London calling Off to London tonight for a work trip, which ends with a free day Friday and picking up my son to fly back to Chicago together on Saturday for 2 weeks. I'm tremendously excited about having him here, I have to tell you.

The past weekend was supposed to be quiet and it really wasn't, not from a relaxing, doing nothing, catching up point of view anyway. The home improvement continues begrudgingly. I did watch Beckham's debut, well all 13 minutes off it. I had to laugh at Sidwell's 'tackle,' but the ginger bloke has made quite a name from himself Stateside, as you can imagine.

Charlton beat Malaga in a behind closed doors friendly 3-0, Jerome Thomas coming out of the game with a lot of credit apparently. There is no doubt in my mind that Diawara, Thomas and Reid will be a class above everyone else in the division if they can stay fit and focused. Just a short note on Phil Parkinson's blog on the official site - sooo much better than previous blog efforts Charlton. Informative, interesting and almost funny.

By the way, why don't we play all of our friendlies behind closed doors? Puts pay to all of that pre-season *doom/hope/guesswork/anecdotal tosh/boredom/cost.
*delete as applicable.

All we need is Parky's blog and a Scunthorpe ticket, right?  ¶ 17:44