I’m not sure this is behaviour one would want to encourage, but it’s a nice story

When Donovan Shears sent a text message to a random number in 1998, it changed the course of his life. He had been given his first mobile phone for his 18th birthday and had just discovered text messaging. He made up a random number and sent off a message saying “hello”, to which his future wife Kirsty wrote back “hi”. That single moment led to over 20 years of love, laughter, and partnership," they said.

BBC News - How a random text ended in happily ever after

Missing a penalty at an away ground must be a very “special” feeling for a player #CryBre

A photo from 12 years ago today. This is in Salisbury market place. The statue is Henry Fawcett, husband of the now more famous Millicent

Wikipedia page for Henry Fawcett

Wikipedia page for Millicent Fawcett

A statue of a standing figure is placed on a pedestal beside leafless trees against a cloudy sky.

I was intrigued by the name of this LP - ‘Live at Basins Nightclub’. Most nightclubs of the time had glamorous sounding names - locally for example we had Oscars, Concordes and the Grange

I can’t imagine why anyone decided to call a nightclub ‘Basins’…but apparently it was in Porstsmouth.

It’s a great record, but as with most live albums, I’d probably advise beginners to listen to a straight Greatest Hits first

A vintage-styled poster features a performer with a microphone, promoting Desmond Dekker's live performance at Basins Nightclub in 1987.

The Outlaws was fun

Nice to see the bad guy from ‘Bad Sisters’ being the bad guy in Outlaws…and also nice to have people who sound like me, or a bit like me anyway, on the telly

A group of seven diverse individuals, some holding tools, are gathered around a large blue bag, featured on a poster for "The Outlaws"

How to delete from a tweets micro.blog with powershell

These were my last three tweets on the blog…and, I think, the last tweets I posted

invoke-restmethod https://micro.blog/micropub?mp-destination=https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog`&q=source`&offset=0`&limit=3 `
  -Method get -Header $RestMethodHeaders | 
  select -expand items | 
  select -expand properties | 
  select url,content          

url                                                                        content
---                                                                        -------
{https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog/2022/12/31/1609327355398443008.html} {Happy new year to you and yours!}
{https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog/2022/12/24/1606763511543209984.html} {God bless us, every one}
{https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog/2022/12/23/1606293329544548352.html} {My word of the day today is 'myrrh'.}


So, to delete a specific tweet from the micro.blog….

Set up the headers

$RestMethodHeaders = @{
    "Authorization" = "Bearer $BlogToken"
}

Delete the ‘happy new year’ one

invoke-restmethod https://micro.blog/micropub?mp-destination=https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog`&url=https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog/2022/12/31/1609327355398443008.html`&action=delete `
  -Method post `
  -Header $RestMethodHeaders

…and abracadbra

invoke-restmethod https://micro.blog/micropub?mp-destination=https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog`&q=source`&offset=0`&limit=3 -Method get -Header $RestMethodHeaders | select -expand items | select -expand properties | select url,content


url                                                                        content
---                                                                        -------
{https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog/2022/12/24/1606763511543209984.html} {God bless us, every one}
{https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog/2022/12/23/1606293329544548352.html} {My word of the day today is 'myrrh'.}
{https://mattypenny-tweets.micro.blog/2022/12/22/1605866305227087873.html} {My word of the day today is 'eggnog'.}

I am enjoying the ‘A Short History Of….’ podcast on BBC Sounds. They are about an hour long, largely straight history, with little bits of story

I especially liked the ep’s on Tolkien, the Mongols, the real Robinson Crusoe, the Famine, the Colloseum and, of course Stonehenge

A Short History Of…

A collage of historical figures, an astronaut, and iconic landmarks forms a globe around the text "Short History of..." with "NOISER" at the top.

Life goals

Use all 3,790 emojis, in context, before I die ☠️🪣

Went out for one of my usual slow trots around Salisbury last night, but speeded up towards the end as I realized I was late for the football

Aching all over this morning

⚽🏃😧

Impressive

I have been in Johannesburg for 3 days and I am proud to say I’ve eaten at Nando’s 4 times.

