Dear MFC Official Direct

When seeing an advert for the 30% off sale and Boro replica kits for only £15 I was very happy and ran straight over to the store to get myself a replica home kit.

However the experience I had left me shocked, disappointed and embarrassed. Now let me say that I am a Boro fan and a front end developer (so I can understand when things aren’t perfect), but still feel the need to expose the pitfalls of this site in public.

My first issue was when I tried to update my delivery address, having moved jobs and so I couldn’t have the parcel delivered to my old place of work. However it appears I am not allowed to move companies, the company name could not be edited. ANYWHERE. Not on that form, not on my account page, not on mange addresses through my account page, nowhere. The company isn’t even called Gyro International anymore!

Following that annoyance, I thought “Fine, I’ll just add a new address. But then I couldn’t add a company name to go with that, and being in a shared building with many other companies and nowhere to add a company name and few form fields for address I thought I would have it delivered home.

I thought that would be fine, but alas no. Following selection of delivery type in step 2 I was thrown to the confirm order page. Step 4. Hold on. That’s missed step 3, and I haven’t entered my payment details yet? But I’m on the last step? Oh well. I guess this really is a good shop! That was confirmed by a nice page telling my my order has been successfully placed! Excellent, I don’t have to pay it seems. Maybe now Mido is back he is funding a shirt giveaway to try and make someone love him!

Alas no, after a second or two I was delivered and Sage Pay (formerly Protx) payment page. Now this possibly isn’t MFC Official Direct’s fault, however it is still part of a flawed process. And anyone that spends £12.7m on Alfonso Alves must have some cash somewhere to invest in a seamless checkout process. Or at least one that allows the checkout page to be on brand, not hideous and at least not be included as step 5 of 4.

So after all that and finally getting my payment details in, I notice that Sage Pay have thankfully printed my delivery address so I know its right:

Flat E
London
(They printed my postcode too, but that’s private!)

Now I know the postcode will probably mean that as a delivery address might just make it, and maybe the full address has been stored, but why print only part of the address. Thinking about it, there are quite a few flats in my area so Flat E, Putney might not make it. My address is a required 2 lines before the town and postcode so why not just show me the details so I don’t think you’ve lost half my address along the way. Same goes for invoice address. Just show it all or people (including myself) might not be confident you have managed to pass the correct delivery information and that we may never see our goods, many of which are quite expensive on the MFC Official Direct store.

Anyway, after this traumatic experience it’ll be a while before I use the MFC Official Direct store again, however I also have some gripes with the Middlesbrough Football Club website itself, so this probably isn’t the last you’ll hear from me. Thankfully however, at least the agency that built the site are linked to in the footer, so it can act as a reminder to never, ever recommend Black Magic Digital of Glasgow as a digital agency. They apparently missed out on the user experience chapter of every book they ever picked up.

Yours,

Matt Bee

Boro Fan and Front End Developer

The Pyrenees are beautiful and while we knew we were in for a tough time with a few big hills, no one really expected to be staying at the bottom of a hors catégorie climb in Col du Tourmalet. Round the corner was the Col d’Aspin too which has featuredin Le Tour de France 66 times. So the climbing was awesome, tough, beautiful, painful, challenging, sweaty and required a lot of determination.

Climbing the Col du Tourmalet as soon as we got there on Saturday morning was difficult enough. Of course the next day, the riding an undulating 70km (via Lourdes and Bagneres de Bigorre) and climb the other side from the West to on Sunday was unbelievably tough.

On Monday we managed to fit 2 Cols into out ride, by riding a nice small road Col near Heches, then up the Col d’Aspin from the East. It was in between these two Cols that we discovered Richard G didn’t actually have the compact chainset that he asked for on his Specalized Roubaix S-Works. Which provided amusement, expect for the fact it just showed his strength while he beat me up most hills, or mountains!!

Tuesday was the last day so it was a straight sprint up Col d’Aspin from the West and back down again to pack up and head home.

What a fantastic few days it was and I absolutely want to do this again, only next time I want to take those hills by the scuff of the neck and keep up with the rest of the boys, if not bethe first up! Although as I was riding with 2 Ironmen, this might be more difficult  than it seems.

So I will be playing Second Division football next year in the Hackney and Leyton Football League!

Hoxton aren’t happy as they were expecting a re-arranged game, but the league disagreed, am sure Maynell are very disappointed – we would have had to play Maynell in a play off for promotion if we drew and they would have been promoted if we lost – but they’ll get over it! We would have beaten Hoxton anyway!

At least we have something to celebrate at the end of season drinks! Should be a good night!

Tomorrow was supposed to be the day that Hospital Tavern were promoted by beating Hoxton Foxes, having lost the title to FC Highstone, but the opposition can’t get a team. It means on Tuesday we will either be awarded the points by the league or have to play again. I hope it is the first because otherwise it will eat into my training schedule, which I would prefer not to happen. However the jubilation of being promoted by actual beating Hoxton and the celebrations afterwards would be great!!

Bank holiday weekend has not been enjoyable, having a terrible hangover all day (really considering less drinking…) today (Saturday) and planning on working on Monday to meet a deadline for SportsAid.

Speaking of which, I better try and get the DNS and domain sorted for that!

Other news includes that CodeIgnitor is awesome, still. TotSocks are gonna be big, hopefully.

Stephen Fry and Boris Johnson are my heroes and I wish I could be either of them!!

I have also found that Hot Shots: Part Deux has ruined any possible chance of me enjoying either Rambo 2 or 3 without giggling at the slightest hint of a Charlie Sheen joke. Or any other joke in that film, to be fair!!

