¡InvictaMoto!

So at the end of the first month of the challenge I have completed a total of 104.92 miles. If you divide that by 31 you get  3.384516129032258 miles per day. It's a little lower than the average I was hoping to maintain at 3.50 miles per day.  I have fallen below the target due in the main to the tail end of the hurricanes that have affected the US and the the torrential rain and high winds these have brought. The challenge is to raise money for the Poppy Appeal of the Royal British Legion and my Poppy Walk ends at midnight on the 10th November. We will be in lockdown by then but I can still get out to do exercise! I need more donations. The minimum is just £2. Just Giving like to ask for some costs as well on top of the donation, this can be bypassed at the payment stage if you want to swerve paying them.  I did when I primed the account myself at the start of the challenge. To donate go here:   https://mypoppyrun.britishlegion.org.uk/fundraising/MyPoppyRun202...

Covid-19 Halloween has been quiet. No trick or treat knocks on the door at all. We did have a brief spell of fireworks banging about 7 30pm and then quiet again, until after 10pm when some wanker let off another lot.

So here we go again. England has after much whinging from opposition parties plunged into another lockdown from Thursday. The science is showing that we need to get this sorted and the experts say another lockdown.

Bugger. I decided to iFollow again and this time it worked.  Another game where there was little between the two sides but in the end defensive frailties meant another defeat for Latics. The first goal should credit the Salfoed forward with persistence, but the defending was poor to allow him to push his way through and get a shot away. The second, against the run of play to be honest, but a breakaway and superior finishing paid off and Salford won 2-0. Luckily for Latics, the team below them are even worse, or at best, as bad. Midweek, they return to League Two action against another of the higher flying teams.  No iFollow for a few weeks.

Started to watch the "Long Way Up" this evening.  Amazed to see the work put in by Harley Davidson and Rivian  to get the electric bikes and trucks working. Considering they are prototypes. So far have got through the first two episodes but it is looking a bit like "where do we charge the bikes and trucks!" On the back of this there are test rides on the road bike version of the Livewire. At a tad under £30000 I won't be buying one short of the lottery win. If I was one of the idle rich who wanted a bike to travel about locally then this might be an option, but at that price I can buy A Toyota CHR Hybrid and take the wife and dog with me too.  For my biking pleasure I'd keep the Rocket and/or the Kettle! https://www.harley-davidson.com/gb/en/motorcycles/livewire.html I know the hardened adventurer types  (wannabes I bet!)  complain  about Charley and Ewan doing these rides. The constant moaning about how some bloke crossed the Andes by Frog or went solo on ...

After spending the money to watch the game on Saturday with iFollow Latics I have to decide whether or not to try again tonight. Southend are currently bottom of the division.  They have yet to win a game and after a bottom of the table spell last year, but in League One that resulted in relegation, they must have the déja-vu feeling already. The problem is that although Latics haven't been too awful in the past few games, they are prone to a defensive cockup or lapse that costs goals.  Both the goals conceded against Port Vale were poor from a defensive point of view.  A free header for the first and then a run across the edge of the penalty box, unchallenged, and a shot into the bottom corner of the goal. Both avoidable. From a Port Vale perspective they were good goals. So.  iFollow or iNotFollow? I have been to Southend a couple of times in the last few years to watch the games. Once on the train in the freezing  cold and once on the bike. It's not a bad jou...

I decided as Invicta were away that I'd watch this game on EFL iFollow. My investment of £10 goes to the club in the main and so it's not lining SKY or BT's shareholders pockets. Not a bad game.  Port Vale edged it after two poor bits of defending from Oldham and the resultant chasing the game.  A goal back in the second half but in reality a second was never going to happen. Defensive weakness once again at the heart if Oldham's failure. The other clubs in the bottom few were similalry shite and beaten so it wasn't as bad as it could be,   Next up? A six-pointer with bottom club Southend United.

