well good morning to you all in what is the first day of my winter break. ive already been to the dentist this morning (just a check up not too bad.. have an appointment for a deep clean next year - the legacy of years of smoking before i reformed). at first (it being so early) i failed to notice that my dentist had changed. mainly because they seem to have a supply of gorgeous brown eyed middle eastern teeth specialists. being tipped on your back and prodded has never been so much fun :))

now i am about to embark on a day of marking essays - well double marking in fact as these are 3rd years taking my colleague's module. we both mark then discuss them and agree grades - usually we are pretty close or spot on but sometimes grades are a bit out. i tend to give in to him on his module (he knows the subject best after all) and vice versa. anyway there are about 30 of them and that means, at roughly 4 an hour, 7-8 hours. then im going over to stay with the towcestrians so paul and i can have a few beers rather than our usual hour of exercise. i might also pop in to oddbins to buy some nice christmas wine.

finally a few words on 'super sunday' or 'galactic sunday' or whatever the press were calling it: first i thought liverpool were poor, benitez (again) got it all wrong and united never really looked in any trouble. the supremely unattractive ferdinand was impressive in defence and even if united hardly looked much going forward they stopped liverpool playing. that said St. rafa doesn't seem to know how to change a game. on comes babel but off goes kewell, then he replaces kuyt with crouch. same difference. surely when you losing to your biggest rivals and in danger of slipping out of the title race you go for it - take off a defender or benayoun? oh well

Over at the real home of football arsenal put chelski to the sword. ok so it was close and blues fans could argue that they had host of chances but then so did we. i have no idea why the togonator's 'goal' was ruled out for his struggle with ben haim - it seemed fair to me and typical of what dogbreath used to do to swiss tony every time they played us. the lack of the drogbeast and essian and the presence of hleb and flamini (and cesc but not so much) made the difference. gallas' goal was brilliant and almunia played a blinder. cashly got boed, kicked, beaten for pace and skill, kicked some more, booed again and a ball boy threw the ball at him for good measure, then he goes and gives two fingers to the people that made him and will now be banned for life - serves him right the money grabbing cheap little toerag - i bet cheryl can't cook roast potatoes like arsene can either. :lalala: