I’m going to try and do good things for people as an expression of Christianity rather than getting so caught up in the fact that I don’t want to pray that I don’t do anything. This especially applies to finding a relevant career. I just get so caught up in the having to repent aspect of prayer. Saying sorry to God hurts me to the core and I just don’t want to do it. Usually I don’t really think I’ve done anything wrong anyway. Do you have to “feel” repentance for it to count? Can I just say sorry and move on?

God bless, Jenni xx

This is doing the rounds on the forums. I found it on the Placa de Catalunya forum on the FC Barcelona English Speaking Supporters website. Btw, if anyone’s planning to watch Man Utd lose and be happy about it tomorrow, and lives anywhere near Southampton, leave me a comment.

Got this from another forum,

Celtic fan signs up on a Rangers forum, makes a couple of posts and no-one is any the wiser he’s a Celtic fan.

Then he makes a thread saying

“If you want tickets for next week’s title decider away to Dundee United, read here…

Since the away allocation for Rangers fans of 5000 is long sold out. Tickets for the home end is the only solution.

But as we all know, if you’re not on Dundee United’s official club/supporter database then you won’t even be able to buy tickets for the home end.

Here’s what to do..
Phone up the club shop. And ask to buy a pair of Dundee United kit socks. Don’t even mention tickets for Sunday. They will become suspicious.
Then when they take your sock order, personal details and process your payment your details will then be stored on their system.

Give it a few hours until there’s a shift change, phone up again and order your home tickets for the Rangers match and because of your sock order, you will be on their system and you will get your match tickets. It’s perfect lads.”

Turns out, there’s no such database and all these Rangers fans have ended up with hundreds of pairs of Dundee United socks and no match tickets.

God bless, Jenni xx

It’s the sort of thing he does.

When he played for Arsenal he threatened to go on strike over the Iraq War, and according to Patrick Vieira’s autobiography, Pires is such a nice person that he trusts everyone and often gets hurt. I’d like to meet him.

Got me thinking about similar acts by footballers. Artur Boruc and Cristiano Lucarelli are well known to stick up for the rights of the fans of their preferred clubs (Legia Warszawa and Livorno respectively). Lucarelli pays the Brigate Autonome Livornesi’s fines.

I like it when footballers use their position to stand up for something important. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. I remember when Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman were fined astronomical amounts for wearing “support the Liverpool dockers” T-shirts circa 1997. That made me really cross. Back to Vieira’s autobiography, it was nice to see that the back cover photo clearly displayed his Make Poverty History wristband. What happened to wristbands? They were part meaningul, part annoying, but it was all for a good cause

Finally, please vote in my poll. It’s the quietest one ever!

God bless, Jenni xx

Look at the bottom of the discipline stats.

That’s where I’d like to be

Sorry for lack of posts. I’m about to go and pray (really - have had a terrible few days of ignoring God and am going to try and turn things around). We must NOT let Man Utd win the title tomorrow! I’ve a feeling we’ll push it to the wire. At least it’s away so they won’t be able to sing about winning the league at the Emirates for 20 years.

Looking forward to Eurovision tomorrow - one of my guilty pleasures. Just found out that Croatia got to the final, so it will be interesting to hear their song. I’m often not a fan of their song, but support them cos I’d love to attend a Eurovision Song Contest in Zagreb List of the finalists.

Also I’ve just started reading up on the Croatian mayoral elections, because I got a message on Facebook from some Dinamo Zagreb fans telling me to vote for Josip Kregar. I’m now getting a lecture on the situation from one of my friends. Apparently the current mayor, Milan Bandic, is corrupt, but has done a lot of people a favour by allowing illegally built houses in the suburbs to remain. Over 5-% of people are saying they would vote for him, whilst a large minority say they won’t vote, and two per cent say they will vote for anyone but him. Javno has lots of information on the subject - use the search button (I couldn’t find a category).

Also, if any Facebook user is bored, try my Intermediate Football Quiz.

And finally… I’ve been singing this all day!

God bless, Jenni xx

The bit about what he was doing when his neighbour called just made me have kittens!

Artur Boruc’s Friday Rage List

I haven’t written in ages. I had a good prayer time on Tuesday and found myself telling God that I did want to be like Him, and that I was going to try and live my life to serve other people, since I’m not very good at the spiritual side. I’m also trying to talk to Him instead of being afraid of Him and avoiding Him. Work has certainly improved as a direct result. I picked 230 items by 9.15 today! Thank you God! Please pray that I will continue to become a better Christian and not just fall away again.

I still haven’t found anywhere to watch Wisla v Legia on Sunday, although I am hoping that the Polski Bar Sportowa on Green Lanes will come through for me. Help! I need somewhere in London that I can get to by 1.45 (not too difficult as I think I can get into London by 1). I also need to get from there to Emirates Stadium in half an hour. Googling this didn’t help. The fourth result was my blog! Doesn’t anyone WANT to watch this game?!

Must go - my sister is starting to wander around looking bored, I took her computer away!

God bless, Jenni xx

Do you remember that poem from primary school about stealing money from your mother’s purse for bubble gum? I remembered it just then because it shares the title of this post, but actually, I did a bad thing on Thursday.

I bought a Man U mug.

Obviously I wasn’t planning to drink out of it, and actually I don’t really want to tell the story, but now it is surplus to requirements and this is a “Need to destroy it, but how?” post, in the vein of Caroline’s essays about the Sheva shirt. (If you click the Shevchenko tag on the left, you will be able to see what we actually DID do to the Sheva shirt, but I would recommend that you do not eat at the same time.)

