Meenzer

The lasses are all stunning and the blokes are all stubbly metrosexuals. It's a funny old place. But aye, you'll not run out of things to look at.

Cabaye has played 62 minutes for France since November. Using his international form as some kind of stick to beat him with for a downturn in form for us is plainly ridiculous. Obviously if he doesn't pick up by the end of the season then there's grounds for concern, but even the saintly Rob Lee went through some pretty shite spells for us. Memories are short, it seems. The one thing Cabaye really has in common with Lee is his ability to shine when surrounded by better players. That may sound like damning with faint praise, but it's not - stick a bunch of confident, on-form skill players around Cabaye (as with Lee) and he'll deliver some excellently effective fulcrum performances like he was doing early in the season. Our ragtag form over the last bunch of games shows him up for not being a game-changer or someone who'll grab the situation by the balls, but that's not what he ever was, and nor was Lee (or else Keegan wouldn't have been so desperate to get Batty on board when he did).

Yeah, the main Ryanair airport (Skavsta) is some way from the city - 80 minutes by bus - but then even the regular Arlanda airport is 40 minutes by bus, so it's not a massive difference really. (We won't talk about the express train from Arlanda as it's the best part of £50 return... )

Is it cheap? I wanna go Quite the opposite really - going out is pretty expensive, though you can get cheap enough hostels/hotels (as there's plenty of competition) and food is OK price-wise as long as you avoid the tourist trap areas. But aye, a night out in Stockholm can easily empty your wallet unless you do what we did and get tanked up on off-licence stuff before heading out.

Just got back from a cracking weekend in Stockholm, but I've done my foot in. Must have twisted it while wearing new shoes out for a bit of a boogie on Friday night. Foolish really.

Greetings from the press centre at the Swedish Eurovision final. No free booze, and the snacks are hot dogs that you have to assemble yourself. Classy.

If you do end up depressed, just watch this. Russia chose it for Eurovision a couple of minutes ago.

Do a better job please.

Why hello, my little ginger ray of sunshine. All well?

Fuck yeah Sweden.

Oo, missed this. Happy birthday to a true gent.

In the same spirit, the local park here is called Hilly Fields. I'll leave you to guess as to its flora and topography.

(As for mother dearest, she sent me an e-mail to thank me for the flowers and choccies - from the iPad 2 she won in a competition on her birthday. I rather suspect she didn't even notice the absence of anything from me. )

Ohhh Martin.... Buy her Englebert's latest single Meenzer. ( But seriously man, Englebert Humperdinck ? We'll walk it ) I don't even know how to begin to process that particular bit of information. I mean, it's clearly ridiculous. But it might just be a stroke of bloody genius...

A gambler's lot, eh...

Just hoyed together a turkey thigh mince, chick pea, garden pea and potato curry. All a bit hippy-dippy really, but scooped up in a naan bread, the nutty flavours went together rather well.

Just realised that I've missed my mam's birthday. By about a week. Quick trip to the Interflora website followed by a grovelling phone call tomorrow I think.

Culinary cottaging eh? Mince, topping, etc. This stuff writes itself.

Good stuff, CT. Hope you keep it up. Desperately need to get a grip on my own weight/fitness. I don't want to change jobs but I'm starting to realise that working from home really doesn't help.

Really good. Bit schizophrenic though - powerful but cold and calculated for most of the set, then she goes and does a protracted whirling dervish crowd-surfing guitar solo in the encore. Several fans needed medical treatment for a stiletto to the head.

He's familiar with the concept.

Made a cottage pie at the weekend, first time in ages (ever?). Recipe seemed promising (yet fairly straightforward) but the end result was disappointing, not a patch on my trusty shepherd's pie. Don't know if I did something wrong or lamb is just inherently better.

Glowsticks in the air, boys!