Here comes the weekend...

With the launch of hedkandi.com just a week away, it's good to have Lee beside me at Ministry of Sound for the week to manage testing. After recent events, the last thing I need is to launch a site with any undiscovered bugs (although, I suppose if they went undiscovered until September it wouldn't hurt that much... only joking - I'm a pro, remember?)

And Lee provided the good news story of the week. A call on Wednesday afternoon, interview on Thursday morning and starts work next Thursday at the world's most famous department store. They're going to become even more famous when Lee gets his teeth into the website.

A sunny weekend is forecast so that means plenty of barbie action.  I'm picking James up at the end of his first year at Uni on Saturday, and if I'm very lucky will get to meet his hot new girlfriend.  

And of course it's Rangers v Falkirk in the Scottish Cup Final.  Football's truly coming home...

That winning feeling...

In the end, it was easy. A comfortable 3-0 win for Rangers at Tannadice while Celtic were unable to score against Hearts meant that the league championship returned to its rightful home in Govan. The helicopter didn't even have to change direction this time, as it had when Celtic lost two late goals in Motherwell to give Rangers the league in 2005.

I was preparing for a far more tense afternoon. Up early on Saturday morning, I went through my usual routine for important games: make sure that there's no hint of any green in any of my clothes, and enjoy a cup of coffee in my Rangers mug. Hoping for the best, but fearing the worst, I nervously got through the morning, only allowing myself one short period of absolute belief that my boys would step up and do what was needed. However, our poor record against Dundee United over the last few years ensured that this was to be a short-lived high.

Ice cubes were prepared and a bottle of champagne was on standby in the cellar, but that's as far as I was going to tempt fate until I could be confident we had won. I've seen too many last minute twists.

I needn't have worried. It took only 6 minutes for last week's villain Kyle Lafferty to redeem himself with an early opener to settle the nerves. Then, on the stroke of half time Pedro Mendes powered a beauty through a cluster of Dundee United players to take us in 2-0 up at the break. Kris Boyd added the killer third and at that moment I knew it was safe to put the champagne on ice ready for full time.

Roll on the Champions League!

To cheat or not to cheat

In case you didn't know by now, I'm a Rangers fan. That means that when I'm with non-Rangers supporters (Steve K, for example) I'll usually try to support my team. But I'm also, I think, a reasonably balanced individual who doesn't always see things in black and white.

I found it impossible, for example, to defend the behaviour of a number of Rangers fans when we got to the UEFA cup final last year. The whole episode sickened me and ruined what was in all other respects a fantastic occasion.

Then, on Saturday, one of our players, Kyle Lafferty, managed to provide one of those moments that will be shown and shown again for years - cheating a fellow professional to get him sent off. Disgraceful, and unacceptable for any Rangers player - indeed for any professional footballer.

Lafferty has been villified in the media, and rightly so, but I do sometimes wonder about the accepted wisdom in football that cheating or spitting (oh, how the media love a spitting story) is somehow a more heinous crime than, for example, deliberately going over the top to injure someone.

I wouldn't dream of indulging in petty rivalry to make a point, but compare and contrast Kyle Lafferty's childish and despicable actions with Glenn Loovens' deliberate attempt to injure an opposition player. I know which I think is worse.

I can't say it's been a great week at work, again.  A small team, working under extreme pressure to meet very ambitious targets, and under these circumstances mistakes and errors of judgement are bound to happen.  

When it's a good team - and this one is - you make sure that when things do go wrong they're the minor things, not business critical ones.  That's how this week has been.  Making progress towards the hedkandi.com relaunch in the first week of June but also having to fit in a new Global Underground store, add clothing to the Ministry of Sound site and introduce membership functionality.  

It didn't all go smoothly, but we achieved all three things this week.  Now I hope we can move into next week in a positive frame of mind and have a good week on Hed Kandi.

We did have one piece of good cheer on Friday.  Ministry of Sound has released the new Chilled II album - with a cool chill pill offer on the site - and there's an accompanying TV ad.

The ad - beautifully directed, with the high production values you'd expect - is here.

The eCommerce team responded with this in-house remake.

You be the judge - which do you prefer?

Back on top

After the traumas of last week, the weekend lifted the spirits.  The weather was fantastic, allowing me to try my first prawn and asparagus combo on the barbecue, which went beautifully with a chilled Provence rose.

And of course Rangers beat Celtic 1-0 to take us to the top of the league with three games left.  Anything could still happen but if we'd lost it really would have been all over.

Next up, Hibs away on Wednesday..

Better days

A welcome relief to end the week - situation now amicably resolved and we move on.  The glass has been topped up for the weekend. Now I just need a Rangers victory tomorrow.

That damned glass

After the high, the low. For reasons that I can't detail here, things have got a bit tricky at work. I'm trying very hard to resolve it but the outcome is either going to be bad or very bad, and it's hanging over me like a yellow card in a Champions League semi final.

Steve knows very well how Maslow's hierarchy of needs kicks in rapidly in these situations so it's difficult, and frankly it's doing my head in. 

In the interests of topping up the eponymous glass, Wenge and I went to Razorlight at the O2 last night and really enjoyed it. After a slow start the hits started flowing. Johnny Borrell has a great live presence, at times reminiscent of a young Jim Morrison. The highlights for me were Wire to Wire from Slipway Fires, accompanied by gospel singers, and a stonking America.

Today's going to be a difficult day - partly because of the situation at work, and partly because I somehow managed to leave my glasses at home. All of HMV's spamming is going to come to fruition - I'm going to have to Get Closer after all.

Oh, and there's the not so small matter of Rangers v Celtic tomorrow, of which doubtless more later...