So, here are some ideas:

1) Smashing contest
2) Drive an ASDA van over it
3) Fill with explosive: ignite
4) Find out what the melting point of ceramic is

Please vote, and add your own suggestions below:)

Also, I need a new poll - any suggestions for that? You know the sort of thing I like: something random to do with European football, or anything quirky and probably football related.

God bless, Jenni xx

A website called Dirty Tackle has decided to immortalise one of my favourite footballers in a very funny way. Loved his comments on Galatasaray/Fenerbahce (a game I would love to watch!) and Lady GaGa.

Artur Boruc’s Friday Rage List

Which footballer would you associate with a Rage List? What kind of list would you associate your favourite footballer with?

#1 Well my most obvious thought was Roy Keane, but do you remember a Fiorentina player called Edmundo who committed the first fouls ever?
#2 Patrick Vieira? Well, in his autobiography, he seemed very confident and self assured, so maybe a “yay me!” list.

God bless, Jenni xx

By a blogger who uses the site that my old one, which has mysteriously lost its lovely red trim, is on.

Memories of Hillsborough

Also, I need help finding a place to watch Wisla Krakow v Legia Warsaw on Friday 8th May, i.e. a bar in London. Can anyone tell me a good place? I might be better off in Southampton if the Legia stickers plastered all over every pedestrian crossing in the West Quay shopping area are anything to go by. Btw, my new favourite hangout to watch international tournaments, the Famous Three Kings in West Kensington (right by the tube station exit) has a Croatian TV card now so they are showing all the Croatian matches! Result!

I’ll blog properly soon, when it’s not 10pm. But here’s a question to keep you ticking over:

If your favourite footballers went to a fancy dress party, what would they wear? I can’t imagine Patrick Vieira dressing up. He’d have to just cover up completely and do something you have to be ridiculously tall for, like Frankenstein or something. He doesn’t fit any dressing-up stereotypes that immediately come to mind.

God bless, Jenni xx

I found this text next to a photo on Flickr of some Ultras graffiti on a wall.

“I’m old enough to remember when football was great in my home country (England). Although I will forever support the team I was born with I find myself travelling Europe looking for the atmosphere and passion to match that I remember from the past.”

This is me! I’m sure I’ve seen something similar on the Legia Warsaw stickers which get left lying all around Southampton. I wanna meet the guy that does that. I’d buy him a drink and listen to him say hhhh. And a friend of mine who I do political stuff with was saying he identified with European ultras. We arrived at the same conclusion through different routes: he got sick of the racism at his club, Millwall, and decided he’d rather be a leftie Livorno or St. Pauli fan: I just got sick of the silence at the library! It’s been a bit better in the last few games, but that’s cos we’ve been winning and it shouldn’t be like that. I can’t imagine the Maksimir being silent in the event of Dinamo losing.

Anyone having similar feelings about the boringness of the Premiership? It says a lot that when I googled “no to modern football” and found this page, it was actually “no al calcio moderno” that I’d read, and the guy who wrote the words quoted previously was summarising a piece of Italian graffiti, though he was English and identified with the problem. But I haven’t had anyone invite me to a Facebook group called “no to modern football” and I got the phrase from Livorno fans. We Brits need to start taking some responsibility if we want to win football back from the upper middle classes and give ordinary people a chance to feel a part of it again.

Right, I gtg, gotta cook some dinner.

God bless, Jenni xx

I knew a bit about the Un-american Activities Commission from A level Politics, but they just referred to the Hollywood Ten on The Book Quiz and I didn’t know what they were talking about, so I Googled it. Apparently, ten Hollywood entertainers went to prison in 1950 for refusing to answer questions about whether or not they were members of the Communist Party. This was never illegal. The Wikipedia page contained a transcript of the interview of screenwriter John Howard Lawson:

Interrogator: Are you a member of the Communist Party or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
Lawson: It’s unfortunate and tragic that I have to teach this committee the basic principles of Americanism.
Interrogator: That’s not the question. That’s not the question. The question is—have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
Lawson: I am framing my answer in the only way in which any American citizen can frame…absolutely invades his privacy…
Interrogator: Then you deny it? You refuse to answer that question, is that correct?
Lawson: I have told you that I will offer my beliefs, my affiliations and everything else to the American public and they will know where I stand as they do from what I have written.
Interrogator: Stand away from the stand. Stand away from the stand. Officer, take this man away from the stand.

Fascinating stuff. Read the whole page if you have time. I must admit I don’t and have only skimmed it. I don’t really need to pass comment on how wrong it is to be put into prison for refusing to disclose your membership of a legal political party in a liberal democracy, but I just did;)

I just had to check that I did, in fact, blog the Topless Gallas recipe. It is kind of topical:) I didn’t leave the stadium as quickly as I usually do yesterday due to the lack of vested, shirt-swapping action of the player with the best body in the Arsenal squad:) Bad Jenni.

Good game yesterday btw - 3 excellent goals and Eboue played out of his skin, and what about Eduardo’s finish? Shame we only seem to be demolishing teams when they’re either headed for the Championship or actually in the Championship.

I went to church yesterday and came away determined to fully surrender my life to God. I have failed completely. I know it’s not meant to be easy, but do you have to be constantly keeping yourself down to have a relationship with God? I think I can feel when God is around, but does He disappear when I don’t feel that way? I am avoiding praying today. I want to pray before I go to bed, but keep finding things to do (like this…) I must try harder!

Anyways, I’m going to go now to give myself a chance.

God bless, Jenni xx