David Gibbins, Facebook, Liverpool

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Preston 0 – Liverpool 2

The good news this weekend is that Liverpool played and beat Preston in the FA Cup. A 2-0 win, and we have Everton in the next round. Even better news is that Torres played and scored. From a negative perspective both Monster and Alonso have injuries.

Facebook

I have recently joined Facebook following an invite from my brother. Well that has a way of eating into your time, but it has been interesting to catch up with Nieces, Nephews and In-Laws. The only person I haven’t caught up with is the brother who invited me to join!

Wellington Phoenix 3 – Newcastle Jets 0

We have only missed a couple of home Phoenix games this season, and at halftime I was wishing that I was missing this one. I think I watched the worst 45 minutes of professional football I have seen. 0-0 at half time and both sides were absolute garbage.  If one side strung more than 2 passes together I missed it. However as the catch phrase goes 90 minutes 90 emotions so the second half was better. Three goals including a stunner from Smeltz. The Phoenix are going to miss him next season. Anyway 3 points gained, there is still a chance we will finish in the playoff spots (top 4) but already a top season.

David Gibbins – Atlantis

David Gibbins – Crusader Gold

In the run up to and following Christmas I have read both the above  David Gibbins books.

If you like Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, James Rollins and / or Steve Berry then you will enjoy these novels, adventure with a capital A, and just enough fact thrown in to keep you hooked.

Although the books are in sequence Atlantis first, they are stand alone plots and there is no need to read Atlantis to enjoy Crusader Gold.

From his website – (  http://www.davidgibbins.com/ )

” David Gibbins is a bestselling novelist and archaeologist, and a world authority on ancient shipwrecks and sunken cities. He was born in Saskatoon, Canada in 1962, to English parents, and grew up in Canada, New Zealand and England. An early fascination with archaeology led him to study at the University of Bristol, where he graduated with First Class Honours in 1983. He then attended Cambridge University as a Research Scholar of Corpus Christi College, where he was awarded a PhD in archaeology in 1991. For much of the next decade he held a permanent faculty position as a university lecturer in the UK, where he taught archaeology, art history and ancient history, before leaving teaching to devote himself full-time to writing novels and carrying out fieldwork. “

With his background the Author is obviously able to draw on both his Archaeological and diving background to craft his stories. The first book Atlantis is self explanatory. It is basiaclly the search for Atlantis, with some mythology and terrorist action thrown in. Plus a love interest. What more could you ask for. Many of us hope that Atlantis was real and that one day it will be found, this book pulls at those wishes and presents a very plausible scenario with regard to its whereabouts and its history.

The second book Crusader Gold is not so clear cut, it follows on a few months after Atlantis (well the heros have to have time to heal don’t they). It has all the same elements that made the first book a good read

• A blend of fact and fiction
• Jewish treasure
  
• History
• Supposition
• Archaeological mystery

Interestingly the title although very relevant is infact more than a little misleading. This story has more to do with Viking and Norse heritage, travels and legends  rather than the Spanish plundering South America. The hook in this book is the weaving of Norse mythology through most of what we today understand as the history of the Americas. Of course there is the clash with ancient cults after the power that the discovery of the treasure that was plundered by the romans from the jews many hundreds of years ago. Tell me again, how did the vikings get into this, you will have to read..

Both the books were very enjoyable reads, didn’t tax me to much and certainly stirred the imagination.

Dave A

Liverpool top end of 2008, start of 2009

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Newcastle put to the sword at St James park. One of the best performances of the past couple of years and at last, as well as winning we are also starting to play nice football l. Cant complain about beating Newcastle 1 – 5. Goals by Stevie G (2) Sami (1), Babel and Alonso.

Dave A

Liverpool top at Christmas

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Not had a chance (or should I say, made a chance) to post over the past few weeks.  Its a pity really as I have heaps of books or podcasts to put up. I’ll catch up over the next few days. (No work you see).

Its 23:30 on the 28th December here and I am waiting for the Newcastle vs. Liverpool game to start. Win this and we go into 2009 still on top of the EPL. Although Liverpool have dropped alot of points at home with silly draws against teams we should have beated the other teams have dropped points as well so we are still 1 point clear at the top.

