Reflections on the Party Season

I used to work in banking....Christmas office parties were always produced a mixture of trepidation and anxiety. Traditionally the time for eating/drinking too much, telling your work colleagues what you really think of them (a years pent-up frustration can be a very dangerous thing) before finally getting round to abusing the photocopier creating facsimiles of body parts - all whilst wearing a slightly torn serrated paper hat. I then went to work in HE, the parties weren't that different, except we always had to go to pubs that students didn't frequent.. often a challenge.

As you may have guessed by the level of cynicism, I've never enjoyed these type of events - usually opting for the "I'll show my face and then slope off early" approach. However, this week the dreaded office party came around; and maybe its the different industry (I work for a software company) or maybe its because I'm older...But I quite enjoyed it. Much playing of Wii's and general natter with colleagues that often you don't spend enough time talking to during the usual working day.

Now, being as I work in software, a lot of my colleagues blog. Some are purely technology based and some are very general. As the conversation at the party meandered to blogging, a colleague, Nadeem, remarked that he thought it was odd that I just blogged about football. That got me thinking (keep awake at the back... I'll get round to the point shortly). When I first started this blog I had three aims, to vent my frustration, to keep a record of my views and to encourage me to hone my writing (ahem) skills. I think I've achieved this, but Nad's comment made me review my posts over the last year or so.

It's an interesting thing to do, what I didn't realise is that I seem to have wittered on over the past year on two main themes...

1. The manipulation of facts by the media in order to feed on Newcastle fans hunger for 'news'. And never letting something trivial like a fact get in the way of a good headline. See here for one of many examples
2. The disruption to the traditional business of football that has been caused by the huge amounts of money that has been poured into the game and the effect that has on the people who buy that product because they are fans and not consumers (well most of us anyway). See here and here for examples.

I guess my point is that yes, my thoughts are framed by football, but its a microcosm of many of the things that are going on in the world...

However, this bit IS about football. I'm still in shock since the result against Portsmouth last week... A group of us had watched it on the telly, and the end we were all slightly perplexed, the question was what do we usually do after an away win?? We couldn't remember. So, I really hope that we can carry on that form into the game against Spurs tomorrow. It feels like they owe us a home win... From Rednapp turning us down to them knocking a woeful shambles of a ex-Allardyce team out of the League Cup...Not least because of their odious mouth-piece, Dave Mason will no doubt be spouting his prejudices again... I hope EMO still has his mind on the for sale sign reminder to other clubs... A hat-trick and I'd almost start to like him...maybe.

Howay the Lads

(I wonder if the Newcastle players office party was spent discussing blogs? Somehow, I doubt it)