How To Move House

Moving house is one of the most stressful life events. When I first came to London I had about twenty addresses in three years. After the first few moves I got pretty good at it. I had to! Here's what I did:

1. Pack well in advance

It used to drive me wild how some people in our house left it until the last minute. The result was they'd still be going back and forth from the old place, to the new, days later, for the last pot plant or bit of cutlery.

Make up your mind that you are quitting this house for good, then don't stay a minute longer than you have to. Otherwise you'll be wasting time that could be more profitably spent doing something else.

2. Put small things into a large container.

This saves multiple trips. Sturdy medium-size boxes are a life saver, as they can be stacked easily.

3. Containers should be light enough for one person to lift.

Some people try to fill up a big box with books, for example. The result: no one can lift it, or worse, it's just light enough for someone to try lifting it, and put their back out.

4. First to go in, last out.

You'll be putting the carpets down first, presumably, so they should be last into the van. If you're super organised you can decorate the new house 'on the fly'. Otherwise, put all your stuff in the smallest room in the new place, and then move it about from there, when it's all moved in. This stops the need to move stuff between rooms later.

5. Leave behind what you don't need.

If you've always hated the sofa, leave it behind. Some people have a curious pack-rat mentality; they love to hoard. If what you're hoarding is not gold or jewels, but jam-jars and newspapers, leave them behind.

6. Hire a big van with a big man.

This should really be the number one tip. The idea of a big van is that you'll make fewer trips, ideally only one. Some people try to save money by using their cars, or a friend with a mini van. The result: umpteen trips stretching over days. You get cheesed-off, and so does your friend. Instead of decorating your new place, you're still half-in the old one.

Moving house is very stressful. Get it done as quick as you can. Hire the biggest van you can find.

7. Many hands make light work.

After you've hired the big van, get as many friends as you can involved in the move. If you're really organised, you can move house in half a day. I did this once, to the great surprise and gratitude of the van driver we used. He'd been expecting a day-long slog.

8. Mark parking space for your van.

Cordon off enough parking space for your van driver, so he can park next to the house.

9. Cancel the utilities.

Bit of an obvious one, really. You don't want strangers running up bills in your name. Let the utilities know the date you're due to move out.

Sports Memorabilia

There is a huge interest in sport memorabilia, and sports-related items include signed commemorative photos, baseballs, footballs, basketballs, pucks and jerseys. A Google search of companies hawking these items comes up with almost 5 million businesses!

Some of the items on offer cost thousands of dollars.

Where there are so many eager and gullible customers, fraud is sure to appear. A Sand Diego federal judge who recently sentenced several sports autograph forgers to prison said, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of the national pastime, has been undone". The prosecution stemmed from an FBI investigation called Operation Bullpen, which closed down a professional criminal organization that forged and sold bogus autographs. 60 search warrants were served, more than 2 dozen people arrested, and a warehouse with 10 million dollars worth of forged merchandise was seized. The ring leaders received 3 years in prison and forfeiture or assets to the IRS. Both current and "vintage" items were involved. Any sports fan who has a signed souvenir may now want to question its authenticity. Phil Halpren, the assistant U.S. attorney who worked to prosecute the forgers stated that fraud is so pervasive in the sports memorabilia market that unless you personally see an item being signed by the athlete, odds are greater than fifty percent that it is fake. The most athletes most well-known the the public are popular with forgers, too. Halpren said, "If you are looking at a Mark McGuire signature, it's alost a guarantee, 99.9 percent it is a forgery." Certificates of authenticity can be fabricated just as easily as the collectible item they supposedly validate, so this is no protection.

Vendors are fighting back in an effort to maintain the integrity of the market. Disney, which owns ESPN, will begin next year to auction signed sports memorabilia online. Disney says it will authenticate the signatures with holograms encrypted with the item's identifying information and package seals, videotaping the entire process.

Sophisticated forgers can even produce holographic seals which appear, on casual inspection, to be real. However most forgers are amateurs, and the more sophisticated the anti-forgery system, the less likely criminals are to attempt to copy it.

Baseball and football are most popular in America, but a few famous hockey players such as Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr are popular targets for forgery as well.

With all the items available, both off and on the internet, fans can avoid a lot of fraud by using common sense. For example, a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth selling for $500 is obviously a fake, because such a price is unbelievably low, too low for real market conditons. Also, it pays to know a little bit about the development of baseballs and pens. If you see baseballs supposedly signed in the '20s and '30s with Sharpie pens, these are obviously fake, because these pens were not invented yet in that era. To quote Phil Halpren : "I have seen Babe Ruth balls signed on a Bobby Brown American League President ball. So, you know, he was president in the early '80s. That's impossible to have been done. But someone did it."

So, while it's enjoyable to own a peice of sports history, the motto to follow is : buyer beware. Unless you are a professional trader who knows how to authenticate merchandise, don't buy an item strictly for its potential resale value, because you may be disappointed by what you eventually get for it. Buy an item you personally like and intend to keep, and don't spend thousands of dollars. This ensures that you will be happy when you look at your purchase, without the lingering doubt that you have wasted a large sum of money on something of dubious value.

FIFA World Cup 2006 England Glory - 1966 / 2006

It surely has a nice ring to it and would be a dream come true for the plethora of England fans who have never yet witnessed the creator of the beautiful game bring home the goods.

Although England have a pretty favourable group, with Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, and the dreaded Sweden; they will come through the group stages to the finals and then, with a bit of luck, stomp all over the opposition with verve and tenacity; if Wayne Rooney keeps his head that is.

As well as being a serious contender for the coveted Golden Boot Award, if England do indeed progress, Wayne Rooney is the key to Englands success in World Cup 2006 and the rest of the team and world know it. The guy is a physiological freak in terms of the sheer power and depth of attack in his possession and will simply rip through the best defences that any of the worlds toughest may throw his way. He already proved this in Euro 2004, Portugal, where he was a constant worry for the opposition and, of course, does so every week at Old Trafford.

Wayne Rooney is simply one man, though, and cannot do the job alone; he will need pace man magician Michael Owen at his very best, Beckham curling em in sweetly from the right, Frank Lampard bulldozing through the middle and Mr Sven Goran Eriksson not doing his usual trick of messing with formations and pulling off players at the wrong moment. In fact, England hasnt had such a brilliant compilation of players in years; its whether they can gel at the right time and do what the England rugby lads did in 2003.

One thing is certain though and perhaps will never change; anyone and everyone faced with England, ups their game rate by a noticeable margin. It seems that everyone wants to beat the Auld Enemy; hardly surprising beings as the country with the once largest of empires has, at one time or another, trounced on or been instrumental in shaping the modern world as we know it. It seems logical that someone would want to get their own back by beating the national football team.

Many of the England naysayers believe that the England team lacks the personality and passion to bring home the cup. Although a personality is great for the cameras, the one ingredient that is surely more important is playing the game of football and scoring goals, and with the current England line up we have the best chance since 1966. Roll on World Cup 2006