The last game was at home vs Bolton and we won it convincingly, playing very well.  Two goals to Keanne, which should take some of the pressure of him. Much of the talk on fan forums is that we will purchase a new stricker in the January transfer window. God knows why!

43 Years with the Same Bird – Brian Reade

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I don’t read many non fiction books, this is one that was well worth the effort. This is the story of Brian Reades support of Liverpool Football Club. Brian is not a passive supporter he is in it boots and all with his heart firmly stitched on for all to see. Brian is currently a journalist for the Daily Mirror and has never hidden his passion for Liverpool, the city and the football club.

As well as his support of the club, this book is a fantastic perspective of what it was like in Liverpool during the Thatcher years. I disappeared off to New Zealand so didn’t have to suffer or grieve as a political dogma tried to destroy a city.

From a football perspective its interesting reading someone else’s description of a game that you yourself attended. Like all books about Liverpool, the game vs St Ettienne is described in detail and the memories it brought back certainly stirred the heart.

I was reduced to tears in the chapters around both Heysel and Hillsborough. In fact following those chapters the two events form a baseline for the rest of the book. As in real life those events are never far from the surface and there impact is still there today.

This is one of the two best non fiction football books I have ever read.

Dave A

Liverpool vs. West Brom, Wellington Phoenix and the election.

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A good weekends football, one game I have seen the other I haven’t. I was able to see most of the Liverpool vs. West Brom game. With the game being played at 17:30 UK time that’s 6:30 NZ time. I am up anyway as #2 son has to be at work by 7:00hrs on a Sunday.

Liverpool played well, but again they didn’t kill West Brom off until the last minute of the game. Robbie Keane scored his first and second goals of the league campaign, both well executed. Arbeloa scored the final goal in quiet literally the last play of the game.

Over in Sydney the Wellington Phoenix beat Sydney City 1-2, as a result of that win the Phoenix are now in 6th place one point ahead of both Newcastle and Perth. Not bad considering that this time last week we were bottom.

It was the election this weekend and we now have a centre right government, this is not something that makes me jump with joy, but I will live with it and give John Key a chance. Perhaps a change was needed, but I would rather have seen the centre left change and work from that. Anyway its all over the people have spoken as they say and National have a clear mandate.

Dave A

Football and Podiobooks

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On the football front very mixed.

New Zealand U17 Womens – Last night we watched on the TV the NZ U17 Women’s team playing and beating Columbia 3 – 1. Number 2 son was actually at the game, terrible weather. It was a game well worth watching, all players put everything into it, no arguing with refs and no dramatic actions when someone received a tap on the ankle.

Wellington Phoenix- This mornings news was all about Shane Smeltz signing next year for the new Gold Coast team, so the Phoenix have lost their number one striker. I’ll fall back on the old creed of no-one is bigger than the club so hopefully some good will come of it.

Liverpool- This morning was also a group game in the Champions League, Athletic Madrid were visiting Anfield and damm near beat us. A 94th minute penalty by Gerrard ensured we finished 1- 1. For the last two games we have clearly been on top but haven’t killed the game off or scored. Its bloody frustrating, especially from 13,000 away.

Phil Rossi – Notes from the Vault

Phil Rossi is a writer that shares some of the same space as Stephen King and Scott Sigler, its sci-fi/ horror type stuff with a touch of the Lovecrafts thrown in. Notes from the Vault is a collection of short stories and to me show the growth of Phil as an author. The first 7 or so stories in the collection are “Crescent Viginettes” short stories that are based around Crescent Station. Although good stories I made the mistake of listening to the Crescent podiobook first. This is a damm good book. I enjoyed it so much I subscribed to “Notes From The Vault”. I found the first few Crescent stories poor compared to the book, perhaps that is because Crescent is so good. The none Crescent stories are very good with all the twists and horrific turns you expect from a writer in this genre. Interestingly the last story in Notes (so far) was a Crescent story and that was very good. The production values since the original first stories have improved 200%. This makes a difference.

