Kevin Holdridge's Blog

Still in a state of shock after all three of the footie teams in my life won this weekend – a season first! Arsenal were back on form – although still worryingly dependent on the historically fragile Robin van Persie – with a 1-2 victory over plucky Norwich on Saturday. Strange mutterings from le Boss [...]

[note: this posting prompted a response below from Esure, please read in context] Motor insurance, eh? I made the mistake of ringing Esure today to let them know that I’d be having a courtesy car for the day while mine was in for servicing. For my pains, I earned 15 to 20 minutes on the phone (mostly [...]

I hear that they’ve made up an amended banner at old Trafford for next season.

I’ve never until today been to an Arsenal away match where the supporters have failed to get behind the team. Hush and occasional booing at the Emirates is one thing, but the away fans are usually highly energetic and supportive (yes, even  for Bendtner). I think that sums up  the state of  feeling. Stubborn failures [...]

The blessed Arsene complains that “… we conceded the penalty after 11 minutes of stoppage time, when injury time was indicated to be eight minutes”. But, blaming the referee doesn’t wash – this time at least.  I thought referee Marriner had a good game. It was unwelcome and unnecessary, but he was entitled to run [...]

I suppose it was only a matter of time before the atrociously managed Royal Mail finally drove me to make a Hall of Shame entry.  This is the organisation that charges enormous fees for us to use “their” postcode database – something that is free in almost every other country because the data is considered [...]

Hard to know whether to be pleased or outraged at the arrest of Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. There is a distinct whiff of set-up from the criminal charges against him, but only time will tell.  Similarly, the recent denial-of-service attacks on WikiLeaks and pressure on Amazon to stop hosting the site look to be state-sponsored. [...]

I recently volunteered to help edit a small category within the Open Directory Project (ODP). The ODP describes itself as “the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors“.  The project is honourable and worth supporting amidst the sea of sharp practice [...]

Regus are the first of two entries today in the Hall of Shame.  A few months ago, we took out a virtual office package with them for our new London base. All we needed initially was mail forwarding. Although they are not the  cheapest in the market, Regus had premises in the right part of [...]

Very exciting evening match at Gresty Road (League Cup round 2). Despite being the underdogs from League 2, Crewe put in a sterling performance. They gave  Ipswich a real run for their money. For most of the game, Crewe looked like the team most likely to win. It was only a goal from a corner [...]