Well there are some things that you really can’t explain. And definitely some things you never anticipate. Being woken up by an earth tremor is one of these things. And that’s what just happened. It lasted for around 5 seconds and startled me awake at about 00:58 (about 15 minutes ago). I didn’t know what to think at all, and it’s a really strange sensation. My first look out of the window revealed a very strange sight indeed, birds flying round at 1am. Hopefully there’s no damage in the area, and that there has been no injury to people. I’ll post more tomorrow, but Sky News are now reporting that there are reports across from Norfolk to Birmingham so it seems it’s been quite widespread….

With so much press recently about the proposals to take the Premiership “abroad” for one weekend, starting in January 2011, it’s good to see that the fans are finding their voice. The Football Supporter’s Federation have even started the above campaign to highlight the general level of opposition that there is to this campaign. An online petition exists on their site (here), just following the petition link. I’d urge all football fans to go and sign it.

It’s all fine, all fine. So in the roller-coaster world that comes with being a Newcastle United fan, there are some things you think will never happen, but secretly hope that they do. The return of Keegan was one such (incredibly far-fetched) dream. Yet, in a move that has already drawn questions from anyone who is a fan of any other team in the world, Keegan has, in his words “come home”.

To any of you who’ve made it this far, a cautionary tale. Actually not very cautionary, but just as a word of pre-warning. It appears that Paypal have changed the way that scheduled payments are handled, and have therefore decided to not pay my hosting bill this month. Therefore, at some point in the near future you may find that the tales of mirth that infrequently appear here actually vanish for a little while. I’m awaiting a response from Paypal as to why this has changed and why they hadn’t told me, but I’m not holding my breath. Suffice to say that I’ll try and keep the monkey living and breathing while this gets sorted. And in the spirit of the season, happy non-denominational winter (or summer) festival to you (Merry Christmas! )

So once again we’re left needing to not lose a game to qualify for a major championship. Wednesday evening will see the visit of Croatia to Wembley in England’s final game in this qualifying campaign. A draw or a win will see us through to next summer’s tournament. If we lose then the squad will be watching it on the telly with the rest of us. So how did we get to this point? Well some dire results earlier in the campaign, followed by a defeat for Russia at the weekend left us needing a draw is the on-pitch story. But where are we off the pitch?

So picture the scene. It’s just after midnight on the night of Halloween (no really it was) and you awake to hear a rustling in your office. Odd, you think. Perhaps it’s a spider. Then you realise how big the spider would have to be to make that amount of noise and you seriously hope it isn’t a spider! So out of bed you trot, and into your office. On goes the light, and there’s a furry grey blur goes running across your office floor. A tad annoying but never mind, back to bed. Move forward 48 hours and said furry grey blur appears again, heading from the office into your bedroom. Again an annoyance, but you’re a lot bigger than he is, and he seems to be more scared of you than you are of him. Fast-forward another 24 hours and in the middle of the night there is the sound of papers moving and something trying frantically to get past things under your bed in the middle of the night.

So it appears that the day is nearing when one of Britain’s greatest engineering achievements will once again grace the skies of the UK. In a remarakable effort, The Vulcan to the Sky campaign seems to be close to getting XH558 back into the air. News has come from the project (via their pages here, and via The BBC and The Register) that the Civil Aviation Authority has granted the project permission for the Vulcan to fly from Bruntingthorpe airfield, weather permitting. This is a massive step for the project, and indeed is the beginning of the phase of the project that was the ultimate goal in the first place. A series of flight tests will now take place to ensure that the rebuild of the Vulcan has been a success and that all systems are working, and then hopefully the Display Authority will be given to allow the aircraft to appear at airhsows, starting next year.

So as promised much earlier in the year, the first of my new blogs is now ready for action. At World’s End will focus on all things science and nature related, and will also include my own views on these topics. At the moment there is only a welcome post on there, but I’m currently working up the first of my “controversial” posts and this should appear over the next few days. As a consequence of having a dedicated science and nature blog, I’ll no longer be posting here about these. I’ll also copy any relevant articles from here shortly.

…red lights in the morning, hardware warning. So as you can probably tell from the title, the dreaded red ring of death has struck down my XBox 360. Of course, when you have a launch day console that hasn’t failed in 21 months, you know it will fail sometime. But why oh why did this failure have to coincide with the launch of Halo 3? My still-shrinkwrapped copy of the game is sat next to the space where my console should be, and what a sad sight it makes!

Over at gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun, they’ve flagged up a new trailer for Team Fortress 2, which is coming with Half Life 2 in the Autumn. In this new trailer (link to the RPS article is here), the Soldier gives his view on what life is like for a new soldier. I have to say it’s cartoon genius. I sat watching this with a huge grin on my face, and even laughed out loud at one point. There are classic lines in there that will make you smile, chuckle, maybe even guffaw out loud. Go and watch it. Then watch it again and giggle. Quick warning though, this might not be suitable for your workplace due to the cartoon violence and language. Enjoy…