Meenzer

Do tell. The boy has decided to visit a friend in sunny Bergen over Easter so I'm thinking of taking a break somewhere myself over the long weekend. Probably need to act sooner rather than later price-wise though.

The good news, despite frenetic recruitment: And their reserve squad still has a decidedly Catalan flavour to it. The bad news: Untitled User remained fundamentally unemployable well into 2008 and retired, a broken man.

The dream is over. And yes, I forgot to enter my name at the start and didn't bother to change it from the default "Untitled User" because I didn't really anticipate being in a job all the way into January. The ironic thing is we'd actually played better in my last game with the club. Well, kind of - first league goal of the season! Anyway, I leave the Red Devils behind, heavy of heart and confident that our patchy form would have turned around if only I'd been given a little more time in the job. Having sacked me within the transfer window, with plenty of money in the bank and somehow still only 21 points from safety, I have a horrible feeling the new manager might undo all my hard work and rescue them from the drop after all. (For his sake, let's just hope it doesn't come down to goal difference.) As for the next step in my glittering managerial career? To find a new job as soon as possible - winners like me don't stay out of the game for long. I think I'll start by applying for the vacant position at Manchester United...

I can spend lots of time in HMV but rarely spend any money there. Main problem, unfortunately. Fond memories of hopping on the bus into town every Monday morning during school holidays to peruse the best of the new singles (and/or the latest Gina G remix CD). Also good for popping into when you're out with someone new and you suspect you might have terminally incompatible musical taste.

Mind, if they'd lost we'd be saying "they'll be looking to take it out on us".

Fuck me, John Obi Mikel's just turned up in my squad on a transfer that was pre-arranged for January 1st. Apparently FM2006 was finalised before Man U were gazumped by Chelsea. Too costly to release him on a free, anyway, so it's straight onto the transfer list for £1k, into the under-18s and four two-week fines for being cheeky.

Merry Christmas! 19 played, 0 points, goal difference -872. Torquay are still managerless. That's how desperate they were not to hire me. Meanwhile: a 14-goal haul for Alan Smith in his new role as Everton centre-forward. I've also been doing some forward planning by rewarding my Andorran superstars with lucrative 10k/week, five-year contract extensions. This should help to ensure continuity in the unlikely event of my departure.

Late November, turn of December. Only one fan protest thus far, and so my odyssey continues. Applied for the vacant manager's position at Torquay just to try and rile my board. Never heard back from them. In the meantime, 16th-placed Aston Villa have sacked David O'Leary. Was considering applying for that job too, but even I have standards. In an effort to halt our losing streak, I arranged a friendly against Billingham Synthonia during the international break. Changed the tactics to a more regular 4-4-2 set-up, played our strongest XI of Andorran pub players, and duly came away with a heartening 0-1 defeat. I shall be returning to the 0-0-0-0-5-5 and the most unskilled possible line-up for the next competitive match, naturally. Oh, and Rooney has finally agreed to fuck off to Milan on January 1st.

November has dawned and still no ultimatum from the board, despite being out of Europe and the League Cup and sitting bottom of the Premier League table with a goal difference of -488 from 11 games. A 46-0 defeat in the Manchester derby and being on the receiving end of a Kieron Dyer double hat-trick weren't enough to get me fired, nor was a 51-0 shellacking at the hands of Arsenal when I had four goalkeepers sent off for professional fouls. I've tried releasing incessant positive media stories about useless players with 1.00 average game ratings, made a bid to re-hire Alex Ferguson as a scout and even issued a constant stream of vitriolic comments about Alan Pardew , but to no avail.

Under-18s, even though he's overage. Fine him two weeks' wages for no reason every so often. Frankly I'm regretting not documenting the early stages step-by-step and making a blog post out of the thing. Especially since lord knows I can't be arsed with going through it all again.

It's a hard life.

Flogged them for a grand each to ensure a quick sale. Rooney's still on the books because he won't accept the wage offers at Real, Milan and co.