I will not be taking questions at this time.

“The joy of watching a Lionel Messi will always outweigh the cringe of listening to an Infantino”

Finished reading Blue was the Colour. It’s a book about my favourite football team, by one of my favourite comics….so of course I like it. Marvellous, if slightly gloomy, book. ⚽📖

Auto-generated description: A young child wearing a blue football uniform sits on stairs holding a trophy, with a football at their feet, next to the book title Blue was the Colour: A Tale of Tarnished Love by Andy Hamilton.

I’m sorry if they aren’t available outside the UK, but Hugh Bonneville reading Sherlock Holmes is good fun

BBC Sounds - Sherlock Holmes Short Stories

Sherlock, from [commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File...](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sherlock_Holmes_-_The_Man_with_the_Twisted_Lip_(colored)).jpg#

The best thing about AI chat sites is that they allow you to ask stupid questions in a stupid way.

Mark Thomas's Pet Hates

I thought these were funny. Comedian Mark Thomas’s pet hates, from The Irish Times , quoted by Colin Murray on Midnight Meets Midnight Meets

The way Desert Island discs doesn’t play the full song.

The smug class-ridden blather of [Radio Four’s] Today programme.

Anything that involves Piers Morgan and an absence of violence.

Harley Davidson motorbikes and the over 50-year-olds that ride them.

Anyone who has been in a gymkhana.

Any film with Josh Grogan.

Litter and the people who complain about litter.

The Proms.

Christmas markets.

Dyson, the man not the machines.

Ageing.

The BBC notion of balance and inpartiality that invariably sides with the overdog and the establishment, but still manages to say “well we’ve had complaints from everybody, so we have probably got it about right”.

My children ‘borrowing’ my clothes.

News about the Royal Family.

S**t coffee that costs £2.50

Buying water in plastic bottles.

Macaroni cheese.

Having to throw away half of the weekend papers.

People talking about their piercings.

Garden centres.

John Lewis Xmas adverts and the coverage thereof.

Q and A’s

(NB: Tories, capitalism, sexism and racism come under serious hates.

15th of January, here in the Shire, is halfway through winter, by some calculations….I’m looking forward to Spring

blossom

Another thought from last night ⚽

I really, really, really want this car

A small vehicle with a Chelsea Football Club logo on the hood is parked near a building.

I wonder if any of Bob Dylan’s LP’s have ever been advertised on a poster this big? In Andover?

Poster for Bob Dylan biopic film at Andover station

Thoughts on Chelsea - Bournemouth

  • lovely to see Reece score

  • the first goal was sublime.

  • Not entirely sure how Jackson wriggled free of three of their players for that goal

  • our confidence is so fragile…it felt like it evaporated in the half a minute after that Sanchez’s misplaced pass

  • Maresca could probably have made the changes earlier

  • all 11 of our players seemed to be making mistakes…whether that was Bournemouth playing well or us playing badly I don’t know

  • I really need to nail down the best way of getting back to Waterloo

  • I’m far too old to be running up escalators to make the 22.50

Stamford Bridge, before kick off

Nice story about Brian Clough in the Telegraph today, from the Liverpool player Phil Thompson

Thompson views that rivalry as one of mutual respect rather than among the most hostile in English football. “I knew how much the Forest lads loved Cloughie from the England get-togethers and experienced a little of his man-management myself,” he says.

“There was a game at the City Ground when I had a bad ankle injury and it needed stitching up. I was on the treatment table and in a bad way with the doctor working on me, pulling the skin over my ankle. Cloughie popped his head in and could see what was going on, so started talking to me and telling me what a great player he thinks I am.

“He just kept talking away and it dawned on me later how he was taking my mind off the injury. Не went up in my estimation after that.

Reasons I’d like to be famous

  • to be one of the VIPs on a half-marathon (because they get very well looked after)
  • so I could get the people on the Who Do You Think You Are show to do my family tree (because I can’t really be bothered )