Strike Factory

31st July 2014

Firstly very sad to to see and hear the news of Eastbourne Pier yesterday, its always been a fave haunt of mine in the Sunshine Coast town since school trips with Abbotsford in the mid 1990s. Plus of course whenever I visit Eastbourne for the tennis always means the odd photo oppertunity by the pier! Always sad to these these things happen to piers, as they are a big part of English coastal towns! The positive is at least it sounds like only one part of the pier has been damaged by the fire, unlike the other local piers gutted by fires in Sussex recent years like the Hastings and West Piers, for example, and Eastbournes Pier has been in healther state and not as neglected as it's neighbour piers, so hopefully can get fixed up and restored to its former glory next summer, though very likely to be out of action for the rest of the summer which will be a blow money wise to the town and owners of the pier, esp with Airbourne coming up!

Meanwhile I sadly narrowly missed out on passing the ECDL Level 3 word processing, but as I was within 5 marks, been invited to retake the test and don't have to retake the whole course and will find out the result quicker, so fingers crossed! It looks like I managed to avoid a gang plot to get me in Bewbush area of Crawley on Sunday, just after leaving my parents house to get the bus home, I saw 6 police cars and an ambulance gathered around the roundabout next to Bewbush shops and turned out that there had been a massive brawl around the shopping parade and nearby sports courts! A shame as the area has seemed to have improved recent years with the demoliton of The Dorsten Pub being replaced by community centre and part time police station, and nice new flats and houses getting built nearby but of course Bewbush sadly still has its problem people minority causing nonsense like they always have! 

So in the next week I will be resuming my search for work looking at Level 2 business admin apprenticeships retaking the test and on Tuesday will be visiting the city of Manchester for the day, sampling the Northern England cities delights and visiting the Coronation Street tour as well, something I have wanted to do since trying to win a competition to get tickets on the Granada Studio tours that were held in the 1990s. The football season returns next week with Albion at home to Sheffield Wednesday, so will be back at the Amex meeting with the usual fellow Brighton supporting crew! 

So managed to complete my ECDL level 3 and an unofficial estimate is that I have passed, just waiting for the offical confirmation from BCS. Plus received responses from the ATP, WTA tennis tours and the FA, and whilst the feedback was mostly positive still no opportunity as of yet, yes resuming my search to see if I can find suitable career job and hopefully getting some decent help from CDG with that, but if there is not much will most likely return to Rewards Training and do more advanced courses! But really want something that I enjoy and gives me a feeling of purpose especially as I am guy with aspergers!

Last week I attended a lovely engagement party for friends Ken Major and Rachel Ansell, at Ladies Mile Pub in Patcham, Brighton. My only other time at the pub was way back in December 2004 for one of Alan Wares Albion Quiz Nights. One big memory from that night was the long wait me, Scott McCarthy and Carina Garner faced at a cold Preston Park railway station. however about a few minutes before train arrived me and Scott sneaked out of the station to race to some bushes for a quick wee, leaving poor young Carina freezing on her own in the station, both of us heard train coming and raced back inside and managed to only just board the train ontime with Carina! This time not such and incident like in 2004, and was nice to meet some old and new faces at the party! Anyway looking forward to the Commonwealth Games and US Hard Court tennis season and new football league season may have kicked off by the time I next update this blog depending take care people!

To start of this blog entry on the business side have nearly finished by ECDL Level 3 word processing, hopefully will be doing test in the next week. Watching tennis at Wimbledon at Strike Towers has not been my only activity in the last week. I travelled up to Greenwich, London last Friday to be a member of the audience for the pilot episode of a computer game review show called We Got Game, hosted by avid computer game lovers the actors/ presenters Matt Littler and Darren Jeffries. It was filmed in an intresting former Spice Warehouse not far from Greenwich Station, and it was a great fun day meeting and chatting to audience members, camera crew, hosts and the presence of the lovely Amy Willerton made the day even better, did not quite get her number though (bugger lol). It was a great experience seeing how a tv show is filmed with the cuts, filming alternative scenes etc being at the studios all day, the hosts interested in my knowledge of things and yes my use of the English language. Good luck to the We Got Game UK gang hopefully will be coming to a tv or online channel near you! 

https://www.youtube.com/user/WeGotGameUK

Tennis has brought mixed fortunes with the demise of Andy Murray at Wimbledon though getting further than the England football team, but Eugenie Bouchard has certainly been a player I have enjoyed watching with the young Canadian in the Wimbledon final the first lady from her nation to ever reach a Grand Slam final, though has got a tough match against Petra Kvitova though has got backing from the people of Scott McCarthy PLC can't go wrong there!

Finally a bit mixed about the news of the end of the Zap/ Digital Nightclub in Brighton a place I visited a few times though after encountering an arsey bouncer when on night out with Ben Miller (the local Brighton journalist not that unknown actor/ comedian) I stopped going there, but does mean for us ravers only a choice of Audio, Concorde 2 or Volks, talking of which I have not been to those places for a while, though have to go for night out there soon before they disappear!