorry this post was brief and biased and everything that is wrong about the Internet culture but I've got to get away and I just had to get that off of my finger tips before I exploded!
I don't get to write an awful lot these days. Well, that's a lie because I write all the time - just not about stuff that most of my readers would have an interest in. I suppose that I could try it one day, writing some uni stuff here, just to see what the reaction would be. For example I'm just about to set out into the wonderful world of 'offside goals' in property law. To some that sounds interesting but only because it has footballing connotations. I can confirm it is interesting but I can also confirm that it has nothing to do with football. To put it another way: it's a rule about offiside goals that women that study law understand - the antithesis of the rule in the beautiful game you might say.
So with that in mind I feel that I should write about something that will appease the masses. The problem with that is that my life basically consists of university and taking time out to play/watch football - I've already covered those two topics in a single paragraph. My work here is done!
As a law student (albeit a Scots law student) and an ardent Chelsea fan, you might have thought that I would have had a conflict of interests as John Terry's trial at Westminster Mags unfolded last week. I saw the Youtube video (as apparently did everyone in the world) and saw the same words being uttered as everyone else. As it happens, my situation (the potential conflict of interests) meant that I've spent the last few months defending John Terry from both points of view. Firstly my law student mind saw me defend him from the point of view of the 'innocent until proven guilty' stance. People don't like to hear that argument but it's one that I will stick to because it's the right argument in a society such as ours. My Chelsea supporter's mind was telling me that I had to defend him because I like him as a player and as a captain of the team that I'm a fan of. The latter, as you can well imagine, was not as strong a standpoint.
It dawned on me today that I've not actually put out any content for over a week and I thought that I should maybe do something to rectify that. A video was all I had time for this evening and therefore you are stuck with looking at me again instead of just reading - super news for most I'm sure! Here is said video which includes a cut-off head, a lack of structure and a lack of explanation as to why I was showering at 4.30 in the afternoon. I was running, just in case you are interested...
For those of you that store any of the information that I sometimes write in this blog, you will remember that I said something about art last week or the week before, I forget. I'm looking to redesign my logo because it is pretty rubbish and I was hoping that the more artistic amongst you might have an idea at least of what it should look like. Any suggestions/ideas (make them on the Facebook page please!) would be much appreciated and I look forward to hearing back from my artistically superior readers in the near future!
I thought that I would be able to save myself until the end of next week before I dusted down my blog again but I can't keep myself away. I've been typing notes for the best part of 10 hours today and yet my fingers still want more. My back might well say 'no', but my fingers say 'go' - who am I to ignore fingers that can think and talk for themselves? They've got me into plenty of trouble in the past so I've learned to embrace them and go with the flow - there's little point in fighting the feeling any longer. So with that gripping (yes, I just punned) story under my belt I guess it's time to crack on with something substantial. I'm not 100% sure where this post is going to go (which tends to happen when my brain is mush) but I like the feeling of writing something that isn't for revision purposes. However, knowing me, by the end of this post I will have told you all you need to know about the Scots law of leases - I'll try my damnedest not to though!
