padawanbeck84

46, 656 - Agreed @Malahide It was a ridiculous, greedy idea. And the club owners are apologising. I can only hope they genuinely mean it. I think part of the problem is the owners of some of the clubs (e.g Liverpool, Manchester United) are Americans who don't understand the traditions of European football. A closed, invitation-only league would be boring - and they'd be keeping the money to themselves as well. That's not how we do things. We want our leagues to be fair and open to whoever is good enough to get promoted into them. Look at how exciting it was when Leicester won the Premier

46, 654 - Starting the day with some counting. Good thing I checked the schedule this weekend - the Formula 1 practices and qualifying have been moved so as not to clash with Prince Philip's funeral.

46, 652 - @Malahide We've had some really nice sunshine in the last couple of days. Not especially warm, but the sun has made a nice change. Maybe I should try and send some of that over to you? Now I need to get on with counting today's words in my writing.

46, 649 - Happy counting as I got to go to a library *and* a bookshop today It felt good to have a change of scenery after months at home. I hope your work picks up @peterferris8 I'm guessing people in your area are maybe a bit nervous about going out just yet.

I had very few side effects. Some cold shivers the first night after the vaccination and I felt a bit fatigued the day after, but nothing really apart from that. I know some people have felt feverish and had cold/flu-like side effects, but I didn't. My good thing for today is that I managed to have a day out to another town. I returned some library books, borrowed 2 more and bought 2 more books from an independent bookshop that's one of my favourites. I also got to visit one of my favourite comic shops and catch up with the owners for the first time in months, as well as buying a Star War

That's a whole other question. I'm not fanatical about the royals myself, and the idea of one family being put above the rest of us does look increasingly outdated - especially if you don't believe the religious aspect. Equally, I wouldn't like the idea of our politicians having any more power than they already do - especially some of the current lot. We've seen in America and Brazil how you can very easily end up with very unsuitable people being president. And a number of other European countries still have monarchies (Netherlands, Spain, Norway etc) and they seem to be happy wit

46, 647 - I dread to think what the pubs are going to be like The situation is not helped by the tabloid press hyping things up and making their readers think that it's some sort of national duty to rush to their local and get absolutely trollied. I pity the police and ambulance people who'll have to deal with the aftermath. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for confirmation as to when some of the local libraries will reopen. The larger ones have confirmed they will reopen immediately, but the smaller ones (including the one where I work) may take a little while longer as they're run by pa

It has also been confirmed this afternoon/evening that the rapper and actor DMX has died, aged 50 U2 posted a message on their social media pages in support of him just a couple of days ago following the news that he was in hospital having suffered a heart attack. He was put on a life support machine, but sadly did not recover. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56687578

Buckingham Palace has just announced the death of the Queen's husband, Prince Philip. He was 99. He had been in hospital recently, but died peacefully at home at Windsor Castle. He was the longest-serving Royal Consort in the history of the British royal family, having been married to the Queen since 1947, when she was still Princess Elizabeth. Philip could sometimes put his foot in it with awkward comments (sometimes bordering on racism), but I think part of that was down to his age and the attitudes he would have been brought up with. It's difficult to imagine what Her Majes

45, 645 - Evening weather update: we had even more snow earlier this evening. @Malahide I think you must have sent it over here

45, 644 - Latest weather report from the UK: We had some snow overnight! @Malahide It's melted away now, but our neighbour's car had a blanket of snow on it first thing this morning.

45, 643 - We had a few odd flakes of snow this morning, along with some hailstones, but only for a few minutes. Apart from that, it's been a lovely warm, sunny day. Let's see if the snow reaches over here in the next day or so. Could cause mayhem if it does - most things shut down if we get even the slightest bit of snow And I didn't have any other side-effects from the vaccination.

45, 641 - Morning counting. I didn't sleep much last night - I had some minor side effects from the Covid jab, cold chills and shivering a lot, but I'm feeling better this morning. Hopefully that's as bad as the side effects will get. Some of my friends have had cold/flu-like symptoms for a couple of days afterward, but I seem to have avoided that so far.

I had my first Covid vaccination this morning. It looks like the health service in my town may well have already got round to doing my whole age group - and there was a good, steady stream of people coming in to get theirs, so hopefully that means most people in the area are accepting the vaccine when they're called for it. It was very quick and I barely even felt the needle. Nothing to worry about at all I have the appointment sorted for the second dose - and it's just after my birthday. My present for this year is being protected from Covid.

45, 640 - @Malahide Around half of our population have had a first dose, although there's a larger gap than normal (currently 12 weeks) between first and second doses, so there's not that many people who have had the second dose to be fully protected yet - mainly only the very elderly and clinically vulnerable. The thinking is to give as many people as possible at least partial protection as quickly as possible. It seems to be working so far. Our government may be a mess, but our health service is brilliant at these kinds of things Apparently my town/local area is motoring through v