January 30th, 2007 by 
bleungberg 
Verdict on Gaby Logan’s debut on Match of the Day:
Â
2 out of 10.
She’s still shit.Â
Posted in Das Welkom, The Sporting Life, bleungberg moans | 
3 Comments »
January 30th, 2007 by bleungberg A tribute to last year’s Kentucky Derby winner
His finest hour when winning the Kentucky Derby
The disaster at the Preakness two weeks later
Mayhem on the track at Pimlico
The operation to save his life
The long and difficult recovery
The support of his many fans
Death on 29th January
Posted in Das Welkom, The Sporting Life | No Comments »
January 30th, 2007 by bleungberg 
Then came the last-ever edition of ‘Grandstand’ on BBC Two at 17.33 after 48 years on air.
This was the followed by the almighty Top Gear crash at 20.44
Before rounding off the day with a landslide victory for Shilpa Shetty in Celebrity Big Brother
Now, that’s what I call a good day in front of the box!
Posted in Das Welkom, In The News | 3 Comments »
January 21st, 2007 by bleungberg 
Posted in Das Welkom, In The News | 2 Comments »
January 12th, 2007 by bleungberg 
I can’t say I’ve ever been a huge fan of the mother and daughter team of Jackiey and Jade Goody; the hideous-looking, poorly-educated, ignorant and offensive pair from Essex. In short, they are the worst possible example of what has happened to British society today.
That said, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the decision by the producers of the show to evict Jackiey without giving her the chance to say goodbye to her daughter.
I don’t particularly care that Jackiey had no idea she was getting chucked out when called into the dairy room; nor do I give a shit about her not wearing any nice clothes or indeed shoes when facing the public.
However, I object strongly to the fact that mother and daughter were not given the opportunity to say goodbye to one another properly. Each and every single one of the contestants on the show had the chance to do so to their loved ones before entering the Big Brother house - except for Jade and Jackiey as they were both going into the house.
But by slinging Jackiey out like that, the producers of the show have deprived the pair of even a brief union before their separation.
No one’s going to know what will happen over the next few weeks. The worst case scenario is that one of them could die before the end of the show, and by not giving the Goody pair the chance to say goodbye properly, the producers of the reality show could have done something that may turn out to be very cruel and unforgivable - all for the sake of TV ratings.
Posted in Das Welkom, In The News | 2 Comments »
January 8th, 2007 by bleungberg Paid my annual visit to Harrods today, and hated every minute of it - too many foreigners both behind the till and in front of the till. Poor signage. Everything’s expensive. The ‘luxurious’ toilets stank of shit. And to top it all, I came across this hideous memorial for the first time in my life. Predictably, my people took pictures of it, including my good self. Well, I only had to pretend to be a Yank for ten seconds!!!
and with the tourists….like this wide-eyed American granny!
Posted in Das Welkom, This Life | 3 Comments »
January 8th, 2007 by bleungberg WHERE NOT TO STAND IN SPEAKERS’ CORNER AT HYDE PARK, LONDON…
AND THE COPPERS ARE OUT IN FORCE!!!
Posted in Das Welkom, This Life | 3 Comments »
January 7th, 2007 by bleungberg 
Who would have thought a trivial row between a billionaire property tycoon and millionaire comedienne would drag on for this long?
When Rosie O’Donnell laid into Donald Trump on her chat-show just before Christmas, no one could have imagined that we’d still be talking about it a week into 2007.
A furious Trump called a press-conference and allowed the tearful beauty queen to keep her crown on the condition that she spent some time in rehab. This prompted a bemused O’Donnell to comment on ‘The View’ that the ‘twice-divorced and twice-bankrupted property tycoon was in no position to be a moral compass on such matters’.
In normal circumstances, these little feuds would just peter out. But with the season of goodwill well and truly behind us, two of America’s most combative personalities look unwilling to call it quits any time soon, as this extraordinary row enters its fourth week with ‘The Donald’ renewing threats to sue O’Donnell for her inaccurately remarks regarding his past finances.
Indeed, it is the bankruptcy remarks which continue to irk ‘The Donald’. A partial retraction by the lesbian comic failed to defuse the situation, and Trump has spent the past few weeks with a PR blitz against the lesbian comedian, slamming her past failures which included a magazine, chat-show and branded her ‘an untalented slob, a stone-cold loser, a bully and a big, big fat pig’. For the record, O’Donnell had earlier called Trump a ‘snake-oil salesman, a comb-over and a pimp’.
