cold comfort

not a great day for football : 46 matches across England, Scotland and Wales (in all competitions) were cancelled due to frozen pitches, but thankfully the North East of England was spared the worst of it, the Tees-Wear derby went ahead and the Toon hosted West Ham.

Both games were draws, Boro took the lead just before half time our Ken getting the equaliser in the 82minute (his 7th goal this season, boy is he good!).

Little Michael Owen got Newcastle in front, but West Ham are doing well under Gianfranco Zola (not Emile Zola, as previously blogged!) and they soon equalised and then got ahead, the Toon needed a young'un, Andy Carroll (20) to keep them in the game.

The 300 th match at St James's Park ended 2-2, but at least there was a match for people to see, some fans travelled from Manchester to Portsmouth to find the game cancelled and others travelled from Blackburn to Fulham to have the game cancelled one hour before kick-off.

That must be so annoying. You would think that the amount of money poured into the Premier League that decisions on pitches could be made before people travelled for 5-6 hours (mutter, mutter, tsk,tsk, credit crunch, mutter,mutter).

The quick cardi is progressing nicely: the left and right front edges are done and I've cast on 1 sleeve, not far to go now!

Still enjoying Making Money while I'm knitting & it's fascinating to listen to while the news is filled with doom and gloom: Woolworths* shut up shop on January 5th, Zavvi, Whittards, Viyella and The Officer's Club are in administration , M&S are shedding 1,000+ jobs, Nissan are shedding a 1,000+ jobs. The stories just keep racking up.

This will undoubtedly be a worse recession than the early 90's and maybe even as bad as when Thatcher became PM, although not quite as bad as the soup kitchens of the 1920's. Why is it going wrong in Ankh-Morpork? The banks are messing about and fleecing the investors. How very prescient of Sir Terry Pratchett!

* my first proper paid employment was with Woolworths in 1977: I was a Saturday girl and earned 80p per hour rising to £1/hr when I was 18. I felt rich!