And finally, in the top of Division 3 (Hackney and Leyton league) clash, Hospital Tavern (my current team) overcame the favourites for the league Highstone FC in a 3-2 victory. What a great result, and it must mean that we can go on to challenge for both the league and the last remaining cup. Although if being picked up on one error in that game means I get dropped for the quarter final cup game, I will be so disappointed, I’m not sure I could handle it!! Here’s to the slim chance of us winning the league!!

It’s always a shame when a home town player leaves his hometown club, not least when he only joined permanently a matter of months previously, is your favourite player in your position and your idol (even down to hairstyle and choice of hair bands!)

So Woodgate is off to Spurs, was he just gutted since he’s not going to get back in the team over Huth and Wheats?? Very probably. But it’s all a bit sudden, from him “living the dream” only a few months ago to suddenly wanting to go back to Newcastle, Spurs or change his nationality to French and join Arsenal.

Anyway, sod him. Just means that Alves can embarrass him when the Brazilian signs on Wednesday. Hopefully.

Contents:

1. Fallen windows
2. Christmas parties
3. Sunday league
4. Chas n Dave

Fallen windows

Probably the most exciting, most inconvenient and most boring thing to happen lately was when our bedroom window fell off its hinges, smashing through Warren and Kathy (our downstairs neighbours) garden furniture on the way! Not only was it in the middle of the night, but it was also bloody cold and windy! So a nice cold night with my bike cover trying to keep out the elements was endured before a visit from a glazer – who couldn’t do anything, despite me suggesting to the landlord that a glazer wouldn’t fix the split frame. So next we had the carpenter round (not Karen) who very kindly gave us a warm plywood window. It has not improved the view unfortunately – but if only we had one in Leytonstone – it might have made that house quieter!

We are still waiting for a new frame, we do have our fingers crossed for a few double glazed windows, but I doubt that is on the cards.

Christmas parties

A couple of Christmas parties have already come and gone, both events organised through work. There was first the Virgin Atlantic client/Gyro party including (but not limited to) rubbish dancing (me), good dancing (everyone else), gin, cocktails, Pete Doherty’s hat, tiaras, Iron Maiden, Mercedes, loss of memory and a hangover. Excellent.

The Gyro staff party was even better than that. Starting with a meet in Balham where I looked a little strange as an English country gent at 2pm, half the digital team slowly arrived. Griff saving my embarrassment by being superbly worse (or better?) dressed as a Morris dancer, alone until the rest joined him at the main party. Next we had the Gryo digital meeting where a few things in the pipeline were revealed, which sound both promising and daunting. Only time will tell on that one.

I have to admit that from then on, memory lapses were all too common, although I remember Pangaea champagne, double decker bus ride, excellent meat, deserved awards (I’ll get one one day!), another bus ride, gin and tonic, karaoke (Snooker Loopy as standard), not liking George better, hotel room gathering, mini bar gin, tube home (7am), grab footy kit and straight to Sunday league with a small amount of alcohol in my system. By small amount, I mean I was completely hammered. The cold weather sorted me out though, and I got through the game, not even playing badly (we won 4-2, by the way).

Sunday League

We lost to Hightstone, bastards. Beat Wenlock though (as mentioned above!). This essentially still leaves it in our hands, since Highstone lost to Hoxton a few weeks ago. We know it’ll be hard and we will probably have to play like never before to win every remaining game and guarantee the title, but hopefully one or two results will go our way and we can keep the momentum going and finish the league in a promotion spot. Second will do, but Champions sounds so much better.

Chas n Dave

13-01-2008
100 Club
Oxford St, London

Chas n Dave live in concert.

Ticket bought, friends attending, braces yet to be purchased. But they will be.

Chas n Dave. I can’t bloody wait! I’m honestly more excited about this gig than I was for the Foo Fighters, or Cut Chemist n DJ Shadow (not quite got the same ring to it as Chas n Dave) in March. Rockney here I come.

So this weekend I had a nice weekend picnic-ing, then watched Transformers at the cinema. Sunday was the usual Sunday League training then couple of pints. Excellent weather both days, but I did have a couple of Transformers opinions I need to get off ny chest.

Firstly Bumble Bee wasn’t a Beetle. And to wind us up he’s parked nest to a battered Beetle in the car showroom who he dents with his door! OK, so the new Camero is fine and Bumble Bee wasn’t always a Beetle (just the best one was!). But changing at will between old Camero and new wasn’t right! OK I wan’t the biggest fan originally or of the comic but surely if the Transformers could change to anything they scan or touch then they could have all been F16s! Same with that anoying little radio/mobile phone thing!!

Secondly why was Optimus Prime a big rig instead of a nice flat fronted truck as I remember him!! I wish they’d left it as was, however I must say the new Hasbro Optimus Prime toy looks pretty impressive.

But apart from that the film was awesome and I enjoyed it a lot. The moments I really enjoyed were most of the Autobot lines, Optimus Prime getting his sword out and the whole fight sequences. I’ll look forward to the second film!!

Work wise I’ve had an interesting week, something came up, made work interesting, I made what I hope will be the right decision and that I can help make some interesting changes. That’s about all I’ll say for the minute! This wek will mostly be spent working out ways to use jQuery to “add value” to upcoming jobs. And learning AJAX more so I don’t get stuck with combining 2 different ajaxy implementations on one page!

And finally – Luke Young, Jonathan Woodgate, Tuncay Sanli and Alan Smith (hopefully) aint a bad list of signings for Boro this summer. Let’s get back in Europe boys!!

At least that’s what I think the commentator would have said about my goal on Sunday. Although the scoreline of Hackney Wanderers 7-1 Florists Arms suggests anybody could have scored, I’m still extremely pleased with a goal so early in the season.

So that’s 2 games down, and 6 points. Even though we have played some of the weaker teams in the division, I think we have strong enough players to dig in for results against the better teams. But it doesn’t look like we’re going to struggle, which is all that matters for at least the first season.