I guess I am not alone in having a huge collection of photographs taken before the digital age?  Thought not. So I thought I'd look out a few and scan them in.  I have a collection of pics taken of the Kettle (Water Buffalo or Wasserbuffel) on a few runs out and a couple of trips in Austria for the Wasserbuffel Club's rally at Schloss Moosham. 1993 - Garage in Zastavka on the trickle charger 1993 - Hundertwasser Autobahn Services 1993 - On the alpine road 1999 - Maltatal waterfall Woburn Abbey Deer Park The next little batch are all from the 1993 Wasserbuffel Treffen.  The treffen is hosted in the Schloss at Moosham, and a lot of the hardier types camp, others stay in the apartments across the road, and some in the nearest town of Mauterndorf. Twenty-seven years ago (nearly!) I was booked in the youth hostel a few miles away but one of the German guys said to share their room as they had a big room in the gasthof and a spare bed.  They took pity on me as I was from t...

I was going to sign up for the iFollow service to watch this game.  Enthused after a win away at Bolton on Saturday. But I couldn't get it to work and luckily it didn't swallow my money. In the end I had to follow the game on the Sky Sports app on my phone. Carlisle had been soundly beaten in the early  days of the season but to expect more of the same was madness.  Since then they had been unbeaten and were in the top few of the division,  whereas Latics were in the bottom 5. One win had moved them from bottom to fifth to bottom. Once again it was Zac Dearnley to the rescue  with another late goal. Not as late as Saturday but enough to show that the team aren't giving up as they had done last season. https://www.oldhamathletic.co.uk/matches/fixtures/first-team/202021/october/oldham-athletic-vs-carlisle-united-on-20-oct-20/

Is that Elite or E-Lite? Picked it up on Friday and there have been a few teething problems.  It is so much quicker than the old Lenovo. I have it on a stand and use an external keyboard.  It is easier than having it flat on the desk. Once all the problems are ironed out it should be a pretty decent bit of kit.  It's smaller and lighter that the old clunker.

Bought one of these today. I have a few different ones but this year they have started putting  the year on. Such a shame that there isn't an official Oldham Athletic one to buy and donate to the Poppy Appeal. https://www.poppyshop.org.uk/products/arsenal-poppy-football-pin-2020

The search for information about Claire's Irish relatives has continued to follow Timothy O'Leary. I have a lot of stuff on Timothy and his brothers that joined the Army and served in various theatres  in WW1. I managed to make this picture from a PDF using a link on the Adobe website -  https://www.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/online/pdf-to-jpg.html Once the Covid pandemic is over and we can travel again, we can go over and visit.  I doubt anyone has been there for years, if ever. Timothy from newspaper cutting This is for the war memorial at Hythe. From the IWM: 2nd Battalion August 1914 : in Devonport (where it had been stationed since 1913), under command of 8th Brigade, 3rd Division. 14 August 1914 : landed at Boulogne. Virtually destroyed as a battalion near Le Pilly during the Battle of La Bassée. Many taken as POWs.

I decided to do this for 2020. I won't be running, I'll be walking. The plan is to start on October 1st and walk each day up until November the 10th. The day before the proper Armistice Day and see how much money I can raise for the Poppy Appeal. My target is £50 in donations and to achieve in excess of 125 miles walking.   At the moment I have been walking for 18th days. Some days more than others depending on the weather and of course work days or weekends.  With school half term next week and I will be off work I hope to get a lot more under my feet. So far I have 65.01 miles under my belt at an average 3.42 miles per day. The number of days I have to walk is 41. Calculated using Huawei Health Sponsorship starts at £2 and you can dodge the JustGiving fee at the point of paying. I did when I seeded the pot! Go on. Give it a go. https://mypoppyrun.britishlegion.org.uk/fundraising/MyPoppyRun2020-PaulDevall

Well. This was what is probably called a six-pointer.  The first game for Latics against opposition in the same lower regions of the league. All the other teams they have played and lost to, have all carried on winning and are cloistered  around the top of the division.   Ideally away at Bolton Wanderers could have been a nightmare to add to the recent weeks. Once again they were unable to hold on to an early  lead but then up stepped substitute  Zac Dearnley.  A fifty yard run and shot to win the game. A full report here . This highlights video from Sky misses out half of Zac's 60 yard run with the ball before his shot. Some editor that is. https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/teams/bolton-wanderers/12106798/bolton-1-2-oldham

The restored crank had arrived with Phil. I dropped him at WhatsApp as it is getting on for two weeks and I hadn't seen the invoice that was supposed to come to me. In the end it arrived with Phil.  And wow! It looks nice and clean! Soon the be hidden away inside the crankcases.

