The man who pushed his luck with Alex Ferguson

The retirement of Alex Ferguson has reminded me of an amusing encounter he had with an ex professional football friend of mine, Dennis Bailey. 21 years ago when playing for QPR Dennis went down in football history as being one of only two players ever to have scored a hat trick against Manchester United at home and the only person to be on the winning side. The hat trick made a big impression on manager Alex Ferguson and is mentioned in his best selling 1999 autobiography, Managing My Life. In it he states “Bailey did push his luck a little when he danced into our dressing room full of the joys wanting our players to sign the match ball”.  The goals have been preserved for posterity on Youtube. No doubt they wont be playing that clip at his testimonial.

The internet meets Fawlty Towers

Ive just started a course at Stratford college on designing and publishing your own website. It’s aimed at beginners or people who know a little about the internet. It will run for the next 7 weeks on a monday night from 7pm to 9pm and by the end of it each pupil will have their very own website. Each week there will be a guest star appearance talking about the power of the net. This week its Basil Fawlty talking about communication problems. If you cant attend but would like the notes please contact me.

Gingerism

There is a good article in the Guardian today about gingerism and whether it is comparable with other forms of prejudice.  The piece reminded me of a similar debate which started after Harriet Harmann called Danny Alexander a ginger rodent back in October 2010. After that incident I wrote the following piece which the Guardian wouldn’t publish. So I thought this was a good occasion to repeat it as they are now obviously taking the issue more seriously.

Ginger nut. Duracell battery. Carrot top. These hurtful taunts were a regular part of my life growing up with a mop of red hair in an inner city comprehensive during the 1970’s[i]. And like a lot of other young people at the time who suffered because they looked different it was used to single me out.

Climate change in Germany and the Czech Republic

I’ve just finished the first part of Practical Actions European speaker tour on climate change, having visited Germany and the Czech Republic. In both countries I was talking about our adaptation work in Bangladesh including our Pathways from Poverty project. I stated that despite Bangladesh being one of the poorest and most climate affected countries in the world, many other countries could learn a lot from the way it has adapted to the increasing floods and other climate related disasters caused by climate change.