andyhume.net

With the massive number of visits I receive from the Google search phrase arsenal vs man utd fight, I feel it is only my duty to provide my readers with a preview of the next installment of this increasingly fucked up fixture.

Well for a start, couldn’t you have just guessed it? The season when Chelsea sweep all before them to one side, and the two next best teams (and biggest rivals) in the land meet in the FA Cup Final: their one remaining chance of silverware this season. This could be messy. No… seriously.

The media hype is going to be huge, and if I have one word of advice about coverage to avoid it’s the complete crop of cretins that make up the Radio 5 Live team. I understand that a match can suffer from a media frenzy, but what we don’t need is: 30 minutes of interview with some ex ref about controlling ‘dangerous animal’ players; Alan Green and a bunch of mindless ex footballers (er, Rob Lee springs to mind) chanting. “Well Patrick Vieira, what a player”. “Oh, fabulous player, Alan. Got it all. The complete midfielder, Patrick Vieira”. “Very true, Patrick Vieira, the complete midfielder. Fabulous… ummm… player”. “Don’t forget Roy Keane though, Alan”. Oh, Roy Keane, fabulous player is Roy Keane… The complete mid…”, Bollocks.

Getting back on track however, this is a huge game for both clubs. They’ve had the better of us three times this season. Twice in the league and also in the League Cup. They can’t want it more than us. It’s gonna be tense, nail-biting, shit-yer-pants type stuff. I can’t wait.

Although our record against them this season looks bad, a big part of the Final will come down to who we have available. It’s no secret we’ve been unlucky with injuries this season, particularly with the likes of Campbell and Gilberto out for so long. I think if we have a core of Campbell, Vieria, Gilberto and Henry fit for this match then that will prove too strong for the best United have got.

Unless Rooney’s on form.

He is such a huge player for them. United at times this season have been playing pretty shit football – and although they’ll moan about the loss of Ferdinand for so long, the truth is that some of their midfield organisation, strength, and guile just seems to have gone AWOL. But Rooney can change a match in seconds. His physical strength seems extraordinary for someone just 18, and his pure skill and talent combined with this bullish detemination makes him probably the best English footballer I can remember (except for Lineker, who will always have a special place in my heart, despite fratanizing with the scumfor a few seasons).

So I hope the little bastard gets himself sent off early on.

I now work full-time at Multimap.

This is a very good thing, and I am really excited about not only working with the thoroughly nice fellow that is Richard Rutter, but with what seems like an extremely nice team all round.

So… I’m not self-employed anymore. I’m not a freelancer. Excellent.

I have been self-employed for the last three years (since leaving higher education) and although the freedom can be really nice, many parts of the freelance life-style can be very stressful and frustrating.

I’ve always read these “I’m going it alone” type posts with a smug sense of knowing amusement. Yes, there is a lot to be said for the control you have over your life – but sometimes it is very hard to live when you have too much control. For me, one of the hardest things about working from home is seperating work-time from play-time, or more to the point computer-time from non-computer-time.

I know I am looking forward to having a slightly more rigid structure to my day, even if it is not much more than ‘going to work’ and ‘coming home from work’. These are important boundaries in anyone’s life, and to have them blurred can be a frustrating and even dangerous thing—although we won’t go in to that here.

The hope now is that I can come home from work, relax a little, and even indulge in my small vice that is Football Manager 2005, without pangs of guilt about not finishing a project proposal or a style guide, that “only needed another hour’s work”.

The other thing

The other thing is that I am planning a re-design of this site. Not just a re-design either, a whole re-concept. Are you excited yet?

I need to figure out exactly what I want from a personal site. What is it going to be? Right now it is just a very minimal blog with an about page. Originally I thought this was what I wanted, but over time I have added little bits like the ‘recently dredged’ links, and I think it wants to evolve into a fully fledged ‘personal site’.

I’ll try and document some of the process behind my thoughts here over the next few weeks. Not neccessarily because anyone is interested in them (although I’ll leave comments open), but because I like recording these things for posterity.