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28 April Celtic 3 - 2 rangers
Barry Robson scored a penalty winner as Scotland's title race pendulum swung back Celtic's way after a dramatic win that extends their lead to five points. Scott McDonald looked offside as he fired Celtic into an early lead. Two Steven Davis corners were headed home by David Weir and Daniel Cousin for Rangers, but a McDonald drive looped in via a deflection. And, when McDonald won a penalty, Robson fired home, after which Rangers' Steven Whittaker was shown a red card.
Rangers still have three games in hand despite back-to-back Old Firm derby defeats. But the reigning champions could have increased their lead by another three points by the time their Glasgow rivals face Hibernian on Sunday should Gordon Strachan's side defeat Motherwell 24 hours earlier. Cousin had been preferred to Jean-Claude Darcheville up front for Rangers. It appeared that the Frenchman was being rested with Thursday's second leg of the Uefa Cup semi-final in mind. But his replacement immediately looked to justify his selection, with goalkeeper Artur Boruc having to beat away the striker's drive on the turn from 12 yards following the first corner of the match. Celtic responded to the early scare by taking the lead after four minutes. With the influential Carlos Cuellar suspended, Christian Dailly had moved into the heart of the Rangers defence.
And his partnership with fellow veteran David Weir was cut open when Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink rose to head the ball into the path of McDonald. The little Australian was marginally offside as he gathered the ball before firing low past Neil Alexander from the edge of the penalty box. But there was no whistle to cut short the celebrations by most of those packing Celtic Park. The match was swinging from end to end as Rangers defied their recent reputation for negative tactics. Celtic manager Gordon Strachan had made four changes from the side that defeated Aberdeen. That effectively meant a return to the side that defeated Rangers 11 days earlier.
But, with Barry Ferguson fresh following his European suspension, Rangers were closing down their opponents far more effectively this time. And the visitors drew level after 17 minutes when Weir rose highest in a packed penalty box to glance a Davis corner into the net from 10 yards. Both sides were going for it now and Celtic were almost ahead again when Alexander scooped Shunsuke Nakamura's wicked curling free-kick off the goalline. However, it was Rangers who edged ahead after 29 minutes. Cousin this time rose unchallenged at the front post to head home off the underside of the crossbar. Rangers fell two minutes short of retaining the lead at half time, McDonald's shot on the turn from 16 yards taking a deflection off Dailly and looping over Alexander's head.
Weir was forced off through injury five minutes after the break and, with six first-team players missing through injury, Walter Smith was forced to hand Amdy Faye his first appearance since October. Nacho Novo sent a powerful effort just wide on the break, but the pendulum was swinging Celtic's way with Rangers defending more deeply. And, when Broadfoot clumsily hauled McDonald down just inside the box after 70 minutes, Robson sent Alexander the wrong way from the spot. Broadfoot was perhaps fortunate to escape a red card, but team-mate Whittaker was sent off in the dying seconds for a second yellow card as Celtic comfortably saw out the final minutes.
Celtic: Boruc, Hinkel, Caldwell, McManus (O'Dea 66), Naylor, Nakamura, Hartley (Scott Brown 83), Robson, McGeady, Vennegoor of Hesselink (Samaras 68), McDonald. Booked: Robson, Hartley, Naylor, Vennegoor of Hesselink. Goals: McDonald 4, 43, Robson 70 pen. Rangers: Alexander, Broadfoot, Dailly, Weir (Faye 51), Papac, Whittaker, Hemdani (Darcheville 79), Ferguson, Davis, Novo, Cousin. Sent Off: Whittaker (90). Booked: Broadfoot, Whittaker. Goals: Weir 17, Cousin 29. Att: 58,662 Ref: C Thomson
BBC Sport Player Rater man of the match: Celtic's Scott McDonald 8.02 (on 90 minutes). 26 April Not funnyThis is not funny:
Give a terrorist typing training to reach more than 200 hits per minute An abortion clinic with a 9 month waiting list A sniper who tells his wife "I missed you" A child from Chernobyl with a shining smile
Calling your daughter Joke because she's born on April 1st A fireman who wants a smoke-free workplace Ask a Pole whether he's from North or South A pickpocket on a nude beach Offer Michael Jackson a part in Married with Children Being screwed by the government when the pill is taken out of the National Insurance A fireworks victim who can't count his number of accidents on the fingers of one hand 22 April Champions of the mickey mouse league...PSV Eindhoven are the champions, just so you know.
