I was skeptical about watching the 2010 World Cup There was no doubt that England would mess the whole thing up For five long weeks, flags everywhere. Football's all that matters Inevitably our heroes left the nation's hopes in tatters The countries kept on playing though, while our boys were sent packing The quality of game increased, goals no longer lacking And there he was, a shining light, a fabulous …

I'm currently in the process of sorting out and organising my writing notes. This sounds a lot grander than it really is. When I used to write, I started dozens of notebooks, scribbled on scraps of paper, and created quite a few Word documents. They were saved all over the place, both in terms of hard drives, and boxes. When I started writing again, I began a new system, and …

And then, he was gone. Poor Sid! He only just got to take a holiday, went jogging, and poof, he was gone. At least he got to see his daughter one last time, I suppose. I've not been listening long enough to know him as anything other than Jamie's dad that takes him to football sometimes, and that guy behind the bar. Still, he seems to be quite a popular …

I headed to Edinburgh and decided to make use of the Park & Ride. I'm not a big fan of buses, or any kind of public transport for that matter, but it seemed like a good way to get in to the centre of a city I know nothing about. I couldn't have been more wrong. The Park & Ride took me three leaflets to figure out, and when I …

I'm not sporty. Not even slightly. Growing up, I kind of liked netball. Until the other girls started throwing balls at my head. Then I was sort of good at badminton. But the badminton club clashed with the chess club and I preferred the sitting down sort of extra activity. I do like to swim, and was in a swimming club when I was younger, but these days things are …

Thanks to Leigh, I have found a new panda related site to peruse: Perfect Pandas. The updates are generally cute panda related items, such as Panda Ice Cream and Panda Mahjong. I particularly like the post about the Panda Earbuds. I would not wear these, but still. Cuteness.

David Mitchell's Soapbox is back! I know you have probably known this for a while, but I have only just caught up with it. I love, love, love these two episodes, because they're about words and language. I think I actually said "I could care less recently" and I have no idea where it came from or why I said it. I hated myself afterwards because as Mr M points …

I've been a big supporter of the ebooks movement, but for some reason I haven't actually been jumping on the wagon with the band until just recently. To start with, I had absolutely no time for reading, I wasn't buying books, so although I flew the flag for digital novels, I wasn't consuming them myself. Then I began to find time to read again, and now, I'm pretty much as …

Thank you to everyone who voted in my July Header poll. More than anything, I was blown away by the 40 votes. What lovely people you all are. For a while, three headers had made a break for the lead - with numbers 4, 9 and 10 all on equal footing. Then 4 fell behind, and up until about ten minutes ago, the remaining two were tied for the lead. …

This is terribly self-indulgent, and really just an excuse to post a graph, but I wanted to share the Wordpress stats for the last couple of weeks: The big spike at the beginning was my World Cup post, and the second spike in the centre was all about Wimbledon. The two medium spikes on the 19th and the 27th are for the first and second parts of the Doctor Who …

I was listening to a relatively recent episode of the CNET podcast The 404 and they were talking about trends in the 90s. I love it when they reminisce because although some of their references I don't get, thinking back to the good old days is always fun. They lightly brushed past the topic of those must-have toys that scary parents would run around the shops desperate to get. You …

Well, I didn't see it because someone scheduled it the same time as the European GP, but it looks like Franck came second. The report from Superleague says: Earlier in race 2, Alvaro Parente claimed victory for FC Porto after holding off a late-race challenge from Bordeaux’s Franck Montagny. Parente led right from the start after both he and Montagny got past pole-sitter John Martin (Beijing Guoan FC) at the …

Wow. Where to start? This entire episode was really well written, beautifully crafted, and swept us all along to the finish. Despite there being a lack of action (not a criticism, I think it's nice the action was loaded into the first part, and the second was about the consequences), there was nothing lacking. I love, love, loved the bits where the Doctor was flying in and out of time. …

Well it was nothing to write home about, was it? Franck started way down the grid, 16th. He stayed out longer than everyone else, which meant he was leading the race for a moment until he came into the pits. He wasn't about to win the race, but he might have made up a few places. Unfortunately, there was a delay in the pitstop which meant he finished the race …

