Daily Archives: January 10, 2008

Tom Hanks, Oscar winning Actor, Producer, Director and… Aston Villa Fan

3 Replies · 10/01/2008 · 46 of 57 reads (last 12 months vs since 2024)

Blimey, to think I actually have something in common with Tom Hanks…

Turns out Tom supports Aston Villa, probably the best football team in the whole wide World.

Whilst he was over in the UK to promote the premiere, and release, of “Charlie Wilson’s War” (a comedy film where Tom plays Texan Congressman Charlie Wilson, secretly assisting rebels in Afghanistan in their war with the Soviets, which contributed to the collapse of Soviet Union, and then led to the rise of the Taliban and Islamic Radicalism), Tom recently said:

“I’m big on Aston Villa because the name is just so sweet. It sounds like a lovely spa”

I’ve always liked Tom, and his films, but now I really like him. :-)

However he obviously wasn’t about during the festivities in nearby Lozells and Handsworth in the 1980’s.

Actually that’s a little harsh as Aston Villa is located by (and named after) the beautiful Aston Hall – I’ve got some photo’s knocking about from when we did our last family visit and I’ll get them up on the site soon – a stunning Jacobean Hall, which even got caught up in the Civil War.

I was born and brought up around Nechells, Aston, Lozells and Handsworth, spending many an hour playing at Aston Hall park, next door to the Villa Ground.

I even ended up going to King Edward VI Aston, which ‘sandwiches’ Aston Hall Park, and Aston Hall at it’s centre, with the Villa Ground, and thus spending even more time by the Villa (Hall, club and park), the Holte Pub (56p for a half a pint of Cider) and the “Chippy” opposite the ground.

The Birmingham evening news had this to say about Tom being a Villa fan:

What he really knows about football may be open to debate, but Tom is in good celebrity company because also following the Villa are the likes of Prince William and Black Sabbath rocker Ozzy Osbourne.

Others include Fast Show comedian Mark Williams, violinist Nigel Kennedy, international hockey player Jane Sixsmith, Bank of England chairman Mervyn King, pop group Ocean Colour Scene, Radio WM presenter Phil Upton and members of Duran Duran.

What the Birmingham post doesn’t go onto say is that that list includes Wayne Horkan esq. too.

Thanks to Tony Harris, Head of Sales for Health at Sun in the UK, and another fellow Villa fan, for alerting me to this story.

Relevant links:

This post is dedicated to James Carlin, the biggest Villa fan I know, Warren Walker, my longest running Villa pal, Wilfred “Wilf” Cashmore, and, of course, to Peter James Horkan, my Dad.

“AVFC 4 ever” as they say.

Links for DD-MM-YYYY Not Likely

Leave a Reply · 10/01/2008 · 41 of 53 reads (last 12 months vs since 2024)

A response to Alec Muffett‘s recent post “A disappointed (occasional) reader…” on his excellent blog.

I’m sure Alec won’t mind me having posted the following comment in response to his article:

Hi Alec,

Although I sympathise, especially as a fellow ‘blog writer it appears one has to produce a very regular cadence to ensure continued, and growing, readership, I have to agree with your reader, mentioned above.

The fashion for producing a blog post which is simply titled “Links for DD-MM-YYYY” and contains nothing but links is becoming ubiquitous – and even sadder is in full sway across blogs.sun.com.

Like anyone I like to see interesting sites and links, however I go to blogs to read blogs, to gather opinion, see what peeps are chatting about, etc., etc., not to checkout someone else’s bookmarks.

I believe that one has to think very hard about what blog postings are for, and if indeed “Links for DD-MM-YYYY” type postings are an adequate and appropriate mechanism for sharing bookmarks with one’s readers.

Personally I feel that links, and bookmarks, are acceptable if introduced to the readers during a posting (or even as reference at the end of a posting), for me there has to be some posting ‘meat’ to go with my ‘link’ vegetables (terrible analogy, but it won’t be the worst thing you’ve forgiven me of).

However I suspect that whilst the “Links for DD-MM-YYYY” helps to produce a regular cadence, and continued readership, it will sustain it’s use as a blog posting across the blogosphere.

And for the record I really like your blog, as you can probably guess from the number of comments I keep leaving.

All the best, Happy New Year, etc.,

Wayne

I’ll be trying my best to avoid using blog posts as bookmark aggregators, but this is a personal decision, and each to their own.

To back up my assertion that the “Links for DD-MM-YYYY” type posts have become a staple at blogs.sun.com checkout this link to blogs.sun.com’s search facility, as of today it returns 1,092 results for posts which include “Links for”.

In fact, given the number of people writing these types of posts, perhaps that’s where I’m going wrong… :-)