However, I don’t actually rate our chance of winning (although I’m not ruling it out altogether!) and I think if we get to the semi finals it’ll be a good World Cup for us. I think Brazil are looking hot, Spain also might have a good chance – and you can never rule out the Italians and Germans.

I severely doubt that Pele will see his dream of an African team winning this time as their strongest contenders – Ghana and Nigeria – still display the defensive frailties and indiscipline that will see them knocked out by teams like Germany.

England have lost a fairly big lynch pin in Rio Ferdinand and now face the prospect of either Dawson, Upson or King joining Terry in central defence. I predict our strike force to do good things and I’m thinking of a long shot bet on Peter Crouch for golden boot (although my smart money has already gone on David Villa.)

In Midfield I hope we go with Joe Cole on the left as I think he is the closest we’ve got to a Lionel Messi type player – someone who will do something unexpected – and I think without him we will be lacking ideas in the middle of the park.

Anyway, despite my pessimism I am looking forward to consuming many beers with various people over the next month or so, whilst discussing brilliant individual goals, red card decisions, and penalty shoot-outs! God I love the World Cup!!!

Anyway on to the task in hand – who is on the invite list for my Celebrity Dinner Party? 

I love dinner parties. Mainly because I love cooking, eating, drinking and socialising – especially with my friends but that’s not an option here because none of them are celebrities (well, some of them are divas……but not celebrities!) So I’ve tried to put a mix of people together for mine (and hopefully if we hit it off it’ll become like Come Dine With Me, and we’ll end up having a week of good food, nice wine and much merry making!) 

Guest number one

One of my greatest joys in life is cooking, but most especially cooking curries. It is a passion that my dear old dad passed on to me (along with many curry books) and something that I have spent 15 years of my life already trying to master. So my first guest would be Madhur Jaffrey. Not only could she advise me where I had gone wrong (although I would be so nervous cooking for her!) but we could while away many hours just chatting about Indian food! Mmmm!

Guest number two

Good dinner parties have entertainment. That could be in the form of music, or comedy – or both together. Step forward Mr Tim Minchin. This man makes me laugh so much, and he’s quite obviously a musical genius and piano playing wizard (two things I aspire to be – but fail quite miserably at.) So Tim would make us laugh with his witty, acerbic observations during dinner and then make us laugh even more at the piano afterwards. Perfect.

 Guest number three

Holly Willoughby could bring some much needed glamour and eye candy to proceedings.

 Guest number four

Although I feel that humour and eye candy are two important parts of my dinner party – I also feel that I would need some intellectual conversation as well. And they don’t come much more intellectual than Stephen Hawking. Plus I would love to see him pissed!

 That’s a wrap folks – my dinner party is set, food is on the hob, wine is chilling, piano on stand by and then after all of that – a game of trivial pursuits………….and it’s my dinner party so Hawking is on my team!

Anyway Round Two – What superpower would you have and why?

This topic is very close to my heart. Growing up I wasn’t exactly a superhero geek, but I wasn’t far from it. And I know that’s not strictly what this week is about – it’s what superpower you would want – but I find it hard to think of one without the other. Yes there were superheroes who didn’t have super powers – Batman is the prime example – but on the whole they are intrinsically linked.

So obviously when faced with the above question my automatic reaction was to consider who my favourite superheroes are and then consider whether their superpowers are the ones that I would automatically want for myself.

Amongst my favourites were the really random ones that never really found any fame. These include:–

Matter Eater Lad who, as his name suggests, could eat matter in all forms!! Brilliant…..but ultimately useless in a fight!

Colour Kid who can change the colour of any object – take that bad guys, your super powered laser, that you’re about to kill me with is now blue instead of red!!

Porcupine Pete, who could fire quills from his body, albeit very inaccurately!

And that was just a few. Sadly none of these are super powers I would ever want so I suppose I’ll have to delve into the realms of the better known superheroes.

Spiderman was probably my favourite superhero, but lets be honest – his ability to scale tall buildings and swing between them is all very well in an American city with big skyscrapers – but in Sheffield, it’s never going to come in that handy.