The media call Eindhoven the football capital of Holland once again. And I think that just goes too far. With two stolen titles in a row, minimal effort, and now interest to entertain the supporters PSV comes out too easy. PSV scored less than two goals in 17 games, won with the smallest possible difference and frequently played hideous bad football. Sef Vergoosen is a kind man, who had to deal with the inheritance of Ronald Koeman (who now tries to avoid degradation with Valencia in Spain), but he did not make PSV any better. The tears of relief from Danny Koevermans were moving, he lost the championship last year with AZ on the last day of the season, and will have asked himself a couple of times in the last weekend if it was not going to happen again. Dirk Marcellis, the man who excels in kicking balls away far and high without paying attention to opponents and teammates, responded discreetly that he considered this his first championship. Last year he had not played enough, he thought himself, to call himself a champion. The response from Affelay seriously disgusted me. He came on the screen and wanted only one thing, offend. Affelay mentioned that at Ajax they are always bigheaded, but fail to get results. The facts however, proof that the talent from PSV is wrong. Ajax has more titles, more cups (also international), had more topscorers than PSV. Ajax is in the lead in the Eredivisie of all times based on number of victories, points, scored goals, and I can go on for a while. Affelay was of course happy with the title, and has the right to be, but it shows of little respect to respond like that at your own party. It shows that Affelay and more players in Eindhoven have set their minds to other things than celibrating the title. Maybe the players want to disguise their own performance with these words. Disguise that they became the champions with the lowest amount of points ever (based on the three points for a win). Disguise that they never played like champions. Maybe also disguise their own impotence, because PSV has difficulties controlling their nerves. Last year PSV could have been champions in march already, but postponed this for 8 weeks because they were not able to finish it of, and even needed help from Ajax and AZ in the end. Fiorentina already showed the failure of PSV by reaching the UEFA cup semifinal easily by beating PSV. Away it ended 1-1 and at home PSV could not get an advantage, they were even outclassed. No, PSV is not a strong team when it is necessary, and the bigheaded response from Affelay is therefore misplaced. Affelay should have been humble and thankful for the good end, but anyway, next year a warm welcome from the bigheaded people in Amsterdam awaits him. Of course it was still a disappointing season from Ajax, that is something that I never denied. 20 April Where I have been18 April Celtic 2-1 RangersCeltic's Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink scored an injury-time header to narrow the gap on Rangers to one point. Shunsuke Nakamura fired Celtic ahead with a wonderful swerving shot, while Nacho Novo's strike levelled. Carlos Cuellar was sent off for handling a net-bound Nakamura shot but the injured Allan McGregor was able to save Scott McDonald's spot-kick. But the Celtic striker struck late on, while David Weir and Gary Caldwell saw red cards after a full-time melee. A tumultuous evening ended with an ugly scuffle involving several players and Scotland colleagues Weir and Caldwell appeared to exchange blows. 
Nakamura celebrates his wonderful first half strike
With Rangers having played two games less than their closest challengers, Walter Smith's men remain strong favourites. However, Celtic will take great heart from a stirring win and the teams meet again at Celtic Park on 27 April. The game opened in typically frantic fashion, with the home side looking particularly anxious. The opening 15 minutes were notable only for a series of bruising challenges, with Celtic's Paul Hartley picking up the game's first yellow card for a late lunge at Lee McCulloch. However, after winning a sequence of corners, Celtic took the lead in spectacular fashion. Nakamura, criticised for an anonymous display in the previous Old Firm clash, picked up a pass from Caldwell and the ball sat up nicely for the Japanese star to lash home a swerving strike from 25 yards.
Rangers were struggling to get hold of the ball and when the visitors did get a sight of goal Jean-Claude Darcheville blazed a long-range shot high over the crossbar.
Novo replaced defender Kirk Broadfoot at the break and the little striker wasted no time in making his mark. With the whirlwind pace showing no signs of abating, Novo collected a Whittaker pass and sped into the penalty box before rifling a low, angled strike into the far corner of the net. Celtic responded with a flurry of attacks, with Rangers defenders throwing themselves into blocks in and around their penalty area. On 70 minutes, the match took another dramatic turn when Cuellar was sent off for pushing Nakamura's shot onto the crossbar. McDonald stepped up to take the resulting penalty kick but McGregor, who was limping with an ankle problem, sprung to his left and tipped the ball on to the post before gathering. McGregor was strapped up but only lasted another six minutes and had to be replaced by Neil Alexander. Celtic poured forward in search of a winner and were rewarded in the 93rd minute when Vennegoor of Hesselink headed home from McDonald's nodded set-up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celtic: Boruc, Hinkel, Caldwell, McManus, Naylor (Wilson 46), Nakamura, Hartley, Robson (Samaras 75), McGeady, McDonald, Vennegoor of Hesselink. Subs Not Used: Mark Brown, McGowan, Sno, Donati, Balde. Booked: Hartley, Vennegoor of Hesselink. Goals: Nakamura 20, Vennegoor of Hesselink 90. Rangers: McGregor (Alexander 77), Broadfoot (Novo 46), Cuellar, Weir, Papac, Dailly, Whittaker, Ferguson, Davis, McCulloch, Darcheville (Cousin 83). Subs Not Used: Boyd, Naismith, Furman, McMillan. Sent Off: Cuellar (70). Booked: Broadfoot, Naismith, Weir. Goal: Novo 55. Att: 58,964 Ref: K Clark BBC Sport Player Rater man of the match: Rangers' Nacho Novo 7.71 (on 90 minutes).