Cynics argue that Trump is making a fuss over nothing in order to promote his upcoming series of ‘The Apprentice’ which has seen a dramatic fall in ratings over the past couple of years. Trump vehemently denies that in all the interviews he does for the cable news channels, from Larry King on CNN to Greta van Susteren on Fox News.
On Tuesday night, Trump renewed his tirade against O’Donnell, only this time, dragging her boss and his own friend, the veteran journalist Barbara Walters, into the row. The latter had apparently told Trump in private of her unease over the hiring O’Donnell as a presenter on ‘The View’ - for which Walters is an executive producer - despite a surge in ratings since the comedienne’s arrival.
That, however, contradicts what she told the audience on Thursday in which she fully backed the comic and that O’Donnell’s job was safe. Trump immediately hit back on Friday by suggesting that Walters is being less then truthful about their conversation.
That means either Trump is lying, or Walters lied to Trump, or to the public, or both. Meanwhile, public support for O’Donnell – who has been on holiday since the new year – has increased every time ‘The Donald’ opens his mouth. Indeed, The New York Times even labelled O’Donnell as ‘the year’s best hire’ at the end of 2006.
In truth, there are no winners in this furious and highly-entertaining mud-slicking bitchfest. Trump comes across as a petulant bully with a gigantic ego, and has ‘betrayed’ Walters by making their private conversation public; O’Donnell also comes across as a bully and never thinks before she opens her mouth; Walters’s creditability as a respected journalist is now overshadowed by meaningless rows.
Nobody is complaining though; all the cable news channels have had a field day with this story – despite a busy news period with the deaths of Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein, and the swearing in of the new Congress.
adults with a combined age of almost 200. After all, the last time we had a row between billionaires Trump and Martha Stewart turned out to be a bit of a damn squib!
Posted in Das Welkom, In The News, This Life | 6 Comments »
January 7th, 2007 by bleungberg 
January can only mean one thing for TV sport - darts.
And having sat through most of Sky Sport’s PDC World Chamipionship throughout December, climaxing with the incredible three-hour final between 13-time world champion Phil Taylor and five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld on New Year’s Day, the BBC’s BDO version was always going to have a after the Lord Mayor’s show feel to it.
The BDO players are not as good as their PDC counterparts; all the best players from the former broke away to form the PDC back in the early 1990s in a dispute over money and control.
So in short, whoever wins the BBC tournament, he cannot be proclaimed as the true world champion as the title had already been settled at PDC event held at Purfleet a week earlier.
The sub-standard feel to the BDO championship was exemplified by the worst page I’d ever seen today - a first-round women’s match between the Russian ‘beauty’ Anastasia Dobromyslova (above) and frumpy lesbian-lookalike Swede Carina Ekberg, who between them, failed to hit a 180 during the entire best-of-three-sets match.
The quality was so poor that it was embarrassing to watch. Score after score registered below 60, which merely elongated the suffering. Thankfully, the men’s event is slightly better but in no way can it match the exitement and quality of the PDC version.
Why the BBC insists on broadcasting a second-rate event, I do not understand. Maybe it’s the long association with the BDO which stretches back to 1977, or perhaps it’s cheap TV which fills hours of air-time in the middle of the winter.
Either way, the TV contract is the only lifeline which keeps this once prestigious sporting event afloat because despite blanket coverage on terrestrial televsion, the BDO World Championship does not even have a sponsor. That is most certainly not the case with the PDC World Championships.
Posted in Das Welkom, The Sporting Life | 3 Comments »
January 2nd, 2007 by bleungberg 
Is there a more accident and disaster-prone country than Indonesia in the world?
Forget Iraq, where most of the problems are man-made anyway, Indonesia has, in the past few years, suffered from both human and natural catastrophes: two tsunamis, numeorus earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in Java, Avian flu, terrible floodings and huge landslides caused by overlogging and intensive agriculture.
And not forgetting the separatists’ struggle for independence in Aceh and East Timor, corruption in government, two sets of Bali bombings, the Jamai Islamia movement and its attacks on the capital Jakarta, and now, yet another plane crash to go with last week’s ferry disaster.
Just how does a country like that survive?
Posted in Das Welkom, In The News | 5 Comments »