X-ray vision like Superman would be all very well, and could well land me a very good job in a hospital, but it’s a little clichéd so I’m going to steer clear of that one.

Reed Richards ability to stretch and bend his body (a bit like Mr Tickle Lyns!!) would have its uses as well – say for example when you’ve left something in the other room and couldn’t be bothered to get back up to go and get it. But that would just encourage laziness and bring on early obesity, which quite frankly scares the life out of me.

So….I think the superpower I would most like to have would be something that would help me in my day to day life, but could also be used to fight crime – step forward the power of………..time travel! Not only would it give me the ability to get my Blogenge done on time (oops), but every time I forget someone’s birthday (including mine) I could just travel back in time, and hey presto! I’ve not forgotten!

So if I acquire this power before next week I may even get my next Blogenge entry done on time……!!

Kill It Kid – Send Me an Angel Down

Antony and the Johnsons – Fistful of Love

The Gadsens – The Sailor Song

And the last one before bed:

Granddaddy – Underneath the Weeping Willow

I’ll sleep there so soundly….beautiful.

Night night…..

Like Dirty Den’s return to Eastenders, or Dennis Taylor’s epic win over Steve Davis in the Snooker World Championships – this comeback will go down in the annals of history. People will flock in their hundreds to read the combined intellect, and rapier wit of the literary gladiators who contribute to this, one of the most esteemed groups of the 21st century.

So “What is the topic that will announce your return to the world’s centre stage?” I hear the combined masses cry! “What awesome musings will you give us your two-penneth on, that could potentially change the world and its entire future forever?” I hear another lesser being shout.

“Will it be the upcoming General Election? Is it your opinions on Tiger Woods adultery and subsequent return to golf at The Masters? Or will you stun us with your thoughts on the giant Hadron Collider in Geneva finally getting up and running.” No – it is to be none of these! Why would I waste my time on such minor matters when other, much greater subjects demand the attention of my mighty brain! The first amongst these is to be……….Which is the best of the Mr. Men?

There are many of the Mr. Men that I admire – Mr. Grumpy for being the cartoon embodiment of my Dad (and subsequently me….), Mr. Sneeze for actually looking like a sneeze, Mr Rush for being the only triangular shaped Mr. Man– but I have managed to narrow it down to a top two contenders. They are:

Mr. Muddle v Mr. Bump

Mr. Bump makes me smile…….nay laugh out loud even. Even the word “bump” elicits a small grin from me. He clearly has no concept of personal danger which makes me imagine he’s into extreme sports like free running and sky-diving. And every time he gets a bump, he just shrugs it off, picks himself up and off to seek his next thrill.

Mr. Muddle’s feet are on backwards. That’s all I’ve got. BUT HIS FEET ARE ON BACKWARDS. That is so frigging cool it’s untrue.

And as much as I love Mr. Bump I’m afraid the fact that Mr. Muddle’s feet are on backwards, has to win hands down for me. And argue against my decision if you want but – His. Feet. Are. On. Backwards. It’s just genius…..

The King and I is dull. Fact. It’s too long, with no show stopping numbers of note, which meant that the 15 or so of us in the pit had to make our own entertainment. So between yawns, we ate minstrels and haribo, pulled faces at each other, mouthed along with the stupid lines and generally made each other laugh. Which made the tediousness of the actual show seem not so bad. 

I’m doing another one in a couple of weeks. Anything Goes at the Montgomery Theatre in Sheffield. This is my little brother’s first show as MD for this company and the first time I’ve ever played under his direction so it’s going to be a bit weird but I’m looking forward to it. Even more so because I LOVE the show. Cole Porters music is amazing and the story line is enjoyable too. I think there are still tickets available if anyone reads this and fancies coming…..? 

Another project that I’m working towards at the moment is a website for my String Quartet. I bought a book quite some time ago and have been slowly learning HTML and CSS and creating a little site to advertise our services. At the moment I am just waiting for a friend of mine with a very snazzy camera to come along to our next gig and take some photos to put on there, and then it should be up and running – watch this space for theusherquartet.co.uk!! 

