Superman wears Scott Parker pyjamas

Once again I played very little poker this weekend – when I did play I was pretty happy with my game, although I finished down a reasonable amount after a couple of tough breaks.

West Ham somehow sealed their place in the top flight next, despite a pretty weak performance at home to Wigan. We went 1-0 down after four minutes via an own goal following a Wigan corner, Rob Green tipped a screamer from 25 yards onto the bar, we scored twice to go 2-1 up, we then conceded another goal to a Wigan corner to make it 2-2 and the Scott Parker smashed a dipping effort in from outside the box to secure our safety. All this said, the atmosphere was cracking and I got to see a win and five goals, so I shouldn’t grumble.

I’m pretty sure we will be the worst side to not get relegated since the Premiership began and the season has been pretty grim. I can only imagine that Zola and Clarke will be on their way this summer – I think there are a few reasonable candidates around to replace them, I’d be quite happy with one of the guys from the lower divisions (Paul Lambert, Sean O’Driscoll, Roberto Di Matteo) although it appears that Gold and Sullivan have their eyes on someone slightly higher profile. The exit door is unlocked and pretty much anyone is welcome to use it - I’d probably cry if Parker went, although he deserves to play for a better side.

Roberto Martinez was on Goals on Sunday the next morning. He handled himself very well; I hope he goes a long way in the game. I hope he moves soon as otherwise some of Dave Whelan’s cuntishness might rub off on him. He has some decent players in that side, although their defence needs looking at - the two wingers looked particularly dangerous.

Commiserations to Hull and Burnley. Burnley look well placed to have a shot at going back up next year, having not over-extended themselves. The same can’t be said for Hull, a club I have a lot of time for, who look to be in trouble financially, with a lot of mediocre players on big contracts.

Up at the top, the battle for the Big Cup places remains wide open. The Man City vs. Spurs game a week on Wednesday is going to be massive, I can see Redknapp twitching himself into a fit with the stress. I can only see Chelsea winning their remaining games now, I’d like to see Liverpool steal the points instead of car stereos against them and the Mancs winning the league, but it looks unlikely.

Wedding preparations are almost at an end, thank fuck. I have to write my speech, which I aim to do at work this week. I’m aiming to keep it fairly snappy as I’m keen to get the first dance over so I can get a few beers down me.

I used to read a lot of books. Now that I ride my bike to work pretty much every day, I rarely do so. I took the chance this weekend to start reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis. This is the third book I have read by this author, along with Liar's Poker and Moneyball. If you have any interest in the financial markets, or even just on how the current clusterfuck happened, I highly recommend either Liar’s Poker or The Big Short. If you like sport, then I’d go for Moneyball – I’m no baseball fan, but it is a fine book. I’m aiming to get through some serious reading on the honeymoon and catch up on some of what I have missed out on over the last year.

I will try and get one more post in prior to the wedding, after that you’ll have to go elsewhere for a month to find badly written and opinionated bullshit. The Sun website is a decent start.
Good luck at the tables.