A while ago, Janna asked if there was going to be a vote on which was the favourite header. I thought that was a good idea, but as it's an ongoing project, I wasn't sure how voting would fit in. However, now I have completed the tenth header image, I thought it would be the perfect time to take a break. It's always good to recharge one's batteries, sit back …

I wasn't quite sure where I was going with this header. I hadn't found a tutorial that inspired me and I just felt like messing about. It was relatively easy to make the light burst thing, and I accidentally stumbled across the repetition filter. Getting the one Smarter Than Your Average text to stand out was a bit harder, but in the end, I was quite happy with how it …

Before you even have a chance to think about taking a breather, Franck is back in action again this weekend. The Superleague Formula rocks up at the Nurburgring in Germany. The intro on the official site reads: Superleague Formula by Sonangol journeys from central Spain to western Germany this weekend for the football-themed championship’s fifth round of the season at the Nürburgring. Nestled in the spectacular Eifel Mountains alongside its …

I got an update through for the panda I adopted and the newsletter bore the headline: "Panda rescue drama." Inside it tells the story of a panda that wandered off and became stranded on a steep hillside. A rescue team had to be dispatched to get it back. It says: To stop the wayward bear becoming frightened, onlookers and other non-essential staff were evacuated from the site. The rescuers then …

The most read item on the BBC as I type this is stunning. TV star Declan Donnelly was amongst hundreds of football fans in London who missed England's all-important World Cup goal after a power cut. "We were watching the game in a pub in Kew," Donnelly told the BBC news website. "One minute before the goal, the power went." Hey, you know what? I didn't get to see any …

As a change of pace to all the football talk, here's a post about Wimbledon! It seems it's become an annual thing for me to summarise all the ways I'm trying to keep up with the best tennis tournament around. In 2008, I talked a little about the live commentaries, whilst in 2009 it was all podcasts and apps. This year, I'm going to do more of the same, as …

We all know that when it comes to design, the 2012 Olympics seems to be a big ball of fail. Eh-hem. We've had a while to get used to that pink and green disaster, though. The latest addition to the 2012 branding line-up was the mascots. Firstly, I didn't know there were Olympic mascots anyway. Is this just a host country thing? Why do we need mascots? Secondly, they're quite …

I found a tutorial during the week that I wanted to try out, but I wasn't sure which picture would work best translated into a pencil drawing. The tutorial is very simple, so I tried it out on a couple of waterfall shaped pictures but it didn't work. This one I was sure wouldn't work either, but low and behold, there it was. The font and the rest was easy …

So, I missed out on the first race, and tuned in just in time for the start of Race 2. By all accounts, the first race didn't go so well. I know Franck started 12th, and he began the second race on the front row. With a reversed grid, that would suggest it wasn't a result to write home about, and after further research, I learnt they had to retire …

Oh, just wow. I don't know why but I really wasn't expecting much from this finale. Even more so for this week, as the first of a two-part story is normally ridiculously over the top or really rather slow. For the most part, this series of Doctor Who has appeared to be quite low budget, and I think that lowered my expectations quite a lot. Well, I think it's fair …

When I first introduced the concept of the A-Z Adventure to my parents, they instantly knew where I should go for D. They had recently been to the Didcot Railway Centre and suggested it as a potential candidate. My mother is a particular fan of steam trains, so when I decided I would go there, they felt a second visit would be worthwhile. The Didcot Railway Centre is essentially a …

With the Le Mans disaster still fresh in our minds, we must turn our attention to the next event for Franck - Superleage Formula at Jarama. This weekend, FKM will be back in the car for Girondins de Bordeaux, and for the first time, the official Superleague site will be offering Qualifying streaming on Saturday, as well as all the racing action on Sunday. More information can be found here …

I think, like many other people, I was dreading this episode. You cannot move a single inch on this planet without encountering James Corden doing something, and whilst it's probably not his fault, it's quite easy to be bored with his rather over-enthusiastic manner. You can have too much of a good thing, and that's supposing you think it was a good thing in the first place. I've never had …

I tried to avoid it for as long as possible, but eventually I had to write today's World Cup post over on Sidepodcast. I have watched more of the games than I imagined I would, and enjoyed even more of them. A lot of that has to do with the live comments, as it's fair to say I have a lot to learn! On that subject, I wanted to note …