I have finally got around to buying the first Raconteurs album and I’m glad I did – a great band playing good rock/ blues music. And Jack White is a very underestimated guitarist in my opinion. His solos seem to hit that special balance between structure, and improvisation. A very difficult thing to master – reminds me a bit of Neil Young when he’s in a guitar shredding mood (listen to Change Your Mind from Sleeps With Angels….). Oooo – I can feel a top 5 guitarists coming on……..

So I’m going to start my ball rolling again, and you never know, the others might get back on the wagon too.

So what has happened to write about recently? Well I’m afraid I’m going to have to fall back on my safety net topics – films, books and music.

I finished two great books recently. Not my usual Fantasy type of books but I decided to take a break from them for a while and picked up two books that have been recommended to me.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This was an utterly fabulous book. It’s a story about a young German girl who is fostered by a family who live in a small town during the Second World War, focussing on Jewish and non-Jewish Germans and how relationships between the two were affected by the Nazi regime. It’s about a little girl growing up during this and the effect that words and stories had on her. Fantastically well written – I would highly, highly recommend it!

The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I really didn’t want to like this book, and I don’t even know why. It seemed too hyped and one of those books that everyone seemed to be hammering on about, so I picked it up just so I could say “Well, I read it and didn’t think it was all that actually” in a very snooty, and superior way. But curse everything to hell I bloody loved it. The style takes a bit of getting used to at the beginning (or I thought so anyway) but I was hooked after the first 3 or 4 chapters. Very well thought out and brilliantly written – it means I shall now join the robotic hordes that will declare it’s brilliance to all.

I went to see Avatar over Christmas and I’m not going to spend much time talking about it. Visually brilliant, plot wise tedious and predictable. Make of that what you will, but I certainly didn’t think it was the best film I have seen and will quite frankly be quite put out if it wins the Best Film Bafta. I may even write a strongly worded letter…….

I also was introduced to Tim Minchin thanks to a very good friend of mine. Possibly my favourite musical comedian ever (him and Bill Bailey can battle it out.) I love his philosophy on life and he combines brilliantly witty lyrics with astounding piano playing. But he can also temper his silly side and come up with beautiful and quite heart rending songs. I simply can’t stop listening to him at the moment – I’ve even managed to learn a couple of his easier songs on the piano.

Great stuff!

I wish everyone thought of Christmas like this!

Last weekend i noticed a drip coming from my water inlet pipe. A chap came to have a look, replaced a section of the pipe, he informed me that there was another leak somewhere between the external stop cock and the wall of our house but he didn’t seem concerned that it was an immediate issue, so he told us to contact Yorkshire Water to come and take a look, I paid him his money and off he went. The following morning (Sunday) I popped into the cellar just to check all was well and there was 2/3 inches of water in there. Yorkshire Water (who had been informed but because it wasn’t an emergency at first, were going to come later in the week) were rung and to cut a long story short, after a long 2 days with no/ little water and a substantial amount of my Christmas present budget gone, it’s been sorted.

So because of this the presents may have to be somewhat less grand than i had initially thought. And with only two weeks on Friday to the day itself I think I may need to get my thinking cap on quick smart!

Plus – i’ve now discovered some damp patches on the ceilings/ walls in the attic – so it could be time to get the craft box out and make the presents this year if that is as bad as it looks!!! Except i’m rubbish at making things……..mix tape anybody?!

Don’t get me wrong - I like sunny weather too but I actually can’t deal with being in the sun for very long. I’d much rather get wrapped up and head out on a bright, cold winter day for a walk – stop off at a pub for a hearty lunch and a decent pint and then home to a nice warm house.

And this year i’m hoping for snow. Not just a crap, slushy, wet covering that soon turns to mucky grey and makes everywhere look dirty. No – I want proper snow this year. The sort that crunches when you step on it, and makes proper snow balls, and is more than an inch deep. We haven’t had proper snow for ages and i just have a feeling that this year is the year that it’s going to make a comeback………a bit like leg warmers – except cooler!

So that’s it folks – a small plea to the great weather gods for the winter coming. I’ll even do a snow dance if it’ll help (It can’t be much different to a rain dance surely?)