Nah, as long as you're not immediately on or adjacent to the Reeperbahn itself I'd say it's fine really. And even then the Reeperbahn is largely fairly tame as long as you're sensible, it's just the general noise and people and chaos that you might be better off slightly away from (even if your sleeping will be of the beer-induced unconsciousness variety). The St. Pauli Ibis I mentioned above basically falls into that category, for example - couple of streets away from the (less nightlife-y end of the) Reeperbahn. Or if you want to go the whole hog in terms of Reeperbahn access and dirt-cheap rooms, there's always this. You get some proper dive hotels in that area too, so be aware - but you know how to read review sites, so aye. To cut a long story short, given the nature of the trip, wouldn't advise against it.

I'm sufficiently bored today that I've installed FM06 on my low-spec netbook and am currently trying to get sacked as quickly as possible by taking over at Manchester United, releasing/selling their entire squad, replacing them with the entire Andorran under-21 squad and playing them in a radical 0-0-0-0-5-5 formation with a centre-forward in goal. It's early October and I'm still in a job despite being bottom of the league with no points and a -246 goal difference. (I've been watching telly too.)

The most exciting thing to happen at a Scottish match is always something hilarious like

Hehe, aye, I thought it might be a bit downmarket from the way you'd put it.

Les Mis is one of the few musicals I've got any real time for, in fact it's probably the only one I actively like as a whole - but that's on stage, with all the grandeur that entails and the option of choosing how involved you decide to become in the whole thing. I'm expecting the constant close-ups and so on in the film to provide emotional button-pressing that's already there in the music/lyrics (and then some!) so doesn't need to be hammered home additionally. Will be going to see it all the same, I'm sure. Totally under the thumb.

(Or if you're really on a budget, there's always http://generatorhostels.com/en/ - I mentioned them in the Hamburg thread too, should be working on commission really. )

Yeah, and a Premier Inn and stuff like that along the Euston Road. The Travelodge on Farringdon Road is close enough too. There's plenty of guest houses along the side-streets near KC that'll do you a cheaper room for the night, but the bed, the bedclothes, the decor and the plumbing will be from the 1950s.

Hey, I know I've piled on a few pounds... Honestly though, I've not played a note on that bloody keyboard since I lived in Germany but I still can't bring myself to chuck it out. It's a hard life being a hoarder.

This reminds me that I've still got one of these gathering dust in the cupboard under the stairs. Must get it out and see just how bad those early-90s learner keyboard sounds are.

I do, but I haven't been in the market anything like that for about 20 years so can't really help a great deal.

There's arguably no one defined city centre in Hamburg as such - the nightlife bits are separate from the shopping bits, so to speak - but public transport is excellent, so I'd say you'll be fine as long as you locate yourselves either: - Near the Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) on the St. Georg side, albeit there are obviously a few dodgier bits around there - think whores, kebab houses, gay leather bars, Parky's house, you get the idea. There's plenty in the cheap(ish) and cheerful category there, anyway, from this Ibis near the Alster lake and a hotel in the Novum family to private rooms in the Generator Hostel if you really want to do it on a budget - I stayed in their Berlin hostel on a stag do once and it was fine for the purpose really, it's not as if you'll be spending much (conscious) time there, after all. - In St. Pauli itself, for easy staggering distance to/from the Reeperbahn, the football, the Schanzenviertel pub/restaurant district that Parky mentioned above, and so on. Might be the best idea for the kind of weekend you have in mind. There's another Ibis there in a perfectly good location, and this place looks kind of intriguing (and is rated very highly on Tripadvisor, perhaps surprisingly!). - As another alternative, by Altona station, which is the centre of public transport gravity on the western side of the centre (and has some decent boozers to the west of the station towards Ottensen, though it's a more residential kind of area). I've stayed at this Best Western before and it was decently priced at the time and perfectly OK, and there are several other hotels along that stretch. Might be a little bit out of the way for what you're after though. That any use to you at all? To be honest, as long as you put yourselves within a couple of minutes of a well-served U-Bahn/S-Bahn station in the city centre - anywhere within that central "loop" you can see here - you'll basically be fine, so by all means go on price as much as anything else.