After nine years with my Lenovo L430 I have finally been allocated a new one. I have no idea what it is or what it will look like. It will be Windows 10 instead of the unsupported Windows 7 banger I have at the moment. The problem is that I have to travel from Covid-19 Lite area on a train and then tube.  Hopefully my VR46 mask with fitted PM2.5 filter will keep me safe, especially on the pollution filled London Underground!! More when I get it on Friday.

This time in the League. Same result but a different score. From the Sky app it was clear that until Morecombe were gifted a goal in the 40th minute that they were pretty evenly matched. Same shots and on target, slightly different possession percentages. Latics equalised in the second half only to go even further behind trailing 3-1 before staging a mini comeback with a late goal. Unlike last week when they managed a 3-3 draw this time they went down 3-2. With Southend and Grimsby both getting draws Latics sank to the bottom of the League.  How many teams score five goals in two games and end up with one paltry point?

Game Day has come around again at the Buildkent Stadium.  In midweek Invicta had drawn away at Bishops Stortford, but still needed to get back in the winning trail. Today's visitors were coming in the back of two 3-0 wins.  The game was pretty even and both teams had chances but it wasn't until the second half that Invicta went ahead when Dave Smith got free and shot home. Minutes later Invicta got a penalty after a goalmouth scramble when a defender lay on the ball, handling it. Draycott took it and it was well saved. The game was then end to end and PB came close but it ended 1-0.

It looked dire for Oldham at halftime. Colchester were 2-0 up and it looked like if they conceded enough goals they could actually end up bottom of League 2. Then for three minutes in the second half things looked rosy, two quick goals to level it up. Then as usual the pendulum swung away and Colchester scored a third. Latics showed some guts and in the 89th minute they equalised. 3-3. The first point of the season after four league games.  Third from bottom as Southend are even worse and Grimsby aren't playing as a few players have Covid and they have bottled it.

When you are often at a loose end in a German city and need a wurst. Often no sign of a stand or when you scope one out it's closed! But of course there are loads open.... Luckily we can gave them at home too. These are from Tesco. They are pretty good and cook up nicely in a pan.  Oddly, a German owned supermarket like Aldi don't sell them in the new Hythe store. In the old one in town they used to!

The crankshaft is now done and ready to be sent back to Dr Phil. It has been done by Chris at  Applebee  Engineering . I dropped him an email to see how he wanted to handle payment and asked for a photo of the job, and he said to call.   Have spent all afternoon trying to get through on the number he gave me. I managed to get through around 5pm and MasterCard took another bash. Things are progressing.

The Europe League draw was made today for the first group stages. Even though we are starting it much later in the year than  normal , they have stuck with the same four club groups.  Three club groups would have dropped two games from the fixtures at this stage? On first viewing it doesn't look that arduous, but the "Arsenal Way" s to make even the easiest competition seem like a climb up Everest blindfolded and arms duct taped behind your back.  Almost.

After the "first elevens" had played out a 3-1 victory to Liverpool on Monday in the Premier league at Anfield, most Arsenal fans, like me, must have been thinking that the "second elevens" would face a similar fate. And for most of the game we would have been right. Last year the "seconds" played out a 5-5 draw and it was settled in Liverpool's favour in a penalty shoot-out. This year a slightly different collection of "seconds" managed a 0-0 draw after 93 minutes. This year there are no extra time add-ons, it's straight to penalties. Although  to be brutally honest with better finishing and Arsenal's Leno not making "world class saves" Liverpool would have been home and dry. That's not to say that Arsenal didn't have their chances.  They were as inept in front of goal. This year Arsenal came out on top. This year no players blasted wildly over the goal, and the goalkeepers made saves. The deciding factor was Leno s...

Didn't really like Bloggy McBlogface. It's a pattern where the public follows to force a stupid name on to objects like ships. Changed to another new one.