Some Phil Rossi links are

• http://www.philrossi.net/
• http://www.crescentstation.net/

Basil Sands – “65 Below”

I am not sure how I found this author, I suspect it was a promo on the end of a podcast I was listening to. 65 Below is a action thriller based in Alaska, its set in a post 9-11 world and every second American character appears to be  ex Marine or special forces. The reading starts off slow and unconvincing, but by episode three its either going well or I got used to the style of delivery. I hope no international terrorists read this as there is enough in here to give people ideas regarding how to kill off large population areas without damaging property of infrastructure. In fact its so simple and obvious I am not sure why it has never been done. The bad guys are interesting as well. Basil has given the Americans a new enemy. An action thriller well worth the time, a good one for conspiracy theorists as well.

On his website http://www.basilsands.com/ Basil describes his writing as “extreme fiction” from my perspective its not as extreme as Sigler, but has extreme plots that are well thought through and crafted.

Dave A

Spurs vs Liverpool

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Hard to believe we lost, even harder to believe when it was us that scored forst in about the third minute, again even, even harder when you see the stats, we did them, we played them off the park and yet despite all that we didn’t put then away. You have to take your chances and we didn’t. The first loss of the season and its November, now we will see the character of the team, and the supporters.

Go the Reds

Dave A

2008-10-30 Liverpool vs Portsmouth

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Liverpool 1 – Portsmouth 0.

Another victory and an important one. True to form Rafa played a changed team from Monday not sure why so many changes injury’s, tactical, rest ? who knows. The reality is that if we do want to win the league the squad has to perform. With Arsenal drawing 4 – 4 with Spurs we move to 6 points ahead of them. United and Chelsea both won so the gap between them and us stays the same. The top four has changed with Aston Villa in the top four now, unfortunately Chelsea gave Hull a beating.

Next game away to Spurs, that will be a hard one. I wonder if the Harry effect will help Spurs?

Dave A

2008-10-28 Stat Holiday, Liverpool CRUSH Chelsea, Phoenix loose

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You get to the end of a long weekend and wonder what did I do with my time, and contemplate the things you didn’t do. Well not this one, there were lots of things we didn’t do but we were busy.

Saturday  was an around the house day, weather wasn’t that great so I had plenty of time to get some jobsdone. I had a whole week of BBC7 listening to get down onto the hard drive. Trying to sort out iTunes has certainly gotten me behind.

Sunday started early, # 2 son needed to be at work by 6:50am, so I dropped him off, hired a trailer and headed off to help # 1 move flat. Four trailer loads later and two car loads we had emptied one flat and filled up the lounge in another. He is having to sort it from there. Got home about 12:30pm I was buggered. The afternoon saw us off to the stadium to see the Wellington Phoenix vs Queensland Roar. The first half was some of the worst football I have ever watched (and I have been to an Everton vs Coventry game! ) The Phoenix conspired to loose 0 – 1 and for the first time I wondered why I go, if the players are not going to make an effort why should I.

Monday at 2.00 saw me getting up to watch Chelsea vs Liverpool and we beat them, not only did we beat them but they never looked like they were going to stop us winning. The goal had a element of luck about it, Alonso deflection in the 10th minute. Apart from a 10 minute spell before half time we bossed the game. 0- 1 away from home, the first time Chelsea had lost at home in 87 games over 4.5 years. The league table looks great

• Liverpool top 3 points ahead of
• Chelsea and Hull
• Arsenal 4 points behind
• United 8 points behind.

I’ll take that for now, and the midweek EPL games are back. Wonderful!!!

Late morning we went to Te Papa the national museum, we must have been there for about 5 hours (including lunch ) and really only did the top two floors. It was very informative, educational and fun. Although its nice doing these things with the kids, it was great just me and the boss.

The day was rounded off by a bloody good roast leg of lamb.

Dave A

P.S Spellchecker says no spelling mistake in this update, cant believe that!

2008-10-23 Only a draw in Milan

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Away in the Champions League to Athletic Madrid. At the start of the campaign I would have thought that this was a tough one. Madrid’s form of late has been patchy at best so even though it was away I was expecting a victory in the region of 2 or 3 nil.

It was all looking good when Keanne scored early, a lovely pass through from Gerrard. 0 – 1 at half time and Liverpool looking by far the best team. Unfortunately the team obviously decided the game was over and didn’t get past 2nd gear and as a result A Madrid scored an equaliser and that’s how the game ended 1 – 1. An away draw in the Champions League putting us second in the group.

An average result matching an average performance. On the posative side we didn’t loose and its Chelsea away on Sunday (UK time).

Dave A