Dowie and a Beckton BBQ.

Yesterday was fathers day. We decided to try and surprise Charmaine's dad with a barbeque, only to find that he was allready in the process of cooking his own grub as he wasn't expecting any special treatment. Bless.

However, we picked him up and whisked him over to sunny Beckton (home of his daughter and my other 'alf) to feed him some succulent chargrilled chicken and some apple and mint flavoured pork steaks accompanied by some green salad and white wine. 'Twas a very pleasant and relaxing time of fellowship and tasty food to boot, with loads of grub left over enabling us to forfeit cooking duties on the next day.

After getting stuck in to some Nando's marinated chicken, I settled down to having a browse through The Croydon Advertiser for some latest news on the new-ish regime at Palace. Before I reached the back pages, I read with interest of the forthcoming marraige between Pete and Alice, the AKA names for the CPFC mascots. Pete the Eagle (real name Lee) met Alice the Eagle (real name Katie) through their mascot duties at Selhurst Park. Their wedding (which will take place next weekend) will be awash with the colours of red and blue in typical Palace fashion. Nice.

I then turned the page to be greeted with the headline "Palace yob's wings clipped". This story reported on a known Palace hooligan's mission to get to Germany for the World Cup, but his plan was scuppered as he was stopped by police trying to get a flight from Heathrow. After an appearance at Uxbridge Magistrates court, where he had to surrender his passport, he was banned with an order prohibiting him from going within two miles of Selhurst Park in the four hours before and after matches. When Palace are away, he is not allowed in the town, city or London borough where the game is being played. His hooligan record includes being ejected by stewards from a number of Palace games because of his anti-social behaviour, including abuse of other fans and match officials. Blimey, looks like we could all get banned for the same thing if you've ever witnessed the high emotion that naturally occurs at any game.

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DOWIE WATCH: This is a weird one as it's in dream form. I dreamt that I was having a bit of a chat with the ex-manager, who was keen to ask me whom he should sign up for Charlton Athletic's new season. I told him "How the fuck should I know?" and then he seemed to panic as if he had no clue with transfer dealings. Sounds a bit close to real life.

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My free Dr Who DVD's have just popped through the letter box. Various episodes are included featuring various doctors from the past history of the series. There are six DVD's in all amongst which are:

"Day of Armageddon" (William Hartnell), "The Faceless Ones" (Patrick Troughton), Spearhead From Space" (Jon Pertwee), "The Robots of Death" (Tom Baker), "Earthshock" (Peter Davidson) and "Rose" (Christopher Eccleston).

It's tough to say who my fave Doctor is. It'd have to be a flip-the-coin deal between Pertwee and Eccleston, although Tennant is doing a fine job. Qwerky character Doctors started with Tom Baker, although Pertwee had charisma. I found Davidson to be a bit boring in the title role, whilst Sylvestor McCoy to be a bit hatstand.