16 April why I support Cliftonville?
08 April nomophobiaApparently, there’s a new word. It’s nomophobia. Someone at the Post Office coined the term after a survey in which they found that more than half of mobile phone owners feel anxious when they can’t use them for any reason. And for many of us there is the perfectly understandable fear that we couldn’t call for help or pass on urgent information when we needed to. But I think there may also be something deeper here. We’ve got so used to being permanently connected to anyone who wants to contact us, it can feel odd to be out of touch. It’s all too easy to come to rely on other people to give us our sense of significance. If no one’s ringing us, perhaps we don’t matter. In this and other areas of life too, we seem to need other people around us to give us our sense of who we are. I phone therefore I am. There’s a very long tradition in Christianity and other religions of the Retreat. The idea is to deliberately separate yourself from other people in order to discover who you are without them. It’s nowhere near as boring as it sounds and usually you discover a bit about God at the same time. The Post Office has produced some guidelines about avoiding nomophobia but my advice would be to embrace it. If we were periodically to deliberately cut ourselves off from everyone else and just be by ourselves more often, I think we’d become stronger and more self-confident people; more conscious of who we are and less dependent on being in contact with others. Martin Cooper, who invented the mobile and made the first mobile phone call 35 years ago today, says his team had a joke. They imagined a time when every newly born baby was given a phone number. If they didn’t answer when it rang, they were dead. My vision is of a time when every newly born baby grows to be sufficiently secure and self-aware not to need the constant affirmation of phone calls to know they’re really alive and really matter – a day when nomophobia is a thing of the past. 06 April IQ test? I just did a small IQ test online and although it was a small test the result was about the same as I usually have with bigger tests, so it probably is quite accurate. Here is my result:
138If English is not your first language, your result may be lower than your true IQ. Your IQ score only measures your ability at certain mental tasks, particularly logical thought. Don't worry if your result is lower than you hoped - it is not a fixed amount, you can improve it (see the next section of this report). Different IQ tests work in different ways and give different scores. Use the percentages below to compare scores from other tests.
For those of you who want a little more technical information on this test, it is designed to have a mean of 100 for a worldwide english-speaking population, with a standard deviation of 15. Facebook users have higher IQ than a truly random worldwide sample because they mostly come from countries with a high standard of education, numeracy and literacy and because Facebook began as a college/university network so there is still a strong bias towards more intelligent people on Facebook. We estimate that the IQ of the average Facebook user according to this test is 115. There is a further bias because people don't take the test if they think they might do badly, so the mean average result for people who took this test is currently about 120. This doesn't mean the test is badly designed or too easy - the mean would only truly be 100 if a random sample of people worldwide were forced to take the test. People with the lowest IQs would not be able to use a computer, so no computer based IQ test could ever truly have a mean of 100. We are seeing the full spectrum of genuine results from 65 right through to 150 on this test and feedback indicates a close correlation with expensive IQ tests taking much longer so we believe this is a reasonably accurate measure of IQ. There is a slight, intentional bias away from vocabulary and literacy questions because this is a worldwide test and many of those who take it do not speak english as a first language. 04 April Lennon takes up role with Celtic
03 April Holiday is over, back to work and back to my SpaceAfter two weeks holiday it is about time that I write something again about how I spent my holiday.
I can make this a very long story but I will stick with the most important parts and try to keep it short. The first day of my holiday was a bit special, because my plane would leave around 6.15 am and I was working the whole day before that. This meant I had to pack my luggage during the night and make my way to the airport around 3.45. I decided that it would be the best option to take a taxi at that time of the night, because around the busstation it's not always safe in the nights. The taxi arrived within 5 minutes after I called so I was at the airport well in time. The flight was easy and although I was a bit tired because I skipped the night I didn't really have any discomfort because of that.
