Rooney will (and should not) play no part whatsoever. He should not even travel. Eriksson should play 4-5-1 with Owen upfront if fit. Otherwise Defoe. Midfield of Gerrard, Lampard, Cole and Beckham with Carrick in the holding role. Eriksson has absolutely nothing to lose. He is leaving so why should he give a hoot what the public/media think. However, he will care and will play Crouch/Owen upfront with a lop-sided midfield and England will be lucky to get out of the group stages.

I am going on a training course about Oracle RAC at Microsoft’s offices in Redmond (near America) so I get to wear chinos and a polo shirt and play with an Xbox in reception. In fact, it’s even better than that. This course is actually described as a ‘Technical Hands-On Workshop’. My only previous exposure to RAC was a few years ago, rote learning the Oracle manuals parrot fashion for an interview at a large UK Telco. The interviewer was an experienced, senior Oracle DBA and, inevitably, much to my embarassment, he found me out almost immediately. ...

Don’t know where, don’t know when but SonicStage 3.4 is available. I haven’t had a chance to download 3.4 yet and I would love to be proved wrong but I suspect SonicStage remains the only software application in the modern world without a ‘Check for updates’ option. Irritatingly, this post about version 3.3 remains one of my most popular blog articles. Sigh.

I dearly wish I had not opened a newspaper this weekend. The image of John Prescott receiving sexual gratification from his secretary, while simultaneously reviewing a Whitepaper on the environment, is one I am desperately trying to expunge from my consciousness.

…begins at home and is often misspelled. I didn’t mind Tom Kyte copying my PhotoBlog idea but now he is using my fantastic, amusing blog entry about the loss of Interweb connectivity in a hotel as a source for inspiration without the courtesy of an attribution or a [Via] reference. What next ? The ‘death’ of a domestic rodent ? If this blatant plagiarism continues, I will be forced to take action.