Andy Nichol's Blog

Playoff Classic

nichol88 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:34:41 +0000

Last Sunday saw one of the greatest playoff shoot outs in NFL post season history. The Arizona Cardinals beat the Green Bay Packers by 51 points to 45 in a playoff classic. It was the highest scoring post season NFL game in history surpassing the total of 95 amassed between the Philadelphia Eagles and Detroit Lions in 1995.

The two Quarterbacks, Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers and Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals, combined for a massive 801 passing yards and nine touchdowns. Aaron Rodgers total of 422 yards set a Packers post season record. Each team only punted once in the whole game and of the 124 plays ran during the course of the match; exactly half went for first downs. If you factor in both teams running games, then there were a total of 13 touchdowns and total yards in the game of 1,024.

However, after the Packers levelled the score at 45-45 with just one minute 45 seconds left in regulation, Kurt Warner led the Cardinals down the field and with just 14 seconds on the clock Neil Rackers had a chance to win the game for the Cardinals with a 34 yard field goal, he hooked it right and the game was going to overtime.

It was then typical of a game with so much offense that it would take an outstanding defensive play from the Arizona Cardinals to win the game. The Packers had won the overtime coin toss and chose to receive the ball. Then on only the fourth play of overtime the Cards cornerback Michael Adams knocked the ball out of Rodgers hand as he went for a pass and it was left to Karlos Dansby to pick up the ball, after it had bounced of Rodgers leg into his hands, to run the ball into the end zone and send the Cardinals into New Orleans for a Divisional Playoff game next Saturday.

Should Togo’s Footballers Go Home?

nichol88 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:34:15 +0000

So the Togo football team got shot at ahead of the start of the African Cup of Nations. This is not the best start to the competition which takes place in Angola over the next few weeks. If I was the Togan’s, or any other team in the competition for that matter, I would get as far away from Angola and the African Cup of Nations as possible, but, if that step is taken then are these terrorist’s winning? Do we, in spite of all the bad in the world, have to take a stand; surely we have to continue our lives despite all the bad in the world.

The confederation of African Football has said that the tournament will continue despite the attack, but will Togo’s footballers be there? One minute it seems they are going to stay and the next it seems they are being ordered by their own government to leave.

This attack of course is all to reminiscent of the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan just over a year ago, so this isn’t the first time a sports team has been targeted in an attack. Is it now just a fact of the world that even sports teams, people who we see as heroes, are targets for terror attacks just the same as Joe public on the street. So who will win out in this battle? I say the African football fans who will still get to see their tournament, even though it has now been tarnished.

Winter Break?

nichol88 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:33:41 +0000

This season’s Football Christmas programme has been completely ruined because of bad weather. We have had frost and snow leading to many matches, especially in the lower leagues, being cancelled. This has lead to the old debate of should there be a winter break in Football?

Of course the main idea of a winter break is to eliminate the possibility of matches being called off because of bad weather. But, when do you know when the bad weather is coming? This seems the main problem to me, if you schedule a winter break over the Christmas period, then chances are the bad weather will arrive in November or in February, and then what do you do? The season is going to be longer anyway because of the winter break, and then it’s also going to be extended even more if you then have games called of in February.

One solution to this problem would be to completely rearrange the Football season and have the season run through the summer. The season could start in March and finish in October, giving the players their off season between the months of November and February. Of course one problem with this would be summer competitions such as the World Cup and the European Championships. It wouldn’t really be wise to have these competitions in the winter, innless you had each tournament in South America.

So what would you do, have a winter break? Rearrange the season? Or, just put up with the bad weather, I mean it’s not often we get an entire Christmas programme wiped out is it.

Winter Classic

nichol88 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:33:05 +0000

For the last three years now the NHL has had what is known as the Winter Classic. This is an Ice Hockey game which takes place on New Year’s Day between two teams from the National Hockey League. What makes this a ‘Winter Classic’ is that it takes place in an outdoor venue, a break from the norm of the indoor arenas where Hockey matches usually take place.

This year’s game took place at Fenway Park in Boston, normally home to Baseball’s Boston Red Sox. The match featured the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers. This year’s game was won 2-1 by the Boston Bruins with the winning goal coming in overtime. The game was watched by 38,112 people at Fenway Park and as the previous two years was a massive success with mainstream TV coverage in the states.

Of course events such as this are becoming more normal in US sports. For the past three years the NFL have branched out and held a regular season game at Wembley Stadium. There has also been NHL games take place in Sweden at the start of their season. The NBA has also held pre season games in the UK and the whole of Europe as part of their NBA Europe Live initiative.

With all these events proving very successful is it time the English Premier League took the same step forward in getting their game noticed across the rest of the world. The Premier League is already massive in other parts of the world, especially the Middle East and I’m sure they would love to see a competitive football game in that part of the country. Of course the Premier League has talked about having the 39^th game and having one game a season abroad, which would be a great idea. However, maybe it’s because the Premier League is already massive abroad that they don’t need to hold games abroad to raise awareness of the sport.