After arriving at Schiphol airport on the "Kaagbaan", which would have given me a good view on my old home if I was sitting on the left side of the plane, I got my luggage, bought something for breakfast at the supermarket, and went on the train to Arnhem. From there the bus took me to Westervoort where I spent most of my holiday. Christel was already waiting when the bus arrived and we walked to her home together.
A couple of days later was the first major event of the holiday, after doing some shopping we went to Arnhem and took the train to Schiphol from there, where we had booked a room in the Radisson SAS hotel for 1 night. The room we had did not give us a view on the runways, but we could see the plains approaching one of the runways and it gave a good impression how busy the airport is. After having a drink in our room we took the bus to Amsterdam Bijlmer/Arena trainstation, because right next to the Arena is the Heineken Music Hall (HMH) and Nightwish was playing there. The doors were not open yet when we arrived and there was quite a big line of people waiting to get in, so we decided to have a few drinks at a bar behind the HMH first. When we went in PAIN had already started playing. They were a nice warm-up band for the occasion, not really special, but good music, and it gave us some time to find a good place. We decided to find a place on the balcony, and that proved to be a good choice. We had a great view and really enjoyed the show a lot. I made a number of photos, and the best of them can be found in the Album "Nightwish in Amsterdam". After the concert we went back to the hotel for the night, had a nice breakfast in the morning and then we went back to Westervoort. The weekend that followed was the easter weekend, we decided during the weekend that we would go to the Burgers zoo on tuesday, but due to other circumstances that had to be postponed and the visit to the zoo was moved to the saturday after that. When we decided that we would go on the saturday I went to take a look at the website of the zoo and there I found out that in that weekend the zoo celebrated it's 95th birthday, and for the occassion the entrance fee was reduced to € 9.50 p.p. during the weekend. So we were actually lucky to have changed our plans. Burgers zoo in Arnhem is quite a special zoo, because they created several different areas with special habitats for the animals, there is a bush (rainforest), a desert, an ocean and more. I was most impressed by the bush and the ocean. Of course I also made a lot of photos on that day and they can be viewed in the album "Burgers zoo". After the weekend my holiday was approaching it's end. On Monday I went to my mother, but first into Amsterdam to do some necessary shopping. I arrived at my mother's place later then I wanted because I needed a bit more time than expected, but we had a good talk and a nice evening. Tuesday morning I had to get to the airport early again (not as early as two weeks earlier, but still had to leave my mother's home at 7.30 am).
The plane was supposed to leave at 10.05, and until I arrived at the gate things seemed normal. At the gate I already noticed the plane was not yet there, so I thought it would be delayed. But it went all different, at the time it should have departed (probaly because at that time everyone was at the gate) it was announced that the flight had been cancelled. After a few minutes it was told that everyone would be booked into a later flight to Dublin and buses would be arranged from Dublin to Belfast Airport. This meant I departed not at 10.05 but at 13.10, and after arriving in Dublin I also had a bustrip of a couple of hours and arrived at Belfast International Airport around 5.30 pm, almost 7 hours later than the original schedule. From there I also still had to go home, but as soon as I got home I went online, had a chat with Christel, my mother and a few (ex) colleagues. But because I was very tired after the trip I decided to go to bed early and so it happened that I was asleep at about 10. The next day was the last day that I was off (a rota day off, so officialy no holiday anymore). That day I was working away my backlog in my games at jijbent.nl and yourturnmyturn.com. This took me a couple of hours, the rest of the time I spent chatting and shopping (of course that also still had to be done after being away for 2 weeks). Around 5pm I had to leave home again, because that evening Nightwish was playing in the Mandela Hall in Belfast. I first went for something to eat and then walked on to the Mandela Hall, where I arrived around 6.15. The doors opened at 7 and I had a few drinks at the bar before going into the hall (it is not allowed to drink alcohol inside the hall when an event allows access to people under 18 years old). Well before the start of the show I went in and found a place about 4 rows from the stage, just right of the middle. This gave me a good view and a good opportunity to make better photos than those from Amsterdam. The Mandela Hall is a lot smaller than the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam, so the show was smaller as well (no fireworks and other special effects), but a small venue makes it more intimate and has a completely different atmosphere, so although the show was less spectaculer it was a great experience to be there. The photos will appear on my Space soon, but because some of them are very good I want to mark them as copyrighted first, so a bit patience is required. Now it is another day, and I am back at work. My new job is about to start big time tomorrow, because today I am too much needed in my old role, but I am really looking forward to my new role as a Customer Excellence Specialist. So far for now, more items will of course follow in the near future. |
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