Every now and then, I get a bit bored of the name of my website. I've been through several iterations, bought lots of domains and moved things around a lot. Not any longer. Smarter Than... is a perfectly acceptable name, if a little long. I have solved this problem, and the one in which I crave new URLs, by purchasing a shortcut for you: mrschristine.com. If you can't be bothered …

A Q&A with the man himself. On not anticipating any problems: We were not really pushing, we were very focused on the targets, not on qualifying. We just focused on one point, which was the win. We were just so relaxed and peaceful working together. I could sleep very easily this week, and during the race too. I was just checking the lap times and everything we'd said before was …

It wasn't my intent but looking at the finished product this week, I've realised how very Doctor Who it is. I must have been subconsciously influenced by this because I certainly wasn't aiming for a Doctor Who header. My favourite part was the blur filter to create the light effect. So simple! Anyway, here are the details: Made with: Pixelmator Tutorial: Hexagons Bokeh Font: Gloucester MT Extra Condensed (rasterised and …

The race isn't over yet, but our dreams for a Montagny win really are. The #2 car was leading but... well, Autosport tell it best: Franck Montagny was on his out-lap from a scheduled fuel-stop when flames and smoke started pouring from the right side exhaust of his 908 at Tertre Rouge. He tried to get the car back to the pits, but was forced to park it up at …

But our driver is not at the top. Sadly, I didn't get to see any of qualifying either - who decided to put Le Mans on when I am just crazy busy? Still, according to the Autosport report on things: Stephane Sarrazin, who had taken the last three consecutive 24 Hours poles, was denied the opportunity to extend his streak when the final stint in the #2 car was given …

I'm afraid I'm going to be one of those rather annoying people who only pays attention to football when the World Cup is on. Come on England and all that. Thankfully, I wouldn't dream of being one of those annoying people that puts flags on their cars, so I think the two balance each other out quite nicely. I know very little about football. Really, really little. I used to …

I don't suppose these are baby pandas really, but I wanted to point out the newest panda related goodies I have been coveting on Etsy. Nerdy Panda! I also think the happy bread is quite cute but that is not for this post.

It's always exciting when I find a Montagny mention on Autosport, as I usually go there in search of F1 news - and he is pretty hard to find in that section! However, they're making a special Le Mans effort, and we have word from the great man himself. The word is: mega! During the transition between practice and qualifying, FKM speculated: I had 35 laps on the tyres, it's …

Ah, it is that time of year again, the race we have all been waiting for. None of that silly Superleague stuff, we're talking 24 Heures du Mans. We are hoping to live comment lots of the action over on Sidepodcast, and there will be threads popping up throughout the next few days so that we can keep an eye on everybody's favourite Frenchman. (And probably a few other people …

I popped outside and when I returned I found a spider had decided to join me. It perched on my shoulder, so I swiped it off, but unbeknownst to me, it had webbing attached. It clung to my leg and remained there until someone else spotted it and did the swiping for me. The spider was returned to whence it came. I don't mind spiders. I can't say I am …

May saw a lot more going on than in the previous few months, as some of the slow-burning storylines begin to come to fruition. Starting with, of course, Lillian, Paul and Matt. The love triangle. Can I just officially say - Lillian and Paul = bleurgh! He was so disgustingly soppy, and she was right there with him. Eventually, she chose Matt but I would gladly have those two minutes …

I started working on a cloud text tutorial but got a little bit frustrated, so I scrapped that. Instead, I swung my tutorials net a bit wider and found a grass and glass video on YouTube. It was really quite easy, and such a striking look! Made with: Pixelmator Tutorial: Glass Font: Impact Background Image: Grass Pack I

This was the epitome of one of those Love It or Hate It episodes. It was all about the people and less about the monsters, but written by Richard Curtis, you could hardly expect anything else. I thought it was okay. It was nice to have a slower episode after some of the fraught stories we've seen recently. Things are bound to be ramping up towards the end of the …

On Friday of last week, the Cutest Food blog posted a panda cake. It just missed out last week, so I saved it up for this week. It is cute, although the bottom one looks a bit like a pair of binoculars.