England Destroy South Africa in Boxing Day Test

nichol88 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:32:16 +0000

England have been doing alright since winning the Ashes haven’t they. They won the ODI series in South Africa by two games to one and now find themselves one up in the test series with two games to play.
It was a resounding victory in Durban over the past five days with England finally winning by an innings and 98 runs. The victory was largely down to the great performances from Alistair Cook at the top of the order, Ian Bell batting at six and the great spin bowling of Graeme Swann.
After England bowled South Africa out for 343 in their first innings with Swann taking 4-110, England went on to make 574-9 declared, with their top scores coming from Cook (118) and Bell (140).
This gave England a lead of 231 going into the second innings, it was then down to more great bowling from Graeme Swann who took 5-54 in the second innings as England bowled South Africa out for 133 to win by an innings and 98 runs.
So looking ahead to the third test would you stick with the same team, I would. This England team has great potential as it is now. If Graeme Swann keeps performing as he is there is no reason to change anything about this side. So full steam ahead it is to Cape Town where hopefully England can wrap up another test series win.

Online journalism – module over………..hopefully

nichol88 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:26:02 +0000

So semester two is coming to an end and with that so is the module Online Journalism, hopefully, as long as I pass. When I picked and started this module back in February I had high expectations for what I would learn in the module, and unlike other modules on this course I haven’t been disappointed. I have learnt and developed my online skills no end. Id also heard of things such as Google maps and Twitter, but not until I started using them did I realise what great tings they are and how valuable they are for journalists, especially online journalists.

I’ am currently in the process of writing my final few articles for Birmingham Recycled and my final blog for my portfolio. I hope to improve on my mark for assignment one with assignment two, however to be honest I mark of around the same as assignment one and I will be very happy.

My four articles that I have written in the second part of the semester have been on a website called parkatmyhouse.com, on Volvo and Vattenfall combining to make a brand new electric car. I have also written articles on free solar panels that are available to the residents of Lozells and an article on a more worldwide issue, which is how the meat industry uses more carbon emissions than the whole of the worlds transport. I feel as though I have challenged myself further with these articles than in the first assignment; however I don’t feel the final result of them is as good. I don’t know why this is I just don’t feel as though they are as interesting as my previous articles.

So only one thing left to say, and that is thanks to @paulbradshaw for a well taught easy to understand module and to @kasperbs for a great website to write articles for.

Electric cars

nichol88 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:25:00 +0000

So the story is that Volvo and Vatenfall are going into business together to make a new hybrid electric car. This car will be demonstrated during the summer and will hopefully launch in 2012. But is anyone really a fan of electric cars? Personally I’ am, I think they are great for the environment and they are environmentally friendly. You can check out my latest article at http://tinyurl.com/qhejkc.

These are the current Top 5 Electric Cars on the market:-

Dynasty iT

GEM

Columbia Parcar

Miles ZX40

Zenn

Google maps

nichol88 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:02:30 +0000

I think Google maps is a genius invention. I had always heard of Google maps but just thought it was some wacky geeky thing and had never checked it out for proper. So when I decided to do a Google map for my interactive and multimedia element for assignment 2 I was surprised how fun and easy to use it is. The map that I did shows the average fuel prices for different towns and cities in the Midlands. I did this as I thought it would be very useful for people of the Midlands area to see and compare different fuel prices and then if they had the choice pick the cheapest town to fill up. It also tied in with my area on Birmingham recycled which is Energy. Having done this I would be interested to hear if anyone reading this would find this map useful. This feedback would be great and would help me when using Google maps in the future.

Currently I’ am working on finishing of the second assignment for Online journalism. I imagine some of you reading this are doing the same.

On a side note and a sports related issue, I have just finished watching one of the best stage races I have watched and that is the Giro. This year coming in all the talk was about the return to grand tour racing of Lance Armstrong. However due to a lack of form and riding following a recent injury Lance only finished 12^th, which was still a great effort. However the best battle was between Di Luca and Menchov. Menchov held of attack after attack from Di Luca at the back end of the race and despite falling on the final time trail held of Di Luca by only 40 seconds which after 3 weeks of racing is a tighter finish as your going to get. What’s even better is that at the moment it has been a clean tour aswell with no positive doping tests.

That’s all for now see ya.

Would you accept free solar panels?

nichol88 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:55:09 +0000

If you were offered free solar panels, would you accept them? This is what the residents of Lozells have been offered recently. They have been offered free solar panels to help reduce their gas and electricity bills. It has seemed to work, if you check out my article on birmingharecycled.co.uk, you will see that residents have saved a third on their gas bills and up to half on their electricity bills.

But if you were the residents of Lozells would you accept these solar panels without any guarantee that they could reduce your bills and the eyesore that they would leave on your property. I personally wouldn’t take the risk.

You can check out my article on this at http://tinyurl.com/p6txqm. There will be more articles coming soon including how Volvo and Vattenfall are going to be the next big force in the electric car market.

Top 10 Albums on your ipod

nichol88 — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:51:25 +0000

This week im starting a new topic for my blog Top 10′s. First up is the top 10 albums i have on my ipod. Feel free to post your own and comment on mine. Here they are:-

10. Editors – The Back Room

9. Doves – The Last Broadcast

8. The Killers – Hot Fuss

7. Kasabian – Kasabian

6. Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights

5. Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head

4. Oasis – What’s The Story Morning Glory

3. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I’am, Thats What I’m Not

2. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses

1. Oasis – Definitely Maybe