Ipswich Town - Crystal Palace - Home

Leicester City - West Ham - Draw

Southampton - Chelsea - Away

Manchester City - Notts Forest - Home

Newcastle - Liverpool - Away

Everton - Wolves - Home

Arsenal - Manchester United - Home

Aston Villa - Brentford - Draw

Fulham - Brighton - Draw

Bournmouth - Tottenham Hotspur - Draw

I got six right last week taking the running tally up to 50 percent right so far this season.

Miffed that my new iPhone autocorrected my daughter’s name from Briony (spelt correctly) to Britney. It’s not like there isn’t a trillion years and a gazillion gigabytes of data, along with a contact book entry, suggesting otherwise.

I’d like an AI service that could eliminate all incoming Black Friday spam emails, texts and webpage interstitials.

Brighton - Southampton - Home

Brentford - Leicester - Home

Crystal Palace - Newcastle - Away

Nottingham Forest - Ipswich - Home

Wolves - Bournemouth - Draw

West Ham - Arsenal - Away

Chelsea - Aston Villa - Home

Manchester United - Everton - Draw

Tottenham - Fulham - Draw

Liverpool - Manchester City - Home

Last week I got five right which brings the running total for the season so far to 47% right.

I’m old enough to remember to remember when no-one I knew had ever heard of “Black Friday”.

The world seemed happier then. And less lunatic.

In 1970 I graduated from primary school to what was then called a ‘secondary modern’. Unlike the rest of the UK, Surrey had yet to switch to comprehensive schools. I had a weird form of dyslexia and couldn’t pass the exam to get into a grammar school.

On day one, a senior teacher gave us what can only be described as a demotivational speech:

“You’re all too stupid to get into a real school, so you are here for five years. If you work hard, you’ll get a factory job. If you do some work, you’ll sweep the streets. The rest of you will go to prison”.

I’m not kidding. This was my first day at the big school. I was 11 years old.

Leicester v Chelsea - Away win

Bournemouth v Brighton - Draw

Arsenal v Nottingham Forest - Home win

Aston Villa v Crystal Palace - Home win

Everton v Brentford - Draw

Fulham v Wolves - Home win

Manchester City v Tottenham - Home win

Southampton v Liverpool - Away win

Ipswich v Manchester United - Draw

Newcastle v West Ham - Home win

Match Day 10 was a disaster with only three right out of ten bringing the total so far to 47%.

Last year I was running at 65 to 70% all season.

Woke up early wondering why I am loyal to AirNZ when flying domestic when I could save $300 on a return trip. Then I looked at Jetstar’s less convenient departure times, but the killer is my memory of the time Jetstar stranded me in Christchurch after cancelling my return flight.

Has the angstrom gone out of fashion as a unit? I saw the word today in an old physics book and realised I had otherwise seen it in years, maybe even decades.

It’s great that Sky shows Nations League football matches, but I’d like to have seen the All Whites match too. Was it covered but hidden away in some dark recess?

Put the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on for a change from my usual late afternoon playlists and am instantly taken back to ferrying teenagers to school dances and parties.

Do people still have elevenses?

Had a dentist check up appointment this morning. For the first time since I came back to New Zealand from Australia in 2004 there was zero dental work. Not a sausage. No charge either.

Perhaps I should buy a Lotto ticket.

Today I finally deactivated my Twitter account.

I haven’t used it for two years, but kept it open just in case there was a return to sanity.

Also, there have been important personal messages sent there since I stopped using Twitter. But there haven’t been any for 6 months now

Writing for a newspaper, magazine or newsy online site is like a self-saucing pudding. The byline acts as a form of marketing that gets me more writing work. Hardly anyone knows about it when I ghost write something, so I don’t tend to get a lot of repeat ghostwriting business.

Track record so far:
Week 4 predictions: 6 out of ten correct. Week 5 predictions: 4 out of ten correct.

Week 6 predictions 5 out of ten correct.

Week 7 predictions 6 out of ten correct.

Week 8 predictions 5 out of ten correct.

Week 9 predictions 4 out of ten ccorrect.

Week 10 predictions 4 out of ten.

Overall so far: 49 percent.

About once a week a flyer, or an impersonal letter, from a local estate agent turns up in my letter box. And I think: “how stupid are you to expect me to trust a million dollar plus house transaction to someone incapable of reading a NO JUNK MAIL sign.”

I’m old enough to remember when yoghurt was an exotic new health food.

Eliminated hay fever last year by chopping down the privit bushes near the house. Noticed eyes were streaming so checked and found there are two other varieties of privit still in this garden. Not sure what the previous owner was thinking when these were planted.

Annoyed that my personal data is among the material the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department gave to Facebook. Doubly so because I haven’t used Facebook in more than 12 years.

I doubt it is a popular opinion, but I feel New Zealand media is spending far too much time on an election in a foreign country.

Week 5 predictions: 4 out of ten correct.

Week 6 predictions 5 out of ten correct.

Week 7 predictions 6 out of ten correct.

Week 8 predictions 5 out of ten correct.

Week 9 predictions 4 out of ten ccorrect.

Overall so far: 50 percent.

I’ve spent more than 20 years working as a freelance, 99 percent of the time I deliver on time… but for some reason when I worked for a client that used Asana, I found it reduced my productivity and reliability.

Is that unusual? Is it generational?

Sitting here in New Zealand, my strategy for coping with the US election is to stick fingers in both ears and say “LA LA LA” very loudly.

Some days the writing muse takes until dinner time to get moving. This was one of those days.